Sources For Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations

"This sourcebook would serve as a companion volume to R.W. Mathisen, Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations: From Prehistory to 640 CE, 2nd edition ...; it will provide ancillary materials--121 primary sources, 15 maps, and 111 illustrations, all in 505 pages--that will expand upon the material in the textbook"--Provided by publisher.

"The most thought-provoking, contemporary, and engaging survey of the ancient world"--

Publisher description

Includes material from author's earlier works: Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations and Sources for Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations.

The product of a collaboration between scientists, historians and archaeologists, this book breaks new ground in the study of the long-term interaction between environmental factors, including climate, and human beings.

What is a city, and what forms did urbanization take in different times and places? How do peoples and nations define themselves and perceive foreigners? Questions like these serve as the framework for The Ancient Mediterranean World: From the Stone Age to A.D. 600. This book provides a concise overview of the history of the Mediterranean world, from Paleolithic times through the rise of Islam in the seventh century A.D. It traces the origins of the civilizations around the Mediterranean--including ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome--and their interactions over time. The Ancient Mediterranean World goes beyond political history to explore the lives of ordinary men and women and investigate topics such as the relationships between social classes, the dynamics of the family, the military and society, and aristocratic values. It introduces students not only to the ancient texts on which historians rely, but also to the art and architecture that reveal how people lived and how they understood ideas like love, death, and the body. Numerous illustrations, chronological charts, excerpts from ancient texts, and in-depth discussions of specific art objects and historical methods are included. Text boxes containing primary source materials examine such diverse subjects as warfare in early Mesopotamia, sculpting the body in classical Greece, the young women of Sappho's chorus, and early descriptions of the Huns. Combining excellent chronological coverage with a clear, concise narrative, The Ancient Mediterranean World is an ideal text for undergraduate courses in ancient history and ancient civilization.

Drawing on an impressive range of archaeological and textual sources and a nuanced understanding of biases, this book offers a valuable reappraisal of the enigmatic Phoenicians. The Phoenicians is a fascinating exploration of this much-mythologized people: their history, artistic heritage, and the scope of their maritime and colonizing activities in the Mediterranean. Two aspects of the book stand out from other studies of Phoenician history: the source-focused approach and the attention paid to the various ways that biases—ancient and modern—have contributed to widespread misconceptions about who the Phoenicians really were. The book describes and analyzes various artifacts (epigraphic, numismatic, and material remains) and considers how historians have derived information about a people with little surviving literature. This analysis includes a critical look at the primary texts (classical, Near Eastern, and biblical), the relationship between the Phoenician and Punic worlds; Phoenician interaction with the Greeks and others; and the repurposing of Phoenician heritage in modernity. Detailed and engrossing, The Phoenicians casts new light on this most enigmatic of civilizations.