Annotated bibliography

«In this groundbreaking work, Robert McC. Adams presents the results of archaeological surveys conducted in southern Iraq between 1968 and 1975. Heartland of Cities is at once a detailed description of primary data collected in the field, an innovative exercise in data analysis, and a brilliant work of synthesis. Adams combines archaeological and written evidence to track the evolution of watercourses and settlement systems on the Mesopotamian plain over the longue durée and, in the process, develops a distinctive vision for the role of environment, geography, and human agency in Mesopotamian history. This fascinating account of the emergence and development of the world’s first cities draws attention, in particular, to shifting settlement patterns, to the evolution of natural and man-made watercourses, and to trends in the distribution of population across the Mesopotamian plain over a period of more than six thousand years» (Publisher’s description).

[The book is particularly interesting for the discussion about the role of ancient geography on the development of the first urban entities in Mesopotamia, a topic also addressed by G. Buccellati in Origins, section 2.]

PDF available at the following link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«Constructing and deconstructing public spaces in second-millennium BC Anatolia, the Near East and the Levant was not only a collaborative physical act but also involved deeply embodied ritual symbolism. This symbolism is materialised in the practice of conducting public foundation and termination rituals that unified individual memories in space and time, transforming the physical act into a collective memory: a process that contributed to the formation of political and cultural memory. The recent rescue excavations conducted by the Hatay Archaeological Museum at the hinterland site of Toprakhisar Höyük in Altınözü (in the foothills above the Amuq valley) add to the understanding of the practice of foundation and termination rituals during the Middle Bronze Age and how these moments may have contributed to the political and cultural memory of a rural community living away from the centre. The practice of foundation/termination rituals is archaeologically documented by caches of artefacts from votive contexts stratigraphically linked to the construction and termination of a Middle Bronze Age administrative structure» [Authors’ abstract on p. 1].

PDF available here.

Alternative PDF can be found here.

Extended abstract at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

A very rich book about archaeology of ancient Syria.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

Based on a 1986 dissertation at the University of Chicago, the book expands and refines the arguments presented in a 1989 article in Current Anthropology (Algaze 1989). Algaze articulates a concise scenario to explain the presence of Uruk sites in Syria, Iran, and Anatolia. He suggests that Uruk interest in these areas was driven by the need to procure critical resources not present in the southern alluvium. To do this Uruk societies created a series of settlements in the peripheries to develop exchange relations with highland areas where resources and preexisting trade networks, most notably for timber, stone, and metals, were located. The asymmetrical nature of these relations, between representatives of the highly-organized Uruk polities and the lower-order indigenous Chalcolithic societies, created a situation of dependency. Only limited sectors of the highland economies were developed and local elites became reliant on trade relations on the Mesopotamian “market” for continual reinforcement of their roles and statuses […].

In the final analysis, however, it should be stressed that all comments on the origins, structure, and function of the Uruk expansion are speculations based solely on spatial patterns, stylistic parallels, and ethnohistorical analogies. These and other reconstructions could easily be tested by a systematic and wide-ranging program of neutron activation or other source analyses of the type that Joan Oates and her colleagues have begun (Oates 1993: 417). Until then Algaze’s book provides the best guide we could have to the Uruk expansion and the most systematic explanation of the phenomenon.

This book is unusual in Near Eastern archaeology for developing an explicit theoretical position that is close to the leading edge of anthropological thought. Fortunately, most branches of Near Eastern archaeology have begun to overcome their timidity and positivist prejudices, and despite its materialist perspective Algaze’s book is an excellent example of where we should be going. The judicious use of a world systems perspective, and the ingenious, if problematic, fusion with theories of dependency and imperialism, are exactly the sorts of studies that archaeologists and historical sociologists should be doing, without devolving into the global caricature of the “5000 year world system” (e.g., Frank 1993). The criticisms raised here do not detract from Algaze’s achievement in presenting a well-documented, coherent, and testable scenario. On a broader level, Algaze’s book is an important contribution towards understanding the dynamics of early complex societies [after: Joffe, Alexander H. (1994), Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 21, pp. 512-16.]

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

«The emergence of early Mesopotamian (Sumerian) civilization must be understood within the framework of the unique ecology and geography of the alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers during the late 5th and 4th millennia B.C. The former gave Mesopotamian societies important advantages in agricultural productivity and subsistence resource resilience not possessed by contemporary polities on their periphery, while the latter gave them enduring transportational advantages. This material imbalance created opportunities and incentives that made it both possible and probable that early Mesopotamian elites would use trade as one of their earliest and most important tools to legitimize and expand their unequal access to resources and power.

Given this, a still hypothetical (but testable) model is presented that accounts for the precocious socioeconomic differentiation and urban growth of southern Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium as social multiplier effects inadvertently set in motion by evolving trade patterns. This trade was first largely internal, between individual southern polities exploiting rich but localized ecological niches within the Mesopotamian alluvium during the Late Ubaid and Early Uruk periods. By the Middle and Late Uruk periods, however, inherently asymmetrical external trade between growing southern cities and societies at their periphery in control of coveted resources gained more prominence. In due course, import-substitution processes further amplified the one-sided socio-evolutionary impact on southern societies of these shifting trade patterns. Unequal developmental rates resulting from the operation of these processes over time explain why the earliest complex societies of southwestern Asia appeared in southern Mesopotamia and not elsewhere» [Author’s abstract.]

PDF available online on JSTOR.

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

«The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the “cradle of civilization,” owing to the scale of the processes of urbanization that took place in the area by the second half of the fourth millennium BCE. In Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization, Guillermo Algaze draws on the work of modern economic geographers to explore how the unique river-based ecology and geography of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvium affected the development of urban civilization in southern Mesopotamia. He argues that these natural conditions granted southern polities significant competitive advantages over their landlocked rivals elsewhere in Southwest Asia, most importantly the ability to easily transport commodities. In due course, this resulted in increased trade and economic activity and higher population densities in the south than were possible elsewhere. As southern polities grew in scale and complexity throughout the fourth millennium, revolutionary new forms of labor organization and record keeping were created, and it is these socially created innovations, Algaze argues, that ultimately account for why fully developed city-states emerged earlier in southern Mesopotamia than elsewhere in Southwest Asia or the world» (Book presentation on editor’s website).

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

«Drehem, ancient Puzriš-Dagān, is well known as the place of origin of more than 15,000 cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period that were sold on the antiquities markets from 1909 onwards. The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq undertook the first controlled excavations at the site in 2007 under the direction of Ali Ubeid Shalkham. The cuneiform texts and fragments found there not only add to the well-known royal archives dealing with cattle, treasure or shoes, but they include many records on crafts and agriculture. With this evidence, the subsistence economy behind this important administrative center and royal palace of the Third Dynasty of Ur becomes more evident» (Authors’ abstract).

PDF available online on De Gruyter.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

Pierre Amiet’s La glyptique Mésopotamienne archaïque is a seminal work in the field of Ancient Near Eastern archaeology and art history, focusing on the study of early Mesopotamian cylinder seals and their iconography. First published in 1961, this comprehensive volume remains a cornerstone for scholars studying the art, society, and culture of ancient Mesopotamia. Amiet’s work is notable for its meticulous documentation and analysis of a vast corpus of seals, primarily from the Uruk and Jemdat-Nasr periods, dating from the late fourth to early third millennium BC.

Amiet’s book is particularly significant for its exhaustive cataloging of early Mesopotamian seals and seal impressions. His work laid the foundation for subsequent studies of glyptic art by establishing a typology and chronology that has been widely adopted by scholars in the field. By providing detailed descriptions and high-quality illustrations of the seals, Amiet offered invaluable resources for researchers, enabling further analysis of the social, religious, and economic functions of these objects.

[Amiet’s methodology is grounded in a formalist approach, with a strong emphasis on stylistic analysis and typology. He classifies seals according to their iconographic themes, motifs, and stylistic features, constructing a chronological framework based on these classifications. This method, while highly effective for organizing and systematizing the material, also has certain limitations.

One critique of Amiet’s formalist approach is that it sometimes prioritizes style over function or context. While his detailed typological analysis is invaluable, it can lead to an overemphasis on categorization at the expense of exploring the broader cultural and historical contexts in which these seals were produced and used. For example, while Amiet provides extensive descriptions of the imagery on the seals, his work could benefit from a deeper exploration of the socio-political and religious meanings behind these images, particularly in relation to the rituals and administrative practices of the time.]

Available online on Gallica.

[maybe write a review ? - ZI825 mDP]

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

The book examines the creation and function of the ‘imagined communities’ of nationality and the way these communities were in part created by the growth of the nation-state, the interaction between capitalism, printing, and the birth of vernacular languages in early modern Europe.

PDF available online at this link.

– Anatolii Viktorov, 2024

«The images of the lion, the shepherd, along with the master of animals, though closely associated in the realm of sovereignty, have not been the object of what could be called an associative or interactive analysis. This contribution aims at revisiting these images, analyzing the sources in interaction, without excluding them and confronting them even to their contradiction. My analysis is based mainly on textual sources and should be further enriched by the study of iconographic sources. In the first part, I will review Assyrian royal inscriptions and their treatment of the figures of the lion and the shepherd. In the second part, Levantine sources will be examined and allow me to focus on the book of Amos in which a detailed analysis of the interactive metaphors of the lion and the shepherd will be proposed. A comparative conclusion will be drawn, and the fruits of this interactive analysis highlighted» (Author’s abstract).

[An in-depth historical discussion about the image of the Mesopotamian rulers as shepherd, lion, and Master of animal in the Ancient Near East and Levantine area.]

PDF available on the HAL website.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A paper about the possible equation of Tell Chuera with Abarsal in the third millennium BC.

Available online on De Gruyter website.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Our civilization is rooted in the forms and innovations of societies that flourished in the distant lands of Western Asia more than six thousand years ago. These earliest societies, established millennia before the Greco-Roman period, extended from Egypt to India. The earliest among them was the region known to the ancients as Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers and occupying what is today Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey. In Mesopotamia arose the first cities, believed by their inhabitants to be the property of the gods, who granted kings the power to bring prosperity to the people. Here urban institutions were invented and evolved. The need to record and manage the distribution and receipt of goods led to the invention of writing, monumental architecture in the form of temples, and palaces were created, and the visual arts flowered in the service of religion and royalty. These extraordinary innovations profoundly affected surrounding areas in Anatolia, Syria-Levant, Iran, and the Gulf, and Mesopotamia was in turn influenced by its neighbors. As Mesopotamia turned to outlying lands for such rare and precious materials as lapis lazuli, carnelian, diorite, gold, silver, and ivory, these regions were linked by networks of trade that encouraged cultural exchange.

This volume, which accompanies a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, explores the artistic achievements of the era of the first cities in both the Mesopotamian heartland and across the expanse of western Asia. More than fifty experts in the field have contributed entries on individual works of art and essays on a wide range of subjects. The first book that encompasses a study of the entire region during a single period, this publication break new ground in particular in its examination of trade and interconnections. In texts that will be of interest to both specialists and the general public, the social and historical context of the art of the first cities is explored. Many objects presented display the pure style of Mesopotamia, others from outlying regions adapt from them a corpus of forms and images, and still others embody vital regional styles. Included are reliefs celebrating the accomplishments of kings and the pastimes of the elite; votive statues representing royal and other privileged persons; animal sculptures; and spectacular jewelry, musical instruments, and games found in tombs where kings, queens, and their servants were buried» [description on MET website].

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

A critical edition of the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20 = 1QApGen) found at Qumran.

[See also commentaries in Fitzmyer 1966 Genesis and Muraoka 1972 Genesis.]

[An online translation is available at this link.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A very useful book about architecture and architectural techniques in Ancient Near East and Egypt.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A paper about the relationship between political entities and town planning in ancient Egypt, very useful as a comparison to ancient Mesopotamia.

[Available on JSTOR]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A rich volume about town planning in New Kingdom Egypt.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Alexander Marshack single-handedly revolutionized the field of Paleolithic art research. His astounding photographs of portable art objects caused us to see them with fresh eyes, to ask new questions, and to understand their technology and production far more precisely; and his pioneering use of infrared and ultraviolet light in the caves revealed startling new facts about the paintings. In addition, he carried out important, provocative and challenging work on archaeoastronomy, calendar sticks, female imagery, and other topics. Alexander Marshack was able to do what nobody else ever had before, or perhaps ever will again – i.e. travel all over Europe, visiting not only many decorated caves but also all the portable art objects scattered throughout the continent, including Russia. This unique experience and knowledge, together with his unrivalled and amazing documentation of all this material, made him by far the USA’s foremost specialist in Paleolithic imagery. To honor his memory, in this book, scholars from many parts of the world contribute papers about some of the many problems that interested him and to which he made such a massive contribution» (Publisher’s summary).

[A volume in honor of Alexander Marshack.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

Prehistoric figurine a specimen of G. Buccellati’s concept of “para-perception”.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A volume very useful to better understand some dynamics explained by G. Buccellati in section 2.6, offering archaeological examples from Çatal-Höyük (for which cf. also Mellaart 1967 Catal and Hodder 2010 Emergence).

On the topic of the “goddess and the bull”, cf. also Mes-Rel/Cauvin 2008 Birth.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«This handbook offers a comprehensive survey of ancient state formation in western Eurasia and North Africa. Eighteen experts introduce readers to a wide variety of systems spanning 4,000 years, from the earliest known states in world history to the Roman Empire and its successors. The book seeks to understand the inner workings of these states by focusing on key issues: political and military power, mechanisms of cooperation, coercion, and exploitation, the impact of ideologies, and the rise and demise of individual polities. This shared emphasis on critical institutions and dynamics invites comparative and cross-cultural perspectives. A detailed introductory review of contemporary approaches to the study of the state puts the historical case studies in context. The book transcends conventional boundaries between ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean history, and between ancient and early medieval history.

This book, […] is about the history of state formation in ancient North Africa and western Eurasia. The book aims to bridge the disciplinary gap between the study of the ancient Near East and the study of the ancient Mediterranean, exploring various factors that influenced state formation, including ideologies, political power, cooperation, exploitation, and military power. The areas covered in this study include Egypt, the Mesopotamian Empires, and the Anatolian States» (after Editor’s introduction in the Prologue and Publishe’s abstract).

[A very useful handbook about the different state entities in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East.]

DOI

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«This chapter examines the history of state formation in ancient Mesopotamia, focusing on the Greater Mesopotamia region. It explains the role of territorially, defined urban communities and kinship-based polities or tribes in state formation, and provides examples of large states that arose slowly through a cumulative process of smaller polities coalescing into larger ones. The chapter also considers the dynamic shifts between city-state culture and imperial unification during the proto-historical period, and discusses the periods of political unification and fragmentation in Greater Mesopotamia prior to the Persian conquest» (Author’s abstract).

See full text

DOI

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

Geographically isolated, this region had plenty of water from the river Helmandin the fourth millennium, resulting in the establishment of the only urban center, Shahr-i Sokhta, from the fourth until the end of the third millennium BC. Afterwards, because primarily of the drying up of the river, no other large urban center was ever established in the area.

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2021

A quite recent commentary of the ‘Code of Hammurapi’, analyzed in its historical context and social background.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian transliterated texts with the English translation on opposite pages.

Available online (with possibility of download in PDF) on HathiTrust.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This paper deals with defensive systems in Babylon, a topic clearly connected to state control over the city and its surroundings.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This contribution addresses the topic of the structural and theoretical difference and geographical distinction between an ‘upper’ and a ‘lower’ town in Mesopotamian cities, mostly focusing on the 1^st millennium BC.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

An insight on the geometrical town planning in new founded city of the ancient Mesopotamia, with a specific focus on Dūr-Šarrukīn/Khorsabad.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The author presents in this paper interesting thoughts about the relationship between topography and political power in ancient Babylon.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

It was typical of the ancient Mesopotamian cities, as it also happens nowadays, to give names (usually referring to theonyms or to function) to gates. The author discusses in this essay the origin and meaning of the names of the gates of Babylon in the 1^st millenniun BC, during the Neo-Babylonian empire.

[Available at this link.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A very worth mentioning paper, arguing that the origins of the Hippodamian plan of Greek cities could traced already in ancient Mesopotamian cities of the Iron Age.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A very in-depth analysis of the dynamics leading to the development of the “Neolithic revolution”, leading to the birth of agriculture.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This book deals with the topic of the image and imagery connected to the city of Babylon, stressing how this image and imagery strongly affected collective and historical memory over the centuries.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The volume includes eight contributions focused on different aspect in which politics and religion are interlaced each other.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

[Essentially a field report; even in intro and conclusion nothing is said about the concept of “cultural” landscape.]

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2021

These publications offer information and description of cuneiform inscriptions from Kouyunjik (Nineveh). Supplemented by King 1914 Catalogue.

• Vol. 1: PDF available here.
• Vol. 3: PDF available here.
• Vol. 4: PDF available here.
• Vol. 5: PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«From the beginning of the study of the tablets, Ebla’s first epigraphist, G. Pettinato, proposed that the city, written DUlu in the Ebla texts, was Byblos […]. DUlu is an important kingdom for Ebla, which, from the beginning of the period covered by the archives, had frequent and excellent relations with it. Since the DU sign in the 2nd millennium BC has the phonetic value gub, Pettinato proposed reading the name of the city as Gublu, and thereby identified it with Byblos» (p. 97).

Available online on Sidestone Press.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«The present article contains two parts. The first discusses the identity of a place name found in Ebla clay tablets as ancient Byblos. The second presents the contemporaneous Egyptian sources that mention Byblos as well as some Syrian and Anatolian cities» (Author’s introduction, p. 70).

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Michael Billig presents a major challenge to orthodox conceptions of nationalism in this elegantly written book. While traditional theorizing has tended to the focus on extreme expressions of nationalism, the author turns his attention to the everyday, less visible forms which are neither exotic or remote, he describes as ‘banal nationalism’.

The author asks why people do not forget their national identity. He suggests that in daily life nationalism is constantly flagged in the media through routine symbols and habits of language. The book is critical of orthodox theories in sociology, politics and social psychology for ignoring this core feature of national identity. Michael Billig argues forcefully that with nationalism continuing to be a major ideological force in the contemporary world, it is all the more important to recognize those signs of nationalism which are so familiar that they are easily overlooked» (Publisher’s summary).

– Anatolii Viktorov, 2024

The Hittite capital Hattusa is here presented by one of its excavators who describes the city as concerns its structure and history.

The Hittite city is very useful for comparisons with other Mesopotamian cities, for instance considering the structure of the royal palace at Büyükkale which, differently from many other Mesopotamian palaces, was made of many different buildings detached from each other.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A series of contributions re-examining the social and demographic impact of the “Neolithic revolution”.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Our ancestors, the Mesopotamians, invented writing and with it a new way of looking at the world. In this collection of essays, the French scholar Jean Bottéro attempts to go back to the moment which marks the very beginning of history. To give the reader some sense of how Mesopotamian civilization has been mediated and interpreted in its transmission through time, Bottéro begins with an account of Assyriology, the discipline devoted to the ancient culture. This transmission, compounded with countless discoveries, would not have been possible without the surprising decipherment of the cuneiform writing system. Bottéro also focuses on divination in the ancient world, contending that certain modes of worship in Mesopotamia, in their application of causality and proof, prefigure the “scientific mind”.» (from editor’s webpage).

[The author explains in this volume how a ‘scientific mind’, i.e., a mindset able to reflect and reason on the complexity of reality, did exist already in ancient Mesopotamia, before the advent of Greek philosophy. Bottéro exemplifies this assumption by analysing concrete phaenomena as they are mirrored in specific literary texts, such as divinatory documents, law codes, and wisdom text. In the end of such an analysis, it results that ancient Mesopotamians had a profound and complex capability of investigating and understanding many aspects of reality, showing a logical mind (although sometimes shadowed by religious thought) which can be considered as an antecedent of later Greek logic.

This is indeed a useful publication to better understand some aspects related to the concept of ‘meta-perception’ (see Buccellati, Ch. 1). On this topic, cf. also Frankfort 1949 Before.]

PDF preview available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«In 2011, we launched new excavations and a re-analysis of one of the key sites for such early discoveries, the collapsed rock shelter of Abri Blanchard. In 2012, we discovered in situ a limestone slab engraved with a complex composition combining an aurochs and dozens of aligned punctuations. … The aligned punctuations find their counterparts at Chauvet, in the south German sites and on several other objects from Blanchard and surrounding Aurignacian sites. In sum, we argue that dispersing Aurignacian groups show a broad commonality in graphic expression against which a certain number of more regionalized characteristics stand out, a pattern that fits well with social geography models that focus on the material construction of identity at regional, group and individual levels» (from authors’ abstract).

[In this paper, the authors describe some artefacts found at the site of Abri Blanchard, in SE France: specifically, one relevant object is presented, a bone fragment (dated ca. 30.000 BP) with a registration of the moon phases, interpreted by scholars (including Buccellati, G. 2014, pp. 28-29 as one of the most ancient calendars found thus far. A clear example of a ‘meta-perception’.]

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

“This article re-examines the ‘neolithic revolution’ – Gordon Childe’s great contribution to prehistoric archaeology. Childe first articulated his model of three revolutions in history – neolithic, urban and industrial – in 1936. Many authors have sought to understand it in the light of subsequent archaeological theory; here I proceed differently. A broader appreciation of the context in which Childe operated, in Britain and the rest of Europe, is necessary if we are to grasp fully the content of his model and the theoretical strands that influenced it. This article aims to elucidate the Neolithic as a historical construct and Childe’s archaeology as a continuation of his politics. The facts are viewed from four perspectives: (a) personal, with biographical information about the young Gordon Childe; (b) institutional, through a description of the 1920s research landscape in London; (c) ideological, through an attempt to retrace the European Weltanschauung; and (d) conceptual, with a discussion of the ‘neolithic revolution’. Childe’s love-hate relationship with Germany and Austria heavily influenced his model, which is essentially a grand synthesis between the Kulturkreislehre (of Gräbner) and the Dreistufenlehre (probably of Karl Bücher, through its critique by the Functionalists in London). The model’s revolutionary structure comes from dialectical materialism. All three main building blocks of the ‘neolithic revolution’ – diffusionist, evolutionist and Marxist – ultimately derive from the great nineteenth century German historical tradition. An anti-fascist his entire life, Childe tried to rescue German ideas in face of the impending catastrophe – Hitler’s arrival to power, and the destruction of Central European intellectual traditions” (Author’s abstract on p. 311).

Available online on ResearchGate.

Alternative online version on Springer.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A discussion about some of the most ancient Sumerian account tablets.

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«This volume represents a collection of contributions presented during the Third Annual University of Chicago Oriental Institute Seminar “Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond,” held at the Oriental Institute, February 23-24, 2007. The purpose of this conference was to examine more closely concepts of kingship in various regions of the world and in different time periods. The study of kingship goes back to the roots of fields such as anthropology and religious studies, as well as Assyriology and Near Eastern archaeology. More recently, several conferences have been held on kingship, drawing on cross-cultural comparisons. Yet the question of the divinity of the king – the king as god – has never before been examined within the framework of a cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary conference. Some of the recent anthropological literature on kingship relegates this question of kings who deified themselves to the background or voices serious misgivings about the usefulness of the distinction between “divine” and “sacred” kings. Several contributors to this volume have pointed out the Western, Judeo-Christian background of our categories of the human and the divine. However, rather than abandoning the term “divine kingship” because of its loaded history it is more productive to examine the concept of divine kingship more closely from a new perspective in order to modify our understanding of this term and the phenomena associated with it» (summary on Oriental Institute’s webpage).

[The book offers an example of analysis of the relationship between political power and religious beliefs in different historical periods and various geographical areas, including also ancient Mesopotamia (chapters 3, 5, 7, and 14).]

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

The critical LOEB edition of Arrian’s Anabasis.

Digital text available online at this link (subscription required).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

The critical LOEB edition of Arrian’s Indica.

[Cf. Mc Crindle 1876 Indica.]

Digital text available at this link (subscription required).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This atlas briefly deals with the history of the Ancient Near East from prehistoric times to the Roman imperial period.

Each part (ten in total) of the volume is devoted to a specific period, describing both historical events and the geographical and chronological framework of each described timespan.

Parts I and II describe some cultural traits and features of the Ancient Near East, focusing on geography, economy, writing systems, main archaeological sites, and trades.

In each section, brief chapters are devoted to specific chronological periods; a final Timeline (pp. 288-290) helps the reader in having a summarized view on all the history of the Ancient Near East, from ca. 3100 BC (Early Bronze Age) to AD 661, when Damascus became capital of the first Muslim empire.

[This book is a compact but complete handbook for the history of Ancient Near East and its people.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

Since this contribution is very brief, I offer here a full translation from Italian to English:

«‘People of the country’ (‘m h’rṣ [؜הָאָֽרֶץ עַם]) is a technical expression of the Old Testament which has been explained in various ways, at least for the time before the exile. The most likely interpretation is the one proposed most recently by R. De [sic] Vaux, Les institutions de l’Ancien Testament I, Paris 1958, pp. 111-113, 326 ff. [available on Archive.org in Spanish translation], according to whom the term designates the free population of a state, the ‘citizens’, by right: see, among the most significant biblical examples, 2 Kings 16, 15; 23, 30; 24, 14; Ger. 1, 18. This is the sense that is clearly evident also from an inscription of the king of Byblos Jehawmilk, datable to the 5^th or 4^th cent. BC, and known since 1869, but integrated for the part that interests us only in 1950; we report lines 9-11 according to the reconstruction by A. Dupont-Sommer in ‘Sem.’ 3, 1950, pp. 35-44: ‘And may give / [to him (= to the king) the Sovereign, La]dy of Byblos favour to the eyes of the gods and to the eyes of the people of this country (‘m ’rṣ z) [and favour to the eyes] of every king and every man!» (p. 77).

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

The starting point for this contribution is the well-known passage of 2 Chr. 36, 20-21, recounting the deportation of the Jews from Jerusalem to Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar II in 568 BC.

After having recalled two other Biblical passages relating to the same event (or to the same exile period), i.e. Jer. 37-42, 52, and 2 Chr. 36, 20-21, the author summarizes the historical events of that period as they can be reconstructed on a quite stark floor, devoting the whole article to the presentation of the role of the Israelites remained at Jerusalem (or at least in Palestine) during the period of the exile (i.e. from the conquering of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II in 568 BC to the ‘edict of liberation’, as it is inscribed on a cylinder of Cyrus I (text in ANET), in 539 BC (for further information see at this link).

The author sketches out the history of the period as it is narrated in some specific books written in Palestine in the 6^th cent. BC, i.e. Lamentations, and the prophetic books of Haggai and Zecharia, telling the events involving the ‘People of the country’ (‘m h’rṣ) (cf. for this term Buccellati 1959 B O 3).

The author concludes: «The Lamentations give the testimony of the presence in Palestine (well in Jerusalem) of Israelites profoundly Yahwist and distinct from the group of Godolia: there is therefore reason to think that they remained in Palestine even after the turbulent period of the first months after the capture of Jerusalem and culminated in the killing of Godolia. The books of Haggai and Zechariah testify that the rebuilding of the temple, led by returnees from the exile, was the work of a population in which there is no trace of radical contrast between returnees and those left behind: indeed, from a tenuous but seemingly safe testimony, we can conclude that there was substantially collaboration. Without wondering to draw a direct line between the Israelites of Lamentations and the Palestinian Israelites of the time of Haggai and Zechariah … it is certain, however, that both groups are part of the same Yahwist tradition that continued on Palestinian land» (p. 290).

– Marco De Pietri, 2020

A review of a publication presenting economic texts dated to the Ur III dynasty (ca. 2000 BC), related to transactions of goods between different places and administrations. The reviewer underlines the wealth of the published documentation and the importance of the discussion of many technical names and titles involving public administration and craft production. The reviewer only stresses the lackness of a full publication of the original cuneiform transcriptions, since the author only provides the transliteration of the texts.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The volume is divided into two parts, dealing with linguistic affiliation of the Amorites and their history, respectively.

PDF volume 1. PDF volume 2.

See also abstract.

Reviewed in Liverani 1968.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A review of a volume (divided in seven chapters) devoted to the analysis of the Amorite names from the archives of Mari: the investigation is really noteworthy, since the author provides a strict grammatical analysis of around 303 lexical elements componing ancient Amorite personal names.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The author clealy states the topic of this contribution at its very beginning: “The evidence for the first «cities» in Mesopotamia is relatively rich and well-differentiated: in addition to the archaeological record, which shows a clear pattern of physical growth from smaller to larger settlements, we have the first known written documents which begin, precisely, in the wake of the «urban revolution»” (author’s abstract on p. 19). G. Buccellati leads the reader through an analysis of the socio-political (and economical) key-reasons that resulted in the so-called ‘urban revolution’.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

A short report about excavations conducted at Qraya, a small Uruk period site north of Terqa, describing “some experimental work undertaken in 1989 to test certain aspects of a theory pertaining both the nature of the ancient occupation at the site and the function of the stratigraphic assemblage of which the bevelled rim bowls are a part, [suggesting] that Qraya was a commercial station for salt procurement” (quotation from pp. 9-10, adapted).

Cf. also Buccellati Kelly Buccellati 1988 Qraya, Buccellati 1990 Salt, and Hopkinson Buccellati 2023 Qraya.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The history of ancient Khabur region is displayed and discussed in this paper, focusing on some of the most relevant sites in the area (included Urkesh), taking into account both the archaeological and the textual evidence, hinting to a re-definition of the concept and the practical realization of ‘nomadism’ in ancient Northern Syria.

Extended abstract on Urkesh/E-Library.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

In this paper, the author investigates the salt production at Qraya, attested and argued on the basis of the founding of many bevelled-rim bowls (for a brief information about this project, see also Buccellati 1990: “From Khana to Laqê”.

Cf. also Buccellati Kelly Buccellati 1988 Qraya, Buccellati 1990 Qraya, and Hopkinson Buccellati 2023 Qraya.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

The author analyzes in this contribution the actual geographical, rural landscape of ancient Syria, according to Terqa documentation: “The present paper deals with the rural landscape of the ancient zor [a term used to define the riverbank bush or a narrow farming strip] on the basis primarily of the texts from terqa. I will look at the physical landscape, referring in particular to the perception which the inhabitants had (and express in their texts) of the physical dimension of their zor environment” (p. 157).

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

In this paper, the author investigates the historical relationships between Ebla and the Amorites.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This contribution discusses the peculiar features of the Amorites as nomadic people (at the very beginning), able to ‘domesticate’ the steppe; the author further explores different theories about the ‘dimorphic’ nature of Amorites’ tribes, their language affiliation, their relations with Syrian cities, and their final settling in stable cities The second part of the paper investigates the ethnic identity of the Amorites, defined as specific through their language and their common origins.

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A wide discussion about Eblaite and Amorite names, displaying personal names (analyzed through name composition-schemes and for what concerns semiotics and name-giving), divine names, and geographical names. A first paragraph is devoted to the definition of the different Semitic language groups, pointing out three remarks against a too simplistic dirrentiation into three groups (Old Akkadian, Amorite, and Eblaite).

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A structural and synchronic analysis of Old Babylonian grammar.

PDF available here

Review by N.J.C. Kouwenberg in BiOr 55/1-2 (1998)

See also the companion website

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

Throughout the analysis of mythological and historical documentation from Mesopotamia, the author reflects on the topic of the differentiation of spaces and realms as ‘public’ and ‘private’, emerging during the so-called ‘urban revolution’, comparing the urban society with the pre-urban villages scattered in the Syro-Mesopotamian area. This differentiation was supported by five factors: 1) political control; 2) manufacturing technology; 3) writing system(s); 4) differentiation of social ranks; 5) detachment of the concept of ‘law’ from ‘custom’.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

G. Buccellati offers in this paper an overview on Akkadian and Amorite phonological system.

PDF available here.

See also abstract.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

Review of Geyer 2001 Conquete.

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The purpose of this paper is the publication of the outcomings of the 16th excavation season at Tell Mozan (2003) focused on the exploration of the monumental urban complex of the ancient city of Urkesh, underlining the importance of some peculiar structures, such as the necromantic pit (the ābi, i.e. unit A12) intended by archaeologists as a KASKAL.KUR.

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The author reflects in this paper about the distinction between the concepts of -emic and ethic under a linguistic and archaeological perspective: «In my view, the basic underlying concept is the distinction between an open and a closed system, where -etic refers to the first, and -emic to the second» (p. 12). The last concept is then well-explained with a concrete example, i.e. the perception and formal definition of colours in the archaeological recording process and in the common life, too (mentioning the example of the spotlights).

[The paper helps the reader in better understanding the author’s approach in analysing ancient cultures, on the base of an -emic perspective.]

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

In this paper, the second in a series of three (before Buccellati 2013 Trinity), the author discusses the epistemological and theological nature of Trinity.

There are several issues which are worth mentioning in this context, since they are relevant to the description of the “absolute”:

• ancient and even modern names for personal g/God, like Elohim, Ba’al, and Allah became proper names from the common nouns they originally were (p. 40; cf. Excerpt);
• God is at the very same time absolute and enmeshed in the details of a human group, ancient Israel (pp. 43-44; cf. Excerpt);
• the radical contrast between polytheism and monotheism (p. 44; cf. Excerpts);
• specific features of the God of Israel are innumerability, particularity, and relatability (pp. 45-46; cf. Excerpt);
• the unpronunciability of God’s name in Israel, sometimes replaced with the euphemistic expression “The Power” (p. 63; cf. Excerpt);
• the concept of “waiting” as typical of Israel Messianism (pp. 292-294; cf. Excerpt);
• the particularity of the call of Abraham and the fact that the God of Israel often manifests himself as “the God of Abraham” (pp. 296-297; cf. Excerpt);
• the contrast, in the episodes of the manifestation of God to Moses (Ex 3:14) and that of Jacob’s fight at Peni’el (Gn 32:24-32), between revealing the face and hiding the name (pp. 298-300; cf. Excerpt);
• the relevance in revelation of the word of God (pp. 306-308; cf. Excerpt);
• the God of Israel speak in a first person; he is an “I” entity, personal and aadressing his word to another specific personal or collective entity (pp. 308-310; cf. Excerpt);
• Yahweh is a living God with a peculiar self-awareness (pp. 310-312; cf. Excerpt);
• a chapter (3.10) is entirelly devoted to “The articulation of the absolute” (pp. 312-314; cf. Excerpt).

PDF of part one (pp. 38-75) available here.

PDF of part two (pp. 292-327) available here.

The paper in a single PDF version can be downloaded at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The topic of this paper focuses on the origin of the tribe, under an archaeological and historical perspective, crossing this theme with the development of agropastoralism in Syro-Mesopotamia, by the 19^th BC, mostly stressing the features related to the Amorites: “By the 19^th century BCE, most of Syro-Mesopotamia had come under the political control of dynasties whose rulers, as well as many of their subjects, had common onomastics and presumably a common ethnic origin. The people behind this movement are known to us as ‘Amorites,’ an English gentilic derived from the Hebrew version of the original name Amurrum” (p. 37).

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The interpretation of ancient remains under a proper archaeological view does imply also the definition of some patterned structures connected to ancient culture’s language: in this case, a specific ‘logogram’ related to the Sumerian sign for ‘mountain’ (KUR) was detected on actual walls of the precint of Urkesh’s temple.

Extended abstract on Urkesh/E-Library.

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The contribution traces the development of the perception of the absolute in ancient Mesopotamian culture. It posits that the encounter with the absolute can be fulfilled only through the self-consciousness of the human being, which is embedded in the elaboration of writing systems, at the base of any order and historical perception.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

The fundamental volume of G. Buccellati about critical comparing ancient Mesopotamian and Israelite religion.

See also the companion website.

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2023

The book analyzed in the present companion website.

Cf. Buccellati 2024 Origins.

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2016

After a foreword (by Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati) and an introduction by the author, the book is divided into 4 chapters, dealing with topics about Urkesh/Tell Mozan and another site in Georgia, namely Dmanisi.

Specifically interesting to our purposes are Chapters 2 and 3: the first focuses on the recent excavations at Dmanisi, Georgia: the human finds can tell us a story of people who lived some millennia BP, presenting some important and profound interrogatives about humanity in general and also about the development of the first hominids, at the dawn of the first human communities elaborating craft skills, special competence, religious thoughts, and aspects related to sociality and mutual assistance (i.e. solidarity).

Chapter 3 deals with some aspects on these first community of hominids (around 30000 BP) who started elaborating some abstract concepts (in logical thought) related to time-calculation (the ability of observe and record on artefacts, the first calendars, the moon phases), the growing of an extra-somatic perspective, the elaboration of language as a base for the elaboration of writing systems.

PDF (Italian version) available here

PDF (Arabic version) available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

This paper describes the development of the perception of time and for the relationship between human beings and the absolute, conceived and assimilated in different cultures, throughout many millennia, on the basis of three subsequent steps:

1) the first step implies the development of a ‘meta-perception’, strictly linked to language, which began in prehistorical times (ca. 60,000 years BP), culminating in the Mesopotamian culture in the 4^th millennium BC;

2) a further step was achieved with the biblical perception of transcendence (i.e. from a mere, empirical perception of something regulated by specific patterns and regular norms to the existence and presence of an absolute embedded onto time);

3) the third step is represented by the Christian perception of time, moving from the simple notion of Genesis’ ‘beginning’ (ראשׁית, see Gen. 1, 1), ‘inventing’ a new ‘Christian horizon’ involving the new concept of ‘trans-temporality’.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

In A Critique of Archaeological Reason, Giorgio Buccellati presents a theory of excavation that aims at clarifying the nature of archaeology and its impact on contemporary thought. Integrating epistemological issues with methods of data collection and the role and impact of digital technology on archaeological work, the book explores digital data in order to comprehend its role in shaping meaning and understanding in archaeological excavation.

Wider description available here. See also the companion website.

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2017

In this article, the author examines «the evidence of material culture with the attendant degree of inference that seems plausible. The argument is relatively simple: on the basis of the formal attributes of an artifact as we have it today it is possible to establish formal patterns that imply a certain type of operational procedures; these in turn imply a sense of the whole that goes beyond the primary perception.»

From the observation of patterns of development in stone tools, the author infers the existence of patterns of ordered thought in prehistoric humans. The structure of the tools, the author suggests, can be seen as an example of the development of an ever-greater awareness of patterns in the world, and therefore of ever-greater control of the world.

– Jonah Lynch, 2020

«Awīliš īwē. It is one of the most beautiful sentences in Mesopotamian literature: Enkidu ‘transformed himself into the nature of man.’ But more properly we should translate: ‘into the nature of a civilized being’ -because to be truly man (awīlum) means to be ‘a son of a city.’ As for Enkidu in the Gilgamesh poem, ‘naturalize’ therefore means, ‘civilize,’ and not ‘humanize,’ a not insignificant difference. In this short essay I wish to explore this difference in more detail […].» (p. 37, English translation by mDP.)

[This paper deals with the topic of human nature and the concept/process of civilization as it is described in ancient Mesopotamian literature.]

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The book analyzed in the present companion website.

Cf. Buccellati 2013 Origins.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The reference book of Giorgio Buccellati about Hebrew and Mesopotamian spirituality.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The monumental Temple Terrace of Tell Mozan is deeply analyzed in this contribution, describing its architectural stracture and the function of some of its major buildings.

Extended abstract on Urkesh/E-Library.

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A volume with the proceedings of a conference devoted to the topic of house and household economies in Syro-Mesopotamia, with a specific focus on the 3^re millennium BC.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A report of the most important results from the excavations at the ancient city of Qraya is here presented: after a fist paragraph about the history of the excavations, a second paragraph sketches the significance of this site in the landscape of ancient Northern Syria. A third paragraph presents the publication program of all the results achieved by the UCLA mission. The paper is ended by the aknowledgments to the major sponsors and official supporters of the mission. The importance of the excavations on this site is briefly stressed in the very last sentences: “Started and carried out under salvage project conditions, the work at Qraya is now yielding evidence of considerable significance for the understanding of the earliest period of human civilization in Syria and the Near East. We trust that our continued cooperative work at the site will yield ever more abundant fruits in the future” (p. 7).

Cf. also Buccellati 1990 Qraya, Buccellati 1990 Salt, and Hopkinson Buccellati 2023 Qraya.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

Mythological textual sources are here investigated to define the ethnicity of Urkesh’s people, directly reconnecting the myth to a possible actual role played by the city in the trading of metals from the Taurus; moreover, sealings from Tell Mozan (over 1000 items) are presented, strengthening the development of a specific and coherent dynastic program. Two appendices describes some terracotta figurines and a small fragment of a school lexical tablet.

Extended abstract on Urkesh/E-Library.

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

Report of DOG’s excavation season in 2004 (connected to the previous UCLA’s 15th campaign in 2002): a wide description is provided about the Royal Palace of Tell Mozan and about the stratigraphy and finds of the ābi.

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The focus of this contribution is firstly on the peculiar role of Urkesh (from, at least, the third millennium BC) as a Hurrian religious centre.

After having completed the building of the Excavation House (paragraph 1), the UCLA team (joined by some members of the DOG) aimed in this season to better investigate and clarify the ethnic valence of Urkesh’s sacral and political spaces: the Temple Terrace (together with the ābi) and the Royal Palace, respectively (paragraph 2); the Temple Terrace, composed by the main High Temple (Temple BA of Kumarbi and the vast open Plaza JP were strictly linked to the Royal Palace and the ābi, with a progressive shifting of political importance from the temple to the palace, which was probably abandoned in a later time when a settlement (represented by private houses) developed on the top of the palace area.

Two aspects regarding ābi must be underlined: 1) the presence of some rituals similar to the kispum ceremony attested in Mesopotamian texts and 2) the attestation of practices of secondary burial. Sub-paragraph 5.5 describes the stratigraphic sequence of the ābi, situated in area A14, along the southern wall of the service wing AK of the Royal Palace AP (see Plan) and interpreted as a necromantic structure introduced by an access equated to a KASKAL.KUR.

Paragraph 7 offers new insights into Urkesh’s history: sub-paragraph 7.1 focuses specifically on Temple BA, whose construction started in ED III.

– Marco De Pietri, 2020

The Hurrian homeland is the topic of this contribution. Urkesh is perceived as one of the most important Hurrian centers and its structures are here described: the Palace of Tupkish, the ābi, and the Temple Terrace. The connections of the site with the North and mostly with the Northern Early Transcaucasian culture and Anatolia in general are presented, discussing the Hurrian identity of Urkesh, moving from a historical question to its following historiographical interpretation, defining methodological criteria and data connected to semiotics, linguistics, onomastics, cults and mythology.

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The report of the 18^th excavation season (2005) at Urkesh/Tell Mozan is entirely devoted to the description and interpretation of the Temple Terrace, with a reconsideration of the two lion statuettes of Tish-atal (see here, for an overview].

Paragraph 1 described the Temple Terrace and the main goals of the season, aiming at better understanding the development of the temple (from the postulated, and later confirmed, idea of tracing back to the mid-fourth millennium BC the first foundation of temple BA), to gain an interpretation of the god who was worshipped therein (i.e. the polyad god Kumarbi). A history of the research is sketched, describing previous excavations on the High Mound (from 1984 to 2004), providing also the elevation of temple BA as 470.00 m on the sea-level (sub-paragraphs 1.1 and 1.2); sub-paragraph 1.3 focuses on 2005 activities, while sub-paragraph 1.4 investigates the development and the structural components of the Temple Terrace: the escarpment, the Plaza JP, the revetment wall J5, the monumental access J2, the glacis and the temple BA itself (the present form attested at least from 2400 to 2350 BC, according to middle chronology).

Paragraph 2 describes the stratigraphy: specifically, sub-paragraph 2.9 describes the scattered occupation after the end of Urkesh as sacral center (ca. 1300 BC).

Paragraph 3 focuses on other structures related to the Temple Terrace: the revetment wall, the packing and the glacis, and the escarpment.

Paragraph 4 deals with the monumental staircase, presenting structural considerations, perceptual perspectives and projections, while paragraph 5 focuses on the Plaza, considered as a sacred space.

Paragraph 6 displays major objects from the Mittanian strata, such as the clay figure of pig/boar’s snout, probably connected to ritual activities in the area (see here for pictures), ceramics from phase 1 strata, and Late Chalcolithic sherds.

Paragraph 7 discusses two hypotheses dealing with the two lion-shaped statuettes of Tish-atal (revisiting their provenance and dating) and with the equation at Urkesh of NERGAL=Kumarbi, retracing (sub-paragraph 7.9) the idea of an ideological landscapes of the temple mound.

[The authors attempt an interpretation of the function of different spaces on the basis of the archaeological evidence and the features of each structure; moreover, moving to the ideological perception of the sacred area (a good specimen of a meta-perception), it is interesting to note how the location and physical features of the Temple mound hint to the building of an ideological landscape, affecting the mind of people living at Urkesh or in its neighbourhood.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«In this book, Aaron A. Burke explores the evolution of Amorite identity in the Near East from ca. 2500–1500 BC. He sets the emergence of a collective identity for the Amorites, one of the most famous groups in Ancient Near Eastern history, against the backdrop of both Akkadian imperial intervention and declining environmental conditions during this period. Tracing the migration of Amorite refugees from agropastoral communities into nearby regions, he shows how mercenarism in both Mesopotamia and Egypt played a central role in the acquisition of economic and political power between 2100 and 1900 BC. Burke also examines how the establishment of Amorite kingdoms throughout the Near East relied on traditional means of legitimation, and how trade, warfare, and the exchange of personnel contributed to the establishment of an Amorite koiné. Offering a fresh approach to identity at different levels of social hierarchy over time and space, this volume contributes to broader questions related to identity for other ancient societies» Publisher’s website.

[A very interesting volume about historical dynamics of the Bronze Age, specifically involving the second-millennium BC and the Amorites.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«The establishment of Amorite dynasties are documented from Mesopotamia to the Levant during the early second millennium BC. The increasing role of Amorites in mercantile endeavors, including the founding of new settlements, are illustrated, and this activity is placed in context with the contemporaneous evidence for the Old Assyrian merchant colony at Kanesh in Anatolia and the Asiatic enclave at Avaris in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom» Author’s abstract.

[Chapter 4 in Burke 2021 Amorites; an interesting paper about the Bronze Age, specifically involving the second-millennium BC, with a focus on mercenaries and merchants.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This book chapter is one of the fundamental studies undertaken on the environmental proxies collected from Lake Van in Turkey, upper streams of Tigris and Euphrates and Nile valley in Egypt showing the consecutive periods of aridity that struck Greater Mesopotamia and Egypt from the coming of Holocene. The study is also supported by the archaeological proofs on how humans reacted to and survived that environmental drift. This study, undertaken in 1995, later became the bedrock for understanding the socio-economic trajectories and inventions and downfall of the political institutions in Mesopotamia.

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

[Available online at this link.

Usually abbreviated as “CAD”.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A book dedicated to the very ancient settlement of Mersin-Yumuktepe in Southern Anatolia.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A book dedicated to the very ancient settlement of Mersin-Yumuktepe in Southern Anatolia.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Giorgio Buccellati

“In this important study Ernst Cassirer analyzes the non-rational thought processes that go to make up culture. He demonstrates that beneath both language and myth there lies an unconscious “grammar” of experience, whose categories and canons are not those of logical thought. He shows that this prelogical “logic” is not merely an undeveloped state of rationality, but something basically different, and that this archaic mode of thought still has enormous power over even our most rigorous thought, in language, poetry and myth. The author analyzes brilliantly such seemingly diverse (yet related) phenomena as the metaphysics of the Bhagavat Gita, the Melanesian concept of Mana, the Naturphilosophie of Schelling, modern poetry, Ancient Egyptian religion, and symbolic logic. He covers a vast range of material that is all too often neglected in studies of human thought.

These six essays are of great interest to the student of philosophy or the philosophy of science, the historian, or the anthropologist. They are also remarkably timely for students of literature, what with the enormous emphasis placed upon “myth” in modern literary speculation. This book is not superficial speculation by a dabbler, but a penetrating study by one of the most profound and sensitive philosophic minds of our time” (Publisher’s description).

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Jacques Cauvin has spent many years researching the beginnings of the Neolithic in the Near East, excavating key sites and developing new ideas to explain the hugely significant cultural, social and economic changes which transformed mobile hunter-gatherers into the first village societies and farmers in the world. In this book, first published in 2000, the synthesis of his mature understanding of the process beginning around 14,000 years ago challenges ecological and materialist interpretations, arguing for a quite different kind of understanding influenced by ideas of structuralist archaeologists and members of the French Annales school of historians. Defining the Neolithic Revolution as essentially a restructuring of the human mentality, expressed in terms of new religious ideas and symbols, the survey ends around nine thousand years ago, when the developed religious ideology, the social practice of village life and the economy of mixed farming had become established throughout the Near East and east Mediterranean, and spreading powerfully into Europe» (description on editor’s webpage).

The volume analyses the development of first spiritual symbolism or religious beliefs in the prehistory of ancient Near East, specifically in the Neolithic period.

[The contribution is particularly relevant as an introduction to the first attested forms of spiritual symbolism and religious beliefs in ancient Near East, specifically in the Neolithic period; this is clearly a phaenomenon due to a specific human ‘meta-perception’.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«Mountaineers cannot be born, but become: this is one of the “principles” used to set up any historical research on the progressive population of the Alps by man (mostly in the wake of other animals and plants that have found fate sedentary in the Alps as the glaciation came back). Little by little men have “become” mountaineers; they have undertaken a vertical exploration of nature and have tried variously to “inhabit” the mountains. This story found one of its most important “theaters” in the Alps. Multiple populational groups have ventured into the “alpine” world following different itineraries among those typical of the great branching of mountain ranges that occupy the heart of Europe. Human population is undoubtedly one of the greatest themes in the history of the Alps. It is a story that involved not only the “migratory” approach of different genetic-population units to the mountain environment, but also aspects of “invention” “of new animal species with which to practice an assiduous symbiosis, as well as of new vegetational species, cultivable for survival purposes, as well as mainly of new” forms of man “. And this, therefore, is an important chapter in the history of human evolution. In this way, men have become interpreters of an “Alpine” paradigm of civilization, which currently risks extinction and which, on the other hand, imposes itself as a great and precious cultural heritage» [Book description; translation by mDP].

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

A Festschrift collecting contributions very relevant to the topic of evolution and evolutionary anthropology.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A history of the reign of Hammurapi, king of Babylon.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A key-publication about the development of the concept of Neolithic revolution.

[Available online on Archive.org.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

On the concept of Neolithic revolution and the impact that this phenomenon had in the history of humankind development..

[Available online on Archive.org.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The fundamental paper defining the concept of “urban revolution”.

[Cf. Buccellati, Chapter 1.1.]

[Available online on JSTOR.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

An insightful volume about the pivotal role and value in the human history of the invention of the printing press.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A critical edition of Arrian’s Anabasis.

PDF available online on archive.org.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

[Available online on JSTOR.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the “Sea Peoples” invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen?

In this major new account of the causes of this “First Dark Ages,” Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries.

A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece» (Publisher’s summary).

[A very well updated volume about the ‘collapse’ of the cosmopolis around 1200 BC (cf. also Drews 1993 End; about the later history, after this date, see mostly Cline 2024 Year).]

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«At the end of the acclaimed history Cline 2021 Year, many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost and the so-called First Dark Age had begun. Now, in After Cline 2021 Year, Eric Cline tells the compelling story of what happened next, over four centuries, across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration.

After 1177 B.C. tells how the collapse of powerful Late Bronze Age civilizations created new circumstances to which people and societies had to adapt. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, and Neo-Babylonians. Taking the story up to the resurgence of Greece marked by the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C., the book also describes how world-changing innovations such as the use of iron and the alphabet emerged amid the chaos.

Filled with lessons for today’s world about why some societies survive massive shocks while others do not, After 1177 B.C. reveals why this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions and new opportunities» (Publisher’s summary).

[A very well updated volume about the ‘survival’ of civilization after the ‘collapse’ of the cosmopolis around 1200 BC for which cf. Cline 2021 Year.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

This book deals with an interesting historical reconstruction of the origins of agriculture seen under the lens of a food crisis in prehistory leading to the dawn of agriculture, in order to avoid overpopulation ending in starving.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Also the political implications of the introduction and variation of religious calendars, the change of month names and the use of intercalation are thoroughly discussed»; Stefania Ermidoro’s comment to Cohen 2015 Calendars.

This is an example of a ‘meta-perception’ affecting the development of political structures.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

[…]

A review of the book Algaze 2008 Ancient Mesopotamia.

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

“The work developed here focuses on the study of a particular production area found at the Tell Mozan site, dating back to the Paleo-Babylonian period (Middle Bronze). The discussion is divided into at least 3 different sections. The first part (chapters 2-3) consists of a theoretical section that illustrates the discovery of ceramics, with man who, through observation and experimentation, comes to understand that the clay found in nature, once cooked, takes on particular characteristics. Of course there are several theories that attempt to explain the origins of pottery. The second theoretical section deals with the principles that underlie the functioning of the kilns, used in antiquity for the firing of ceramics. These are fundamental principles that allow us to understand the structural and technological characteristics of the furnaces. This also allows an adequate understanding of the different technological typologies” (from Author’s abstract’s, Introduction, p. 3; English translation from Italian by mDP; cf. also the Urkesh e-Library).

[In chapters 2-3 of this dissertation, Lorenzo Crescioli deals with the topic of the “invention” of pottery, a topic also discussed by G. Buccellati in Origin, section 2.1.]

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A volume collecting many interesting contributions on tokens and the development of writing.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«Field research undertaken during the last years has significantly improved our understanding of the material culture and settlement patterns in the Upper Tigris valley, offering new evidence that deserves further investigation. Recent archaeological findings have raised new issues on the development of local cultures and the interaction between communities settled along the Upper Tigris river and those settled in neighbouring regions. Although the new stratigraphic sequences brought to light in the recent excavations have substantially enhanced the archaeological profile of some sites, a comprehensive and coherent picture of the nature and development of the settlements with their ceramic assemblages between the 3rd and 1st millennium BC is still lacking; this is mainly due to the very limited number and the limited size of settlements excavated to date.

Starting from a detailed analysis of the published data, from excavations as well as regional surveys, in order to outline the main characteristics of the local cultural tradition throughout time, some of the key issues about ceramic sequences, regional links, chronology and settlement patterns will be treated. In particular, the analysis will focus on specific topics related to the Early Bronze Age – Middle Bronze Age transitional period; the archaeological visibility of Late Bronze Age sites; the settlement pattern at the time of the Assyrian conquest at the end of 2nd millennium; the identification of local and Assyrian related sites during the Iron Age. Ceramic categories as Dark Rimmed Orange Bowls, Red Brown Wash Ware, Grooved pots and Assyrian standard types will be used in defining the profile and the development of the settlements scattered throughout the valley.

This paper offers a general overview of the archaeological evidence in the Upper Tigris river valley and aims to provide a critical analysis of the latest results emphasizing the principal tenets of the cultural and chronological sequence and some of the open questions in reconstructing the archaeology of these territories» [Author’s abstract on pp. 185-186].

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

An English edition of Mesopotamian myths, including the Enūma elīš.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

One of the most important editions of the ‘Code of Hammurapi’.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

[Available online on Academia.edu.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Giorgio Buccellati

This is an essay in which the author, through a process of deconstruction, analyzes the myth of Theut contained in Plato’s Phaedrus (see, on Perseus, Phdr. 274c-275b).

[Plato argues that writing provides only the appearance of wisdom, not its reality, so according to him orality should prevail over writing. Derrida, linking to the concept of pharmakon, i.e. the writing as an ambivalent value: remedy and poison; he also asserts that the written word allows us to identify in language what speech cannot highlight, leaving room for various interpretations.

Suggestive is the author’s explanation of the metaphor father/son and the discourse about logos (see specifically pp. 271-283).]

– Jessica Scaciga, 2024

“Many studies on material culture have addressed the multiple meanings that objects play in our lives. The objects are performative—that is, they are able to change human identities as well as social relationships. In exploring the different meanings that objects help to construct, we may understand the individuals and societies through which the objects circulate. Objects are not only acted upon and used by humans; some scholars also have stressed their social use and value. So, the cultural biography perspective seems appropriate for considering specific objects as they move through different hands, contexts, and uses. Objects can move in and out of the commodity state, and such movements can be slow or fast, reversible or terminal, normative or deviant. In particular, goods whose principal use is rethorical and social have a special register of consumption that requires us to regard them as a special class of things. The specific signs of this register are: (1) restriction to elites; (2) complexity of acquisition (not necessarily linked to “scarcity” of the goods); (3) capacity to signal complex social messages; (4) a high degree of linkage of their consumption to body, person, and personality; (5) highly specialized knowledge as a prerequisite for their “appropriate” consumption (Appadurai 1986: 3–63). Thus, things represent a very complex distribution of knowledge: knowledge that goes into the production of the object and the knowledge that goes into appropriately consuming the object. A special case is represented by objects reused in another region, in another time. In the Ancient Near East, survivals are well known” (p. 75).

[Available online on Academia.edu.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A very well informed book, including archaeological and paleobotanical data, about the ‘collapse’ of the cosmopolis around 1200 BC (cf. also Cline 2021 Year).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«Alessandro Duranti introduces linguistic anthropology as an interdisciplinary field that studies language as a cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice. The theories and methods of linguistic anthropology are introduced through a discussion of linguistic diversity, grammar in use, the role of speaking in social interaction, the organization and meaning of conversational structures, and the notion of participation as a unit of analysis. Linguistic Anthropology will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students» (Publisher’s summary).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«This paper considers the Middle Assyrian dunnu in order to elucidate how this particular institution functioned in the context of an emerging Assyrian Empire in the Late Bronze Age. It will investigate how a pre-existing institution that had been in existence for centuries was transformed to serve imperial needs in this period. In particular, the question of how dunnus functioned in the broader imperial economy will be addressed. Further, this paper also seeks to explore why the dunnu institution flourished in the early Assyrian Empire but did not play a role in the later stages of that empire» [Author’s abstract].

PDF available online on Peeters.

Alternative PDF version on ResearchGate.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The first comparative studies on ‘totemism’ in order to explain the elementary form of the religion. Heavily contested to the views on Animism by E.B. Tylor and Magic-Religion by J.G. Frazer, in this book Durkheim tried to investigate:

1. the power occupational behind the creation and consolidation of a society and
2. society’s impact on logical thinking.

According to Durkheim, religion is created in moments of what he calls ‘collective effervescence’. These moments occur when all individuals in a group are brought together to communicate “in one thought and one action”. “Once individuals are assembled, a sort of electricity emerges from their rapprochement which quickly transports them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation.” Durkheim calls this energy ‘mana’. This idea of Mana as a pre-animistic belief was further developed by Marett and Codrington.

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

The editio princeps of the of both the Egyptian and Hittite version of the Egyptian-Hittite treaty (ca. 1259 BC), along with a German translation and commentary.

[Cf. also Kitchen & Lawrence 2012 Treaty, Vol. 1, pp. 573-594 (texts 71A-B).]

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

The main reference for a discussion about the ‘ordeal river’ Idlurugu/Ilurugu.

Available online on Rd Aonline at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

The most recent and complete grammar of Sumerian available in English.

The author presents the Sumerian language structuring the grammar in a thematic way, discussing firstly the phonology and then the morphology and the syntax. A final chapter is devoted to the so-called “EME.SAL”, a kind of ‘dialect’ or variant of the ‘formal’ Sumerian, with interesting suggestions for a better understanding of this ‘dialect’.

PDF preview available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

Englund employs a meticulous philological approach to the decipherment and interpretation of proto-cuneiform texts. His work often involves the detailed examination of individual signs and their contextual usage across various tablets. This approach is both a strength and a limitation. While his detailed analyses provide a robust foundation for understanding the development of writing, they also necessitate a deep specialization that might limit broader theoretical engagement with other aspects of early Mesopotamian culture. Furthermore, Englund’s focus on quantitative and economic data within these texts aligns with the broader trend in Assyriology towards understanding ancient economies through their administrative records.

[However, some critics might argue that this focus on administrative texts risks overshadowing other potential uses of writing in the Late Uruk period, such as its role in cultural or religious contexts. Moreover, the interpretative framework applied – often grounded in economic anthropology – may sometimes impose modern economic concepts onto ancient practices, potentially skewing our understanding of these early societies.]

PDF available online at this link.

[maybe write a review ? - ZI825 mDP]

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

A recent and updated Italian translation of the well-known Akkadian epic of Atrahasis.

The author, after an Introduction presenting the topic, the history of the findings, and the core themes of the text, offers the Italian translation and comment of different recensiones: the Paleo-Babylonian, the, Middle-Babylonian, the Neo-Assyrian, the Neo-Babylonian, and finally the Achaemenid one, showing how this story benefited of a great and wide success in ancient Mesopotamian tradition (also in the philological meaning of this term).

A final synoptic table and an index of the divine names are presented at the end of the volume.

[The publication provides for the first time a faithful Italian translation of the epic of Atrahasis. It is included in this bibliography also because it represents, as far as I am aware, the most recent translation and commentary of this text.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

The purpose of this article is to investigate the significance of the calendar and time manipulation in first millennium BC Assyria through the analysis of a variety of written sources, which provide useful information with regard to the perception that the Neo-Assyrian society had of calendrical issues. From such analysis, it may be inferred that not only there was a considerable awareness of the importance of the religious calendar and the observance of festivals in the proper days, but also that the control of timing was so developed that it was even incorporated into the semantics of the royal propaganda. Among the many powers that a Neo-Assyrian king could boast, thus, there was also the one of ruling over time. At first, the article refers to some specific characteristics of the Assyrian calendar of the first millennium BC, introducing the individuals who were involved in the determination of the days and months and discussing the system that was in use. Then, it discusses how calendrical issues were used in the Neo-Assyrian royal propaganda to convey the idea of a universal central power. Finally, the article presents an updated cultic calendar for the period under investigation.

[Manipulation of time and calendars for political purposes.]

– Stefania Ermidoro, 2020

In various chapters of the book, but especially in “Origin and development of human language” (pp. 109-119) the author proposes a very high date for the origin of language, even up to «1,9-1,4 milioni di anni fa» («1.9-1.4 milion years BP», p. 115). The argument is based above all on the development of a symbolism that could not be explained without oral communication skills.

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2013

Available online on JSTOR

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A textbook for students that is devoted to the analysis of the processes of formation of modern nations (“nation building”), national and nationalist movements. Modern theories from primordialism to constructivism and instrumentalism are presented and generalized.

The first seven sections are by A. Filiushkin, the last (eight) one by S. Fedorov.

– Anatolii Viktorov, 2024

A Festschrift collecting contributions very relevant to the topic of symbols in anthropology and anthropology of symbols.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A discussion about the geographical situation of ancient ‘Mesopotamia’ according to Old-Babylonian sources.

[Cf. also Finkelstein 1962 Mesopotamia.]

PDF available online on JSTOR.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A discussion about the origin and meaning of the term ‘Mesopotamia’.

[Cf. also Finkelstein 1955 Subartu.]

PDF available on JSTOR.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A usefull commentary to the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20 = 1QApGen) found at Qumran.

[Cf. critical edition in Avigad & Yadin 1956 Apocryphon; other commentary in Muraoka 1972 Genesis.]

PDF available .

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

The authors suggest that a linear trajectory towards inequality accompanied the advent of temples as they evolved from smaller “ritual houses”, implying that societal growth and development laid the foundation for hierarchical injustice. This chapter seeks to investigate whether inequality can be detected through archaeology. “Elite” child burials, a trade economy of luxury goods, and evidence of deliberate burning of residences linked with nobility all suggest the growing presence of socio-economic division. The chapter is divided by focus between Northern and Southern Mesopotamia, recognizing societal differences between regions and attributing that to rainfall and proximity to river systems. It is argued that the growth of agricultural industries saw an increase in the division of labor ultimately leading to the extension of familial units. Development of defensive boundaries at sites such as Tell es-Sawwan and Tell Hassuna illustrate heightened tensions. Halaf ware pottery types are investigated with respect to long-distance trade and within their archaeological provenience to suggest patterns of social inequality. Case studies of Tepe Gawra and the Temple of Eridu are highlighted for the continued use from the earliest Ubaid levels, tracing their architectural development over time, detailing the socio-economic aspects that can be deduced archaeologically (abstract by Iman Nagy).

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

“Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors examines the political landscape of the ancient Near East through the archive of over 3000 letters found in the royal palace of Mari. These letters display a rich diversity of political actors, encompassing major kingdoms, smaller states and various tribal towns. Mari’s unique contribution to the ancient evidence is its view of tribal organization, made possible especially by the fact that its king Zimri-Lim was first of all a tribal ruler, who claimed Mari as an administrative base and source of prestige. These archaic political traditions are not essentially unlike the forms of pre-democratic Greece, and they offer fresh reason to recognize a cultural continuity between the classical world of the Aegean and the older Near East. This book bridges several areas of interest, including archaeology, ancient and classical history, early Middle and Near East, and political and social history” (Publisher’s abstract).

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Examines the aesthetics of traditional oral epic. Foley believes that epics share meanings that are inherent in the traditional structures of the idiom employed by the individual poets. Audiences attuned to these modes of significations thus realize the immanent art of the work» [Book’s description].

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

Hamish Forbes and Lin Foxhall’s work, Ethnoarchaeology and Storage in the Ancient Mediterranean: Beyond Risk and Survival, represents a significant contribution to the study of storage practices in ancient Mediterranean societies. The authors employ an ethnoarchaeological approach, drawing parallels between contemporary practices and ancient evidence to challenge traditional interpretations that primarily view storage as a response to risk management and survival strategies. Their work seeks to broaden the understanding of storage, incorporating social, economic, and cultural dimensions that go beyond mere subsistence.

Their approach is particularly valuable in its emphasis on the multi-functionality of storage. For example, they highlight how storage practices can serve as a means of social differentiation, with wealthier households or elites controlling larger or more specialized storage facilities. Additionally, they argue that storage can play a role in trade and redistribution, with surplus goods being stored not just for local use but also for exchange with other communities.

[The use of ethnoarchaeology is both a strength and a potential weakness of this study. Ethnoarchaeology, which involves studying contemporary societies to infer patterns of behavior in ancient ones, allows Forbes and Foxhall to draw on a broad range of comparative material. This method is particularly effective in challenging the assumption that all ancient storage practices were strictly utilitarian. By examining how modern societies use storage for purposes beyond mere survival, they are able to reinterpret archaeological evidence from the Mediterranean in a more nuanced way.

However, this methodological approach also has its limitations. One of the primary critiques of ethnoarchaeology is the risk of imposing modern or ethnographic analogies too directly onto ancient societies, which can lead to anachronistic interpretations. While Forbes and Foxhall are careful to contextualize their comparisons, the reliance on contemporary examples might still raise questions about the extent to which these analogies are applicable to the diverse and complex societies of the ancient Mediterranean.]

[maybe write a review ? - ZI825 mDP]

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

This volume collects the English translation of many texts, representative of the richness of ancient Akkadian literature.

After a general Introduction on the topic, including a presentation of Semitic languages (focusing of course on Akkadian), a history of the research and excavations, and the major sources (including a noteworthy paragraph on poetry and prose), the author displays the texts in chronological order (from the Archaic Period, ca. 2300-1850 BC, until the Late Period, ca. 1000-100 BC), grouping the texts thematically.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This book offers an analytic study of the Akkadian period of Mesopotamian history, which saw the rise and fall of the world’s first empire. The author offers his definition of “empire” at p. 83: «”Empire” is used here in its conventional sense of supreme and extensive political dominion, presided over by dynastic rulers, who claimed extraordinary, even superhuman or divine powers. It was an entity put together and maintained by force, with provinces administered by officials sent out from the capital in the heartland.» (p. 6). The book begins with a well-grounded historical framework of the rise and fall of Akkad, from Sargon to Sharkalisharri. Foster offers an overview of the people and land of Akkad, including the socio-religious structures of the empire; he makes use of both epigraphical and archaeological sources. Within his discussion of Akkadian centers and settlements, the author offers two maps (at pp. 51, 81) which help conceptualizing the geography of the Akkadian Empire and the relationship between the various civic centers. Foster then analyzes many aspects of the everyday life in this period: agriculture (and diet), ceramic, economy and production; he discusses at length religion and temples as well as politics and military - through which the Akkadian Empire enabled trade, business, and economic growth. Finally, the scholar discusses art and literacy in this historical period (a few original sources are also available in translation in the appendixes at the end of the book), including the human values and expression of identity of this specific culture. The last chapter, then, explores how the Empire has been presented in modern historiography, from the decipherment of cuneiform to the present.

– Stefania Ermidoro, 2020

«At its height in 660 BCE, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was the first empire the world had ever seen.

Here, historian Eckart Frahm tells the epic story of Assyria and its formative role in global history. Assyria’s wide-ranging conquests have long been known from the Hebrew Bible and later Greek accounts. But nearly two centuries of research now permit a rich picture of the Assyrians and their empire beyond the battlefield: their vast libraries and monumental sculptures, their elaborate trade and information networks, and the crucial role played by royal women.

Although Assyria was crushed by rising powers in the late seventh century BCE, its legacy endured from the Babylonian and Persian empires to Rome and beyond. Assyria is a stunning and authoritative account of a civilisation essential to understanding the ancient world and our own» (publisher’s summary).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A very rich edition of the 4^th millennium BC cretulae found at Arslantepe, in Eastern Anatolia (modern Turkey), with a focus on pre-writing administrative and economic systems.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

An interesting volume about the relationship between economics and politics in the state formatio of the site of Arslantepe in the 4^th millennium BC.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

Frangipane employs a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and socio-economic theory. Her use of archaeological data is rigorous, with detailed examinations of settlement patterns, burial practices, and material culture. This empirical foundation strengthens her arguments about the emergence of centralized authority and economic inequality.

[However, the work’s reliance on archaeological data also presents challenges. One potential critique is that the interpretation of material evidence can sometimes be speculative, particularly when drawing conclusions about social structures and economic relationships from artifacts. While Frangipane is careful to ground her interpretations in the available evidence, there remains an inherent ambiguity in reconstructing social dynamics from archaeological remains. For instance, the correlation between the presence of luxury goods and the existence of an elite class, while plausible, may not always account for other possible explanations, such as cultural exchange or religious practices.

Additionally, Frangipane’s use of socio-economic theories is both a strength and a potential limitation. Her engagement with theories of inequality and social stratification enriches the analysis but might be seen as imposing modern conceptual frameworks onto ancient societies. While these theories provide useful lenses, there is always a risk of overinterpreting or misapplying them, particularly in contexts as temporally and culturally distant as ancient Mesopotamia.]

PDF available online on ResearchGate.

[maybe write a review ? - ZI825 mDP]

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

Frangipane’s work is innovative in its emphasis on the symbolic power of seals. She argues that the imagery depicted on seals not only reflected existing social orders but also played an active role in legitimizing and perpetuating those orders. In this sense, seals are seen not just as passive records of authority but as tools of ideological control that helped to reinforce the power of emerging elites. Frangipane employs a detailed iconographic analysis of seals from various archaeological contexts, examining changes in motifs, styles, and themes.

[Her method is rigorous, as she systematically traces the evolution of seal imagery from more abstract and collective symbols to more individualized and hierarchical representations. This shift, she argues, parallels the broader societal shift from egalitarianism to centralization and the emergence of a ruling class.]

PDF available online on ResearchGate or JSTOR.

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

«Frankfort’s central thesis in Kingship and the Gods is that the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations differed fundamentally and profoundly despite their superficial resemblances, and that kingship, an institution which the ancients themselves regarded as the very foundation of all civilized life, was conceived of quite differently in the two lands. Kingship and the Gods is divided into two books and seven parts: Book I, in four parts, is devoted to Egypt; Book II, in three parts, is devoted to Mesopotamia. Preceding Book I is a brief Introduction that focuses on the contrasting views of kingship in the two societies as expressed in their art» (from OI’s website).

[In Book II, the author presents a discussion on the origin and nature of Mesopotamian kingship, specifically focusing on the relationship between king, gods, and nature (Part VII), analysing also the topic of the identification of the king with specific gods and the deification of kings in Mesopotamia. The author discusses here the links between religion and politics, and specifically political justification through religion.]

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«As the tumultuous twentieth century shudders toward its close – with the collapse of communism leading to a transformation of world politics – Francis Fukuyama asks us to return with him to a question that has been asked by the great philosophers of centuries past: is there a direction to the history of mankind? And if it is directional, to what end is it moving? And where are we now in relation to that “end of history”? In this exciting and profound inquiry, which goes far beyond the issues raised in his worldfamous essay “The End of History?” in the summer 1989 National Interest, Fukuyama presents evidence to suggest that there are two powerful forces at work in human history. He calls one “the logic of modern science” and the other “the struggle for recognition.” The first drives men to fulfill an ever-expanding horizon of desires through a rational economic process; the second, “the struggle for recognition,” is, in Fukuyama’s (and Hegel’s) view, nothing less than the very “motor of history.” It is Fukuyama’s brilliantly argued theme that, over time, the economic logic of modern science together with the “struggle for recognition” lead to the eventual collapse of tyrannies, as we have witnessed on both the left and right. These forces drive even culturally disparate societies toward establishing capitalist liberal democracies as the end state of the historical process. The great question then becomes: can liberty and equality, both political and economic – the state of affairs at the presumed “end of history” – produce a stable society in which man may be said to be, at last, completely satisfied? Or will the spiritual condition of this “last man” in history, deprived of outlets for his striving for mastery, inevitably lead him to plunge himself and the world back into the chaos and bloodshed of history? Fukuyama’s contemporary consideration of this ultimate question is both a fascinating education in the philosophy of history and a thoughtprovoking inquiry into the deepest issues of human society and destiny» [Book’s presentation].

PDF (different edition) available here.

A brief description of the book, by the author himself, can be found here.

Cf also a previous paper of the same author: F. Fukuyama 1989, «The End of History?», The National Interest 16, pp. 3-18, available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«This excellent collection contains 13 essays from Gadamer’s Kleine Schriften, dealing with hermeneutical reflection, phenomenology, existential philosophy, and philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer applies hermeneutical analysis to Heidegger and Husserl’s phenomenology, an approach that proves critical and instructive» [Book’s description].

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

This paper aims at publishing all the written tablets and the fragments found at Chagar Bazar and Tall Brak by Mallowan in 1937-38. Because of the homogeneity of the corpus (the hugest part is represented by mere lists of allowances and names), the author preferred to focus mostly on providing catalogues of names (divided into personal names, toponyms and general words); these lists are followed by a description of each tablet, with no proper transliteration or translation but adding some historical remarks.

Among the many toponyms, also Urkesh is quote, spelled as ur-gi-iš(KI) (p. 26), on Chagar Bazar tablet 994, a complete, single-columned tablet reporting &#147a series of records concerning sundry commodities” (p. 59). Regarding specifically Urkesh, it is reported that “there were consignments of flour (various kinds, including sammidatum and &#7723ašlum), bread, beer […], 2 BI.ḪU (piḫu?) SIG₅, 2 jars of wine, 2 sheep, 1 ḫa-ṣa-du which was taken (in-na-šu-u) to [Ur]-gi-iš&#148 (p. 59).

PDF available on JSTOR.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

One of the key strengths of Ventura’s work is her theoretical framework, which draws heavily on feminist theory, gender studies, and the history of emotions. She argues persuasively that emotions in ancient Mesopotamia were not just personal experiences but were deeply embedded in social structures and expectations, particularly those related to gender. Ventura employs the concept of “emotional regimes” to describe the socially constructed norms that governed how individuals were expected to feel and express emotions based on their gender. This approach is innovative, as it moves beyond simplistic dichotomies of male/female or public/private emotions to examine the fluidity and complexity of emotional expression within gendered contexts.

[However, while Ventura’s theoretical framework is robust, it is also highly complex and sometimes difficult to navigate. The interplay between gender and emotion, as she describes it, involves numerous layers of interpretation and analysis, which can make the work challenging for readers who are not already well-versed in these theoretical discourses. Additionally, her reliance on modern theoretical constructs raises questions about the applicability of these frameworks to ancient Mesopotamian contexts. While Ventura is careful to acknowledge the potential pitfalls of anachronism, the risk remains that modern theories of gender and emotion might impose contemporary understandings onto ancient societies, potentially obscuring rather than illuminating the historical realities.]

[maybe write a review ? - ZI825 mDP]

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

[…]

«The objective of the present study is to present a new, coherent scheme for Mesopotamian chronology during the second millennium. Because Susa is one of the few excavated sites that shows a continuity in occupation between the time of the fall of Babylon and c. 1400 BC and, in addition, yields ceramic information for the Babylonian corpus, we also connect the Elamite chronology with the Babylonian system of dating. On the other hand, although the absolute chronologies throughout the Ancient Near East are largely dependent on Babylonian data, they are given less consideration here because the archaeological evidence from there areas is only remotely related to the stemming from Mesopotamia and therefore lies outside the scope of this study» (from authors’ Preface, p. 2).

[This volume is useful to better define chronological issues discussed by G. Buccellati in his book.]

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«The article resumes the critical and theoretical experience of Fredric Jameson, today considered the most important Marxist thinker and cultural critic in the USA. Starting from the first original book about the Marxist Dialectic, through a work about the ideology of the literary text, until an elaboration of concepts like postmodernism and Postmodernity, this work represents a critical introduction to the Jameson’s activity. The article wants to underline the exigence to rethink Marxism as a critical method in the cultural field, in a moment in which theory does not seem to have a bind with the political praxis. Jameson’s works are a demonstration of this crisis in the realm of the literary criticism» [Author’s abstract].

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

“The main object of this monograph is the elucidation of the status of Hurrians and Subarians within the historical framework of the ancient Near East. As is generally known, two scholars in particular – Speiser in his book Mesopotamian Origins and Ungnad in his book Subartu – have in recent years rendered outstanding service in assembling and presenting data on the Hurrians and Subarians. They both treated of the aboriginal population of Mesopotamia; but, while Speiser called it “Hurrian,” Ungnad called it “Subarian.” In accordance with their conclusions the practical equivalence of the two terms has become generally accepted” (“Preface,” p. iii).

[Relevant to theme “Ethnic groups“.]

[Available online at this link.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A fundamental volume about the origin and structure of different writing systems in ancient societies.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A contribution to the understanding of the much debated topic of temple and state economies in ancient Mesopotamian area (also including comparisons to Syria).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A paper about the differences in environmental conditions between the two cities of Ebla (in Syria) and Lagash (in Mesopotamia), specifically facing the issue of the different geographical conditions of these two areas.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«This two volume set offers the first complete edition of the ancient “kudurrus” (Uruk III-Sargonic), combined with exhaustive discussions of the socioeconomic and legal aspects of the documents. All fifty-seven “kudurrus” are presented in transliterations, translations, photographs, hand-copies, synoptic charts, and with philological commentaries. The discussions also utilize the evidence of 282 sale documents, dated to the Fara through the Ur III periods, which are fully transliterated in synoptic charts. The volumes are provided with numerous charts and figures, as well as with extensive listings and indices» (presentation on [OI website(https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/oip/earliest-land-tenure-systems-near-east-ancient-kudurrus)].

PDF (volume 1, “Text”) available here.

PDF (volume 2, “Plates”) available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

This book offers a new, recent English translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, including both Akkadian and Sumerian versions (for the latter, see also texts 1.8.1.1 and followings on ETCSL). In two appendices, the author discusses the methodology he applied in translating the texts from the original tablets (Appendix 1, pp. 209-221) and offers a complete and updated (up until 2000) list of other editions of the same Epic (Appendix 2, pp. 226-228).

[For a wider translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, including also the transliteration of the Akkadian text and the facsimile of the cuneiform tablets, cf. George 2003 Gilgamesh.]

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

This book offers a complete philological English edition, including pictures and facsimiles of the cuneiforms tablets, together with the transliteration of the Akkadian texts, of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

[For a briefer edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh, with the English translation of the text, only, cf. George 2000 Epic]

PDF preview of Volume 1 available here

PDF preview of Volume 2 available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

A monograph entirely devoted to the analysis of the dynamics of the social groups living in the steppe.

Reviewed in Buccellati 2003 Geyer.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

A history of Babylon from its origins until its fall.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A very interesting overview on different forms of governance and political power in the Ancient Near East.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

Glassner opens his text with a clear statement: there is an indissoluble bond between the Power and the Sacred: the sacred is part of the very structure of power («Il existe entre le Pouvoir et le Sacré un lien indissoluble: le sacré fait partie de la structure même du pouvoir.», p.9).

In this paper, the scholar reviews the many theories proposed in Assyriology on the topic of “king-priest”, from Deimel (1920) onward - with many bibliographical references. Then, he offers his own assessment based on philological, iconographical and historical evidence. Ultimately, Glassner states that - though the religious character of the royalty in Mesopotamian cannot be doubted, we do not see that the Mesopotamian kings ever exercised, in the first half of the third millennium BCE, the functions of priests. There is, moreover, no evidence of a Mesopotamian society where the king-priest had the exclusivity of any ritual. However, Glassner identifies an exception in the figure of the king Lugalzage.si - particularly on the basis of an inscription in which he presented himself as the king of Uruk and priest of the goddess Nisaba. Indeed, this may be explained by the fact that Lugalzagesi was the son of a priest - a function which the son probably took up as an inheritance: that a high-ranking priest could rise to royal dignity is not strange in Mesopotamia: two similar cases are known, those of Il (sanga of Zabalam who became king of Umma) and of En.entar.zi (sanga of the god Ningirsu who became king of Lagash).

– Stefania Ermidoro, 2020

A book about scribes with many references, including translations of ancient text.

[The author deepens the intellectual figure of the scribe (Buccellati, Origins, p. 41 = section 4.5), who has been considered as an important figure, so much so that he had a dedicated iconography (see the seated scribe at the Louvre [cf. pp. 32-33]); in fact, he had many skills including drawing and the ability to create the equipment necessary for his work. He recognized the importance of his role (see p. 34), and therefore passed his art down from generation to generation (see p. 35).]

– Jessica Scaciga, 2024

A paper useful to compare the different para-perceptions of the territory between the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians.

Cf. on this very topic 10.2.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«Inventing Ancient Culture discusses aspects of antiquity which we have tended to ignore. It asks the reader how far we have reinvented antiquity, by applying modern concepts and understandings to its study. Furthermore, it challenges the common notion that perceptions of the self, of modern societal and institutional structures, originated in the Enlightenment. Rather, the authors and contributors argue, there are many continuities and marked similarities between the classical and the modern world. Mark Golden and Peter Toohey have assembled a lively cast of contributors who analyse and argue about classical culture, its understandings of philosophy, friendship, the human body, sexuality and historiography» [Book’s description on editor’s website].

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

“Current theories and views on the differences in the ‘mind’ of human societies depend very much on a dichotomy between ‘advanced’ and ‘primitive’, or between ‘open’ and ‘closed’, or between ‘domesticated’ and ‘savage’, that is to say, between one of a whole variety of ‘we-they’ distinctions. Professor Goody argues that such an approach prevents any serious discussion of the mechanisms leading to long-term changes in the cognitive processes of human cultures or any adequate explanation of the changes in ‘traditional’ societies that are taking place in the world around us. In this book he attempts to provide the framework for a more satisfactory explanation by relating certain broad differences in ‘mentalities’ to the changes in the means of communication, and specifically to the series of shifts involved in the development of writing. The argument is based upon theoretical considerations, as well as empirical evidence derived from recent fieldwork in West Africa and the study of a wide range of source material on the ancient societies of the Near East” (Publisher’s description).

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

[See in detail note to 5.7].

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2020

A Festschrift collecting contributions very relevant to the topic of linguistic anthropology.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

The paper is part of of the seventh volume of the famous publication Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, for which see information at this link.

– Anatolii Viktorov, 2024

An excellent review of the processes of state formation in Europe, with ample references to Southwestern Asia, and, to a more limited extent, the Syro-Mesopotamian area. It weaves into one four important aspects of research. (1) With an insightful review of cultural processes, Guidi offers a broad synthetic approach that identifies the major interpretive trends in the field (see his comments in the preface, but also throughout the text, e.g., pp. 141, 176 ff.). (2) He has a keen eye for the nature and limitations of the archaeological data as the source for the interpretation of the phenomena (see, e.g., p. 190 f.); (3) Exhibiting a thorough command of the literature, he gives a very informative presentation of a number of theories developed over the years by various scholars, such as Sherratt’s article on pastoralism (p. 115 f.). (4) While he stresses that his book is not a manual, Guidi offers

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2013

[…]

– Giorgio Buccellati, 2020

A description of the development of language and writing according to structuralist and post-structuralist models of analysis.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

A useful, although dated, edition of the Code of Hammurapi, providing both the transliteration of the Akkadian text along with an English translation.

[The volume is useful as a reference for G. Buccellati’s mentions to the Code of Hammurapi.]

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

A book re-evaluationg the historical impact of Vere Gordon Childe in the development of the ideas of “Neolithic revolution” and “urban revolution”.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«The eleven contributions in this book address the history of contacts and exchanges in the Bronze and Iron Ages within West Asia, extending far beyond the boundaries of the previously defined contact zone of the ‘Ancient Near East’.

Cultural contacts and exchange are constituents of human behavior – ancient and modern. Within archaeology, particularly in that of Western Asia, the topic and related phenomena have been intensively studied during the last decades, leading to a re-evaluation of the cultural and economic, as well as physical landscapes throughout the ancient Near East. The eleven contributions in this book were delivered at a workshop held in 2016 at NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World by renowned experts in their fields. They address the history of contacts and exchanges in the Bronze and Iron Ages using case studies from different regions and based on different types of sources.

The contributions illustrate that the geographical dimension of cultural contacts and exchange networks within West Asia extends far beyond the boundaries of the previously defined contact zone of the ‘Ancient Near East’ and that other systems existed in adjacent regions (Egypt, Arabia as well as Iran, Central Asia, Africa, India, and South Asia), suggesting that the West Asian networks were also part of larger ones.

At the same time, it has become clear that a closer look at single case studies of specific material culture datasets is important to better understand the dynamics, scale(s), and extent of contacts and exchanges» (Publisher’s summary).

PDF available online at the following link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

In this book, the famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking discusses about some of the biggest questions about the universe, the human life, and its evolution. [Chapter 3 of this book is useful to further elaborate on the concept of language (and meta-perception) presented by Giorgio Buccellati in his book, section 1:6-7].

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

The basic bibliographical reference (even if a bit dated) for information about the ancient city of Karkemish/Jarablus.

[Online version at this link.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A brief presentation of the history and archaeology of the two cities of Karkemish and Karatepe, mostly focusing on the first millennium BC.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

“The Anthropocene defined as an epoch/series within the Geological Time Scale, and with an isochronous inception in the mid-20th century, would both utilize the rich array of stratigraphic signals associated with the Great Acceleration and align with Earth System science analysis from where the term Anthropocene originated. It would be stratigraphically robust and reflect the reality that our planet has far exceeded the range of natural variability for the Holocene Epoch/Series which it would terminate. An alternative, recently advanced, time-transgressive ‘geological event’ definition would decouple the Anthropocene from its stratigraphic characterisation and association with a major planetary perturbation. We find this proposed anthropogenic ‘event’ to be primarily an interdisciplinary concept in which historical, cultural and social processes and their global environmental impacts are all flexibly interpreted within a multi-scalar framework. It is very different from a stratigraphic-methods-based Anthropocene epoch/series designation, but as an anthropogenic phenomenon, if separately defined and differently named, might be usefully complementary to it” (Authors’ abstract).

[Urkesh/Tell Mozan is mentioned at pp. 232-233, with Figure 3 (adapted after Kelly Buccellati 2015 Power, p. 115, Figure 3) = Temple Terrace - BT. The monumental staircase of Urkesh is presented as an example of how archaeological chronology could fit also datings given by other sciences, in this case, Earth Sciences: “City states, irrigation farming, mining, bronze working, writing, mathematics, and organized religion had already become established during the preceding Northgrippian Age. On a local scale, the base of the Meghalayan Stage cuts through archaeological features, such as in the city of Tell Mozan (ancient Urkesh) in northern Mesopotamia. This isochronous boundary simply represents the need within Earth Sciences for an inflexible geological time framework, and it does not hinder archaeologists and social scientists who in any case use calendar years for measuring time. The boundary in fact helps connect historical/archaeological records with the geological time scale” (p. 233)]

PDF available at this link.

Alternative version online.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«From Colonial times through the 19^th century, European Americans advanced toward the west. This book explains the origins of territorial expansion and traces the course of Manifest Destiny to its culminating moment, the conquest of Mexico and the acquisition of the western territories. It also weighs major historical interpretations that have evolved over the years, from those praising expansionism to those condemning it as imperialistic and racist. A mixture of essays, biographical portraits, primary documents, a timeline, and an annotated bibliography gives students and researchers everything they need to begin their examination of this prominent and oft-disputed concept in American history.

Manifest Destiny opens with an overview that traces the causes and consequences of American expansionism. Six subsequent chapters cover topics varying from Andrew Jackson’s invasion of Spanish Florida and Indian removal to the settlement of Texas and the Oregon Question. Biographical portraits of Stephen Austin, James K. Polk, Osceola, Santa Ana, John O’Sullivan – the coiner of the phrase Manifest Destiny – and others provide personal glimpses of some of the era’s major players. Primary documents such as the Oregon Treaty of 1846, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and the Polk’s declaration of war against Mexico enable students to see actual historical evidence from the time period. A chronology, a glossary, and an index make this the most well-rounded and recent reference source on the topic» (Publisher’s summary).

[An historical reconstruction of the development and meaning of the concept of manifest destiny.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«Enheduana was a high priestess and royal princess who lived in Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, about 2300 BCE. Not only does Enheduana have the distinction of being the first author whose name we know, but the poems attributed to her are hymns of great power. They are a rare flash of the female voice in the often male-dominated ancient world, treating themes that are as relevant today as they were four thousand years ago: exile, social disruption, the power of storytelling, gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, and the terrifying forces of nature.

This book is the first complete translation of her poems from the original Sumerian. Sophus Helle’s translations replicate the intensity and imagery of the original hymns—literary time bombs that have lain buried for millennia. In addition to his translations, Helle provides background on the historical context in which Enheduana’s poems were composed and circulated, the works’ literary structure and themes, and their reception in both the ancient and the modern world.

Unjustly forgotten for millennia, Enheduana’s poems are essential reading for anyone interested in the literary history of women, religion, the environment, gender, motherhood, authorship, and empire» [Publisher’s website].

Cf. the companion website Enheduana.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«In this volume are published for the first time all of the 499 cuneiform tablets in the Asiatic Collection of the Oriental Institute Museum that come from the ancient administrative center of Puzrish-Dagan (modern Drehem) and date to the reign of Shulgi, the second ruler of the Ur III Dynasty (ca. 2094-2047 BC). One hundred twenty administrative documents from the business archive of Queen Shulgi-simtum are the highlight of this innovative text edition. The volume features a comprehensive catalog, transliterations of all cuneiform texts, complete indices and detailed analytical charts for all documents, as well as philological notes and illustrations for selected tablets» (Publisher’s summary).

[An edition of the administrative text from Puzrish-Dagan/Drehem, dated to the period of Shulgi (Ur III dynasty); cf. also Hilgert & Reichel 2003 Drehem for the text dated to Amar-Sin.]

PDF available online at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«A sequel to the author’s Cuneiform Texts from the Ur III Period in the Oriental Institute, Volume 1: Drehem Administrative Documents from the Reign of Shulgi (OIP 115), this volume is the editio princeps of the 605 cuneiform tablets in the Asiatic Collection of the Oriental Institute Museum that were found at the site of the ancient administrative center Puzrish-Dagan (modern tall ad-Duraihim, Drehem) and date to the reign of Amar-Suena (2046-2038 b.c.), the third ruler of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2112-2004 b.c.). Presented in a systematic arrangement that is based on both date and contents, these administrative documents may be considered indispensable primary sources for the study of the socio-economic, political, and religious history during the reign of Amar-Suena.

The volume features an annotated typology of Drehem administrative records from the reign of Amar-Suena, detailed philological commentaries on individual texts and text groups, transliterations of all documents, a complete glossary, extensive analytical charts, as well as illustrations (hand copies, photographs) of selected cuneiform tablets.

The sealing practice as attested on the sealed objects within this corpus is analyzed in an appendix by Clemens D. Reichel» (Publisher’s summary).

[An edition of the administrative text from Puzrish-Dagan/Drehem, dated to the period of Amar-Sin (Ur III dynasty); cf. also Hilgert 1998 Drehem for the text dated to Shulgi.]

PDF available online at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

– Giorgio Buccellati

A volume listing Semitic loanwords in the Egyptian language.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«The family has long been a haven in a heartless world, the one place immune to market forces and economic calculations, where the personal, the private, and the emotional hold sway. Yet as Arlie Russell Hochschild shows in The Outsourced Self, that is no longer the case: everything that was once part of private life—love, friendship, child rearing—is being transformed into packaged expertise to be sold back to confused, harried Americans. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and original research, Hochschild follows the incursions of the market into every stage of intimate life. From dating services that train you to be the CEO of your love life to wedding planners who create a couple’s “personal narrative”; from nameologists (who help you name your child) to wantologists (who help you name your goals); from commercial surrogate farms in India to hired mourners who will scatter your loved one’s ashes in the ocean of your choice—Hochschild reveals a world in which the most intuitive and emotional of human acts have become work for hire. Sharp and clear-eyed, Hochschild is full of sympathy for overstressed, outsourcing Americans, even as she warns of the market’s threat to the personal realm they are striving so hard to preserve» (from editor’s webpage).

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

«This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the role of spirituality and religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies. Involving an eminent group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume examines Çatal Höyük as a case study. A nine-thousand-year old town in central Turkey, Çatal Höyük was first excavated in the 1960s and has since become integral to understanding the symbolic and ritual worlds of the early farmers and village-dwellers in the Middle East. It is thus an ideal location for exploring theories about the role of religion in early settled life. This book provides a unique overview of current debates concerning religion and its historical variations. Through exploration of themes including the integration of the spiritual and the material, the role of belief in religion, the cognitive bases for religion, and religion’s social roles, this book situates the results from Çatal Höyük within a broader understanding of the Neolithic in the Middle East» (description on editor’s webpage).

The complex and ancient site of Çatal Höyük, in Konya Plain (Anatolia), is here presented by Ian Hodder (the director of the excavations) as a study case in the emergence and development of the concept of religion in ancient Turkey and generally in ancient Near East, at the dawn of the Neolithic Period.

Hodder starts by presenting a basic methodological question: how to prove the presence of a religious thoughts in a so ancient site? The answer involves an interdisciplinary approach, a project which is wholly presented in this first chapter, discussing about the history and background of the project, asking how to approach the topic under an archaeological perspective, able to detect (or to decode) the traces of ancient spiritual thought and transcendentality in so ancient times, wandering how violence and death could contribute in the emergence of religiosity.

Later chapters deal with the symbolism of Çatal Höyük in its regional context, «to situate the symbolism and ritual at Çatal Höyük in the wider context of eastern Turkey and the Middle East» (p. 32), offering parallelisms with other Anatolian and Near Easter ancient sites.

Hodder concludes with some basic questions: a) «How can archaeologists recognize the spiritual, religious and transcendent in early time periods»?; b) «Are changes in spiritual life and religious ritual a necessary prelude to the social and economic changes that lead to ‘civilization’»?; c) «Do human forms take on a central role in the spirit world in the early Holocene, and, if so, does this centrality lead to new conceptions of human agency that themselves provide the possibility for the domestication of plants and animals?»; d) «Do violence and death act as the loci of transcendent religious experience during the transitions of the early Holocene in the Middle East, and are such themes central to the creation of social life in the first large agglomerations of people?». The respective answers to such questions surely represent the most important goal and achievement of the entire volume.

[The volume helps the reader in better define the origins of concepts like ‘time’, ‘space’, and social structures, moving from the ‘meta-perception’ of a shared spirituality.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

An English translation of many Hittite and Hurrian myths.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Steven Holloway’s work is the first monograph devoted to Neo-Assyrian religious imperialism. Neo Assyrian religious imperialism was expressed by punitive measures such as “godnapping”, the violent deportation of a vanquished foe’s divine images, but also, and this is a far less-studied facet of this topic, by the geographical focus and extent of the material support the Assyrians lavished on favored polities, in effect a Marshall Plan aimed at winning over the elite citizenry pivotal to maintaining economic and political equilibrium» (abstract from publisher’s webpage).

[This publication focuses on the role played by the figure of the god Assur in establishing a strong political power during the Neo-Assyrian period. This effort undertaken by the Neo-Assyrian kings to qualify them as sovereign on behalf of the god’s will clearly exemplifies the relationships between political power and religion in the Neo-Assyrian kingdom; cf. also Liverani 2017 Assyria.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

«Qraya is a small site on the middle Euphrates in Western Syria: excavations carried out between 1977 and 1984 gave abundant evidence for late fourth millennium occupation. The diminutive size of the site and the lack of monumental architecture indicates that this was not an urban site; and yet, some of the vessels, in particular the so-called beveled rim bowls, were found in very large quantities, such as are normally associated with large scale activities typical of early urbanism. An experiment was carried out in 1989 to test the hypothesis that these vessels could be used in the production of salt destined for the large contemporary cities in the north (where salt was lacking). At Qraya, salt could be procured in raw form in the nearby playas of Bouara, and could be processed easily with the abundant water from the Euphrates river. The experiment was successful, and it is presented here in full detail. The whole inventory of artifacts found at the site can be explained in function of the process entailed in the production of salt. The beveled rim bowls, in particular, can be seen to have served as ideal vessels for both the production and the conservation of salt. Importantly, this speaks to a unusual trade model, one that was initiated by the cities in the north specifically to exploit a distant natural resource (the salt from the playa), by processing it and shipping it to the cities in the north» (Authors’ abstract).

Cf. also Buccellati Kelly Buccellati 1988 Qraya, Buccellati 1990 Salt, and Buccellati 1990 Qraya.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A condensed, but complete, edition (with transliteration and English translation) of the Egyptian funerary text known as Amduat (“What Is in The Duat”).

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«The volume […] offers an overview of the study of emotions in ancient texts, discusses the concept of emotions in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and shows how emotions are described in the ancient texts. In the section dedicated to Ancient Egypt, scholars discuss emotions such as fear, depression, anger, feelings of pain, envy, jealousy and greed, with evidence from different text genres, as well as emotions from the Late Ramesside Letters and royal inscriptions. In the section dedicated to Ancient Mesopotamia, scholars present a wide range of perspectives on Sumerian and Akkadian literary and archival texts that treat emotions in different periods» (Publisher’s summary).

The Expression of Emotions in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia by Shih-Wei Hsu and Jaume Llop Raduà serves as an introductory volume that seeks to explore the complex and multifaceted ways in which emotions were expressed, understood, and represented in two of the ancient world’s most significant civilizations – Egypt and Mesopotamia. The authors aim to provide readers with an overview of how emotions were embedded in the cultural, religious, and social frameworks of these ancient societies, highlighting both similarities and differences in emotional expression across the two regions.

The thematic focus on emotions as a cultural construct is another key strength of the work. Hsu and Llop Raduà emphasize that emotions in these ancient societies were not merely individual psychological experiences but were deeply intertwined with societal norms, religious beliefs, and political ideologies. This approach aligns with current scholarly trends that view emotions as culturally and historically specific rather than universal and timeless.

[The authors’ insistence on situating emotions within their broader cultural contexts is particularly valuable, as it challenges earlier studies that may have taken a more universalist approach to the study of emotions in ancient civilizations.

Additionally, while the authors do a commendable job of synthesizing a wide range of sources, there is occasionally a lack of critical engagement with the historiography of emotions. The study of emotions in history, particularly in non-Western contexts, has evolved significantly in recent years, and it would have been beneficial for the authors to more explicitly situate their work within this broader scholarly discourse. A more thorough discussion of how their findings contribute to or challenge existing theories of emotions in historical contexts would have strengthened the work’s academic impact.]

PDF available online on BRILL.

[maybe write a review ? - ZI825 mDP]

– Saikat Mukherjee, 2024

«In his essay, Dr. Hudson argues that the forces unleashed in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago must be clearly understood if we are to solve contemporary problems like private poverty and public indebtedness. […]

Temples and the palace typically were creditors, especially in Bronze Age Mesopotamia. However, private debts with the land pledged as collateral led to its forfeiture for arrears. Personal indebtedness was the catalyst for transferring subsistence lands to absentee owners, in epochs when the outright sale or alienation of land was prohibited for more than just a temporary period» (from Author’s introduction).

Available online at this link

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

In this paper (reprinted in 2024 with some changes), the Author put forward some interesting ideas related to the development of the first cities and political entities in the Ancient Near East (mostly Asia Minor, specifically Çatal-Höyük, and Mesopotamia):

1. the possible existence, at the beginning of city development, of amphictyonic sites like those well known in Greece;
2. that the first cities grew up not because of common (i.e., shared) dynamics but instead by virtue of “a combination of increasing population density and new technologies” (p. 213), leading to the development of specialized economic functions;
3. the relevance of the palace and temple institutions, entrusted of a commercial and industrial role;
4. the recognition of an ecological imperative to trade (mostly in Southern Mesopotamia);
5. the need of a cosmopolitan neutrality for the development of the first cities (already, at least, in the 6^th mill. BC;
6. the absence of walls or defensive systems in the earliest cities;
7. the centrality of the city-temples, perceived by the Author as “archaic urban sites [which] served as neutral zones for diverse groups to come together to transact arms-length commerce under the umbrella of common agreed-upon rules” (p. 214, an idea similar to that of the “primitive democracy” expressed in Jacobsen 1970 Towards, for which see the section History of the discipline);
8. the location of the first cities at “boundaries or natural crossroads between diverse communities” (p. 214);
9. the definition of the political status of the aforementioned first cities which “hardly would have been centers of political control over the land” (p. 214).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«The twelve articles collected in this volume describe how the most basic features of Western economic organization – money, markets, land tenure and enterprise – were created in the temples and palaces of the ancient Near East.

The perspective on these topics originated in the five international colloquia organized by the Institute for the Study of Long-term Economic Trends (ISLET) with Harvard University’s Peabody Museum from 1994 to 2015.

When these meetings began, most Assyriology, Egyptology and classical studies tended to accept the views of modern economic orthodoxy. Archaic social values were so different from today’s views that there was resistance to recognizing the extent to which the Bronze Age economic takeoff, 3500-1200 BC, followed policies radically unlike our own» (from Author’s website).

[The volume, which collects the reprinting of twelve papers written by the Author during the last three decades, is very informative for what concerns social and economic dynamics in the context of ancient Near Eastern institutions like the temple and the palace.

Some chapters are particularly relevant to the topics discussed in the present companion website:

• I.1: “Origins of Money and Interest: Palatial Credit, not Barter” (2020)
• II.6: “How the Organization of Labor Shaped Civilization’s Takeoff” (2015)
• II.7: “Land Tenure: From Fiscal Origins to Financialization” (1998)
• III.10: “From Sacred Enclave to Temple to City” (1999) [Hudson 2024 Enclave]
• III.11: “Enterpreneurs: From the Near Eastern Takeoff to the Roman Collapse (2010) ]

Author’s presentation of the book available on YouTube.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

[Usually abbreviated as “HZL”; cf. Ruster- Neu 1989 H Z L.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«The article presents the results of the second archaeological campaign from Asingeran, located in the eastern sector of the Navkur Plain in Iraqi Kurdistan (Iraq). The focus lay on the extensive Chalcolithic phases, with special attention to the settlement development from the Early Middle Chalcolithic (roughly corresponding to the Northern Ubaid Period) to the Late Chalcolithic. The results achieved are used to provide an initial description of the socio-economic processes characterizing the site during the 5th and 4th mill. BCE» (Authors’ abstract).

[The paper is helpful in better understanding the shaping and development of water management systems in the fourth and third millennium BC, in Southern Mesopotamia.]

PDF available here.

Alternative PDF can be found at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

An interesting volume describing how the environment and climate changes impatced on the history of ancient Mesopotamia, from the fourth to the first millennium BC.

Available online at this link).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«This survey of the ancient levels of lakes, rivers and the sea, as well as changes in the compositions of stalagmites and sediments reveals an astonishing correlation of climate changes with the emergence and collapse of civilizations in the Middle East. The authors conclude that climate change has been the decisive factor in the history surrounding the origins of the ‘cradle of civilization’» (Publisher’s summary).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A short English summary can be found at the end of the book, pp. 368-375.

«Not a single contemporary Byzantine source mentions the Christianization of Ethiopia in the fifth century, the Byzantine attempts to convert Persia at the end of the sixth, the creation of the Slavic alphabet in the ninth, or the baptism of Rus’ in the tenth. These great achievements of Eastern Christianity left the Byzantines themselves perfectly indifferent. Byzantium produced a number of ardent and committed missionaries, but much more visible were the Greek intellectuals who believed that it was easier “to whitewash and Ethiopian” than to Christianize a barbarian. When Leo V acquainted the pagan Bulgars with the Christian sacraments, Theophanes Continuatus castigated him for “casting the pearls of faith before the swine”. In the end, the missionary zeal of a few enthusiasts lost out to the haughty isolationism of Empire. Pearls before the Swine focuses on the complex relationship between the Christian pledge to “teach all nations” and Greek cultural snobbery» (abstract of the English edition: Pearls Before Swine: Missionary Work in Byzantium, Paris: Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2015).

– Anatolii Viktorov, 2024

A very interesting presentation of Mesopotamian rulers as shepherds.

PDF available on Academia.edu.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«The incentive to the studies here presented was furnished by the excavations of the Oriental Institute at Tell Asmar. When in the season of 1931/32 we opened up strata of Agade and Early Dynastic times, the chronology of these periods naturally occupied our thoughts greatly, and the author felt prompted to resume earlier, more perfunctory studies of the Sumerian King List. The main ideas embodied in the present work took shape that season in the evenings, after days spent in the houses and among the remains of the periods with which the King List deals. The detailed working-out and repeated testing of these ideas have occupied much of the author’s time in the years since then. He releases them – although he feels that they will continue to occupy his thoughts for a long time yet – in the sincere hope that they will prove fruitful to other workers in this field and contribute toward better understanding of the innumerable chronological problems which still await solution» (from the preface).

PDF available online at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Thorkild Jacobsen has made extensive contributions to the study of ancient Mesopotamian civilization. In this valuable volume, William L. Moran has collected seventeen of Jacobsen’s essays and has included a bibliography of and a lexical index to his writings. Covering religion, history, culture, government, economics, and grammar, the essays are representative of all aspects of Jacobsen’s work, but stress his studies in history and religion» [Book description].

Electronic version available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

A fundamental work about history, historiography, and philosophy of history.

[Relevant to the discussion in Chapter 1.2 about the “first Axial Age”.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Few texts have shaped more lastingly our understanding of the essence of urbanity and the social consequences of urbanization than Georg Simmel’s essay on “The Metropolis and Mental Life”, published first a hundred years ago. The subject of this contribution is the impact of the Metropolis on Simmel’s own mental life. The main focus is on the sociologist’s relationship with his home city Berlin. The methodological principle of reading Simmel’s city texts biographically is played out in four episodes: Berlin the workers city, Berlin amusement culture, Berlin as seen from Rome, and Berlin in World War I. The episodes are connected in that throughout his life Simmel seems to have developed a growing antipathy towards the circumstances of urban life forms. The range of resentments goes from disgust with the sordid manifestations of urban plight to hate towards the self-indulgence of the rich. What remains open is why Simmel to this day is seen as urbanist (and modernist) par excellence, although he has left an oeuvre in which anti-urban (and anti-modern) affects can hardly go unrecognized» [Author’s summary].

– Giorgio Buccellati

A very interesting discussion about many hypotheses on the origin of human language(s).

PDF of the English version available here.

PDF of the Italian translation available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

In this book the author offers some interesting thoughts, supported by archaeological and anthropolical data, about the origins of language.

[Despite the relevance of the Author’s historical reconstruction, it seems worth noticing the absense of any discussion on Noam Chomsky’s theories.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A recent edition of the Enūma elīš.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

An edition of the economic text found at Puzrish-Dagan/Drehem.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

It is an idea, not a proper historical treatment, which would be necessary if we wanted to go into details (p. 30). The idea may seem strange, as if the author only wanted to write a novel (es scheint, in einer solchen Absicht könne nur ein Roman zu Stande kommen p. 29: 9-10). But this idea is particularly interesting for our topic because it develops a “common thread” that reproduces very closely the sequence of institutional transformations outlined in my essay.

In the fourth thesis (pp. 20-22), for instance, the concept of tension (Neigung 20:34, Anspannung der Kräfte 21:37) is developed in the case of the contrast inherent in the “unsociable sociability” (ungesellige Geselligkeit) of men. This is developed further in the fifth thesis (p. 22), where civil society is described as a closed enclosure (Gehege 22:26), where trees, confined to a confined space, are forced to grow more tall and straight, while art and culture are the fruit of insecurity (Früchte der Ungeselligkeit 22:33).

The law of equilibrium between states (Gesetz des Gleichgewichts 26: 9) is the one that alone can lead to a real “cosmopolitan order” (ein allgemeiner weltbürgerlicher Zustand 28: 34-35). The concept of cosmopolis is often found elsewhere in Kant, who sees it as a “great future federation of states” (zu einem künftigen großen Staatskörper 28:28). His contemporary description of the situation sounds strongly contemporary to us: “Our leaders of world politics no longer have money for public cultural activities, or indeed for anything else that serves the good of the world, because they have already reserved everything for the wars to come” (unsere Weltregierer zu öffentlichen Erziehungsanstalten und überhaupt zu allem, was das Weltbeste betrifft, für jetzt kein Geld übrig haben, weil alles auf den künftigen Krieg schon zum voraus verrechnet ist 28: 15-18)!

The concept of nature as an active agent recurs throughout the essay, but in the fourth thesis Kant makes more specific reference to “a wise creator” (die Anordnung eines weisen Schöpfers 22: 2) and in the ninth and last thesis he speaks of “justification of nature, or rather of providence” (Rechtfertigung der Natur – oder besser der Vorsehung 30:19) and of the “great theater of the greatest wisdom, the history of the human species” (der Theil des großen Schauplatzes der obersten Weisheit, … – die Geschichte des menschlichen Geschlechts 30: 23-25).

– Giorgio Buccellati

At Urkesh some andirons (also called in literature ‘firedogs’) have been uncovered: these finds also strengthen the relationship between Urkesh and the Ealy Trans-Caucasian culture (ETC), extending in modern Georgia and Armenia. The possible ancient trade routes are reconstructed, also speculating about the system of control of these important zones (mostly the Mardin pass, just to the North of Tell Mozan): to strengthen the idea of contacts between Urkesh, Early Anatolia and ETC, sealings and seals decorations and motifs are compared, underlining communal way of carvings and of portraying images.

PDF available here.

Extended anstract at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2022

Apprenticeship and its mechanisms are the topic of this paper, focusing not only in Urkesh, but broadening the discussion also to ancient Mesopotamia and Syria as a whole discourse. This transmission of knowledge and consciousness is investigated in this paper both under a direct way (from teacher to student) and an indirect one, through emulation or experimentation. As far as archaeology concerns this discourse, the concept of ‘broken tradition’ emerges as a key-topic. Evidence for apprenticeship are investigated, analysing the role of scribes, of seal carvers and the function of ancient ‘tablet houses’ (ancient methods of apprenticeship are reported), mostly during the Old Babylonian period. As for Urkesh, the author recalls the founding at Urkesh of a school tablet, showing practice on the reverse. Reverence for traditional or ancient knowledge is exemplified by the practice of seal carving, whose training cannot be, unfortunately, better regained.

Extended abstract on Urkesh/E-Library.

PDF available here.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

This paper tries to reconstruct both the ancient political and personal identities of Urkesh and its inhabitants, analysing both an ‘urban’ and a ‘personal’ identity. After an introduction about the definition of the concept of ‘identity’, here perceived as both ‘relational’ and ‘contextual’, the author shows how these two features can be outlined thanks to Urkesh evidence and, above all, throughout its rich glyptic material.

Extended abstract on Urkesh/E-Library.

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

«Hurrian religious concepts differed notably from Mesopotamian ones. In the ancient city of Urkesh (modern Tell Mozan) we have found, through our excavations, evidence for the awareness and ritual adoption of both Hurrian and Mesopotamian religious practices. Most notable for Hurrian religion is the monumental abi constructed as an underground shaft lined with stones and containing a series of stratified magic circles. The abi rituals, known from Hurrian texts found in later Hittite archives, focus on calling up deities of the Netherworld. Mesopotamian religious practices are exemplified by an Akkadian period seal with a scene of the enactment of a sacrifice and by altanni vessels of which we have excavated one complete and a number of incomplete examples. The 4^th millennium temple terrace had already constructed on it a niched building on a low platform, presumably a temple of a type known in the south. Temple BA and a stone revetment wall were built in Early Dynastic III. Serious efforts were made to protect the base of this wall. The Temple Plaza has a unique stratigraphy in that it was kept clean for over a thousand years. The explanation for this enigma connects Urkesh with the Kura-Araxes culture to the north» [Author’s abstract on p. 97).

PDF available at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

[Available online on JSTOR.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

[Available online on JSTOR.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

[Available online on JSTOR.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A volume very rich in details about many aspects of archaeology of the ancient Egyptian culture.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

This publication offers information, description, and pictures of some cuneiform inscriptions from Kouyunjik (Nineveh). Supplement to: Bezold 1889- 1899 Catalogue.

PDF (1) available here

PDF (2) available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

A publication made of three volumes with the transliteration and English translation of many ancient Near Eastern treaties, including also the Egyptian-Hittite treaty, ca. 1259 BC (Vol. 1, pp. 573-594, texts 71A-B).

The work is divided as follow:

• Vol. 1: “Part 1: The Texts”;
• Vol. 2: “Part 2: Text, Notes and Chromograms”;
• Vol. 3: “Part 3: Overall Historical Survey”.

[Cf., for the Egyptian-Hittite treaty, Edel 1997 Vertrag.]

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

A general introduction about the gods of judgement in ancient Mesopotamia.

Available online on Rd Aonline at this link.

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

«A history of the ancient city credited with establishing the foundations of modern civilization documents its rise and fall over thousands of years and includes coverage of its politics, social systems and technical innovations» (publisher’s summary).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

This book presents the English translation of many texts included under the modern label of “Mesopotamian wisdom literature”; we speak about ‘modern label’, since the existence in antiquity of a specific ‘wisdom genre’ is currently still debated.

After an Introduction and a Time chart, the author offers the English translation of the following ‘wisdom text’: “The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer (Ludlul bēl nēmeqi)”, the Babylonian Theodicy”, “Precepts and Admonitions”, “Preceptive Hymns”, The Dialogue of the Pessimism”, “Fables or Contest Literature”, “Popular Sayings”, and “Proverbs”.

The volume is complemented by critical and philological notes, lists of word discussed and translated tablets, and facsimiles of the cuneiform original texts.

PDF preview of 1996 reprint available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

A recent edition of the Babylonian creation myths, including the Enūma elīš.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

The author publishes in this volume the Annals of Ashurbanapal, providing the reader with both the Akkadian text and its English translation.

[This text is an example of Neo-Assyrian royal annals, mentioned by G. Buccellati in his book.]

PDF preview available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A basic glossary of the Hurrian language, a useful and easy-researchable tool for Hurrian lexis. Despite many studies had been presented after the publication of Laroche’s Glossaire (see e.g. Giorgieri, Mauro 2000a, Schizzo grammaticale della lingua hurrica, La civilità dei Hurriti = La parola del passato 55, Napoli: Macchiaroli Editore, pp. 171-277; Giorgieri, Mauro 2000b, L’onomastica hurrita, La civilità dei Hurriti = La parola del passato 55, Napoli: Macchiaroli Editore, pp. 278-295; de Martino, Stefano and Giorgieri, Mauro 2008, Literatur zum Hurritischen Lexikon (LHL). Band 1: A, Eothen, Firenze: LoGisma ed.) his work still remains the key reference for Hurrian terminology.

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

An iconographical analysis of the tribute bearers on the ‘Standard of Ur’ (British Museum, BM 121201, ca. 2500 BC).

PDF available online on JSTOR and UCP Journal (subscription required).

– Marco De Pietri, 2024

This publication offers some autographs of cuneiform inscriptions related to topics presented in this publication.

PDF available here

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

This publication offers some autographs of cuneiform inscriptions related to topics presented in this publication.

– Marco De Pietri, 2021

M. Liverani offer a review to G. Buccellati’s work on the history and archaeology of the Amorites during Ur III period, defined by the reviewer as a key-point for any study on this topic. The author further discusses the problem of Amorites’ designation and definition (both as an archaeological and a philological entity, mostly focusing of the equation of Amorites with MAR.TU people), in the light of earlier and more recent onomastic data, archaeological information, and historical interpretations about these ancient people.

PDF available here.

Alternative online version on JSTOR.

See also abstract.

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

A very useful ‘handbook’ about the so-called cosmopolitan period, specifically for what concerns internationl diplomacy and warfare.

– Marco De Pietri, 0001

– Marco De Pietri, 2023

An Italian translation, including a very good commentaries, of the ‘Amarna letters’ exchanged between the ‘Small Kings.’

– Marco De Pietri, 2024