The cultures of Nubia built the earliest cities, states, and empires of inner Africa, but they remain relatively poorly known outside their modern descendants and the community of archaeologists, historians, and art historians researching them. The earliest archaeological work in Nubia was motivated by the region's role as neighbor, trade partner, and enemy of ancient Egypt. Increasingly, however, ancient Nile-based Nubian cultures are recognized in their own right as the earliest complex societies in inner Africa. As agro-pastoral cultures, Nubian settlement, economy, political organization, and religious ideologies were often organized differently from those of the urban, bureaucratic, and predominantly agricultural states of Egypt and the ancient Near East. Nubian societies are thus of great interest in comparative study, and are also recognized for their broader impact on the histories of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia brings together chapters by an international group of scholars on a wide variety of topics that relate to the history and archaeology of the region. After important introductory chapters on the history of research in Nubia and on its climate and physical environment, the largest part of the volume focuses on the sequence of cultures that lead almost to the present day. Several cross-cutting themes are woven through these chapters, including essays on desert cultures and on Nubians in Egypt. Eleven final chapters synthesize subjects across all historical phases, including gender and the body, economy and trade, landscape archaeology, iron working, and stone quarrying.

Stretching across the historical region of Mesopotamia, the Akkadian dynasty (ca. 2334-2154 BCE) created a territorial state of unprecedented scale in the ancient Near East by uniting the city-states of Sumer and Akkad and parts of Syria and Iran. To establish and, later, cement their authority over disparate peoples and places, the kings used art and visual culture to extraordinary effect. Exemplars of Kingship conveys the astonishing life of the art of the Akkadian kings by assessing ancient and modern responses to its dynamic forms and transformative ideologies of kingship. For nearly two thousand years after their reign, the Akkadian kings were remembered as exemplary rulers. Modern assessments of ancient memories of Akkadian kingship have concentrated on textual attestations of the kings' place in cultural memory. This book considers the contributions of images to memories of Akkadian kingship. Through close readings of the visuals that remain, Melissa Eppihimer discusses how Akkadian steles, statues, and cylinder seals became models for later rulers in Mesopotamia and beyond who wished to emulate or critique the Akkadian kings-and how these rulers and their contemporaries were reminded of the Akkadian past when they looked at images. Exemplars of Kingship is, therefore, a book about Akkadian art and its reception in antiquity, but it is also concerned with the modern reception of Akkadian art and kingship. It argues that modern responses have constrained our understanding of ancient responses. Through a wide range of examples drawn from almost two millennia, the book highlights the individual decisions that prompted continuity and change during the long history of Mesopotamia and its artistic traditions.

The first book of its kind to be published for a general readership from youngsters upwards, Hidden in the Sands: Uncovering Qatar's Past is the fascinating, fun and educational story of Qatar's heritage and the exciting discoveries being made by archaeologists. This informative and delightful book is published through the generosity of Maersk Oil as part of its programme to support education and unlock Qatar's history and heritage. Hidden beneath the sand and sea and revealed on rocks are the clues which explain why this ancient land has been such a key region throughout history. Here you can follow the detective work of archaeologists and discover Qatar's rich past. In conjunction with a fully interactive website and also available in an Arabic edition, Hidden in the Sands describes in words and pictures the treasures uncovered by archaeologists, the methods they use, and the significance of their discoveries. Today, using state-of-the-art technology for excavation, dating and conservation, teams of experts are working all over Qatar to reconstruct its past. Hidden in the Sands is fully illustrated with photographs, maps and diagrams, and embellished by the vivid and evocative illustrations of the artist Norman MacDonald. Told simply and with in-depth and up-to-date detail, it leads readers through the fascinating world of archaeology. Like reconstructing an earthenware jar from a hundred little shards, this work pieces together the fragments of the past to produce a complete and beautiful whole.

Near Eastern archaeology is generally represented as a succession of empires with little attention paid to the individuals, labelled as terrorists at the time, that brought them down. Their stories, when viewed against the backdrop of current violent extremism in the Middle East, can provide a unique long-term perspective. Extremism, Ancient and Modern brings long-forgotten pasts to bear on the narratives of radical groups today, recognizing the historical bases and specific cultural contexts for their highly charged ideologies. The author, with expertise in Middle Eastern archaeology and counter-terrorism work, provides a unique viewpoint on a relatively under-researched subject. This timely volume will interest a wide readership, from undergraduate and graduate students of archaeology, history and politics, to a general audience with an interest in the deep historical narratives of extremism and their impact on today's political climate.

With contributions spanning from the Neolithic Age to the Iron Age, this book offers important insights into the religions and ritual practices in ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern communities through the lenses of their material remains. The book begins with a theoretical introduction to the concept of material religion and features editor introductions to each of its six parts, which tackle the following themes: the human body; religious architecture; the written word; sacred images; the spirituality of animals; and the sacred role of the landscape. Illustrated with over 100 images, chapters provide insight into every element of religion and materiality, from the largest building to the smallest amulet. This is a benchmark work for further studies on material religion in the ancient Near East and Egypt.

The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world's earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BC. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing and the wheel, and therefore hold an ancient mirror to our own urban, literate world. But is this picture correct? Paul Collins reveals how the idea of a Sumerian people was assembled from the archaeological and textual evidence uncovered in Iraq and Syria over the last 150 years. Reconstructed through the biases of those who unearthed them, the Sumerians were never simply lost and found, but reinvented a number of times, both in antiquity and in the more recent past.

This volume is a critical study of recent archaeology in the Western Wall Plaza area, Jerusalem. Considered one of the holiest places on Earth for Jews and Muslims, it is also a place of controversy, where the State marks 'our' remains for preservation and adoration and 'theirs' for silencing. Based on thousands of documents from the Israel Antiquities Authority and other sources, such as protocols of planning committees, readers can explore for the first time this archaeological 'heart of darkness' in East Jerusalem. The book follows a series of unique discoveries, reviewing the approval and execution of development plans and excavations, and the use of the areas once excavation has finished. Who decides what and how to excavate, what to preserve - or 'remove'? Who pays for the archaeology, for what aims? The professional, scientific archaeology of the past happens now: it modifies the present and is modified by it. This book 'excavates' the archaeology of East Jerusalem to reveal its social and political contexts, power structures and ethics. Readers interested in the history, archaeology and politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find this book useful, as well as scholars and students of the history and ethics of Archaeology, Jerusalem, conservation, nationalism, and heritage.

An in-depth and beautifully illustrated look at one of the most revered works of antiquity, the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon In the ancient Near East, expert craftspeople were more than technicians: they numbered among those special members of society who could access the divine. While the artisans' names are largely unknown today, their legacy remains in the form of spectacular artworks and monuments. One of the most celebrated works of antiquity-Babylon's Ishtar Gate and its affiliated Processional Way-featured a dazzling array of colorful beasts assembled from molded, baked, and glazed bricks. Such an awe-inspiring structure demanded the highest level of craft; each animal was created from dozens of bricks that interlocked like a jigsaw. Yet this display of technical and artistic skill also served a ritual purpose, since the Gate provided a divinely protected entrance to the sacred inner city of Babylon. A Wonder to Behold explores ancient Near Eastern ideas about the transformative power of materials and craftsmanship as they relate to the Ishtar Gate. This beautifully illustrated catalogue accompanies an exhibition at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Essays by archaeologists, art historians, curators, conservators, and text specialists examine a wide variety of artifacts from major American and European institutions. Contributors include Anastasia Amrhein, Heather Baker, Jean-Francois de Laperouse, Eduardo Escobar, Anja Fugert, Sarah Graff, Helen Gries, Elizabeth Knott, Katherine Larson, Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Shiyanthi Thavapalan, and May-Sarah Zessin. Distributed for the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University Exhibition Schedule Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University Exhibition Dates: November 6, 2019-May 24, 2020

Antiquities have been pawns in empire-building and global rivalries; power struggles; assertions of national and cultural identities; and cross-cultural exchanges, cooperation, abuses, and misunderstandings—all with the underlying element of financial gain. Indeed, “who owns antiquity?� is a contentious question in many of today’s international conflicts. About Antiquities offers an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between archaeology and empire-building around the turn of the twentieth century. Starting at Istanbul and focusing on antiquities from the Ottoman territories, Zeynep Çelik examines the popular discourse surrounding claims to the past in London, Paris, Berlin, and New York. She compares and contrasts the experiences of two museums—Istanbul’s Imperial Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—that aspired to emulate European collections and gain the prestige and power of owning the material fragments of ancient history. Going beyond institutions, Çelik also unravels the complicated interactions among individuals—Westerners, Ottoman decision makers and officials, and local laborers—and their competing stakes in antiquities from such legendary sites as Ephesus, Pergamon, and Babylon. Recovering perspectives that have been lost in histories of archaeology, particularly those of the excavation laborers whose voices have never been heard, About Antiquities provides important historical context for current controversies surrounding nation-building and the ownership of the past.

Peripheral Concerns examines the influence of one "core" region of the ancient Near Eastern world-Egypt-on urban development in the southern Levant in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, with emphasis on the relative stability and sustainability of this development in each era. The study utilizes a very broad scale "macro" approach to examine urban development using core-periphery theories, specifically in regard to southern Levantine-Egyptian interactions.While many studies examine urban development in both the Early Bronze Age and the Middle Bronze Age, few compare this phenomenon in the two periods. Likewise, there are few studies of urban development in the southern Levant that compare contemporary Egyptian policies in that region to those in Nubia, despite the fact that Egyptian activities linked the eastern Mediterranean, the Nile Valley, and Nubia into one interactive system. The broad chronological and geographic framework utilized in this study therefore allows for a new approach to urban development in the southern Levant.

In the Ancient Near East, cutting off someone's head was a unique act, not comparable to other types of mutilation, and therefore charged with a special symbolic and communicative significance. This book examines representations of decapitation in both images and texts, particularly in the context of war, from a trans-chronological perspective that aims to shed light on some of the conditions, relationships and meanings of this specific act. The severed head is a "coveted object" for the many individuals who interact with it and determine its fate, and the act itself appears to take on the hallmarks of a ritual. Drawing mainly on the evidence from Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia between the third and first millennia BC, and with reference to examples from prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian Period, this fascinating study will be of interest not only to art historians, but to anyone interested in the dynamics of war in the ancient world.

Persian cities are part of a corridor of civilisation with settlements straddling thousands of years. Taking Maibud as a case study, Eisa Esfanjary traces the evolution of ancient settlements chronologically, thematically and methodologically. Maibud provides the basis from which a new interpretive approach is developed, being a city that has a history of several millennia yet has a scale that renders it manageable with archaeological remains that range across several phases of building development. An archetypal example of middle-sized Persian cities, it affords insights into the entire urban landscape and its spatial, functional and morphological iterations. Within this overall picture, a methodology is developed to explore various morphological elements of the city, the three key components of which are the town plan, the building type, and construction materials. The inter-relationships between these three components are explained in order to formulate an approach to support the management and conservation of the historic urban landscape. Combining a rigorous survey and observation of the standing structures with scarce archaeological and written sources, this book sheds light on Islamic urbanism in general and Islamic urbanism in Iran particularly.

Since its publication in 1982, the Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan has become the main reference work for the archaeology of Afghanistan, and the standard sites and monuments record for the region; archaeological sites are now referred to under their Gazetteer catalogue number as routine in academic literature, and the volume has become a key text for developing research in the area. This revised and updated edition has been significantly expanded to incorporate new field-work and discoveries, as well as older field-work more recently published, and presents new cases of synthesis and unpublished material from private archives. New discoveries include the Rabatak inscription detailing the genealogy of the Kushan kings, a huge archive of Bactrian documents, Aramaic documents from Balkh on the last days of the Persian empire, a new Greek inscription from Kandahar, two tons of coins from Mir Zakah, a Sasanian relief of Shapur at Rag-i Bibi, a Buddhist monastic 'city' at Kharwar, new discoveries of Buddhist art at Mes Aynak and Tepe Narenj, and a newly revealed city at the Minaret of Jam. With over 1500 catalogue entries, supplemented with concordance material, site plans, drawings, and detailed maps prepared from satellite imagery, the Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan: Revised Edition is the most comprehensive reference work on the archaeology and monuments of the region ever undertaken. Cataloguing all recorded sites and monuments from the earliest times to the Timurid period, this volume will be an invaluable contribution to the renewed interest in Afghanistan's cultural heritage and an essential resource for students and researchers.

Place, Memory, and Healing: An Archaeology of Anatolian Rock Monuments investigates the complex and deep histories of places, how they served as sites of memory and belonging for local communities over the centuries, and how they were appropriated and monumentalized in the hands of the political elites. Focusing on Anatolian rock monuments carved into the living rock at watery landscapes during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, this book develops an archaeology of place as a theory of cultural landscapes and as an engaged methodology of fieldwork in order to excavate the genealogies of places. Advocating that archaeology can contribute substantively to the study of places in many fields of research and engagement within the humanities and the social sciences, this book seeks to move beyond the oft-conceived notion of places as fixed and unchanging, and argues that places are always unfinished, emergent, and hybrid. Rock cut monuments of Anatolian antiquity are discussed in the historical and micro-regional context of their making at the time of the Hittite Empire and its aftermath, while the book also investigates how such rock-cut places, springs, and caves are associated with new forms of storytelling, holy figures, miracles, and healing in their post-antique life. Anybody wishing to understand places of cultural significance both archaeologically as well as through current theoretical lenses such as heritage studies, ethnography of landscapes, social memory, embodied and sensory experience of the world, post-colonialism, political ecology, cultural geography, sustainability, and globalization will find the case studies and research within this book a doorway to exploring places in new and rewarding ways.

This impressive work of scholarship brings together anthropology, religion, popular culture, and history in its focus on Bakhtiari lion tombstones that have remained largely unknown and hence little studied. Although lions have long figured in Iranian history, art and myth as symbols of rulership, power, religious leadership or as steadfast guardians, art historians have tended to concentrate their attentions on court traditions and the role of lions in popular culture, especially in religion, has remained little considered until this book. Funerary stone lions are to be found throughout western Iran, but are concentrated in the summer and winter pasture areas of the Bakhtiari, today's provinces of Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari, west of Isfahan, and Khuzistan. This highly illustrated colour volume draws on meticulous fieldwork and includes over three hundred photographs, drawings, charts and maps. The recording of this rare sculptural heritage, dating from the 16th century to the early 20th century, has become ever more pressing as some tombstones have been taken from their original settings and re-erected in parks, others damaged by the elements and some recently broken up to be used in road repairs. 'Pedram Khosronejad's Lion Tombstones among Bakhtiari Pastoral Nomads in South West Iran is to be greatly welcomed... [It is ]based on extensive fieldwork and represents something of a rescue project....This volume, however, goes further in raising three inter-related issues: why have these important artifacts been neglected even by specialists; how do they relate to a richer understanding of Iranian art and culture; and how does vernacular art relate to the accepted traditions of Iranian art?.... This volume will prove to be important in bringing the lion tombstones to a larger public attention.' G. R. Garthwaite, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor in Asian Studies, Emeritus & Professor of History, Emeritus

The second half of the seventh millennium BC saw the demise of the previously affluent and dynamic Neolithic way of life. The period is marked by significant social and economic transformations of local communities, as manifested in a new spatial organization, patterns of architecture, burial practices, and in chipped stone and pottery manufacture. This volume has three foci. The first concerns the character of these changes in different parts of the Near East with a view to placing them in a broader comparative perspective. The second concerns the social and ideological changes that took place at the end of Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic that help to explain the disintegration of constitutive principles binding the large centers, the emergence of a new social system, as well as the consequences of this process for the development of full-fledged farming communities in the region and beyond. The third concerns changes in lifeways: subsistence strategies, exploitation of the environment, and, in particular, modes of procurement, consumption, and distribution of different resources.

Khirbet et-Tannur is a Nabataean site dating from the second century B.C. to the fourth to sixth centuries A.D. located on a hilltop above the Wadi el-Hasa near Khirbet edh-Dharih, 70 km north of Petra along the King's Highway. In 1937, Nelson Glueck excavated Khirbet et-Tannur on behalf of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Department of Antiquities of Transjordan, but died before completing a final report. Now, in two extensively illustrated volumes, the results of Glueck's excavations are finally published, based on previously unstudied excavation records and archaeological materials in the ASOR Nelson Glueck Archive at the Semitic Museum, Harvard University. Volume 2 offers a systematic reorganization of Glueck's original excavation records and presents detailed specialist analyses of the Khirbet et-Tannur faunal and botanical remains, metal, glass, lamps and pottery collected by Glueck in 1937 and now preserved in Semitic Museum's ASOR Nelson Glueck Archive, along with fresh examinations of the Nabataean inscriptions and altars from the site. Annual of ASOR 68

The author is an important but controversial figure in the history of Palestinian archaeology. This volume celebrates the centennial of the publication of his excavations at Tel Gezer (1912), conducted under the auspices of the PEF. This excavation was the most ambitious one of its time in the land, yielding important architectural remains and thousands of artefacts, including the well-known Gezer Calendar. The contributions of several eminent scholars reflect on the man and his work, and also report on how his work influenced the understanding of the sites he excavated in Palestine, all of which are currently being re-investigated. It is also richly illustrated with images from the PEF archives. Evaluations of Macalister's work vary tremendously and are reflected here. Many learnt from him, others deplored his methods and record keeping. As one contributor puts it, 'an industrious archaeologist but an awful excavator', and a man who was both admired and intensely disliked: regarded as both a villain and a visionary. But it is generally agreed that he is a figure who cannot be ignored, and anyone interested in Palestinian archaeology will find a great deal to learn from this book.

Muzahim Hussein's 1989 discovery of tombs of Neo-Assyrian queens in the palace of Ashurnasirpal in Nimrud (Kalhu/Calah) was electrifying news for archaeology. Although much is known of the Assyrian kings (8th/9th century B.C.), very little was known about the queens, with the exception of semi-mythical Semiramis. Now, for the first time, not only were actual remains and burial objects of Assyrian queens discovered, but also names and attempts through curses to protect the burials. Elaborate gold jewelry and other items in the tombs rivaled in quality and quantity that found in Egyptian royal tombs. A short scholarly publication of a few items, as well as limited coverage in the world's press, gave only hints of the importance of the objects in the tombs. Planned international exhibitions of the treasures from the tombs had to be cancelled due to war and sanctions. Hussein and Amer Suleiman published Nimrud: A City of Golden Treasures, in 1999, under extraordinarily difficult conditions, that could not do justice to the objects. The present volume, a joint publication of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and the Oriental Institute, is a new version of the finding of the tombs and their contents, giving much additional information derived from Hussein's continued analyses of classes of artifacts, accompanied by numerous full color plates.

Marcus Pasha Simaika (1864-1944) was born to a prominent Coptic family on the eve of the inauguration of the Suez Canal and the British occupation of Egypt. From a young age, he developed a passion for Coptic heritage and devoted his life to shedding light on centuries of Christian Egyptian history that had been neglected by ignorance or otherwise belittled and despised. He was not a professional archaeologist, an excavator, or a specialist scholar of Coptic language and literature. Rather, his achievement lies in his role as a visionary administrator who used his status to pursue relentlessly his dream of founding a Coptic Museum and preserving endangered monuments. During his lengthy career, first as a civil servant, then as a legislator and member of the Coptic community council, he maneuvered endlessly between the patriarch and the church hierarchy, the Coptic community council, the British authorities, and the government to bring them together in his fight to save Coptic heritage. This fascinating biography draws upon Simaika's unpublished memoirs as well as on other documents and photographs from the Simaika family archive to deepen our understanding of several important themes of modern Egyptian history: the development of Coptic archaeology and heritage studies, Egyptian-British interactions during the colonial and semi-colonial eras, shifting balances in the interaction of clergymen and the lay Coptic community, and the ever-sensitive evolution of relations between Copts and their Muslim countrymen.

This groundbreaking, five-volume series offers a comprehensive, fully illustrated history of Egypt and Western Asia (the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran), from the emergence of complex states to the conquest of Alexander the Great. Written by a diverse, international team of leading scholars whose expertise brings to life the people, places, and times of the remote past, the volumes in this series focus firmly on the political and social histories of the states and communities of the ancient Near East. Individual chapters present the key textual and material sources underpinning the historical reconstruction, paying particular attention to the most recent archaeological finds and their impact on our historical understanding of the periods surveyed. The fourth volume of the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East covers the period from the end of the second to the middle of the first millennium BC, ca. 1100-600 BC, corresponding with Egypt's "Third Intermediate Period". Fifteen chapters present the history of the Near East during "The Age of Assyria," from the formative period of the Assyrian Empire to this influential state's disintegration. Several of the chapters discuss the challenges of reconstructing the sequence of local rulers and the various sources and diverse strategies harnessed in order to overcome these difficulties, notably for Egypt, for Elam, for Urartu and on northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia. This volume offers new and complementary perspectives on the history of northeastern Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East from the 11th to the 7th century BC.

This groundbreaking, five-volume series offers a comprehensive, fully illustrated history of Egypt and Western Asia (the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran), from the emergence of complex states to the conquest of Alexander the Great. Written by a diverse, international team of leading scholars whose expertise brings to life the people, places, and times of the remote past, the volumes in this series focus firmly on the political and social histories of the states and communities of the ancient Near East. Individual chapters present the key textual and material sources underpinning the historical reconstruction, paying particular attention to the most recent archaeological finds and their impact on our historical understanding of the periods surveyed. The fifth and final volume of the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East covers the period from the second half of the 7th century BC until the campaigns of Alexander III of Macedon (336-323 BC) brought an end to the Achaemenid Dynasty and the Persian Empire. Tying together areas and political developments covered by previous volumes in the series, this title covers also the Persian Empire's immediate predecessor states: Saite Egypt, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Lydia, among other kingdoms and tribal alliances. The chapters in this volume feature a wide range of archaeological and textual sources, with contributors displaying a masterful treatment of the challenges and advantages of the available materials. Two chapters focus on areas that have not enjoyed prominence in any of the previous volumes of this series: eastern Iran and Central Asia. This volume is the necessary and complementary final component of this comprehensive series.

The iconic minaret of Jam stands in a remote mountain valley in central Afghanistan, the finest surviving monument of the enigmatic 12th-century Ghurid dynasty. The rediscovery of the minaret half a century ago prompted renewed interest in the Ghurids, and this has intensified since their summer capital at Jam became Afghanistans first World Heritage site in 2002.Two seasons of archaeological fieldwork at Jam, the detailed analysis of satellite images and the innovative use of Google Earth have resulted in a wealth of new information about known Ghurid sites, and the identification of hundreds of previously undocumented archaeological sites across Afghanistan.Drawing inspiration from the Annales school and the concept of an archipelagic landscape, David Thomas has used this data to reassess the Ghurids and generate a more nuanced understanding of this significant Early Islamic polity.Some supplementary appendices for this title can be found at https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/17842