The Conquest of Assyria tells what must surely be one of the most romantic tales of archaeological endeavour. The great cities and ancient palaces of Mesopotamia had lain buried for over two millenia, and were all but forgotten, half remembered in the Hebrew Bible and Classical texts. This volume records the dramatic finds, the decipherment of the cuneiform system of writing and the rediscovery of a lost civilisation.

The Conquest of Assyria tells what must surely be one of the most romantic tales of archaeological endeavour. The great cities and ancient palaces of Mesopotamia had lain buried for over two millenia, and were all but forgotten, half remembered in the Hebrew Bible and Classical texts. This volume records the dramatic finds, the decipherment of the cuneiform system of writing and the rediscovery of a lost civilisation.

The ancient Anatolian city of Kanesh (present-day Kultepe, Turkey) was a continuously inhabited site from the early Bronze Age through Roman times. The city flourished c.2000-1750 BCE as an Old Assyrian trade outpost and the earliest attested commercial society in world history. More than 23,000 elaborate clay tablets from private merchant houses provide a detailed description of a system of long-distance trade that reached from central Asia to the Black Sea region and the Aegean. The texts record common activities such as trade between Kanesh and the city state of Assur, and between Assyrian merchants and local people. The tablets tell us about the economy as well as the culture, language, religion, and private lives of individuals we can identify by name, occupation, and sometimes even personality. This book presents an in-depth account of this vibrant Bronze Age Anatolian society, revealing the daily lives of its inhabitants.

In our contemporary globalized society, where contact between different groups and societies on many social levels is as common as never before, questions of conflict, prejudice, interaction and adaptation are of primary importance. One abundant source to such cultural encounters is the history of the Near East. Whether as a result of war or peaceful contact, they provide for numerous interpretations of just how individuals and societies have historically approached the other, be it traders, nomads, religious movements, ethnic groups or conquering armies. The contributions to this anthology aim to discuss and establish meaningful analytical categories for the description and understanding of cultural encounters by way of both theoretical discussions and the presentation of empirical material. The cases presented in this book come from a range of different fields of research within the overall history of the Near East, including Mesopotamian history, the impact of Hellenism in Central Asia and the Near East, and the spread of Islam.

The ancient Anatolian city of Kanesh (present-day Kultepe, Turkey) was a continuously inhabited site from the early Bronze Age through Roman times. The city flourished c.2000-1750 BCE as an Old Assyrian trade outpost and the earliest attested commercial society in world history. More than 23,000 elaborate clay tablets from private merchant houses provide a detailed description of a system of long-distance trade that reached from central Asia to the Black Sea region and the Aegean. The texts record common activities such as trade between Kanesh and the city state of Assur, and between Assyrian merchants and local people. The tablets tell us about the economy as well as the culture, language, religion, and private lives of individuals we can identify by name, occupation, and sometimes even personality. This book presents an in-depth account of this vibrant Bronze Age Anatolian society, revealing the daily lives of its inhabitants.