Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology

Working at Home in the Ancient Near East edited by Juliette Mas and Palmiro Notizia. Paperback; 175x245mm; 124 pages; 30 figures, 4 tables. 628 2020 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 7. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781789695915. £24.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781789695922. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £24.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

Working at Home in the Ancient Near East brings together the papers and discussions from an international workshop organized within the framework of the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East held in Vienna in April 2016. The volume examines the organization, scale, and the socio-economic role played by institutional and non-institutional households, as well as the social use of domestic spaces in Bronze Age Mesopotamia. The invited speakers – archaeologists, philologists, and historians specializing in ancient Mesopotamia – who approached these topics from different perspectives and by analyzing different datasets were encouraged to exchange their views and to discuss methodological concerns and common problems.

This volume includes seven archaeological- and philological-oriented essays focusing on specific sites and archives, from northern Mesopotamia to southern Babylonia. The contributions assembled in the present volume seek to bridge the gap between archaeological records and cuneiform sources, in order to provide a more accurate reconstruction of the Mesopotamian economies during the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC.

About the Editors
Juliette Mas is an archaeologist specializing in Near Eastern pre-classic pottery and domestic architecture. She completed her PhD in 2013 at Lyon 2 University (France) and was awarded a Post-doctoral fellowship (2013-2016) at the University of Liege (Belgium), where she was also a scientific collaborator. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Collège de France (UMR 7192 - PROCLAC). Since 2001, she has been involved in various international archaeological missions in the Near East and has overseen the study and publication of Bronze age pottery collections from Syrian and Iraqi archaeological sites.

Palmiro Notizia is a post-doctoral researcher in Assyriology at the Università di Pisa. Previously, he was a JAE-Doctor fellow at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC, Madrid) and a postdoctoral researcher at the Università degli Studi di Messina. His research interests focus on the social and economic history of Mesopotamia in the third and second millennia BCE. He has edited and studied unpublished cuneiform documents in the British Museum, the Yale Babylonian Collection, the Harvard Semitic Museum and the Cornell University Cuneiform Collections.

What Difference Does Time Make? Papers from the Ancient and Islamic Middle East and China in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Midwest Branch of the American Oriental Society edited by JoAnn Scurlock and Richard H. Beal. Paperback; 176x250mm; 186pp; 10 figures. 589 2019 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 6. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781789693171. £38.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781789693188. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £38.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

A wide-ranging exploration of Time as experienced and contemplated. Included are offerings on ancient Mesopotamian archaeology, literature and religion, Biblical texts and archaeology, Chinese literature and philosophy, and Islamic law. In addition, the majority of the papers specifically address issues of differences and similarities between cultures, with or without actual cultural contact.

This volume is the publication of a conference designed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Midwest branch of the American Oriental Society, held at St. Mary’s University in Notre Dame, Indiana, in February 2017.

About the Editors
JoAnn Scurlock, president of the Midwest Branch of the American Oriental Society, received her BA and PhD in Assyriology from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. She is the author of around one hundred articles in scholarly journals on ancient medicine, magic, mythology, religion, and political history.

Richard H. Beal received his BA in the Oriental Studies department at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in Hittitology. He has worked for the Chicago Hittite Dictionary Project since its inception in 1976 and is now a senior research associate.

Par la bêche et le stylet! Cultures et sociétés syro-mésopotamiennes Mélanges offerts à Olivier Rouault edited by Philippe Abrahami and Laura Battini. Paperback; 205x290mm; 300 pages; 139 figures; 18 tables (39 colour pages). 564 2019 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 5. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781789692822. £45.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781789692839. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £45.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

This volume is a tribute to the career of Professor Olivier Rouault who has conducted extensive research in the fields of both Assyriology and Ancient Near Eastern archaeology. The book is composed of 25 papers written by his colleagues, friends and former students from Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, Syria and the United States. The contributions presented here combine archaeological, iconographic and Assyriological studies from the Neolithic to the 1st millennium BC, covering whole of Mesopotamia and regions of Anatolia and the Levant. Nine papers deal with the data of Terqa, Mari and Qasr Shemamok, sites close to Professor Olivier Rouault’s main field of research. He published cuneiform tablets from Mari and Terqa and worked as a director of archaeological missions at Terqa and Qasr Shemamok. The book is divided into six main topics: Palace and Administration, Temples and Cults, Families and Societies, Literatures and Historiography, Representation and Symbolic Aspects, Cultural Markers and Stratigraphy – all the topics that attracted Professor Olivier Rouault during his fruitful career. More intimate texts recounting memories of moments shared with Olivier punctuate the reading of these contributions.

About the Editors
Philippe Abrahami is an Assyriologist, Professor of History and Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Lille, France (CNRS Laboratory HALMA UMR 8164).

Laura Battini is an archaeologist specialised in the Ancient Near East. She is currently a researcher at the French National Centre of Scientific Research (Laboratory PROCLAC, UMR 7192, directed by Thomas Römer). Laura created a new journal for the Ancient Near East (Ash sharq, Archaeopress), and is the editor of the archaeological series Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology.

Stone Tools in the Ancient Near East and Egypt Ground stone tools, rock-cut installations and stone vessels from Prehistory to Late Antiquity edited by Andrea Squitieri and David Eitam. Paperback; 205x290mm; x+360 pages; illustrated throughout in colour and black & white (89 plates in colour). 511 2019 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 4. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781789690606. £50.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781789690613. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £50.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

Stone Tools in the Ancient Near East and Egypt: Ground stone tools, rock-cut installations and stone vessels from Prehistory to Late Antiquity is about groundstone tools, stone vessels, and devices carved into rock throughout the Near East and Egypt from Prehistory to the late periods. These categories of objects have too often been overlooked by archaeologists, despite their frequent occurrence in the archaeological record. Most importantly, a careful study of these tools reveals crucial insights into ancient societies. From the procuring of raw materials to patterns of use and discard, they provide us with a wealth of information about the activities they were involved in and how these activities were organised. These tools reveal patterns in the trade of both raw materials and finished products, inform us about economic aspects of food production and consumption, cast light on industrial activities, help establish intercultural connections, and offer hints about the relationship between sites and their environment. The aim of this book is to explore all aspects of these ubiquitous tools and to stimulate debate about the new methodologies needed to approach this material.

About the Editors
ANDREA SQUITIERI is a post-doctoral researcher working for the Peshdar Plain Project, based at Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, focussing on the study of the eastern border of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. He obtained his PhD at University College London (UCL) in 2015 with a thesis titled Stone Vessels in the Near East during the Iron Age and the Persian Period, published with Archaeopress. He is also the co-author, with Mark Altaweel, of Revolutionising a World: From Small States to Universalism in the Pre-Islamic Near East, published by UCL Press.

DAVID EITAM is an archaeologist focussing on the study of stone tools and their implications for prehistory and the history of the ancient Near East. His investigations have revealed the Iron Age period oil industry in the Kingdoms of Israel and Philistine Ekron, and the first systematic production of bread by the Natufians 12,500 years ago. He obtained his PhD at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (HUJ) with a dissertation on Late Epipaleolithic rock-cut installations and ground stones in the Southern Levant, partly published on PLoS ONE 10(7): e0133306.

Composite Artefacts in the Ancient Near East Exhibiting an imaginative materiality, showing a genealogical nature edited by Silvana Di Paolo. Paperback; 205x290mm; vi+96 pages; illustrated throughout in colour and black & white (19 colour plates). 424 2018 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 3. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784918538. £24.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784918545. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £24.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

Composite Artefacts in the Ancient Near East: Exhibiting an imaginative materiality, showing a genealogical nature examines the complex relationship between environment, materials, society and materiality with particular reference to the composite artefacts in the ancient Near East. On the one hand are the objective and natural attributes of materials, possibly exalted from their transformation: a form of fascination immanent in all kind of technical activity which promotes the transition from the ordinary into an ‘extra-ordinary’ realm, imbuing the object with new meaning. On the other hand is the idea that properties of materials are not fixed attributes of ‘matters’, but are processual as well as relational: the qualities of artefacts are subjective and are included in the worldview of artisans making them, as well as in the mind of who observes who appreciate them. Thus, the craftsmanship is oriented towards the achievement of sophisticated products through assemblage techniques and the blending of contrasting properties and qualities of materials. The term ‘composite’ is a combination of the power of technology and the ability to form new images: the strict relationship between creativity, technology and manufacture produces novel interactions and solutions.

Although the primary concern of this volume is to provide specific case studies in which theoretical assumptions and hypotheses can be applied to the ancient evidence, most of the papers take not only the general perspective, such as the relationship between materials and humans, but also a defined body of evidence – material, textual and visual through which they address the issue. This volume represents a first attempt to conceptualise the construction and use of composite artefacts: the richness of approaches, the development of new issues depending on specific case studies, and the overturning of widely accepted ideas, show the interest towards this category of objects and the opportunity to enlarge this field study in the future.

About the Editor
SILVANA DI PAOLO (PhD Rome 2001) is, since 2001, researcher at the Institute for Studies of Ancient Mediterranean of the Italian National Council of Research (CNR). She is the director of the Series Biblioteca di Antichità Cipriote, scientific board member of al-Sharq (published in Paris) and editorial board member of Rivista di Studi Fenici published by ISMA. As CNR researcher she is co-coordinator of different projects in collaboration with European and non-European foreign institutions. She is a co-director of the QANATES project in the Iranian Kurdistan. She has written extensively on the relationship between art and power, location and styles of workshops, social meaning of works of art, as well as on material culture of the 2nd millennium BC. Silvana is currently working on the concepts of similarity in assemblages of artifacts and routinisation of the artisanal production in the ANE, as well as on the applications of the shape and semantic analysis on Mesopotamian glyptics.

Stone Vessels in the Near East during the Iron Age and the Persian Period (c. 1200-330 BCE) by Andrea Squitieri. Paperback; 205x290mm; iv+284 pages; illustrated throughout with 50 plates in colour. 318 2017 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 2. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784915520. £55.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784915537. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £55.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

This book focuses on the characteristics and the development of the stone vessel industry in the Near East during the Iron Age and the Persian period (c. 1200 – 330 BCE). Three main aspects of this industry are investigated. First, the technology behind the manufacture of stone vessels, the tools and techniques, and how these changed across time. Second, the mechanisms of exchange of stone vessels and how these were affected by the changing political landscape through time. Third, the consumption patterns of stone vessels in both elite and non-elite contexts, and how these patterns changed through time. The aim is to evaluate how the formation of new regional states, occurred in the Iron Age I-II, and their subsequent inclusion within large-scale empires, in the Iron Age III and Persian period, transformed the Near Eastern societies by exploring how the stone vessel industry was affected by these transformations. For the period and area under analysis, such a comprehensive study of stone vessels, covering a wide area and connecting this industry to the broader socioeconomic and political landscapes, has never been attempted before.

About the Author:
Andrea Squitieri obtained BA (2006) and MA (2008) at the University of Torino (Italy) in Archaeology of the Near East, with a final dissertation on alabaster vessels in the Mediterranean during the 1st millennium BC. He continued his academic career at the University College, London, where he completed the PhD in 2015 with a thesis on stone vessels in the Iron Age and the Persian period. Andrea has participated in excavation projects in Turkmenistan (Parthian Nisa), Sardinia (Tharros), Syria (Tell Afis), Turkey (Tell Atchana), Israel (Tell es-Safi/Gath) and in Iraqi Kurdistan (Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka). Since 2015, he has been a member of the Peshdar Plain Project directed by prof. K. Radner of the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (Germany). He is also involved in the project for the study of the stone materials from Shahr-i Sokhta (east Iran), held in the Museum of Oriental Art of Rome (Italy).

Reviews
'To his credit [the author] has successfully broken new ground in the field of research on the history and development of stone vessels. The book's historical spectrum is admirably extensive, and because of this, will undoubtedly serve as the primary reference authority for future work on the subject.'—Jeffrey D. Lerner, Ancient West & East, Volume 19, 2020

Making Pictures of War Realia et Imaginaria in the Iconology of the Ancient Near East edited by Laura Battini. Paperback; 205x290mm; xi+88 pages; illustrated throughout in black & white. 256 2016 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 1. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784914035. £24.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784914042. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £24.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

This book brings together the main discussions that took place at an international conference on the iconology of war in the ancient Near East, a subject never addressed at an international meeting before. The articles span the 3rd to the 1st millennium, with a special stress on the Neo-Assyrian period. They try to respond to many questions about representations of war: what is ‘warrior’ iconography and on what basis it can be defined? Did the war scenes follow a specific directory whereby they adopted the most varied forms? Can we determine the most usual conditions for the creation of pictures of wartime (such as periods of great change)? Were the war scenes referring to specific historical events or were they generic representations? What can a society accept from the representations of war? What did war images silence and why? What is a ‘just’ punishment for enemies and thus the ‘just’ representation of it? Who has control of the representation and therefore also the memory of war? Who is the real subject of war representations? What emerges from all the articles published here is the relevance of textual data in any analysis of iconological material. And this is not only true for iconology, but for all the archaeological material discovered at historical sites.