Product Description
Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in the late eighteenth century sparked a global fascination with ancient Egyptian culture that remains undiminished to this day. This book, written by leading author and archaeologist Joyce Tyldesley, tells the full story of the discoveries of treasures that had lain completely hidden and undisturbed for nearly two thousand years. Tyldesley follows in the footsteps of real-life Indiana Joneses in their quest for the splendid monuments, tombs, and artifacts that have unlocked many of the secrets of this mesmerizing civilization. Crafting a riveting chronicle of historical intrigue and intrepid personalities, the author relates the beginnings of Egyptology, leading the reader from the nail-biting race to crack the code of ancient hieroglyphics to the heart-stopping moment when Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamen's burial chamber.
Egypt introduces the collectors, explorers, and archaeologists who have come to dominate the story of the rediscovery of ancient Egypt. Among these is Giovanni Belzoni, a circus strongman and diehard adventurer who uncovered many of the works of the greatest pharaoh of them all, Rameses II. Tyldesley describesthe larger-than-life personalities and spectacular finds of characters such as Jean-François Champollion, Amelia Edwards, and Flinders Petrie. She delves into Howard Carter's dramatic discovery of the golden treasures lying deep in the burial chamber of the boy king Tutankhamen. Illustrated with full-color photographs, Egypt captures the excitement of these gripping adventures stories while highlighting the magnificence of the artifacts that were their object.
Copub: BBC Books ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

well worth reading
Joyce Tyldesley delivers an interesting, easy-reading report on the exploration of Ancient Egypt. Starting by Tutmoses, the "first egyptologist", the book is divided in parts: Explorers, Collectors and Archaeologists. The chapter about Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamon's tomb is breathtaking! ... Read more

Product Description
The book provides an introduction to the history of ancient Mesopotamia and its civilizations, incorporating archaeological and historical finds up to 1992. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (32)

Fascinating and Captivating
With the current problems and recent war in modern Iraq, I wished to find out more about ancient Iraq and the civilisations that have now become ghosts of history.Dr Roux has captivated me with his exceptionally well researched and fascinating history of this cradle of our civilisation. For an historical account, it is richly rewarding, particularly to the layman or would-be scholar of the Ancient Near East since it sets out the events, the characters, the wars, the triumphs and tragedies of these ancient peoples in a logical, clear, concise, colourfulbut entrancing story.I am grateful to the late Dr Roux for sparking a new and exciting interest in my life with his wonderful book.

Reads like textbook
This book reads very much like textbook. However if you are looking for a beginners book on the history of Iraq, as i was, this is a great book. You may fall asleep while reading it from time to time but you will also learn a lot about the civilizations or early(relative term i guess)Iraq.

Review of Roux's 'Ancient Iraq'
From my research, this seems to be the most lauded English history of the Mesopotamia region laid out in chronological order. Its worthy of its praise. Roux has amended his magazine articles into an excellent and readable history. There are a few odd bouts in the work; Roux takes an odd, patronizing tone when discussing religion, for example. The work may be intimidating at 425 pages, but, overall, its an extensive resource for Mesopotamian history. This edition is supplemented with an extensize ordering of king-lists and political maps.

really good survey
Good, concrete and short survey of middle east antiquity, which was very complex. Highly recommended for everyone interested in the topic, who does not want or does not like to go through many fat volumes, which are in most cases written with a dry academic style.

OK but there are now better books for the general reader
Any general reader should also consider Michael Roaf's The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East

Roux's work definitely has its strengths, which include 428 pages of detailed text, frequent citations and 66 pages of footnotes.Its weaknesses include that the last edition is now 17 years old (as of 2009) and the illustrations are very mediocre, but I think its greatest failing is its maps. Except for 1 or 2 small maps in the text, the only maps are 4 two page maps in the back following the footnotes.Roux constantly refers to cities, regions and geographical features throughout the book, so if one does not know the geography of Mesopotamia and the surrounding area extremely well, including both ancient and modern names, then a huge amount of time is spent searching the 4 maps, which are rather small in the paperback edition, or putting down the book to do an online search.

Michael Roaf's The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East is naturally filled with maps specific to the topic being discussed, and has vastly better illustrations.Its text is as good as Roux's, if somewhat less detailed and without the citations.Most importantly, the maps and illustrations provide visual reference points which I found very helpful when reading about 3,000+ years of history. Roux's book is 99.9% text so that king after king, city after city and battle after battle can turn into quite a blur.

If I were in college writing a paper of the king by king and battle by battle sort, I would use Roux as a valuable resource and starting point for its thousands of citations. However, the general reader who wants to learn more than a Wikipedia article's worth about Sumer, Babylon and Assyria will likely do better with Michael Roaf's excellent work that strikes a great balance between the visual and the textual.
... Read more

Product Description

Intended for readers seeking insight into the day-to-day life of some of the world's most ancient peoples, Life and Thought in the Ancient Near East presents brief, fascinating explorations of key aspects of the civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Iran. With vignettes on agriculture, architecture, crafts and industries, literature, religion, topography, and history, Orlin has created something refreshingly unique: a modern guidebook to an ancient world. The book also reaches out to students of the Ancient Near Eastern World with essays on decipherments, comparative cultural developments between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and language and literature.

In addition to general readers, the book will be useful in the classroom as a text supplementing a more conventional introduction to Near Eastern Studies.

"Well-written and accessible, Life and Thought in the Ancient Near East deftly connects the past with present experience by drawing out the differences between, for instance, modern churches and ancient temples, and frequently employing biblical references. This simplicity together with connecting contemporary to ancient experience makes the text ideal for freshmen and general readers."
---Marc Cooper, Professor of History, Missouri State University

Now Professor Emeritus, Louis L. Orlin taught in the department of Ancient Near Eastern History and Literature at the University of Michigan for more than thirty years. He is the author and editor of several books, including Assyrian Colonies in Cappadocia and Ancient Near Eastern Literature: A Bibliography of One Thousand Items on the Cuneiform Literatures of the Ancient World.

Product Description
Taking readers back 4,000 years, to the fertile land around the Nile River, The Ancient Egyptian World tells the stories of the kings, queens, pharaohs, gods, tomb builders, and ordinary citizens who lived there. Using papyri, scarabs, tomb inscriptions, mummies, and a rich variety of other primary sources, Eric H. Cline and Jill Rubalcaba uncover the fascinating history of ancient Egypt. Scarabs, which scholars call "imperial news bulletins," record important moments in a pharaoh's reign. The Edwin Smith Papyrus details the injuries sustained by the builders of the great pyramids, and the remedies used to treat them. For a worker who has had a stone fall on his head, it suggests: "bind it with fresh meat . . . and treat afterward with grease, honey and lint." A complex recipe for a top-of-the-line mummy describes a process that could take 70 days and involved drawing the brain out through the nose with a crooked piece of iron. These primary sources also tell the stories of the people of ancient Egypt: Pepi II, the six-year-old boy king who commanded armies; Ramesses II, whose mortuary temple boasts of his expertise in battle against the Hittites; Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman to rule Egypt as pharaoh; and Cleopatra, who courted Roman statesman Mark Antony as part of her quest to extend the Egyptian empire. The Ancient Egyptian World honors the history of a civilization whose monuments and tombs still capture the imagination of the world thousands of years later. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

More exciting than a lot offiction, funnier than many comics

This is just about the best, funniest book I've read all year--who would have expected this from a book on the ancient Egyptian World?

I'm not an expert on this subject but the writing has the ring of truth and seems to be well-researched.

The authors have a gift for making old topics seem this-minute relevant.
For instance, Egyptian priesthood: "Plucking out your eyebrows and eyelashes may sound painful., but being a priest had advantages.For one thing, you didn't have to pay taxes..." Or, on fashion: "So what would an Egyptian Fashion magazine look like (other than the fact it would be written on papyrus, need only one issue every thousand years or so, and could only be read by a few people since only aobut 1 percent of Egyptians could read?)"

I think the ho-hum title and amazingly dull cover are like displaying a perfect rose in a milk bottle, but you can't have everything.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Call To Reevaluate The Seleucid Empire
This compilation on the Seleucid Empire calls for an interdisciplinary approach to studying the largest of the dynastic empires to follow Alexander The Great.The text is more of a scholarly review addressed primarily to people working in the field of classical studies, archeology, and anthropology.Although perhaps not a book that would be of interest to the casual reader of history, Susan Sherwin-White and Amelie Kurt are two of few historians who have bothered to question the commonly accepted theories as to the evolution of the Seleucid Empire.

Susan Sherwin-White and Amelie Kurt evaluate new findings that were made indicating that the Seleucid Empire was not simply a Greek culture and state that arose out of thin air to impose itself upon the Persian Empire's former subjects.Previous scholars have approached the subject with a flawed paradigm in concluding that Seleucid monarchs reinvented the wheel after Alexander's defeat of Persia by imposing a ruthless policy of colonialism and maintaining a society segregated between Greeks and non-Greeks.As a result, historians have been looking only at artifacts and texts reflecting Greek culture or values to make their conclusions while ignoring everything else.White and Khurt, along with respected scholars such as Erich Gruen, present and interpret new findings in numismatic, archeological, and textual areas to dispute this false paradigm such as cuneiform scripts used by Greeks, architectural fusion of Greek and Eastern styles, etc.

As with their other book 'From Samarkhand to Sardis', this book is a major contribution to the study of the Seleucids as previous scholars such as Tarn simply didn't have the knowledge of the major archeological finds that were uncovered after he published his works in the mid-twentieth century. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is seriously in need of important and recent information on the Seleucid empire. The book is hard to find and I recommend you get it as soon as it becomes available. It's possible that another edition is on the way but that may be long in the future if ever at all. Again,the book is not suited for the casual reader as one would at least need to have a thorough background on Alexander The Great if not Persian and Greek history: the book is primarily targeted towards an academic audience and not the general reader. The book is also expensive at $50+ and not really in the price range of someone who only has a limited interest in the subject. A very good book to go with this one is A. K. Narain's 'Coin Types of the Indo-Greek Kings" that focuses on the Seleucid kingdoms of the Indus valley and Bactria: its several studies focus primarily on numismatic evidence along with archeological and literary sources.The works and theories of the authors as to the development and administration of the Seleucid kingdoms complement each other and therefore make a great pair of books to own.


... Read more

Product Description
Origins is the first fully comprehensive study of the debt owed bymodern western culture to Ancient Near Eastern civilization - a debt touchedupon by standard histories of the Ancient Near East but never assystematically investigated as here by William W. Hallo.The author, who has devoted a lifetime to the study of the Ancient Near East,places the emphasis on the way the Ancient Near East continues to shape ourWestern world. He takes an in-depth look at the ancient origins of manyinstitutions that are most essential to contemporary life - and most oftentaken for granted.In the exploration of the "first half of history", Hallo shows that modernideas of urbanism and the formation of capital were first developed between3000-500 BC and that aspects of 20th-century agriculture, manufacturing andtrade go back to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Israel. Special attention isgiven to the role played by women, arguing that this was an oftennon-traditional one; for example, women are shown to have been among the firstauthors in history who are actually known by their names.The scope of the work is vast: Hallo methodically examines a wide range oftopics, from the order of the alphabet to the coronation of kings, and fromschooling to the calendar. An intriguing touch is provided by sections ongames and on the world's oldest cookbooks.This ground-breaking study leaves the reader with a full appreciation of thelegacy of the Ancient Near East to modern Western society, in all its aspects.It will be essential reading for researchers and general readers alike who areinterested in the cultural history of the West as well as the history of theAncient Near East. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Continuity of ancient innovations in the modern world.
The author of this book, William W. Hallo, is a specialist in Near Eastern languages and literature and is a professor of Assyriology and Babylonian literature at Yale university, where he has taught since 1962. According to the author the object of the book is "... to show how ancient Near Eastern innovations or their consequences have survived into our own day and age.", and "To put it another way, I will try to assess the extent to which our modern western world is indebted to the ancient Near East." Although the author links those Near Eastern innovations to developments within Western history and by extension the modern western world, he avoids linkages and continuities to developments within Islamic civilization and therefore by extension to the Islamic world as we know it today.Had the author done so, the book would truly be more comprehensive and valuable. In fact it would have been much easier to trace the path which some of the innovations have traveled to reach parts of the western world. I have included details of the book's contents* for conveying to the reader the rational for its structure and the institutions it covers.Part I, for instance, is based on the notion that civilization's three-leg tripod is based on urbanism, capital formation, and writing. The Appendix is very useful as the author skillfully summarizes centuries of history in a short and very readable synoptic of the three cultural regions which the book addresses. Part VII on Religion is disappointing, as the the Near East was the birthplace of the three monotheistic religions, and therefore a more thorough analysis of the religious contextualityof the region is warranted. It is quite possible that a separate volume would be needed to address this topic. One of the book's strengths is the abundance of bibliographic references cited at the end of each chapter. There are also abundant footnotes on almost every page of the book. This is a very valuable contribution for all those who are interested in tracing some of the contributions which the ancient Near Eastern civilizations have gifted to the western world and to the world at large. It is particularly useful for the specialist or the serious inquirer as a first step for more detailed information available through the extensive bibliographic references. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Introduction; I. Essentials of Civilization: urban origins, capital formation, writing; II. Secondary Aspects of Civilization: manufacturing, agriculture and animal husbandry, trade; III. Refinements of Civilization: travel and geographical knowledge, culinary arts, games; IV. Calendar: hour, week, era; V. Literature: creativity, genre, and canon, bilingualism and the beginnings of translation, the birth of rhetoric; VI. Kingship: royal titles, inscriptions, hymns, royal lifetime, royal afterlife; VII. Religion: the sacrificial cult, public prayer, individual prayer; VIII. Women: in law, in public life, as authors; IX. Appendix- The First Half of History: the land between the rivers, the gift of the Nile, the land of `milk and honey'; X. Conclusion: the legacy of the ancient Near East; Index. ... Read more

Product Description
Two Afroasiatic papers consider different aspects of connections between various branches of the Afroasiatic family. Lionel Bender reconsiders the ratios of reconstructed forms derived from common Afroasiatic (or, Afrasian) terms in four language branches. Alexander Militarev presents a number of Akkadian-Egyptian lexical matches, which he considers to be the result of contact rather than a common Afroasiatic origin. Another pair of papers focuses on comparative Semitics. David Testen examines the origins the Akkadian vetitive on the basis of West Semitic analogues. Rebecca Hasselbach reconsiders the evidence for plural morphemes in the Semitic languages and proposes a new explanation for the fact that plural morphemes are diptotic rather than triptotic. One paper, by Joseph Daniels, focuses on South Semitic by considering the range of syntactic constructions involving injunctive *la in Epigraphic South Arabic in comparison to jussive constructions in other South Semitic languages. Three papers examine aspects of Biblical Hebrew; two use linguistic theory and one uses computational linguistics. Stuart Creason looks at the lexical semantics of the verb PQD and proposes a single meaning for the verb with additional aspects of meaning contributed by the direct object and subject of the verb in various contexts. Cynthia L. Miller provides a linguistic account of the syntactic constraints on verbal ellipsis in Biblical Hebrew with attention to how poetry relaxes three of the constraints on verbal ellipsis that are found in prose. Richard L. Goerwitz describes a computer program that checks the pointing and accents of Tiberian biblical texts. Three papers examine Aramaic. W. Randall Garr examines the phonological phenomenon of prenasalization in Imperial Aramaic, Middle Aramaic, and Mandaic within a dialectal and historical framework. The other two papers draw upon fieldwork in modern Aramaic dialects. Samuel Ethan Fox provides a traditional text in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Bohtan and a grammatical sketch of its phonology and morphology. Robert D. Hoberman argues that prosodic structure rather than root structure played a crucial role in a sound change in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects. Two papers consider aspects of Semitic writing systems. Dennis Pardee considers the invention of the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet in the context of other (linear) alphabetic writing systems. Peter T. Daniels considers the diffusion of West Semitic writing to Eurasia and beyond. ... Read more

Product Description
This book focuses on certain local powers in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (ca. 2000-1595 BC), namely the chief of the city (rabianum), the elders, the 'city', and the assembly. This is a novel approach to Old Babylonian history that allows us to understand the constituency, activities, and sphere of influence of local institutions of authority, and the way they coped with state officials and royal policies. This focus on local power allows refreshing changes to traditional studies of the state. ... Read more

Product Description
The first of two sections in the atlas, The Land and the People, traces the development of hunter gatherer societies through village life to urban life. Dealing with subjects such as animals in daily life, writing, and religion and ritual, students obtain an accurate and detailed survey of the past. The second section, Kingdoms and Empires, charts the rise and fall of the great kingdoms and empires of the Near East. Organized by period, topics include the late Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Revival, and the Persian Empire. ... Read more

Product Description
Describes the daily life of children in ancient Egypt, including housing, clothes, food, and religion. ... Read more

Product Description
This work is a chronological account of the struggle between the AfghanAmirs of Kabul and the Manghit Dynasty of Bukhara for Balkh province (wilayat) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Drawing extensivelyon India Office Records, Persian and native oral sources, the book provides aunique insight into an important, but little-studied Central Asian region.Structured around the history of Maimana's Mingid dynasty, the book detailsthe various military campaigns, whilst also examining critically Britain andRussia's role in the `Afghanisation' of Balkh during the period of the `GreatGame'.The work is especially significant to historians since it questionsconventional perceptions of Central Asia during the era of Europeanimperialism. It examines too Balkh's social and economic situation. Itincludes numerous maps, charts, photographs and dynastic charts. ... Read more

Product Description

The author shows the evolution of the institutions and religion to which they were connected, from kinship by divine right to the rule of the "Just Law, from the cult of the Pharaoh to the religion of the whole people in which art, science and literature are described. A work for the specialist and the general reader.

Customer Reviews (1)

Dated Classic still delivers the goods
This lucid, admirably written, and fully illustrated study by a noted French scholar and Egyptologist surveys the rise and decline of Egyptian culture through thirty centuries. Divided into three sections, the 1927 classic presents the history of Egypt in an absolutely new light, focusing in Part I on the country itself?early social organization, dynasties and divine kingdoms, nomes (or provinces) of the delta, and more. Part II covers kinship and society, including the protohistoric monarchy, the earliest royal institutions, the feudal period and social revolutions, the rule of just laws, and other topics.
Part III is devoted to a vigorous summary of intellectual life, including religion, art, and science, with detailed discussions of the growing complexity of Egyptian religion and the position of such gods as Ra and Osiris in the Egyptian pantheon; the practice of magic; morality and personal piety; the design and construction of temples and tombs; geometry and mathematics; medicine; astronomy; literature; and much else.
Enlivened with picturesque details and quotations that take readers into the heart of a glorious civilization, this profusely illustrated, comprehensive, and perceptive view of ancient Egypt remains "an excellent study, thorough, careful, intelligent, and above all, readable."?New Republic. It will appeal to general readers as well as scholars. ... Read more

Product Description
Long before the discovery of the wheel, horses played an essential role in the life of man. From agriculture, to transportation, to warfare, all major civilizations for which we have written records depended upon this magnificent creature. A prolific author and professional horse trainer, Hyland explores the vital role that the horse has played in the progress of humankind on a global scale. Images from documentary, archaeological, and literary sources supplement the text. ... Read more

Product Description
This Festschrift in honor of Prof. Edward F. Wente contains contributions by forty-three of his colleagues and friends. Contents: Publications and Communications of Edward F. Wente (C. E. Jones); A Monument of Khaemwaset Honoring Imhotep (J. P. Allen); Feuds or Vengeance? Rhetoric and Social Forms (J. Baines); Theban Seventeenth Dynasty (J. von Beckerath); Inventory Offering Lists and the Nomenclature for Boxes and Chests in the Old Kingdom (E. Brovarski); A Case for Narrativity: Gilt Stucco Mummy Cover in the Graeco-Roman Museum, Alexandria, Inv. 27808 (L. H. Corcoran); Opening of the Mouth as Temple Ritual (E. Cruz-Uribe); A Letter of Reproach (R. J. Demaree); Creation on the Potter's Wheel at the Eastern Horizon of Heaven (P. F. Dorman); The Border and the Yonder Side (G. Englund); Enjoying the Pleasures of Sensation: Reflections on a Significant Feature of Egyptian Religion (R. B. Finnestad); Some Comments on Khety's Instruction for Little Pepi on His Way to School (Satire on the Trades) (J. L. Foster); On Fear of Death and the Three bwts Connected with Hathor (P. J. Frandsen); Two Inlaid Inscriptions of the Earliest Middle Kingdom (H. Goedicke); Historical Background to the Exodus: Papyrus Anastasi VIII (S. I. Groll); The Mummy of Amenhotep III (J. E. Harris); Fragmentary Quartzite Female Hand Found in Abou-Rawash (Z. Hawass); Two Stelae of King Seqenenre Djehuty-aa of the Seventeenth Dynasty (H. Jacquet-Gordon); A Marital Title from the New Kingdom (J. J. Janssen); Remarks on Continuity in Egyptian Literary Tradition (R. Jasnow); Ethnic Considerations in Persian Period Egypt (J. H. Johnson); The nfrw-Collar Reconsidered (W. R. Johnson); The Wealth of Amun of Thebes under Ramesses II (K. A. Kitchen); Wie jung ist die memphitische Philosophie auf dem Shabaqo-Stein? (R. Krauss); 'Listening' to the Ancient Egyptian Woman: Letters, Testimonials, and Other Expressions of Self (B. S. Lesko); Some Further Thoughts on Chapter 162 of the Book of the Dead (L. H. Lesko); Royal Iconography of Dynasty 0 (T. J. Logan); The Auction of Pharaoh (J. G. Manning); Semi-Literacy in Egypt: Some Erasures from the Amarna Period (P. Der Manuelian); Vinegar at Deir el-Medina (N. B. Millet); Observations on Pre-Amarna Theology during the Earliest Reign of Amenhotep IV (W. J. Murnane); Zum Kultbildritual in Abydos (J. Osing); Sportive Fencing as a Ritual for Destroying the Enemies of Horus (P. A. Piccione); An Oblique Reference to the Expelled High Priest Osorkon? (R. K. Ritner); The Ahhotep Coffins: The Archaeology of an Egyptological Reconstruction (A. M. Roth); A Litany from the Eighteenth Dynasty Tomb of Merneith (D. P. Silverman); Nag-ed-Deir Papyri (W. K. Simpson); O. Hess = O. Naville = O. BM 50601: An Elusive Text Relocated (M. J. Smith); Celibacy and Adoption among God's Wives of Amun and Singers in the Temple of Amun: A Re-examination of the Evidence (E. Teeter); New Kingdom Temples at Elkab (C. C. Van Siclen III); Menstrual Synchrony and the 'Place of Women' in Ancient Egypt (OIM 13512) (T. G. Wilfong); Serra East and the Mission of the Middle Kingdom Fortresses in Nubia (B. B. Williams); End of the Late Bronze Age and Other Crisis Periods: A Volcanic Cause? (F. J. Yurco). ... Read more

Product Description
The ancient world of Mesopotamia (from Sumer to the subsequent division into Babylonia and Assyria) vividly comes alive in this portrayal of the time period from 3100 BCE to the fall of Assyria (612 BCE) and Babylon (539 BCE). Readers will discover fascinating details about the lives of these people taken from the ancientsÂ’ own descriptions. Beautifully illustrated, this easy-to-use reference contains a timeline and a historical overview to aid student research. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

messing up basic terms
...very dissapointed to start reading the book of an "expert" by reading at the preface the phrase "with diverse ethnic groups occupying the region": what is an "ethnic" group in a pre-ethnic world?

kp
ph.d. student in pol. sciences & history

Wonderful, readable, brilliant, comprehensive.
Informative and engrossing. Well-organized and well-researched. The best book on Mesopotamia I've read! It definitely gets a lot more of the daily-life issues correct than others (which occasionally suggest citizens lived in large two-story houses--what a joke).

All books I've read, however, make the same error about the map pictured on the cover of an earlier version of this book--a circle with triangular shapes coming from it. This map is often mistakenly cited as partly being of Scandinavia, as it has been translated as "country where the sun has not been seen." An understandable mistake, but what it actually signifies is unknown country--no one has seen the sun there because no one from the known world at the time had explored it. A more comprehensive (intact) map would have shown that this symbol was only one part of the world, not the entire world.

I hope Ms. Nemet-Nejat accepts this bit of information in the spirit in which it is offered. :-)

Helpful addition to general ANE studies
Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia is an excellent volume and highly recommended for the general audience, especially those who are interested in learning more about ancient Near Eastern backgrounds. Chapters center on major areas of life and society, for example, society, scholarship, recreation, religion, economy, and etc. Nemet-Nejat is sensitive to both the diachronic and synchronic development of topics so discussion is quite well developed in each chapter. With such an arrangement, however, there is some repetition, though minor, throughout the book. The beginning historical review is very helpful, even if most brief, and sets the stage for the development of topics in each chapter. The author's strength is in the area of mathematics and technology and they get emphasis in the book. Less discussion is found on integrated matters like environmental issues. There is a wealth of material in this book and so much is covered it is a bit encyclopedic at times but, nevertheless, well done. This book will be of interest to students of ancient history or any seeking a greater appreciation of biblical background material. There are very limited reference to the Bible and some strange. Saul's change of mind (literally heart) is take by the author as "he went off his rocker," 81, an older and limited perspective, indeed. Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat is conversant in many areas of ANE studies and balances her discussion with excerpts from ancient texts and relevant contemporary sources. The book would be enhanced by a better bibliography. The book is a welcome contribution to the field and will be a very informative to any who read it!

Excellent Overview of Ancient Mesopotamia
Nemet-Nejat has compiled a great deal of information into this book.Although the historical overview was a little long and dry, most of the book was very interesting. Nemet-Nejat quotes from a number of originalwritings of the ancient Mesopotamians, giving a unique view into thethinking and culture of this ancient civilization.

The insights intoeducation, religion, writing, and recreation were most interesting. ... Read more