by Georges Roux
Bi. Or. Bibliotheca Orientalis, Leiden
BaM Baghdader Mitteilungen, Berlin
Bo. Stu. Boghazköy Studien, Leipzig
CAH Cambridge Ancient History (Revised edition), Cambridge
EA J. A. KNUDZTON, Die El-Amarna Tafeln, Leipzig, 1915
HBS S. N. KRAMER, History Begins at Sumer, New York, 1959. 1st edition, 1956
Iraq Iraq, London (British School of Archaeology in Iraq)
IRSA E. SOLLBERGER and J.-R. KUPPER, Inscriptions Royales Sumériennes et Akkadiennes, Paris, 1971
ISA F. THUREAU-DANGIN, Les Inscriptions de Sumer et d‘Akkad, Paris 1905
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society, New Haven
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies, New Haven
JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Leiden
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Chicago
JSOR Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, Chicago
JSS Journal of Semitic Studies, Manchester
KB Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, Berlin, 1889 ff.
KING L. W. KING, Chronicles Concerning Early Babylonian Kings, London, 1907
MARI Mari, Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires, Paris
MAOG Mitteilungen der Altorientalischen Gesellschaft, Leipzig
MDOG Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, Berlin
MDP Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, Paris
MVAG Mitteilungen der vorderasiatisch-aegyptischen Gesellschaft, Berlin
NBK S. LANGDON, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften, Leipzig, 1912
OIC Oriental Institute Communications, Chicago
OIP Oriental Institute Publications, Chicago
Orientalia Orientalia, Rome (Pontifical Biblical Institute)
PKB J. A. BRINKMAN, A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia, Rome, 1968
RA Revue d'Assyriologie, Paris
RCAE LEROY WATERMAN, Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire, Ann Arbor, 1930 – 36
RGTC Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes (series), Wiesbaden
RHA Revue hittite et asianique, Paris
RIMA A. K. GRAYSON (ed.) The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Rulers (series), Toronto
RISA G. A. BARTON, The Royal Inscriptions of Sumer and Akkad, New Haven, 1929
RLA Reallexikon der Assyriologie, Berlin
SAA State Archives of Assyria (series) Helsinki
SKL T. JACOBSEN, The Sumerian King List, Chicago, 1939
Sumer Sumer, Baghdad
Syria Syria, Paris
UE Ur Excavations, London, 1927 ff.
UET Ur Excavations Texts, London, 1928 ff.
UVB Uruk vorlaüfiger Berichte (= Vorlaüfiger Berichte über die… Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka), Berlin
VDI Vestnik Drevney Istorii (= Journal of Ancient History), Moscow
WISEMAN D.J. WISEMAN, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626 – 556 B.C.), London, 1956
WVDOG Wissenschaftliche Veröffenlichungen der deutschen Orient-Gessellschaft, Leipzig
ZA Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Leipzig/Berlin
ZZB D. O. EDZARD, Die Zweite Zwischenzeit Babyloniens, Wiesbaden, 1957
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES
Chapter I
1. For physical geography: P. BEAUMONT, G. H. BLAKE and J. M. W. WAGSTAFF, The Middle East, a Geographical Study, London, 1976. For historical geography (and often much more): J. B. PRITCHARD (Ed.), The Times Atlas of the Bible, London, 1989; the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, Wiesbaden, 1977 ff., and the subsidiary series: Repertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéformes (RGTC), 1974 ff.; M. ROAF, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, Oxford, 1990.
2. On fauna: E. DOUGLAS van BUREN; The Fauna of Ancient Mesopotamia as Represented in Art, Roma, 1939; F. S. BODENHEIMER, Animal and Man in Bible Land, Leiden, 1960; B. LANDSBERGER, The Fauna of Ancient Mesopotamia, Roma, 1960 (philological study); B. BRENTJES, Wildtier und Haustier im alten Orient, Berlin, 1962. On flora: M. ZOHARI, Geobotanical Foundations of the Middle East, Stuttgart, 1973; E. GUEST et al., Flora of Iraq, Baghdad, 1966 ff.; M. B. ROWTON, ‘The woodlands of ancient western Asia‘, JNES XXVI (1967), PP. 261 – 77.
3. K. W. BUTZER, Quaternary Stratigraphy and Climate of the Near East, Bonn, 1958, and CAH, I, 1, pp. 35 – 62; J. S. SAWYER (ed.), World Climate from 8000 to 0 B.C., London, 1966; W. NUTZEL, ‘The climate changes of Mesopotamia and bordering areas, 14000 to 2000 B. C.’, Sumer, XXXII (1976), pp. 11 – 24.
4. HERODOTUS, II, 5.
5. Put forward by PLINY, Hist. Nat., VI, xxxi, 13, as early as the first century A.D., this theory was codified by DE MORGAN in MDP, I (1900), 4 – 48.
6. G. M LEES and N. L. FALCON, ‘The geographical history of the Mesopotamian plains’, Geogr. Journal, CXVIII (1952), 1, pp. 24 – 39.
7. C. E. LARSEN, ‘The Mesopotamian delta region: a reconsideration of Lees and Falcon’, JAOS, XCV (1975), pp. 43 – 57. P. KASSLER, ‘The structural and geomorphic evolution of the Persian Gulf’ in B. H. PURSUER, The Persian Gulf, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1973, pp. 11 32. W. NUTZEL, ‘The formation of the Arabian Gulf from 14000 B.C.’, Sumer XXXI (1975), pp. 101 – 11.
8. G. ROUX, ‘Recently discovered ancient sites in the Hammar-Lake district’, Sumer, XVI (1960), pp. 20 – 31.
9. M. S. DRAWER, ‘Perennial irrigation in Mesopotamia’, in A History of Technology, London, 1955, I, p. 545 ff.; P. BURINGH, ‘Living conditions in the lower Mesopotamian plain in ancient times, Sumer, XIII (1957), pp. 30 – 46; R. MCC. ADAMS, ‘Historic patterns of Mesopotamian irrigation agriculture’, in T. E. DOWNING and MCG. GIBSON (eds.), Irrigation Impact on Society, Tucson, 1971, pp. 1 – 6.
10. For some scholars, an extensive salinization in southern Iraq between 2400 and 1700 B.C. was the reason for the decline of the political power of the Sumerians. See: T. JACOBSEN and R. MCC. ADAMS, ‘Salt and silt in ancient Mesopotamian agriculture’ in Science, CXXVIII (1958), pp. 1251 – 8; T. JACOBSEN, Salinity and Irrigation Agriculture, Malibu, 1982. For a different opinion, see: M. L. A. POWELL, ‘Salt, seed and yields in Sumerian agriculture’, ZA, LXV (1985), pp. 7 – 38.
11. M. IONIDES, The Régime of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris, London, 1937.
12. S. N. KRAMER, HBS, pp. 65 – 9; The Sumerians, Chicago, 1963, pp. 105 – 9 and 340 – 42. Also see: B. LANDSBERGER, ‘Jahreszeiten in Sumerisch-Akkadischen’, JNES, VII (1949), pp. 248 – 97.
13. HERODOTUS, I, 193; STRABO, XVI, 14.
14. T. JACOBSEN, in Sumer, XIV (1958), p. 81, quoted 2537 litres of barley per hectare (2.47 acres) in the vicinity of Girsu (Tello) c. 2400 B.C., as against 1,165 to 1,288 litres in the same region during the fifties. The reliability of ancient texts on this subject is discussed by K. BUTZ in E. LIPINSKI (ed.), State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Near East, Leuven, 1979, pp. 257 – 409. Detailed studies on ancient Mesopotamian agriculture are published in Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture, Cambridge, 1984 ff.
15. A. H. PREUSSNER, ‘Date culture in ancient Babylonia’, AJSL, XXXVI (1920), pp. 212 – 32; W. H. DOWSON, Dates and Date Cultivation in Iraq, Cambridge, 1923; B. LANDSBERGER, ‘The date-palm and its by-products according to the cuneiform sources’, AfO, XVII (1967).
16. According to R. ELLISON, ‘Diet in Mesopotamia’, Iraq, XLIII (1981), pp. 35 – 43, the diet in Mesopotamia at different periods provided 3,495 calories per day on average.
17. On this desert in general, see: C. P. GRANT, The Syrian Desert, London, 1937 (with extensive bibliography).
18. On this region, see: A. M. HAMILTON, Road through Kurdistan, London, 1958; R. J. BRAIDWOOD and B. HOWE, Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan, Chicago, 1960, pp. 12 – 17.
19. W. THESIGER, ‘The marshmen of southern Iraq’, Geogr. Journal, CXX (1954), pp. 272 – 81; The Marsh Arabs, London, 1964.
20. R. J. FORBES, Bitumen and Petroleum in Antiquity, Leiden, 1936; Studies in Ancient Technology, I, Leiden, 1955, pp. 1 – 118.
21. Numerous books and arti
cles have been published on Mesopotamian trade. See notably: A. L. OPPENHEIM, ‘The seafaring merchants of Ur’, JAOS, LXXIV (1954), pp. 6 – 17; W. F. LEEANN, Foreign Trade in the Old Babylonian Period, Leiden, 1960; Trade in the Ancient Near East, London, 1977 (articles from Iraq, XXXIX (1977); N. YOFFEE, Explaining Trade in ancient Western Asia, Malibu, 1982; T. STETCH and v. c. pigott, ‘The metals trade in southwestern Asia in the third millennium B.C., Iraq, XLVIII (1986), pp. 39–64. On particular metals: J. D. MUHLY, Copper and Tin, Hamden, Conn., 1973; K. R. MAXWELL-HYSLOP, ‘Sources of Sumerian gold’, Iraq, XXXIX (1977), pp. 84 – 6.
22. J. LEWY, ‘Studies in the historic geography of the ancient Near East’, Orientalia, XXI (1952), pp. 1 – 12; 265 – 92; 393 – 425; A. GOETZE, ‘An Old Babylonian itinerary’, JCS, VII (1953), pp. 51 – 72. D. O. EDZARD and G. FRANTZ-SZABO. ‘Itinerare’ RLA, V (1977) 216 – 20.
23. W. W. HALLO, ‘The road to Emar’, JCS, XVIII (1964), PP. 57 – 88, and remarks by A. GOETZE, ibid., pp. 114 – 19.
24. SIR ARNOLD T. WILSON, The Persian Gulf, London, 1954.
25. For Bahrain, see: G. BIBBY, Looking for Dilmun, Penguin Books, London, 1972; D. T. POTTS (ed.), Dilmun, New Studies in the Archaeology and Early History of Bahrain, Berlin, 1983; SHAIKHA HAYA ALI AL-KHALIFA and M. RICE (ed.), Bahrain Through the Ages: the Archaeology, London, 1986. For Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, consult the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, London, from 1971. Reports of excavations and other papers are published in a variety of scientific journals. For a general view, see: D. T. POTTS, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. I, Oxford, 1990.
Chapter 2
1. On Mesopotamian archaeology in general, cf.: A. PARROT, Archéologie Mésopotamienne, 2 vols, Paris, 1946 – 53; H. FRANKFORT, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, Harmondsworth, 1954; SETON LLOYD, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia, London, 1978.
2. Up to the end of the third millennium B.C., temples and palaces were, with rare exceptions, made of sun-dried bricks. Baked bricks were almost exclusively used for the pavement of open courtyards, bathroom floors and drains. In many buildings of later periods only the lower part of the walls was built of kiln-baked bricks.
3. The Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) word is tilu. Sentences such as: ‘I turned this town into a mound (tilu) and a heap of ruins (karmu)’ are frequently found in Assyrian royal inscriptions.
4. More details on excavation methods can be found in SETON LLOYD, Mounds of the Near East, Edinburgh, 1962. Cf. also A. PARROT, AM, II, pp. 15 – 78. On certain sites where buildings are not too deeply buried, time and money can be saved by ‘scraping’ the superficial layers of debris. This provides a kind of ‘map’ of the town and enables the archaeologists to detect areas worthy of true excavations. Tell Taya, in northern Iraq, is an example of this method (Cf. J. CURTIS (ed.), Fifty Years of Mesopotamian Discovery, London, 1982, figs. 57 and 58).
5. M. B. ROWTON, CAH, I, 1, p. 197.
6. ANET, pp. 269 – 70.
7. ANET, p. 271.
8. ARAB, II, p. 433.
9. TH. JACOBSEN, The Sumerian King List, Chicago, 1939.
10. A. UNGNAD, RLA, II, 1938, p. 412 ff.
11. For a general survey of this complicated problem, cf.: A. PARROT AM, II, pp. 332 – 438. The dates 1792 – 1750 B.C. were proposed by SIDNEY SMITH in Alalakh and Chronology, London, 1940, and accepted by an increasing number of scholars (cf. M. B. ROWTON, ‘The date of Hammurabi’, JNES, XVII (1958), pp. 97 – 111).
12. W. F. LIBBY, Radio-carbon Dating, Chicago, 1955. For details on the technique, limits and problems of the Carbon 14 method, see: C. RENFREW, Before Civilization, Harmondsworth, 1976, pp. 53 – 92 and 280 – 94.
13. For details, cf.: S. A. PALLIS, Early Explorations in Mesopotamia, Copenhagen, 1954, and SETON LLOYD, Foundations in the Dust, London, 1980.
14. XENOPHON, Anabasis, iii, 4.
15. STRABO, XVI, 5.
16. For details, see: C. H. FOSSEY, Manuel d'Assyriologie, vol. I, Paris, 1904; S. A. PALLIS, The Antiquity of Iraq, Copenhagen, 1956; C. BERMANT and M. WEITZMAN, Ebla, London, 1979, pp. 70 – 123.
17. S. N. KRAMER, The Sumerians, Chicago, 1963, p. 15.
18. D. J. WISEMAN, The Expansion of Assyrian Studies, London, 1962.
19. Summaries and preliminary reports of these ‘salvage excavations’ in Iraq have been published in a variety of specialized journals, notably Sumer. XXXV (1979) ff. and Iraq, XLIII (1979) ff. Some final reports are available in book form. For a general view of the ‘Assad dam project’ in Syria, see J. C. MARGUERON (ed.), Le Moyen Euphrate, Leiden, 1980.
Chapter 3
1. H. FIELD, Ancient and Modern Man in Southwestern Asia, Coral Gables, Calif., 1956.
2. R. J. BRAIDWOOD and B. HOWE, Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan, Chicago, 1960; T. C. YOUNG, P. E. L. SMITH and P. MORTENSEN (ed.), The Hilly Flanks and Beyond, Chicago, 1984.
3. R. SOLECKI, Shanidar, the Humanity of Neanderthal Man, London, 1971.
4. K. W. BUTZER, CAH, I, 1 (1970), pp. 49 – 62.
5. H. E. WRIGHT JNR, ‘The Geological Setting of Four Prehistoric Sites in North Eastern Iraq’, BASOR, 128 (1952), pp. 11 – 24; ‘Geologic Aspects of the Archaeology of Iraq’, Sumer, XI (1955), pp. 83 – 90.
6. D. A. E. GARROD and J. G. D. CLARK, CAH, I, 1, pp. 74 – 89 and 118 – 21.
7. M. L. INIZAN, ‘Des indices acheuléens sur les bords du Tigre, dans le nord de l'Iraq‘, Paléorient, XI, 1 (1985), pp. 101 – 102
8. NAJI-AL-‘ASIL, ‘Barda Balka’, Sumer, V (1949), pp. 205 – 6; H. E. WRIGHT, JNR and B. HOWE, ‘Preliminary Report on Soundings at Barda Balka’, Sumer, VII (1951), pp. 107 – 10.
9. D. A. E. GARROD, ‘The Palaeolithic of Southern Kurdistan: Excavations in the Caves of Zarzi and Hazar Merd’, Bulletin No 6, Amer. School of Prehist. Research, New Haven (1930).
10. Preliminary reports in Sumer, VIII (1952) to XVII (1961). Also see: R. SOLECKI, ‘Prehistory in Shanidar valley, northern Iraq’, Science, CXXXIX (1963), pp. 179 – 93, and the book quoted above, note 3.
11. E. TRINKHAUS, ‘An inventory of the Neanderthal remains from Shanidar Cave, northern Iraq’, Sumer, XXXIII (1977), pp. 9 – 47.
12. A. LEROI-GOURHAN, ‘The flowers found with Shanidar V, a Neanderthal burial in Iraq’, Science, CXC (1975), pp. 562 – 4.
13. R. J. BRAIDWOOD, ‘From Cave to Village in Prehistoric Iraq’, BASOR, 124 (1951), pp. 12 – 18. R. J. BRAIDWOOD and B. HOWE, Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan, Chicago, 1960, pp. 28 – 9, 57 – 9, 155 – 6.
14. For more detail on the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the Near East, consult: P. SINGH, Neolithic Cultures of Western Asia, London and New York, 1974; J. MELLAART, The Neolithic of the Near East, London, 1975 and D. and J. OATES, The Rise of Civilization, Oxford, 1976.
15. R. SOLECKI, An Early Village Site at Zawi Chemi Shanidar, Malibu, Calif., 1980.
16. R. J. BRAIDWOOD and B. HOWE, Prehistoric Investigations, op. cit., pp. 52 and 170.
17. R. J. BRAIDWOOD and B. HOWE, ibid., p. 50.
18. M. VAN LOON, ‘The Oriental Institute excavations at Mureybet, Syria’, JNES XXVII (1968), pp. 264 – 90. J. CAUVIN, Les Premiers Villages de Syrie-Palestine du IXe au Vile Millénaire avant J.-C., Lyon/Paris, 1978.
19. F. HOLE, K. V. FLANNERY, J. A. NEELY, H. HELBAEK, Prehistory and Human Ecology in the Deh Luran Plain: an Early Village Sequence from Khuzistan, Iran, Ann Arbor, Conn. 1969.
20. For more detail on this subject, see: H. J. NISSEN, The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000 – 2000 B.C., Chicago, 1988, pp. 15 – 27.
21. J. R. HARLAN and D. ZOHARY, ‘Distribution of wild wheat and barley’, Science, CLIII (1966), pp. 1075 – 80; J. R. HARLAN, ‘A wild harvest in Turkey’, Archaeology, XX (1967), pp. 197 – 201.
22. L. R. BINFORD, ‘Post-Pleistocene adaptations’ in S. R. and L. R. BINFORD (ed.), New Perspectives in Archaeology, Chicago, 1968, pp. 313 – 42; K. V. FLANNERY, ‘Origins and ecological effects of early domestica
tion in Iran and the Near East’ in J. A. SABLOFF and C. C. LAMBERG-KARLOWSKY (ed.), The Rise and Fall of Civilizations; Menlo Park, Calif., 1974, pp. 245 – 68.
23. R. J. and L. BRAIDWOOD, ‘Jarmo: a village of early farmers in Iraq’, Antiquity, XXIV (1950), pp. 189 – 95; J. MELLAART, The Neolithic of the Near East, pp. 80 – 82.; P. SINGH, Neolithic Cultures, pp. 116 – 21.
24. P. MORTENSEN; Tell Shimshara: the Hassuna Period, Copenhagen, 1970.
25. To our knowledge, only summaries have yet been published in Iraq, XLI (1979), pp. 152 – 3 and XLIII (1981), p. 191.
26. D. SCHMANDT-BESSERAT, ‘The use of clay before pottery in the Zagros’, Expedition, XVI (1974), pp. 11 – 17.
27. On the origins and significance of pottery, see H. J. NISSEN, op. cit., pp. 27 – 32.
Chapter 4
1. On Mesopotamian proto-history in general, in addition to the books listed in note 14 of Chapter 3, see: J. MELLAART, Earliest Civilizations of the Near East, London, 1965; M. E. L. MALLOWAN, Early Mesopotamia and Iran, London, 1965; SETON LLOYD, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia, London, 1978; C. L. REDMAN, The Rise of Civilization, San Francisco, 1978.
