Deutsch

Ancient Near East


Theo de Feyter

Graben in Syrien /Digging in Syria

In ‘Graben in Syrien’ [Excavating in Syria] Theo de Feyter presents drawings, paintings and texts called forth by his observations of workers and scientists at one of the last excavations before the outbreak of the uprisings in Syria. The impressive landscape of the Euphrates reservoir forms the decorative scenery for the work of archaeologists, students and local workmen, who are exposing a Late Bronze Age town in this distant corner of the country. Archaeological field-work is a slow, laborious process carried out under difficult circumstances: De Feyter’s drawings, paintings and texts document it carefully in all its aspects.
Here is a rare view into the archaeological practice of a typical excavation in the Middle East, a practice that had to be abandoned for the time being and that, if ever taken up again, will probably never look like what de Feyter has captured. This book is already a historical document.

Theo de Feyter (born in the Netherlands, 1947) is both, an artist and an archaeologist. As archaeologist (University of Amsterdam) he has worked in Syria and in Turkey, as artist he has worked wherever his travels took him. He prefers a documentary way of drawing and has published several books of drawings and texts, e.g. ‘Mensen en ruïnes’, about a visit in Homs and Aleppo in March 2017, or ‘Syrië, een geschiedenis in ontmoetingen en plaatsen’, a book about the history and culture of Syria (both publications in Dutch).

126 pages, 48 figures, most in color — content
24 x 17 cm — Hardcover


Price: €  24,80 [D]

ISBN:  978-3-935012-31-7
© PeWe-Verlag 2018

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Adelheid Otto (ed.)

From Pottery to Chronology: The Middle Euphrates Region in Late Bronze Age Syria. Proceedings of the International Workshop in Mainz (Germany), May 5-7, 2012.
With contributions of Felix Blocher, Annie Caubet, Costanza Coppini, Berthold Einwag, Thomas L. McClellan, Adelheid Otto, Anne Porter, Ferhan Sakal, Glenn M. Schwarz and Peter Werner.
Münchener Abhandlungen zum Alten Orient, Band 1 (MAAO-1)

This volume presents the result of an International Workshop on the Chronology of the Late Bronze Age (15th-13th Century BC) in Northern Syria, precisely of the Upper Syrian Euphrates Area with the sites Emar, Tall al-Qitar, Tall Munbaqa, Umm el-Marra and Tall Bazi. The relative and absolute chronology of each of the mentioned sites was analyzed with the help of stratified pottery and associated material as well as radiocarbon dates. New chronological anchor points for the Upper Euphrates valley were achieved, replacing the hitherto mainly used chronological fixpoint of the ‘Tablet Building’ at Hadidi. As a result, a new synchronized chronology for the LB IA, LB IB and LB II periods in Syria is proposed. On a historical level, the destruction of most of the sites can be attributed to the Hittite expansion in the mid 14th century; only Emar, el-Qitar and Karkemish were spared and flourished.

232 pages, 129 figures, some colored — content
30 x 21,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: €  58,00 [D]

ISBN:  978-3-935012-29-4
© PeWe-Verlag 2018

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maao2
Simon M. Halama

Eisenzeitliche Paläste in der nördlichen Levante. Repräsentation von Herrschaft mit architektonischen Mitteln.
Münchener Abhandlungen zum Alten Orient, Band 2 (MAAO-2)

The Iron Age in the Levant was marked, on the one hand, by the local Syro-Hittite states and, on the other hand, by the empires of the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. The architecture created in the Syro-Hittite states impresses strongly by its monumentality and, above all, by the sculptured orthostats decorating buildings at sites such as Zincirli Höyük, Sakçagözü, Karkamiš, Ḥamāh and Tall Taʿyīnāt. The foreign powers to whom the region became subject – especially the Assyrians – installed their governors in palaces that were visible symbols of their sovereignty, for example in Til Barsip, Zincirli Höyük and Tall Taʿyīnāt.
Besides many studies concerned with sculpture, urban planning and other aspects of the Iron Age in the northern Levant, here is now the first comprehensive and comparative monograph addressing the palaces of the period. The author examines the architecture as well as the decoration with bas-reliefs and murals of Syro-Hittite, Assyrian and Persian palaces. Against the background of sociological theories of power and sovereignty he analyses the way in which architecture and sculpture were employed in the cause of representing and legitimatising the respective ruler, and he reconstructs the underlying strategies of representation. It becomes clear that locally entrenched as well as foreign rulers differ in the manner in which they present themselves, through their palaces, towards, on the one hand, the common people and, on the other hand, the members of the elite. But while, in spite of the large number of political entities, the Syro-Hittite rulers share similar ideas about architecture and iconography, the architecture of the Assyrian palaces in the provinces surprises by its heterogeneousness, sometimes widely deviating from the concepts established in the homeland.
The combination of architectural and pictorial analysis arrives at new insights into the cultures of the Syro-Hittite states as well as into the Assyrian rule in the Levant.

384 pages, 90 text figures, 27 plates, 1 folded map — content
30 x 21,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: €  58,00 [D]

ISBN:  978-3-935012-33-1
© PeWe-Verlag 2018

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maao3
Martin Gruber

Der Baudekor des zweiten Jahrtausends v. Chr. in Mesopotamien. Formen – Motive – Perzeption.
Münchener Abhandlungen zum Alten Orient, Band 3 (MAAO-3)

This study deals with the archaeological examples of architectural ornamentation in 2nd-millennium Mesopotamia. Diverse contemporary sources have been consulted in the attempt to elucidate the differing aspects of this form of expression by architecture. The emphasis is on sacred buildings as, by abundant examples, they are shown to be the preferred – and often only – carriers of those forms of architectural ornamentation that are here treated. Besides the monumentality of construction the ornaments at the outer as well as at the courtyard façades of temples in the Ancient Near East are among the most obvious architectural formalisms that mark the sacred space off from other buildings in town. The ostentatious morphology of sacred buildings underlines the architectural differentiation between ›temples‹, ›dwelling-houses‹ and ›palaces‹, a differentiation which is far from emerging as clear-cut in the usage of the respective ancient languages. The sacred buildings tend to be carefully looked after throughout centuries, thus forming an important architectural landmark within a changeful urban environment – in contrast to more short-lived palaces and other profane buildings. In this way, sacred architecture becomes a meaningful and long-lasting reference point for the inhabitants’ orientation; sacred architecture is more than the lifeless background of a society, it is rather an active guiding system whose communicative potential has not ceased to exist, not even after millennia.

384 pages, 339 text figures — content
30 x 21,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: €  65,00 [D]

ISBN:  978-3-935012-35-5
© PeWe-Verlag 2019

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maao4
Jean M. Evans / Elisa Roßberger (eds.)

Ancient Near Eastern Temple Inventories in the Third and Second Millennia BCE: Integrating Archaeological, Textual, and Visual Sources.. Proceedings of a conference held at the LMU Centre for Advanced Studies, November 14–15, 2016.
With contributions of Ilya Arkhipov, Dominique Charpin, Sophie Cluzan, Albert Dietz, Berthold Einwag, Jean M. Evans, Helen Gries, Suzanne Herbordt, Michèle Maggio, Adelheid Otto, Frances Pinnock, Elisa Roßberger, Aaron Schmitt und Lorenzo Verderame. Münchener Abhandlungen zum Alten Orient, Band 4 (MAAO-4)
In cooperation with Paola Paoletti

The contributions in this volume — resulting from an international conference held in 2016 at the Center for Advanced Studies of Ludwig- Maximilians-University Munich and supported by the LMU Graduate School for Ancient Studies ‘Distant Worlds’ — aim to integrate material remains, textual sources, and the visual record regarding ancient Near Eastern temple inventories of the third and second millennia BCE. The conference encouraged researchers with archaeological and philolo- gical backgrounds to engage in holistic approaches to the constitution of sacred space and to the societal function as well as ideological and economic impacts of sacred gifting. Its focus on objects and practices led to a fruitful exchange with increased emphasis on entire assem- blages instead of exclusive treatments of distinct object categories or text genres.
Several contributions in this volume build on archaeological and tex- tual evidence that was excavated in the early twentieth century but re- mains in continuous need for contextual and synthetic analyses. Others discuss more recent excavations undertaken with closer attention to contextual and stratigraphic details and exploiting new opportunities for scientific analyses. The temples under consideration range geogra- phically from modern-day Iraq (Ur, Nippur, Khafajeh, Iščali, Assur) and Syria (Mari, Tell Bazi, Aleppo) to Turkey (Boğazköy), and chronologically from the Early to the Late Bronze Age (c. 2800–1200 BCE). Discussions start off from diverse sources such as administrative texts, votive in- scriptions, small-scale finds, architectural installations, or three- and two-dimensional figurative artefacts but all contribute to an overall goal: To better understand the entwinement of the things, images, and practices that changed a physical space into a locus of encounter between humans and the divine.

224 pages, 161 text figures, many in color — content
30 x 21,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: €  65,00 [D]

ISBN:  978-3-935012-36-2
© PeWe-Verlag 2019

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maao5
Katharina Schloder

Tall Bazi – I. Die römerzeitliche Bebauung von Tall Bazi im syrischen Euphrattal. Ein befestigtes einheimisches Heiligtum im Vorfeld der römischen Provinz Syria.
Münchener Abhandlungen zum Alten Orient, Band 5 (MAAO-5)
Mit einem Beitrag von Stefan Heidemann

The site Tall Bazi on the left bank of the Syrian Euphrates has so far been known mainly for its Bronze Age occupation. But the Tall yielded also remains of later architecture, namely from the 2nd century AD. This volume will first present and analyse the respective finds and findings. The ensuing archaeological and historical evaluation will consider the function of Tall Bazi against the background of the political and cultural situation. In this context, the border location of the site - a part of the kingdom of Osrhoene situated between the superpowers Rome and Parthia - is of the utmost importance.
Tall Bazi is a fortified sanctuary with an irregular ground plan. Framed by two gate towers the main access lay on the side fronting the Euphrates. Inside, several buildings could be ascertained one of which may be regarded as a central ritual building. Based on the dating of the partly stratified finds the monumental sanctuary was presumably erected in the late 1st / early 2nd century AD. It existed until the second half of the 2nd century AD.
The careful and comprehensive analysis of finds and findings allows us to address various questions connected with the sanctuary of Tall Bazi. For example, a great number of pits in an open courtyard point to ritual activities inside the sacred area. The shape and construction of the temple stand fast within the Mesopotamian tradition; despite its location right on the Euphrates river and thus at the frontier of the Roman Empire the architecture does not show any Hellenistic / Roman influence. This fact as well as the analysed material enable us to draw conclusions with regard to the identity of the builder of the sanctuary and its visitors.
Ritual places that might be comparable to the sanctuary of Tall Bazi are so far hardly known in the Middle East. It is therefore highly important that the information to be gained from this unique site on the borderline between the Roman Empire and the sphere of Parthian power is evaluated and published.

352 pages, 71 text figures, some in color, 100 tables and 5 folded maps — content
30 x 21,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: €  65,00 [D]

ISBN:  978-3-935012-37-9
© PeWe-Verlag 2019

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cover

Ralph Lübbe
Knochen- und Zahnfunde im Indusgebiet.
Betrachtungen zur Abgrenzung des Früh- und Reif-Harappa-Komplexes und seines südasiatischen Umfeldes

In the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods as well as in the Bronze Age the culture of the Indus valley is among the first urban high cultures. Its surface area exceeds that of Egypt and Mesopotamia taken together. The largest cities were at a distance of up to 200 km from each other, while Mesopotamian towns were often just 20 km apart.
As the early phases are usually compared to the Sumerian and Akkadian cultures, the respective research is pursued not within the discipline of Indology but is subsumed under Near Eastern Archaeology.
So far the focus has been on writing and the material culture; an approach from the view-point of human biology and anthropology would provide a new understanding. It is too little known that excavations of this third high culture of Antiquity have brought to light a great variety of bones and teeth. Analyses of these finds allow an insight into continuity and breaks in the development of civilization.
The osteological analysis of bones and teeth allows to draw a picture of the way of living, the customary diet, the preparation of food, hygiene, identity and the standard of living. One has just begun to call in the assistance of genetics and molecular biology. Disease pictures have been described that will be of interest to epidemiologists. Exemplary disease symptoms and recognizable causalities offer explanations for sequential processes and socio-biological connections.
Linguistic observation cannot offer explanations for population leaps. It may, on the contrary, be more to the point to try and explain transmitted events (Aryan invasion, Rigveda) with the help of anthropometrics and gene pools.
In periods of transition the development of homo sapiens in South Asia is marked by negative adaptation of stress; a reduced diet and diminished robustness are consequences of the farmer’s increased dependence on carbo-hydrates compared to that of the hunter/gatherer. Mobility and a lower exposure to germs lie, to this day, at the bottom of a high “tribal share”.
Questions need to be answered concerning the beginning and the end of the high culture, preceding cultures have to be defined but also factors hastening the decline, such as tectonic events, lack of rain and monsoon or the salinization of arable soil.
Modern tribal structures and strict caste rules prescribing endogamy are helpful for the analysis: they allow for hypotheses based on the limited exchange of gene pools among the population groups.
In Neolithic societies, in Egypt and Babylonia war was omnipresent. Harappa in its heyday appears remarkably peaceful: no walls, no finds of weapons, no lesions on the bones. The high level of civilization ("water luxury") will be described as part of the historical development of rise and decline.
It is worthwhile to give the osteological material – “thinner” in comparison with European material – a much closer look and develop surprising hypotheses. The study is meant as a concentrated but comprehensive overview about the state of the findings, from the standpoint of a medical man and a historian of the Ancient Near East. By the way, a German study of the palaeo-pathology of South Asia is still lacking.

122 pages with 70 images — content
29 x 21 cm — Softcover


Price: € 19,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-23-2
© PeWe-Verlag 2017

 

 

cover

Karen Radner — F. Janoscha Kreppner — Andrea Squitieri (ed.)
Exploring the Neo-Assyrian Frontier with Western Iran.
The 2015 Season at Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka
Peshdar Plain Project Publications — Volume 1

With contributions of Mark Altaweel, Andrei Ašandulesei, Peter V. Bartl, Jörg Fassbinder, Christoph Forster, Jessica Giraud, Tina Greenfield, Zahra Hashmi, Jean-Jacques Herr, F. Janoscha Kreppner, John MacGinnis, Anke Marsh, Karen Radner, Andrea Squitieri, Adam B. Stone, Eleanor Barbanes Wilkinson

The Peshdar district is part of the province of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq. In its centre lies the Peshdar Plain, surrounded by the glorious mountainscape of the Zagros and bounded in the south by the valley of the Lesser Zab, which connects the region to the Assyrian heartland and Western Iran. The international and interdisciplinary Peshdar Plain Project was inaugurated in 2015 with the goal of investigating the region in the Neo-Assyrian period (9th to 7th century BC). It formed part of the Border March of the Palace Herald which served to negotiate relations with the adjoining client kingdoms in the Zagros, most importantly Mannea (south of Lake Urmiye), Ḫubuškia in the Sardasht Plain and Muṣaṣir in the Rowanduz Plain.
Work in 2015 focused on two closely connected sites in the small Bora Plain, a sub-unit of the Peshdar Plain: the tiny single-phase site Gird-i Bazar and impressive Qalat-i Dinka, looming on a rocky outcrop high over the river, both part of the Dinka settlement complex. This book presents the results of this first season of field work. Karen Radner offers an analysis of the historical geography of the region on the basis of the textual sources, including the private contract of 725 BC found at Qalat-i Dinka. Mark Altaweel and Anke March provide a geoarchaeological assessment of the Bora Plain while Jessica Giraud presents an evaluation of the Dinka settlement complex based on the results of the survey of the Mission archéologique française du Gouvernorat de Soulaimaniah (MAFGS). Jörg Fassbinder and Andrei Ašandulesei discuss the results of their geophysical survey at Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka. The bulk of the volume is dedicated to the 2015 excavations at Gird-i Bazar, with contributions on the fieldwork by F. Janoscha Kreppner, Christoph Forster, Andrea Squitieri, John MacGinnis, Adam B. Stone and Peter V. Bartl. Tina Greenfield introduces the bioarchaeological sampling strategy. On the basis of the analysis of 666 diagnostic ceramic sherds from key find contexts and by drawing on parallels from the Assyrian heartland and western Iran, Jean-Jacques Herr presents a first assessment of the technical aspects, the fabrics and the shapes of the pottery excavated at Gird-i Bazar. Eleanor Barbanes Wilkinson, Andrea Squitieri and Zahra Hashemi present the small finds from the 2015 excavations.
In an appendix to the volume, Jörg Fassbinder presents the promising results of the 2014 magnetometer survey in Mujeser in the Soran district of the province of Erbil, the possible site of the capital of the kingdom of Muṣaṣir, a client state of the Assyrian Empire, and its famous Ḫaldi temple.
The research presented in this book throws light on a hitherto little known eastern frontier region of the Assyrian Empire. Gird-i Bazar is the first unequivocally Neo-Assyrian site to be excavated in the region. The occupation layers beginning to be uncovered there offer the rare opportunity to explore an Assyrian non-elite settlement. Its well stratified ceramic repertoire is of special importance as it allows us for the first time to synchronise the Western Iranian pottery cultures (with the key sites Hasanlu, Godin Tepe, Nush-i Jan and Baba Jan) with the Assyrian material of the 8th and 7th centuries BC.

128 pages, more than 60 colored pictures — content
30 x 21 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 29,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-20-1
© PeWe-Verlag 2016

 

 

4P-2

Karen Radner — F. Janoscha Kreppner — Andrea Squitieri (ed.)
Unearthing the Dinka Settlement Complex.
The 2016 Season at Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka
Peshdar Plain Project Publications — Volume 2

With contributions of Mark Altaweel, Silvia Amicone, Andrei Ašandulesei, Christoph Berthold, Francesca Chelazzi, Vera Egbers, Jörg Fassbinder, Tina Greenfield, Zahra Hashemi, Jean-Jacques Herr, F. Janoscha Kreppner, Alessia Palmisano, Elsa Perruchini, Karen Radner, Melissa Rosenzweig, Marion Scheiblecker, Andrea Squitieri

This report of the 2016 activities of the Peshdar Plain Project presents new data for the occupation of the Bora Plain on the upper reaches of the Lesser Zab near the modern district centre of Qaladze in the Neo-Assyrian and Sassanian periods.
The book details the results of the first test excavations at the citadel of Qalat-i Dinka and of the on-going excavations at the settlement quarter of Gird-i Bazar. Here, a continuous excavated area of 625 m2 has been uncovered, occupied by several well-appointed multi-room houses with courtyards, wells and drainage systems and an open area around a pottery kiln, which was found complete with its last load.
The book also presents the results of the geophysical exploration of the Bora Plain: on the one hand, the continuation of the magnetometer survey of the entire Neo-Assyrian settlement, now recognised to be a complex of at least 60 hectares, and on the other hand, the new electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) investigations of the ancient qanat irrigation system that seems to be connected to the Neo-Assyrian settlement.
The three chapters on the pottery of Gird-i Bazar present a first overview of the attested chaînes opératoires, the updated fabric classification on the basis of thin section petrography analysis and the first results of the residue analysis performed on a selection of vessels. Another chapter is devoted to the small finds of the Neo-Assyrian occupation.
A chapter on the bioarchaeology of Gird-i Bazar presents preliminary results of the analysis of the animal bones and of the palaeobotanical remains from the Neo-Assyrian settlement and discusses the Sassanian-period graveyard, now dated by 14C analysis, on top of the ruins of the Neo-Assyrian occupation.

186 pages, more than 180 colored pictures — content
30 x 21 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 33,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-28-7
© PeWe-Verlag 2017

 

 

4P-3

Karen Radner — F. Janoscha Kreppner — Andrea Squitieri (ed.)
The Dinka Settlement Complex 2017.
The Final Season at Gird-i Bazar and First Work in the Lower Town
Peshdar Plain Project Publications — Volume 3

With contributions of Hero Salih Ahmed, Silvia Amicone, Andrei Ašandulesei, Peter Bartl, Kathleen Downey, Eileen Eckmeier, Jörg Fassbinder, Jean-Jacques Herr, F. Janoscha Kreppner, Abdullah Bakr Othman, Alessio Palmisano, Elsa Perruchini, Karen Radner, Jens Rohde, Marion Scheiblecker, Andrea Squitieri, Hakan Tolbas, Maximilian Weidenhiller, Felix Wolter

This report of the 2017 activities of the Peshdar Plain Project presents new data for the Dinka Settlement Complex and for the occupation of the Bora Plain on the upper reaches of the Lesser Zab near the modern district centre of Qaladze in the Neo-Assyrian and Sassanian periods, including a range of additional 14C dates derived from single year crops and human and animal remains.
Firstly, the volume details the third and final season at Gird-i Bazar, completing the excavation of all previously identified buildings and of two more pottery kilns. The star find is a pivoted stone that constitutes the upper-bearing for a potter’s wheel. As the three pottery kilns, this piece highlights the importance of pottery making at Gird-i Bazar. The surprise discovery of human remains in the filling of the private well of Building I produced the first Iron Age bodies unearthed at the Dinka Settlement Complex.
Secondly, the book reports on the first season of excavations in another area in the Lower Town, dubbed “Dinka Lower Town operation 2” (DLT2), where a test trench unearthed parts of three major structures: Buildings K (280 m2), L (800 m2) and M (650 m2), which can be demonstrated to all have been used during a common occupation phase. The pottery retrieved closely marches that known from Gird-i Bazar, and the volume includes a first typological assessment as well as data from the petrographic and residue analyses of the new pottery material. The so-called “Groovy Pottery” is now attested both in Gird-i Bazar and DLT2, and its local production can be demonstrated.
The DLT2 excavations also confirmed the accuracy of the results of the magnetometer survey in this area. The book presents the data of the 2017 continuation of this survey and offers a detailed interpretation of the lower town’s layout, its buildings and other features on the basis of the magnetogram. In addition, the book offers geographer Eileen Eckmeier’s assessment of the soils and sediments encountered in the Dinka Settlement Complex and the surrounding Bora Plain and considers their significance for landscape and site formation processes.
While the majority of the book will be of interest to anyone studying the Assyrian Empire and its eastern border region, the volume also presents new data for the occupation of the Bora Plain in the Sasanian period in the form of anthropologist Kathleen Downey’s discussion of the extensive Sasanian cemetery overlying the buildings of the Iron Age occupation of Gird-i Bazar.

198 pages, more than 180 colored pictures — content
30 x 21 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 34,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-32-4
© PeWe-Verlag 2018

 

 

4P-4

Karen Radner — F. Janoscha Kreppner — Andrea Squitieri (ed.)
The Dinka Settlement Complex 2018.
Continuing the excavations at Qalat-i Dinka and the Lower Town
Peshdar Plain Project Publications — Volume 4

With contributions by Mark Altaweel, Silvia Amicone, Patrick Arneitz, Abdullah Bakr Othman, Christoph Berthold, Kathleen Downey, Eileen Eckmeier, Jörg Fassbinder, Jörg Fischer, Cajetan Geiger, Tina Greenfield, Zahra Hashemi, Jean-Jacques Herr, F. Janoscha Kreppner, Roman Leonhardt, Alessio Palmisano, Karen Radner, Jens Rohde, Hero Salih Ahmed, Marion Scheiblecker, Andrea Squitieri and Felix Wolter.

The good state of preservation and the excellent archaeological accessibility directly below the modern surface make the 60 hectare large Dinka Settlement Complex (DSC, including Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka) in the Bora Plain a key site for the investigation of the Iron Age in the Zagros mountains of northeastern Iraq and northwestern Iran. In 2018, the Peshdar Plain Project's excavations and its continuing geophysical survey and palaeo-environmental investigations have further improved our understanding of the extended Iron Age settlement, and also brought to light new information on other periods of the Bora Plain’s long history, both much older (Late Chalcolithic 1-2) and much younger (Middle Islamic Period) than the Iron Age occupation on which our research continues to focus. The present work offers a comprehensive report of the 2018 fieldwork activities, which included excavations, a programme of environmental studies (geology, geomorphology, soil analysis) and the continuation of the geophysical survey.
Excavations took place in three parts of the settlement: in the Upper Town on the western slope of Qalat-i Dinka, in a new area of the Lower Town ("Dinka Lower Town operation 3" = DLT3), and in Gird-i Bazar where anthropologist Kathleen Downey exposed and interpreted more of the accumulation of human skeletons in the well of Room 49 in Building I (Grave 71).
The excavations on Qalat-i Dinka revealed on the one hand the monumental Building P, occupied by elite inhabitants as suggested by the high quality and value of the finds encountered there (including ivory fittings, beads of carnelian and Egyptian Blue and other jewellery as well as nine identical iron arrowheads), and on the other hand an elaborate fortification that once consisted of a high wooden palisade (of which the base survives) and a glacis that protected its more sensitive stretches. Radiocarbon dates and the pottery finds make it clear that this part of the settlement was occupied during the same broad Iron Age horizon as the areas excavated in the Lower Town of the settlement.
DLT3 was chosen for excavation because radiocarbon analysis of a charcoal sample recovered in 2015 from the section of the geoarchaeological trench GA42 had produced a probable date range of 830-789 calBC (95.4 % probability). Our work there aimed at investigating continuities and discontinuities that might have resulted from the annexation of the Bora Plain and the DSC into the Assyrian Empire and the establishment of the Border March of the Palace Herald in the second half of the 9th century BC. In addition to evidence for two distinct building phases during DSC’s Iron Age main occupation period, this area yielded good contexts dating to the Late Chalcolithic period, including a pottery kiln.
The volume presents the pottery and the small finds from the 2018 excavation areas. Among the Iron Age materials from Qalat-i Dinka, Egyptian faience covered in the synthetic pigment Naples Yellow was identified by archaeometric analysis while a broken brick from DLT3 can be assigned to the Neo-Assyrian period because of a title preserved in its fragmentary cuneiform inscription, most likely to Shalmaneser III (r. 859-824 BC), the founder of the Border March of the Palace Herald. The volume also includes analyses of some materials previously excavated at Gird-i Bazar. Tina Greenfield presents results of the identification and quantitative analyses of the animal bones recovered in 2015 and 2016 while Patrick Arneitz and Roman Leonhardt offer an archaeomagnetic study of the pottery kiln first identified in 2015.

170 pages, more than 250 colored pictures — content
30 x 21 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 34,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-39-3
© PeWe-Verlag 2019

 

 

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Elena Devecchi — Gerfrid G.W. Müller — Jana Mynářová (ed.)
Current Research in Cuneiform Paleography.
Proceedings of the Workshop organised at the 60ᵗʰ Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Warsaw 2014

In recent years cuneiform studies have witnessed a growing interest in issues variously related to the broadly defined field of palaeography. This led to the development of new methodologies and technologies as well as to the establishment of several projects devoted to the palaeographic analysis of cuneiform corpora from Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia and New Kingdom Egypt, spanning from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BC.This volume collects papers from scholars who had been working on topics such as writing space, wedge order, quantitative analysis, text reconstruction, sign identification and palaeographic dating, providing an updated overview on the present state of the art.

XIV + 198 pages — content
24,5 x 17,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 29,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-18-8
© PeWe-Verlag 2015

 

 

tsh-cover

Bernd Müller-Neuhof

Die frühneolithischen und urukzeitlichen Silex- und Obsidianindustrien aus Tell Sheikh Hassan
Ausgrabungen in Tell Sheikh Hassan, Band V.1
Edited by Friederike Bachmann

This publication assembles the flint and obsidian tools retrieved from occupation levels dating to the early Neolithic and the Uruk periods that were exposed by the German excavations in Tell Sheikh Hassan. It is the first monograph to present an assemblage of Uruk-time lithics including detailed descriptions of the function of the various tool types. The finds of the early Neolithic are presented in as much detail as there is proof that certain early Neolithic types were, at the time of the Uruk occupation, sought after, collected and put to use again. Another important result is the fact that, for several lithic tools dating to proto-dynastic times, the Egyptian origin could be ascertained - a first indication of Egyptian imports to the Uruk region.

140 pages, with 286 drawings and 20 color pictures — content
35 x 24,3 cm — Hardcover

Price: €  48,00 [D]

ISBN:  978-3-935012-17-1
© PeWe-Verlag 2015

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BBVO-20
E. Cancik-Kirschbaum/N. Ziegler (ed.)

Entre les fleuves — I. Untersuchungen zur historischen Geographie Obermesopotamiens im 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 20

With articles by Adelheid Otto, Aline Tenu, Nele Ziegler, Dominique Charpin, Grégory Chambon, Hervé Reculeau, Daniela Crasso, Hartmut Kühne, Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Sabina Kulemann-Ossen, Jean-Marie Durand, Michaël Guichard, Adelina Millet Albà, Lionel Marti

The archaeological, philological and historic-systematical contributions in this volume are concerned with the cultural history of Upper Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC; the focus is on questions of historical geography. The case studies analyse typical spatial structures such as the Khabur region as an area for settlement and for traffic. The contributions also take up the problems connected with the various sources, their kinds of information and the conditions accompanying the methodical access. It becomes obvious that, beyond questions of localisation and identification, historical geography must aim at a description of space as the primary condition of culture – making use of textual sources, archaeological findings and, more than ever, taking into account the possibilities of the reconstruction of environment and landscape.

388 pages, with 9 line drawings, 11 b/w-pict. and 25 maps — content
24 x 17 cm — Hardcover

libreka
Price: € 29,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-04-1
© PeWe-Verlag 2010

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BBVO-21

Grégory Chambon
Normes et pratiques — L'homme, la mesure et l'écriture en Mésopotamie. I. Les mesures de capacité et de poids en Syrie Ancienne, d'Ébla à Émar.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 21

The book gives attention to cultural technics of calculating and metrology in ancient near eastern economic system administration in Syria of the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. Merchants, representatives of institutions and administrations but also individuals were using metrological and arithmetical competences e.g. negotiation of resources, manufacturing processes, merchandises, etc. Some practices have left traces like archaeological artefacts or textes on cuneiform tablets.
The analysis of terminology and systematics of these practices in economic and administration texts is aimed at institutional, socio-economic and cultural heritage contexts of the metrology in cuneiform culture of knowledge. The study approaches a contribution to the history of material culture and to the discussion about the development of rational pragmatics in the Ancient Near East by the interaction of men, measure and writing.

200 pages, with 1 b/w-pict and 1 map — content
24 x 17 cm — Hardcover
libreka

Price: € 29,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-08-9
© PeWe-Verlag 2011

 

 

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Carmen Gütschow
Methoden zur Restaurierung von ungebrannten und gebrannten Keilschrifttafeln – Gestern und Heute.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 22

The topic of this work is the treatment of unburnt and burnt clay tablets. As practical case studies six cuneiform tablets were chosen that show typical damages to be found in museum collections. For a better understanding of the problems concerning such objects the characteristics of clay as material are shown up, especially those of calcareous clays. Important restoration measures are discussed, as for example the secondary burning of tablets in preparation of the subsequent reduction of salt.

152 pages, 36 col. tab. with 80 img. — content
24 x 17 cm — Hardcover
libreka

Price: € 24,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-09-6
© PeWe-Verlag 2012

 

 

BBVO-23

Shai Gordin (ed.)
Visualizing Knowledge and Creating Meaning in Ancient Writing Systems.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 23

International Workshop of the Research Group "Notational Iconicity", 24th-25th September 2010
Ancient writing systems employ logographic and logophonetic principles playing on the relationship between writing, script and scribal learning. The workshop proceedings published in this volume explore the way these relationships encode knowledge and meaning reflected in the social, historical and cultural mentalité of the early peoples of East Asia (China and Japan), Anatolia, the Aegean, Egypt and Mesoamerica. The meeting was organized in the FU Berlin on the fall of 2010 by the editor and Dr. Renata Landgráfová (now Charles University, Prague) in the frame of the DFG research training group 1458 “Notational Iconicity” (“Schriftbildlichkeit”) headed by Prof. Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum and Prof. Sybille Krämer.
The premise of our meeting was that script and the organization of texts can reveal how knowledge is transformed and transmitted among different social groups across time and space, and eventually standardized as written tradition. Its multidisciplinary approach follows recent trends in the attempt to arouse debate between scholars of disparate systems of writing – be it Cuneiform, Hieroglyphic or Linear in nature – and to discuss their elements independent of origin or cultural context. A broad perspective on ancient writing and its visual elements was established with the contributions delving into the aspects of generating knowledge and meaning (J. Janák, M. Weeden), categorizing knowledge (E. Boot, T. W. Kwan, H. Tomas), diffusion and transformation of knowledge (Sh. Gordin, R. Landgráfová) and rationalizing knowledge (E. Birk).

260 pages, with 73 b/w-pictures — content
24 x 17 cm — Hardcover
libreka

Price: € 29,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-11-9
© PeWe-Verlag 2014

 

 

bbvo-24
N. Ziegler/E. Cancik-Kirschbaum (éd.)

Entre les fleuves — II. D'Aššur à Mari et au-delà
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 24

With contributions of Faysal Abdallah, Boris Alexandrov, Ilya Arkhipov, Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Dominique Charpin, Jean-Marie Durand, Christoph Fink, Michael Guichard, Antoine Jacquet, Lionel Marti, Christophe Nicolle, Susanne Paulus, William Pethe, Reinhard Pirngruber, Walter Sommerfeld, Ahmed Taraqdji, Nele Ziegler

The contributions gathered in this volume are the result of the German-French research project HIGEOMES – “The historical geography of Upper Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC: Interdisciplinary research” (ANR/DFG). The first part, “From Aššur to Mari,” covers the Sinjar, Khabur and Taurus regions, that is, the north of Upper Mesopotamia. The focus lies on spatial phenomena of political structures in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, based on written sources or archaeological findings (contributions by D. Charpin, M. Guichard, A. Jacquet, C. Nicolle, J.-M. Durand & N. Ziegler). The second part, “Beyond Upper Mesopotamia,” considers regions at the borders or even outside of Upper Mesopotamia proper. The city of Akkade remains a point of reference, also in the second millennium. With regard to the ongoing discussion about the localization of the city of Akkade it seemed to make sense to bring the state of research concerning the written sources of the third to the first millennia up to date (contributions by W. Sommerfeld, N. Ziegler, S. Paulus, W. Pethe, L. Marti and R. Pirngruber ). The two texts from Tell Sakka are here edited for the first time and analysed as to their importance for a reconstruction of Suppiluliuma I’s military campaigns (contributions by F. Abdallah & J.-M. Durand, B. Alexandrov). The third part, “Toponymy and concept of space,” consists of essays by I. Arkhipov, E. Cancik-Kirschbaum and N. Ziegler. They treat questions of newly attributed place-names and of the linguistic grasp of large areas and of central structures in Old Babylonian and Middle Assyrian times (libbi mātim / libbi māti resp. libbi āli).

354 pages, with 2 drawings, 17 b/w-pictures and 7 maps — content
24 x 17 cm — Hardcover

Price: € 29,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-13-3
© PeWe-Verlag 2014

 

 

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Nele Diekmann
Talbot's Tools. Notizbücher als Denklabor eines viktorianischen Keilschriftforschers.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 25

Much has been written about the decipherment, in the course of the 19th century, of ancient systems of writing, for instance the Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Assyrian-Babylonian cuneiform script. But rarely do we learn more about the details of the researchers’ methods when they were trying to solve an equation with many unknown quantities. How exactly did they proceed on their way to an understanding of the structure and meaning of the unknown signs? And which instruments were available towards the solution of such complex intellectual riddles?
The publication is concerned with just that question. What was the role in the research process of the numerous notebooks which the Victorian scholar William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) left behind? They provide an opportunity to observe how thinking and writing supplement each other and interact to produce results on the page that could not possibly have been reached just “in the mind“. In his notebooks Talbot categorizes, orders, experiments and corrects; the publication aims at analysing those partially superimposed processes and elucidate them with many examples.
In addition to matters of script research, in general, the volume gives a detailed overview over the early history of cuneiform research: it begins with the first reports by travellers to the Middle East, continues with the successful decipherments by Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895) and Edward Hincks (1792-1866) and even includes the power and information policies among scholarly circles of the Victorian society.
The book thus touches upon several disciplines: it treats to the same degree questions of the theory of script, the history of science and of Ancient Near Eastern Studies.

294 pages with 84 images — content
24,5 x 17,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 33,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-21-8
© PeWe-Verlag 2017

 

 

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Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum / Babette Schnitzlein (Hrsg.)
Keilschriftartefakte. Untersuchungen zur Materialität von Keilschriftdokumenten.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 26

This volume contains the contributions to the workshop “Materialität des Schreibprozesses” [“Materiality of the Writing Process”], held at the Institut für Altorientalistik [Ancient Near Eastern Languages and History] in Berlin on April 29, 2013.
The articles treat the production, inscription and conventions of written documents as well as their utilization, storage and socio-cultural contexts. Various aspects of “materiality” and possibilities of their investigation are covered in an exemplary way.

With contributions by: A. Bartelmus; D. Charpin; A. Fügert & J. Rohde; J. Marzahn; A. Richardson, U. Smilansky & J. Marzahn; J. Taylo.

160 pages, numerous colored figures — content
24,5 x 17,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 33,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-16-4
© PeWe-Verlag 2018

 

 

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Aron Dornauer
Proso, Sorghum, Tiger Nut. Some Minor Crops in the Cuneiform Sources.
Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, Band 27

The so called Fertile Crescent was home of some founder crops important in early agriculture: einkorn, emmer, barley, flax, chick pea, pea, lentil, and bitter vetch. However, research on the proportions and ubiquity of cultivated, measured, delivered, processed and consumed food crops shows a dramatic dominance of the cultivation of barley. Thus, one could assume that there was no significant interspecific but only intraspecific crop diversity and that Mesopotamian agriculture was a kind of a barley monoculture.
In contrast, the plenty of cuneiform terms for cereal-like and legume-like plants might indicate some kind of biodiversity. Indeed, some cuneiform scientists specializing in crop plants and vegetables consider that some of the Sumerian še compounds, as well as their Akkadian equivalents, might be identified with millets, with some kinds of pulses such as bitter vetch and cowpea, or with some kind of tuber plants. Against this background, this study undertakes research on some Sumero-Akkadian taxa:
In the first part of this study I evaluate some terms which several specialists propose to be millet or sorghum varieties: šeʾeštub (še-eštub) = arsuppu, šemuš (še-muš₍₃/₅₎) = šeguššu, šezaḫgebar (še-ne-ge-bar), šegunu (še-gu-nu, še-gunu₃) = šegunû, še-ka, še-ka sig-ga = arsikku, še-ud-e-de₃ = duḫnu. In this context, the question that has to be asked is if it is possible that millets were cultivated in Babylonia as early as the late third millennium BC. To address this issue, the contribution of the Bronze Age Gulf trade in exchange for domesticated crops, including African and Asian millets, will be examined. Finally, the study discusses why, despite their excellent heat and drought tolerances, none of the millet species in arid Babylonia could displace the winter sown main crops.
The second part addresses the question of whether the recently proposed identification of the Akkadian crop ⁽še/ú⁾qayyātu with Cyperus esculentus, a plant that has been demonstrated to have been present in ancient Egypt but not in Mesopotamia, is supported by the cuneiform evidence. I undertake some more detailed ecotrophological research on the use of qayyātu as an intermediate in the production of beer and foodstuff. In this context, I also study some other semi-baked and fermented intermediates.

166 pages — content
24,5 x 17,5 cm — Hardcover


Price: € 33,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-30-0
© PeWe-Verlag 2018

 

 

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Nedal Haj Darwich
Götter und Mischwesen in Syrien und Westmesopotamien in der Frühbronzezeit.

The study covers the geographical space west of the “classical” theatre of early Mesopotamian cultures, a region so far not in the focus of science. The investigation is restricted to the 3rd millennium BC and aims at a comprehensive presentation of gods and demons on all genres of monuments.
Comparisons with monuments from other parts of Mesopotamia help to identify the individual motives as to their date and function.
In addition, the gods and demons are considered in their iconographic as well as textual and historical context.

302 pages, with more than 320, partly col. fig. — content
Ebook


Price: € 14,80 [D]

ISBN: 978-3-935012-98-0
PeWe-Verlag 2010

The book can only be ordered from a book-shop or via Libreka.