Civilizations of Ancient Iraq

Illustrations ix Preface xi CHAPTER 1: IN THE BEGINNING Of Tigris and Euphrates 1 The First Villages 7 From the Foothills to the Plains 12 CHAPTER 2: THE BIRTHPLACE OF CIVILIZATION The First Cities 15 From City to State 27 Sumerians Abroad 29 Setting Words on Clay 30 The Uruk Phenomenon 33 CHAPTER 3: EARLY CITY-STATES New Polities 35 Ur and the Royal Graves 36 When Kingship Came down from Heaven 39 Shuruppak, City of Wisdom 40 A Tale of Two Cities 42 CHAPTER 4: KINGS OF THE FOUR QUARTERS OF THE WORLD The First Empire 51 Naram-Sin: When Kingship Went up to Heaven 55 A Golden Age of Sumerian Culture 61 Management and Crisis 67 CHAPTER 5: THE AGE OF HAMMURABI The Amorites 71 Rim-Sin, King of Larsa 73 Shamshi-Adad, King of Upper Mesopotamia 74 Hammurabi, King of Babylon 76 Arts of the Table and Bedroom 81 The Epic of Gilgamesh 83 The End of Amorite Rule 85 CHAPTER 6: BABYLONIA IN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS The Kassites 87 Kassite Statecraft and Society 90 The Club of Great Powers 93 Science and Literature 94 The Hurrians 99 The End of Kassite Rule 100 CHAPTER 7: THE ASSYRIAN ACHIEVEMENT The Rise of Assur 105 The Middle Assyrian Empire 109 The Neo-Assyrian Empire 113 Assurnasirpal II and Nimrud 115 Sennacherib and Nineveh 119 The Library of Assurbanipal 123 The Fall of Assyria 126 CHAPTER 8: THE GLORY OF BABYLON The Last Babylonian Empire 129 Nabonidus, King of Babylon 132 Learning and Memory in Babylonia 134 Works and Days 140 The Persian Empire 142 CHAPTER 9: MESOPOTAMIA BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Alexander the Great and the Seleucids 147 Antiochus I Soter, King of Asia 149 The Realm and Its Economy 152 The Culture of Hellenistic Babylonia 154 The Rise of Parthia 156 Mithridates I and the Reunification of Iraq 158 Parthian Iraq 160 Roman Armies in Iraq 164 The End of Mesopotamian Civilization 166 CHAPTER 10: SASSANIAN IRAQ The Sassanian Empire and Religious Pluralism 168 By the Waters of Babylon: Judaism in Iraq 173 Christianity in Iraq 176 Sassanian Society,

Benjamin R. Foster is the Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature and curator of the Babylonian Collection at Yale University. Karen Polinger Foster is a lecturer in ancient Near Eastern and Aegean art at Yale.

Benjamin Foster and Karen Polinger Foster, both at Yale University, have written an excellent overview of the history and cultures of ancient Iraq beginning with the earliest references to Sumer and ending with the Arab defeat of the Sassanians in 637 CE... The text is clear, well written and a pleasure to read. It should be highly recommended to anyone, student and layman alike, as an introduction to the history of ancient Iraq. Perhaps most importantly the book seems to have been designed for an audience that wishes to know more about ancient Iraq as a consequence of recent and current events... This book is for bookshops, on the high street and at airports, as well as for students and for scholars for whom ancient Iraq or contemporary attitudes to the civilization of ancient Iraq might be tangential. -- Geoffrey D. Summers, Bryn Mawr Classical Review It's an undeniable benefit to have Civilizations of Ancient Iraq (note the plural), ... [a] crystal-clear and well-illustrated narrative ranging from the earliest villages (c. 8000 BCE) to the Arab conquest of 637 CE... This is a most rewarding book with fine illustrations and a challenging bibliography. -- Peter Skinner, ForeWord Magazine A very readable overview of the importance of Iraq in its own terms and in the larger context of the forces that have shaped modern civilisation. Here are chapters on the creation of the first cities ever constructed, of the first examples of writing, of the great King Hammurabi of Babylon and humanity's first poetic utterance in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Here is a story of great scientific achievement, of the powerful Assyrian Empire, of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, of Sennacherib and his transformation of Nineveh into a city of aqueducts, canals, dams and, most impressively, of the invention of the device now known as the Archimedes screw. It is a story of an ancient and extraordinary civilisation that in recent times has been buried under acts of brutality and violence. -- Bruce