LibGuides: HST 141: Primary Resources: Mesopotamia

Suggested Books

The Archaeology of Mesopotamia by Seton Lloyd 1. The land and its rivers -- The two regions -- The coastline -- The rivers -- Climate and irrigation -- Salinization -- Northern Iraq -- 2. The twilight of Neolithic man -- The Old Stone Age -- Garrod and Solecki -- American excavators in Kurdistan -- The state of Neolithic research -- Jordan and the Levant; Anatolia; Iran -- The Iraq-Jarmo project. 3. The threshold of written history -- The sequence of discoveries -- Al'Ubaid; Warka; Eridu; Khafaje -- The 'Ubaid period -- Architecture; religion; pottery and small objects; the cemetery -- The Uruk period -- Warka; the Anu area; the Eanna precinct; Tell 'Uqair -- Buildings of the Jemdet Nasr Period -- Warka; Khafaje -- The protoliterate period -- The first writing; sculpture; cylinder-seals; pottery -- Sumerian antecedents. 4. Illiterate peoples of Northern Mesopotamia -- Excavations in the north -- Arpachiyah; Tepe Gawra; Kuyunjik; Hassuna; other Hassuna sites; Samarra and Sawwan -- Architecture -- The pre-Halaf period; the Samarra period; the Halaf period; the 'Ubaid period; the 'Gawra' period; Tell Brak -- Pottery -- Pre-Halaf; Tell Halaf; Northern 'Ubaid; post-Ubaid -- Burials -- the 'Gawra' period -- Small objects -- figurines; seals -- Foreign relations -- Susiana -- 5. The early Sumerian dynasties -- The king-list -- The earliest written texts -- Archaeological phases -- The 'flood' -- Early dynastic sites -- Khafaje; Tell Asmar; Tell Agrab; Ur-of-the-Chaldees; Al 'Ubaid; Kish; Lagash; Nippur; Ashur and Mari; Sihuaira -- Variants in terminology. 6. Pre-Sargonid art and architecture -- Sculpture -- statues; relief carving -- Architecture -- building methods; temples; palaces -- Cylinder-seals -- Metallurgy and composite craftsmanship -- inlaid ornament; composite objects -- Pottery -- 7. The dynasty of Akkad and the Sumerian revival -- Semites in Mesopotamia -- Sargon and his successors -- Archaeology -- buildings; Tel Asmar; Khafaje and Brak; sculpture; cylinder-seals; Gasur -- Gutians and Lagash -- De Sarzec; Telloh; Gudea; Al-Hiba -- The third dynasty of Ur -- Buildings at Ur; the Ziggurat; the terrace; the mausoleum; temples and sculpture. 8. The 2nd millennium BC -- Conflicting states -- Buildings of the Isin-Larsa period -- Private houses -- The palace at Mari -- Mural paintings -- Tell Rimah -- Sculpture -- The Kassites -- Mitanni (Nuzi) -- The middle Assyrian period -- City of Ashur; fortifications; temples and palaces; some finds at Ashur; building practices -- 9. The late Assyrian period -- Imperial history -- Early excavations in Assyrian cities -- Nimrud (Kalhu) -- Khorsabad -- Nineveh -- American excavations at Khorsabad -- Building construction -- Late Assyrian sculpture -- British return to Nimrud -- The Nimrud ivories. 10. Babylon: The last Mesopotamian monarchy -- A dynastic revival -- The German excavation -- The city -- Buildings -- Postscript.
Call Number: DS68 .L57
ISBN: 0500780072
Publication Date: 1978-08-01
Art of the First Cities by Joan Aruz (Editor); Ronald Wallenfels (Contribution by) This illustrated work highlights one of the most important and creative periods in the history of art: a time marked by the appearance of the city states of the Sumerians, the citadel of Troy, the splendid royal tombs at Ur, and the monumental cities at Mohenjodaro and Harappa.
Call Number: OVR N5330 .A68 2003
ISBN: 0300098839
Publication Date: 2003-06-10
The Art and Architecture of Mesopotamia by Giovanni Curatola; Jean-Daniel Forest; Carlo Lippolis; Nathalie Gallois The artistic traditions of ancient Iraq, or Mesopotamia, are among the oldest in the world, for it was in this flat, fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that the world's first advanced civilization, that of the Sumerians, arose around 3000 BC. But the long history of Mesopotamian art was marked by change as much as continuity; the region was then as now a center of political conflict, and the Sumerians gave way to a succession of powers both indigenous and foreign, each of which left a cultural imprint. This volume's contributing authors, all art historians and archaeologists specializing in the ancient Near East, provide accessible and lively overviews of the successive phases of this eventful artistic saga. The first two chapters cover the "classic" age of the great Mesopotamian city-states, from the pre-Sumerian Ubaid culture to Alexander's conquest of Babylon; the remains of this era range from the fabulous treasures of the royal cemeteries at Ur to the mighty ziggurats of Uruk and Babylon. The third chapter concerns the Greco-Mesopotamian art of the Hellenistic dynasty founded by Alexander's general Seleucus; the ruins of Seleucia, his capital on the Tigris, cover some 1500 acres. The fourth chapter investigates the artistic contributions of the two Persian dynasties, the Parthian and the Sassanid, that dominated the region from the first century BC to the seventh century AD and established the soaring iwan, or vaulted portico, as one of its typical architectural forms. The final chapter is devoted to the area's early Islamic period, during which the Abbasid caliphs (eighth to thirteenth century AD) made Iraq the center of the Islamic world, constructing splendid mosques in their capitals of Baghdad and Samarra and elaborating the fantastic arabesques that have never disappeared from Islamic decorative art. The ancient masterpieces discussed in these chapters are depicted in 217 stunning illustrations, most of them full-color photographs, and appended to the main text is a unique visual guide to Iraq's principal archaeological sites, which provides a further 247 black-and-white photographs. With its authoritative, up-to-date texts and this wealth of illustrations, The Art and Architecture of Mesopotamia is an essential publication for anyone with an interest in the cultural heritage of mankind.
Call Number: OVR N5370 .I7313 2007
ISBN: 0789209217
Publication Date: 2007-04-01

Reference Books

A reference source (dictionary, encyclopedia, almanac, directories, etc.) is a good place to start to get brief background information or definitions on a particular topic. The call numbers of reference books begin with the prefix REF and may only be used in the library.

Gardner's Art Through the Ages by Fred S. Kleiner The 14TH EDITION of GARDNER'S ART THROUGH THE AGES provides you with a comprehensive, beautifully-illustrated tour of the world's great artistic traditions! Easy to read and understand, the fourteenth edition of the most widely-read art history book in the English language continues to evolve, providing a rich cultural backdrop for each of the covered periods and geographical locations, and incorporating new artists and art forms -- all reproduced according to the highest standards of clarity and color fidelity. A complete online environment, including all images and an eBook, is also available. The unique Scale feature will help you better visualize the actual size of the artworks shown in the book. A new timeline within each chapter, along with "The Big Picture" overviews at the end of every chapter, will help you review for exams.
Call Number: REF N5300 .G25 2013
ISBN: 9780495915423
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Women's Roles in Ancient Civilizations by Bella Vivante Knowledge about the roles of women in ancient civilizations has been limited to traditionally held notions, but recent discoveries and research have led to exciting insights into the great variety of ways in which women contributed to ancient cultures. This reference work, designed for student research, features lengthy essays and a wealth of new information about women's roles in twelve ancient civilizations around the world_China, India, Japan, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, West Africa, Greece, Rome, the Maya, the Inca, and Native North America. Historical studies have tended to ignore women's roles in ancient civilizations and to devalue their contributions to the community. These essays examine women's religious, political, public, economic, and domestic roles, their legal status, creative expression in art and literature, and notions of beauty. Students can then compare women's roles across cultures. The contributors, each of whom is a subject specialist, examine not only the nature of women's limitations in patriarchal culture but the ways in which women often succeeded, despite these limitations, in becoming agents of social change. Each essay begins with a timeline of events in the history of that culture to place the narrative in historical context, and concludes with suggestions for further reading about women in that culture.
Call Number: REF HQ1127 .W654 1999
ISBN: 9780313301278
Publication Date: 1999-06-30