Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological EvidenceThis is the first systematic attempt to survey in detail the archaeological evidence for the crafts and craftsmanship of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in Ancient Mesopotamia, covering the period c.8000-300 BC. As creators of some of the earliest farming and urban communities known to us, these people were among the first pioneers of many crafts and skills that remain fundamental to modern ways of life. Many of the raw materials for crafts had to be imported from outside the river valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, providing an unusually sensitive indicator of the commercial and cultural contacts of Mesopotamia. In this book Dr Moorey reviews briefly the textual evidence, and then goes on to examine in detail the material evidence for a wide range of crafts using stones, both common and ornamental, animal products - from hippopotamus ivory to ostrich egg-shells - ceramics, glazed materials and glass, metals, and building materials. With a comprehensive bibliography, this will be a key work of reference for archaeologists and those interested in the early history of crafts and technology, as well as for specialist historians of the ancient near east. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
THE COMMON STONES | 21 |
Limestone statuette of a man c 2500 BC Ashmolean Museum 1919 | 57 |
Copyright | |
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Achaemenid agate Akkadian Akkadian period alloy Amiet Anatolia ancient appear archaeological Arpachiyah artefacts Assurnasirpal II Assyrian Babylon baked clay beads bitumen blue bowl bricks Bronze Age calcite carved cent century BC colour context copper cornelian craft craftsmen cylinder seals decoration diorite drill earliest Early Dynastic East Egypt Egyptian Euphrates evidence excavations faience flint fourth millennium BC fragments frit Gawra glass glazed gold graves Gulf gypsum identified indicate inlays inscriptions Iran Iraq iron ivory Kassite kiln Kish lapis lazuli later limestone Mallowan manufacture Mesopotamia metal Moorey moulded Museum Neo-Assyrian Nimrud Nineveh Nippur Nuzi objects obsidian ornaments palace pottery production quartz rare region repertory reported royal sculpture second millennium BC shape shell silver sources statuary steatite stone vessels Sumer Sumerian surface Susa Syria techniques Tell Telloh temple Tepe texts third millennium BC turquoise Ubaid Ubaid period Uruk whilst Woolley workshops