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Babylon stands with Athens and Rome as a cultural ancestor of western civilization. It was founded by the people of ancient Mesopotamia, who settled in the fertile crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers before the fourth millennium b.c. Some of the earliest experiments in agriculture and irrigation, the invention of writing, the birth of mathematics and the development of urban life all began there. Biblical associations are also numerous, from Nineveh to the Tower of Babel and the Flood. In Babylonians, H. W. F. Saggs describes the ebb and flow in the successive fortunes of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites, and Babylonians who flourished in this region. Using evidence from p...
Excavations in Mesopotamia have revealed a large amount of new information relevant to the study of Babylonian civilization. The roots of much of western civilization lie in Babylonia the ancient civilization of south Iraq. Alexander the Great recognized the importance of its heritage and planned to make Babylon his world capital. The splendours and supposed wickedness of Babylon lived on in a tradition transmitted through the Bible and classical writers. The author aims here to reconstruct all aspects of this lost culture, presenting the Babylonians as living people -- showing their eating and drinking habits, their worship, their relationships and lifestyle and so present an integrated picture.
In 1952 in one wing of the North-West Palace at Nimrud, ancient Kalhu, Max Mallowan excavated an archive room containing royal correspondence from the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II of Assyria. Subjects include Assyrian military activity in Babylonia and on the northern frontier, royal building projects, events on the Phoenician seaboard, and relations with King Midas of Phrygia. Some texts were published in Iraq between 1955 and 1974; the majority have remained unpublished until now. Two hundred and forty-three texts are published here; most are in New Assyrian script and the remainder in New Babylonian. Chapters divide the tablets into the geographical areas they are concerned with. The texts are presented with transliterations, translation and notes. Plates at the end of the book give facsimiles of the tablets.
This book surveys within the various literary genres (cosmologies, personal archives and epics, hymns, and prayers) parallels between the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literature.
The important corpus of Neo-Assyrian political and administrative letters discovered in ancient Calah (present-day Nimrud) by Sir Max Mallowan in the early 1950s has been partially accessible to Assyriologists in marvellous hand-copies and preliminary transliterations and translations since 1955, thanks to the pioneering efforts of the late H. W. F. Saggs. Nevertheless, his long-awaited edition of the entire corpus, which appeared in 2001, left a great deal of room for improvement. This critical edition, based on careful study of the originals in the British Museum and the historical background of the letters, clarifies a host of problems and details pertinent to the reign of Tiglath-pileser III in particular, and for the first time makes this extraordinary collection of letters completely accessible to the historian.
This pioneering study surveys all 446 Lower Stratum families in the period under review (800-600 B.C.). It is the most important and the most responsible study of the lower stratum of the Neo-Assyrian society proposed to date.
Volume III Part II describes the rise and fall of the great empires of Assyria and Babylonia, the sack of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews in Babylon.
“A readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture” from a world-renowned Sumerian scholar (American Journal of Archaeology). The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. “An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity.” —Library Journal