City of Culture 2600 BC: Early Mesopotamian History and Archaeology at Abu Salabikh
By (author) John Nicholas Postgate
Paperback (Published)
(March 2024)
ISBN: 9781803276694
7.99 x 10.91 inches
Price: $49.00
In stock
This book presents the city beneath the surface of Abu Salabikh, southern Iraq. The archaeology and the textual data combine to reveal its architecture, agricultural and industrial enterprises, and social structure. Integrated with our wider knowledge of south Mesopotamia at this time it creates a vivid image of city life in 2600 BC.
City of culture, 2600 BC presents the city which lies beneath the surface of the archaeological site of Abu Salabikh in south Iraq, first investigated in the 1960s and excavated in the 1970s and 1980s. It starts from the facts on the ground, and shows how the material remains can resurrect the city, illuminated by its library of literary and lexical texts, and documents from institutional administration. The archaeology and the textual data reinforce each other and together convey a picture of the city and its architecture, agricultural and industrial enterprises, and social structure. These are all integrated with our wider knowledge of south Mesopotamia at this time, and with the world view given us by the rich body of Sumerian literature – myths, epics and religious texts, but also homespun secular philosophy – to create a vivid image of city life in 2600 BC. This is an account of one city and what it tells us. Cities were the defining components of early Mesopotamia, acting as the base for all economic, social, political and cultural activity. With their shared languages and traditions they belonged to a single cultural order, and as with other similar groupings of individual urban centres – whether in Greece, Italy or China – the rivalry and emulation generates a vibrant but varied and innovative world. The book concludes therefore with a more general account of “The Land” (kalam) in the pre-imperial Early Dynastic era, and with an assessment of the nature of the early Mesopotamian urban scene.
Introduction
Chapter 1. The site and the environment
Chapter 2. The mounds and the city layout
Chapter 3. Buildings and builders
Chapter 4. Burials and memorials
Chapter 5. The temple and the tablets
Chapter 6. The temple estates
Chapter 7. Textiles, clay and stone
Chapter 8. Ornamental stones and metals
Chapter 9. The ensi and his city
Chapter 10. Kingships and patron deities
Chapter 11. Cities and states: recognition and rivalry
Chapter 12. Abu Salabikh in context
Appendix 1. Ereš and Nisaba
Appendix 2 ki.en-gi
Appendix 3. Records of land allocations
Appendix 4. The profession PA.USAN
Bibliographical matters
Bibliography
Nicholas Postgate taught Akkadian at SOAS in London from 1967-71 and then moved to the British School of Archaeology in Baghdad until 1980 when he returned to teach Mesopotamian history and archaeology at Cambridge, and later Sumerian and Akkadian language and literature, retiring in 2013. His main archaeological project in Iraq was Abu Salabikh, though he also worked at Tell Madhhur and under Diana Kirkbride at Umm Dabaghiyah. After Iraq became out of bounds in 1990 he directed the Bronze and Iron Age excavation at Kilise Tepe in Rough Cilicia from 1994 to 1998 and again in 2007-2012. Alongside his books, Early Mesopotamia: society and economy at the dawn of history (1992) and Bronze Age bureaucracy: writing and the practice of government in Assyria (2013), he has edited Middle and Neo-Assyrian archives, co-edited the Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, and written articles on various historical topics, and recently on Sumerian grammar.
- By (author) John Nicholas Postgate
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