Between two rivers : ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history / Moudhy Al-Rashid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Al-Rashid, Moudhy, 1982- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Iraq--History--To 634.

Iraq.

Iraq--Civilization--To 634.

Iraq--Kings and rulers.

Mesopotamia--History.

Mesopotamia.

Physical Description:

viii, 327 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First American edition.

Other Title:

Ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history

Between 2 rivers

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : W.W. Norton and Company, 2025.

Summary:

"Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi.... the world's first cities, the first writing system, early seeds of agriculture, and groundbreaking developments in medicine and astronomy"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Mesopotamia matters

An ancient museum and the history of history

The clay drum : "the first written words started here"

The brick of Amar-Suen : Mesopotamia's building blocks

The statue of King Shulgi : how to be a good king

The school tablets : ancient Babylonian ABCs

The cone of Kudur-Mabuk : the birth of science

The boundary stone : slaves and scribes, weavers and wives

The mace head : the art vs reality of war

Ennigaldi-Nanna : princess, priestess, and curator?

Epilogue: Between us and them

Acknowledgments

Selected artifacts cited

A timeline of ancient Mesopotamian history

Bibliography

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-318) and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Schaffer fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9781324036425

1324036427

OCLC:

1528822871