Ancient Mesopotamia : portrait of a dead civilization / by A. Leo Oppenheim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oppenheim, A. Leo, 1904-1974, author.

Contributor:

Reiner, Erica, 1926- contributor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civilization, Assyro-Babylonian.

Iraq--Civilization--To 634.

Iraq.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (494 p.)

Edition:

Revised edition / completed by Erica Reiner.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Summary:

"This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."-Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia-the area now called Iraq-has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."-Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."-Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.

Contents:

""Contents""; ""List of Illustrations""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Preface to the Revised Edition""; ""Prefatory Note""; ""Introduction: Assyriology�Why and How?""; ""I. The Making of Mesopotamia""; ""The Background ""; ""The Setting ""; ""The Actors ""; ""The World Around ""; ""II. Go to, let us build us a city and a tower!""; ""The Social Texture ""; ""Economic Facts ""; """"The Great Organizations""""; ""The City ""; ""Urbanism ""; ""III. Regnum a gente in gentem transfertur""; ""Historical Sources or Literature? ""; ""An Essay on Babylonian History ""; ""An Essay on Assyrian History ""

""IV. Nah ist�und schwer zu fassen der Gott""""Why a ""Mesopotamian Religion"" should not be written ""; ""The Care and Feeling of the Gods ""; ""Mesopotamian ""Psychology"" ""; ""The Arts of the Diviner ""; ""V. Laterculis coctilibus""; ""The Mean of Writing ""; ""The Scribes ""; ""The Creative Effort ""; ""Patterns in Non-Literary Texts ""; ""VI. There are many strange wonders, but nothing more wonderful than man""; ""Medicine and Physicians ""; ""Mathematics and Astronomy ""; ""Craftsmen and Artists ""; ""Epilogue""; ""Appendix: Mesopotamian Chronology of the Historical Period""

""Notes""""Bibliographical Notes""; ""Glossary of Names and Terms""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780226177670

022617767X

OCLC:

1248759618