The Early and Middle Bronze Age in Mesopotamia and Levant

Dear all,

I’m sending you materials for preparing PP presentations for our seminar in May.

If you have any problems with reading them, do not hesitate to contact me.

There are 16 topics to be shared among you – some are for a single speaker, some – more extensive
ones, for two persons. You can distribute the topics among yourselves according to your preferences
– I just expect each person to speak something and to hear something about each of the proposed
topics. The presentation will be the only basis for giving you a final mark.


You can use graphics or photos that you will find in internet. I know there are plenty of them and
you can use them for educational purposes. If you have any problem with illustrations, send me an
email.


If you have any questions, difficulties or doubts connected with the seminar mail me:

wygnanska@tlen.pl

Good luck and see you soon!

 Zuzanna Wygnanska


Questions under focus – please, focus on following subjects while preparing your presentations:


ASPECTS OF SOCIAL COMPLEXITY

-          Settlement pattern

-          Socio-political organization

o   Temples

o   Palaces

o   When and where does monumental/ official architecture appear?

o   Exotic goods

o   Evidence of administration

o   Art: monumental? Official? “Private”?


-          Burial practices: social hierarchy, continued/ discontinued tradition, accumulation of
wealth

-          Trade  (FOREIGN CONTACTS)


                                         SEMINAR TIMETABLE


MONDAY


Southern Mesopotamia in ED I-III

Social complexity in the Early Dynastic period (2900 – 2450 BC) in Southern Mesopotamia


                                          PRESENTATIONS:


-          S. Pollock, Ancient Mesopotamia:

o   Settlements pattern, p.67-77

o   A changing way of life: pp. 117-140;

o   Ideology and power (Ideology, Monuments, pp. (173-185)

-          J. Ur, Bronze Age cities of the Plains and the Highlands: Urban expansion and Rural
Abandonment in the early 3^rd millennium Competing cities of the mid- to the late third millennium:
540-546.


-          Delougaz, Presargonid Diyala– choose one of the described temples to follow changes in
plan and arrangement of the building within the city net

-          Ławecka: Third millennium ‘pseudo-temples’ from the  Diyala region


Ur Royal Cemetery:

-          S. Pollock in: Ancient Mesopotamia, pp. 210-211.

-          Pollock: Of Priests and Priestesses

-          Web pages: http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/tombs/explore/exp_set.html

-          http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/science/27ur.html?_r=3



TUESDAY:

Northern Mesopotamia:

Social complexity in the 1 half of the 3^rd millennium in Northern Mesopotamia - Ninevite 5 Culture
case study: urban civilization continuing Uruk period tradition or a disintegrated country side
with local trajectory of development ?


                                          PRESENTATIONS:



-          Schwartz, Socio-political developments in the Ninevite 5

-          Akkermans & Schwartz, in: Archaeology of Syria - about the Ninevite 5 period

-          Meyer: City Planning – follow the changes between the first and second half of the 3^rd
millennium BC


-          Pfaelzner: Architecture: palaces, temples, fortifications, storage buildings - follow
the changes between the first and second half of the 3^rd millennium BC



-          Bolt & Green: the burial of the dead

-          Valentini – Burials and funerary practices: follow the changes between the first and
second half of the 3^rd millennium BC




WEDNESDAY

After the Chalcolithic decline - birth of the urban civilization in Levant (Early Bronze Age I-III)


                                          PRESENTATIONS:


-          Ben Tor: The Early Bronze Age

-          Miroschedji: Rise and collapse at Southern Levant (information on Early Bronze and
Middle Bronze Ages)


-          Ilan:  Morturary practices in EBA Caanan


-          Sala: Sanctuaries and cult places in EB I



THURSDAY

Middle Bronze Age  Mesopotamia – urban civilization with dimorphic social structure; between
“Babylonian” and “Amorite” cultures

                                          PRESENTATIONS:


-          Schwartz:  Amorite global village


-          Kolinski: Old Assyrian or Old Babylonian

-          H. Wiess: Tell Leilan on the Khabur plains of Syria (in the second millennium)


-          Matthiae: New discoveries at Ebla


-          Schwartz: Memory and its demolition: ancestors, animals and Sacrifice at  Umm el-Marra

-          Wygnanska: Burial customs at Tell Arbid (Syria) in the MBA


FRIDAY

Middle Bronze Age Levant – characterization of the urban civilization of the second millennium BC


                                          PRESENTATIONS:



-          D. Ilan, The dawn of internationalism in the Middle Bronze Age, in: T. Levy (ed.)”, The
archaeology of society in the Holy Land, London 1998


-          E. Oren: Palaces and patrician houses in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, in: A.
Kempinski& R. Reich (eds.), The Architecture of Ancient Israel, pp. 105-126 (INFORMATION ON MIDDLE
BRONZE!)

-          A. Mazar: Temples of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and Iron Age, in: A. Kempinski & R.
Reich (eds.), The Architecture of Ancient Israel, pp. 161-169 (INFORMATION ON MIDDLE BRONZE!)


-          L. Nigro: Palace and built-tomb from Tell es-Sultan

-          G. Philip, Warrior Burials in the Ancient Near Eastern Bronze Age: Evidence from
Mesopotamia, Western Iran and Syria-Palestine, in: S. Campbell & A. Green (eds.) Archaeology of
Death, Oxford 1995, pp.: 140-154.