Review: A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Review by Peter Magee)

This review does not concern Egypt but covers the Near Eastern period which is contemporary with the times when Pharaonic period had direct connections with the Near East. It may therefore be of some interest to those looking at relationships between Egypt and other civilizations:

Marc Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC. 2nd edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

As I noted in my review of the first edition of this book (BMCR 2006.09.24), Van de Mieroop has done the Academy a great service by bringing together in an accessible fashion divergent historical sources on the Ancient Near East. To my knowledge, most reviewers agreed with this conclusion. I was somewhat surprised, therefore, to receive the second edition so shortly after publication of the first.

Van De Mieroop notes in his preface that it was primarily to increase its accessibility as a textbook that a second edition was produced. Indeed this seems to be the most obvious justification for the volume. Many maps, illustrations and translations have been added to increase its ease-of-use.

These include: new illustrations of an Uruk tablet; a cylinder seal used by Ilum-bani; a statue of a Syrian deity; a Kassite stele of the goddess Lama; a neo-Hittite orthostat from Tell Halaf; an Assyrian relief showing refugees; a plan of Babylon in the sixth century and the glazed brick representations of soldiers from Susa. All are perfectly situated in the text so that their relevance is clear.

See the above page for the entire review.