A Mythic Babylon Bibliography

Many people have commented on the quality of research in Mythic Babylon, but lamented the fact that we didn't include a bibliography in the book. The reason we didn't was purely for space, and a bibliography is the kind of thing that can easily be published on a forum or a blog just like this one! So, for those who were asking - here's the Mythic Babylon Bibliography. I've broken this down by subject matter, and the books are listed title-first rather than author-first. The list is annotated with my commentary. If a book is listed without comment, it's because it didn't move me enough to remember what I like about it!

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN VOICES

When writing Mythic Babylon, we distilled the historical and societal information into what we think is a neat package. We didn't have room to include very much in the way of the Babylonians own voices, though, and so the very first I think of when people say they like to further their reading - to the  writings of the ancients themselves. The corpus of literature is rich. Really rich! Rabbit-hole Warning Rich!

But that's where I think you should go first. Here are some fine books that will take you back to the very distant past.

The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation
Edited by Mark W. Chavalas, 2006 Blackwell. 445pp.

This very fine volume introduces you to the voices of many eras. There are letters, decrees, hymns, and much more. This is real slice of life type stuff, and each piece is richly annotated and introduced.

The Literature of Ancient Sumer
Black, Cunningham, Robson, and Zolyomi, 2004 Oxford University Press. 372pp.

This book includes translations of key texts – a scribal curriculum, really – written in Sumerian. It probably the gold standard for Sumerian texts in English. The book deals with 'literature', which is spends some efforts to define. Letters and other more worldly correspondence are not included here.

Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature
Benjamin R. Foster, Third Edition 2005 CDL Press. 1044 pp.

This cinder block of a volume does for the Akkadian language what the above does for Sumerian, but it's divided up by period so you can see changes over time. Again, a gold standard.

From an Antique Land: An introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature
Edited by Carl S. Ehrlich, 2009 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 506 pp.

An entertaining volume with some fun commentary from the author. This book covers a spectrum of writings by different people in different languages, with sections on Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Ugaritic, Canaanite, Aramaean, Hebrew, and Egyptian. It's not quite complete (no Hurrian or Elamite, for example) but a rewarding read all the same.


Mesopotamian Chronicles
Jean-Jacques Glassner, 2004, SBL, 365pp

Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East
Martti Nissinen, 2003 SBL, 296pp

These two books from the Society of Biblical Literature explore particular writings in some depth. The first explores the chronicles of Mesopotamian kings and reveals something about how they viewed their own history. The second explores records of actual incidents of ecstatic prophecy in various time periods and tells us a little about prophets in general. Both recommended if you'd like a deep dive into something specific, but maybe not for the casual reader. Both are reviewed in more depth elsewhere on this blog.


MYTHS

Also in the category of primary voices, we weren't able to include Mesopotamian myths in all their glory – there just wasn't room. And we figured that curious readers could easily look these up online or in books. Here's a collection of publications that feature translations of myths. Some are general, others specific to a particular cycle.

Myths from Mesopotamia
Stephanie Dalley, revised edition 2000, Oxford University Press. 342pp.

Sumerian Mythology
Samuel Noah Kramer, 1972, University of Pennsylvania Press, 130pp

Jealous Gods & Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East
David Leeming, 2004, Oxford University Press, 150pp

The above are general studies. The first is a good overall collection for the general reader. The second is an older work by a very important and influential author, now somewhat out of date. The third didn't make a huge impression on me.


A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
Gwendolyn Leick, 1991 Routledge. 226pp.

Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia
Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, 1992 The British Museum Press. 192Pp

Both of the above are dictionary type books with various entries in alphabetical order. They don't always agree with one another. Each has entries that the other lacks, so I suppose you'll want them both.


Epics of the Sumerian Kings: The Matter of Aratta
Herman Vanstiphout, 2003 Society of Biblical Literature. 176pp.

The City of Rainbows: A Tale from Ancient Sumer
Karen Foster, 1999, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 28pp

The first of the above is a brilliant deep dive into the collection of myths that feature the distant, and perhaps imaginary, city of Aratta. The author provides translations and discussion. The second is a small picture book that tells one of these myths in story-time fashion. It's cute and a labour of love, but there isn't much there to excite the researcher.


The Epic of Gilgamesh

Andrew George, 1999, Penguin Books, 228pp

Gilgamesh: A New English Version

Stephen Mitchell, 2004, Free Press, 290pp

There are many translations of Gilgamesh on the market. The translation by Andrew George is very highly regarded. The retelling by Mitchell is well written and accessible, but not as scholarly.


Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth
Diana Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, 1983, Harper & Row Publishers, 227pp

This collection by the esteemed Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer and foklorist Diana Wolkstein deals with the cycle of Inanna myths. It's somewhat dated, but still very enjoyable and worth a read.



RELIGION

Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide
Sarah Iles Johnson, general editor, 2004, The Bellknap Press, 697pp

This is a huge tome of comparative religion, dealing with a wide variety of specific topics and comparing the Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites, Canaanites, and many more.


Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia
by Jean Bottero, 2001 The University of Chicago Press. 246pp.

A very good overview of the subject.


Ancient Goddesses
Lucy Goodison and Christine Morris eds., 1998, The University of Wisconsin Press, 224pp

More specific to goddesses, with some nice juicy bits for the historical detective.


The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion

Thorkild Jacobsen, 1976, Yale University Press, 273pp

A very interesting and influential work, though perhaps a bid dated now. This offers a more theoretical framework for the religion, rather than a look at the practice. The author has some interesting and compelling ideas.


Gods in the Desert: Religion of the Ancient Near East
Glenn S. Holland, 2009, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 309pp

Religions of the Ancient Near East
Daniel C. Snell, 2011, University of Cambridge Press, 179pp

Penguin Handbook of Ancient Religions
Edited by John R. Hinnells, 2007, Penguin Books, 610pp

Three more generalist books to round out the list, all of which have something to offer.




DAILY LIFE

Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia
Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat, 1998 Hendrickson Publishers. 346pp.

This is my favourite 'daily life' book for the Old Babylonian period, and the one I usually recommend.


Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia

Stephen Bertman, 2003 Oxford University Press. 396pp


Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia

Jean Bottero, 2001 Johns Hopkins University Press. 276Pp

Both of the above are good. The first is broken out by topic, which makes browsing it easier. Unfortunately, it doesn't separate the time periods, so one gets the idea that life never changed over the 4000 year history of the culture. This makes it less useful for research. The second book is a more conventional read and is fine, but not as good as the Nemet-Nejat book.


Ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian & Persian Costume
by Mary G. Houston, 2002 Dover Books, 190pp.
(essentially a reprint of the original second edition from 1954)

Somewhat dated now, but still has some use for this very specific topic.


Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor
Martha T. Roth, 1997, SBL, 283pp

Probably the gold standard book on Ancient Near Eastern laws in English. It covers the known Mesopotamian collections, as well as that of the Hittites. The excerpts of Hammurabi's code in Mythic Babylon do not come from this book, though. For those we turned to The Oldest Code of Laws in the World by C.H.W. Johns, 1903, available on Project Gutenberg.


The Marsh Arabs

Wilfred Thesiger, 1967 Penguin. 233pp.

This is a wonderful travelogue about Thesiger's time living in the southern marshes of the Sealand. It's all to easy to imagine that not much changed between the times of Lugalzagesi and Thesiger.



HISTORIES

King Hammurabi of Babylon
Marc van de Mieroop, 2005 Blackwell Publishing. 171pp.

One of two biographies of Hammurabi that I'm aware of, and the only one I've so far been able to lay my hands on. The other is by Domenic Charpin, and affordable copies have finally come to the market – I anxiously await mine.

 

A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC, Third Edition
Marc Van de Mieroop, 2015 Wiley Blackwell Publishing. 432 pp.

An excellent survey of Mesopotamian History from 3000 to 323 BC, now in it's third edition..


Mari and Karana: Two Old Babylonian Cities
Stephanie Dalley, 1984 Longman Group Ltd. 218pp.

This book looks at the relationship between the kings of these two cities who were joined by marriage. It's a bit old and possibly hard to find, but I thought it was an excellent little book for revealing some of the politics and events of Subartu.


Letters From the King of Mari
Wolfgane Heimpel, 2003, Esenbrauns, 657pp

This huge book provides a detailed look at the last 12 or so years of King Zimri-Lim's life. It tries to piece together a very complex sequence of events from (usually undated) letters from the Mari archive. It covers some of the same ground as Mari and Karana, but unlike that book, this one is not for casual readers.


The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia
Benjamin R. Foster, 2016 Routledge. 428pp.

This book deals specifically with the Akkadian period of history and with the legacy of that city. If you'd like to use Mythic Babylon but shift the action to the Akkadian period, then I definitely recommend this book.



WEAPONS AND WARFARE

Of the books below, the only two I really recommend are the ones by Hamblin and Howard. The Hamblin book is really comprehensive and covers our period, but stops at the end of the middle bronze age. The book by Howard looks a weapons in detail, from the eye of a re-enactor and re-creator. It's rather dry and has some odd bugaboos, but has information you won't find elsewhere. Both of the Osprey books tend to skirt our period, and the Wise book is now somewhat out of date.

Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC
William J. Hamblin, 2006 Routledge 517pp.

Bronze Age Military Equipment
Dan Howard, 2011 Pen & Sword Books. 169pp.

Bronze Age Warfare
Richard Osgood, Sarah Monks, and Judith Toms, 2000 Sutton Publishing Ltd., 165pp

Bronze Age War Chariots
Nic Fields, 2006 Osprey Publishing, 48pp

Ancient Armies of the Middle East
Terence Wise, 1981, Osprey Publishing, 40pp



BOOKS ABOUT CITIES

Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City
Gwendolyn Leick, 2001, Penguin Books, 384pp

The Ancient Mesopotamian City
Marc Van de Mieroop, 2004, Oxford University Press, 269pp

The two books above are generally about Mesopotamian cities and look at them very differently. The book by Leick is one of my favourite history books ever – it gives a detailed look at 7 cities that were prominent at different times in the history of the culture and explains what as unique about them. This gives the effect of one of those 'history of the world in 100 objects' books, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Quite a remarkable piece of writing, really. I'd love to see a sequel with 7 more cities!

The Van de Mieroop book is more a tradition survey of city life, organized by topic.

All of the books below are about specific cities. They vary in scope and some are pretty cursory (Erbil) while others more detailed (Ebla), but they all have something to contribute. Three have been reviewed elsewhere on this blog

Ur: The City of the Moon God
Harriet Crawford, 2015, Bloomsbury, 146pp

A City from the Dawn of History: Erbil in the Cuneiform Sources
John MacGinnis, 2014, Oxbow Books, 128pp

Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered
Paolo Matthiae, 1981, Doubleday & Company Inc., 237pp

Ugarit: Ras Shamra
Adrian Curtis, 1985, Lutterworth Press, 125pp




SPECIAL TOPICS

Philosophy Before the Greeks: The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia
Marc Van de Mieroop, 2016, Princeton University Press, 312pp

A book about Babylonian systems of learning which I've reviewed elsewhere on this blog.


The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture
Francesca Rochberg, 2004 Cambridge University Press, 331pp

This is mainly about astrology, and mainly about times after the OB period. I don't thin it's for the general reader.


Women in the Ancient Near East
Edited by Mark W. Chavalas, 2014, Routledge, 319pp

This one was a bit disappointing for a rather pedestrian treatment of a subject matter that deserved more.


The Horse, The Wheel, and Language
David W. Anthony, 2007, Princeton University Press, 553pp

A lengthy and detailed look at the cultures of the Pontic steppe and the origins of chariotry.



ATLASES AND GAZETEERS

The Routledge Handbook of The Peoples and Places of Ancient Western Asia
Trevor Bryce, 2009, Routledge, 887pp

This massive tome lists hundreds of Ancient Near Eastern cities with encyclopedic entries, telling where they were, when they were inhabited, and often offering some anecdotes and other information. The book is alphabetical, and there is no chronological index, so if you just want Kassite cities, you have to scan all the entries to find them. It was a hugely useful book for me, and yet despite it's scope, still missed a few rather obvious cities.

Several atlases are listed below. The two best are Roaf and Hunt, probably in that order. Both are large, picture-book type affairs that will have broad appeal. The atlas by Bryce is meant to be a companion to the Handbook mentioned above, but it makes some errors and I found the treatment to be too cursory. The Haywood atlas is a broad survey and lighter than the Roaf and Hunt books.

Atlas of the Ancient Near East from Prehistorical Times to the Roman Imperial Period
Trevor Bryce and Jessie Birkett-Rees, 2016 Routledge. 318pp.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations
John Haywood, 2005, Penguin Books, 144pp

Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East
Michael Roaf, 1990, Andromeda Books, 238pp

Historical Atlas of Ancient Mesopotamia
Norman Bancroft Hunt, 2004, Thalamus Publishing, 190pp


SURVEYS AND COMPENDIA

The Babylonian World

Edited by Gwendolyn Leick, 2007, Routledge, 590pp

A Companion to the Ancient Near East

Edited by Daniel C. Snell, 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 538pp

The Sumerian World

Harriet Crawford, 2013, Routledge, 659pp

This category is for broad spectrum histories where the author covers the whole shebang in a single book. The three listed above are compendia, collecting a variety of articles on specific subjects and by different authors, then organizing them in a cohesive fashion. These types of books are better for filling in the corners than as a starting point because the big picture often isn't complete, but each article can give a deep dive into something specific. The effect is rather like what you get when you try to use a pellet gun to cut out the shape of a red star at a carnival midway.

The books below generally make better introductions. I think the first three are the best. The Kriwaczek book surprised me for its quality as it's written by a journalist instead of a historian. These books are listed more or less in order of their utility to a general reader. The ones closer to the bottom cover more specific topics. The Ascalone book is largely a picture book, which some people might find useful.

 

Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization
Paul Kriwaczek, 2010, Thomas Dunne Books. 310 pp.

The Rise and Fall of Babylon: Gateway of the Gods
Anton Gill, 2008 Metro Books. 192pp.

Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History
J.N. Postgate 1992, Routledge, 367pp

Civilizations of Ancient Iraq
Benjamin R. And Karen Polinger Foster, 2009, Princeton University Press, 297pp

Babylon, John Oates, 1979
Thames & Hudson Ltd., 215pp

The Babylonians: an introduction
Gwendolyn Leick, 2003, Routledge, 182pp

Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians
Enrico Ascalone, University of California Press, 2007, 368pp

Ancient Mesopotamia
Susan Pollock, 1999, Cambridge University Press, 259pp

Sumer and the Sumerians, Second Ed.
Harriet Crawford, 2004, Cambridge University Press, 252pp

Civliization Before Greece and Rome

H.W.F. Saggs, 1989, Yale University Press, 322pp

This was the first book I read on the subject - the one that started it all. A chance find pulled from my father's large shelf of much more modern history.  

The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East

Wolfram von Soden, 1994, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 263pp

Early Urbanism on the Syrian Euphrates

Lisa Cooper, 2006, Routledge, 313

Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape

Guillermo Algaze, 2008, The University of Chicago Press, 230pp

Dictionary of the Ancient Near East

Edited by Piotr Bienkowski and Allan Millard, 2000, British Museum Press, 342pp



FURTHER AFIELD

These books cover places outside of our core area and really just scratch the surface.

Dilmun and its Neighbours

Harriet Crawford, 1998, Cambridge University Press, 170pp

The Hittites and their contemporaries in Asia Minor

J.G. Macqueen, 1986, Thames and Hudson Ltd., 176pp

Arabia and the Arabs From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam

Robert G. Hoyland, 2001, Routledge, 324pp

Ancient Canaan & Israel: An Introducton

Jonathan M. Golden, 2004, Oxford University Press, 413pp

The Hyksos Period in Ancient Egypt

Charlotte Booth, 2005, Shire Publications Ltd., 56pp

The Lost World of Elam: Re-creation of a Vanished Civilization
Walther Hinz, 1972, Sidgwick & Jackson, 192pp

Ancient Cyprus

Veronica Tatton-Brown, 1997, British Museum Press, 96pp


PAPERS

Rounding out our research, we consulted a number of papers, most of which can be found at Academia.Net or JSTOR. Others were brought to my attention by the Ancient World On Line blog (AWOL) or Ancient Near East Today (ANET). These are presented in no particular order.

Old Babylonian Personal Names, Marten Stol, 1991

Hurrians and Hurrian Names in the Mari Texts, Jack M. Sasson, 1974

Thy name is slave?: The slave onomasticon of Old Babylonian Sippar, Lieselot Vandorpe 2010

Urbanisn and Society in the Third Millenium Upper Khabur Basin, Jason Alik Ur, 2004 Dissertation

The Architectural Defense: Fortified Settlements of the Levant During the Middle Bronze Age, Aaron Alexander Burke, 2004 Dissertation

The Other and the Enemy in the Mesopotamian Conception of the World, Beate Pongratz-Leisten, 2001

Growing in a Foreign World: For a History of the “Meluhha Villages” in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millenium BC, Massimo Vidale, 2004

Back to the Cedar Forest: The Beginning and End of Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, F.N.H. Al-Rawi and A. R. George, 2014 ASOR

Lists of Personal Names From The Temple School of Nippur, Edward Chiera 1916

Trade, Merchants, and the Lost Cities of the Bronze Age, Barjamovic, Chaney, Cosar, & Hotascsu 2017

Rebuilding Eden in the Land of Eridu, Marco Ramazzotti, 2017 ANEToday Vol 5 No9

Masculinities and Third Gender: Gendered Otherness in the Ancient Near East, Ilan Peled, 2017, ANEToday Vol 5 No2

The Mesopotamian Pandemonium: A Provisional Census, Frans A.M. Wiggerman, 2011

Lists of Personal Names from the Temple School of Nippur, Edward Chiera, 1916

The Ilkum Institution in the Provincial Administration of Larsa During the Reign of Hammurapi (1792-1750 B.C.), Miki Yokoyama Ishikida, 1999

Nuzi Personal Names, Ignace J. Gelb, Pierre M. Purves, and Allan A. MacRae, 1943, University of Chicago Press

Hurrians and Subarians, Ignace J. Gelb, 1944 University of Chicago Press

Storm Gods of the Ancient Near East, Parts I and II, Daniel Schwemer 2008

Transtigridian Snake Gods, F.A.M. Wiggerman, 1997



WEBSITES

In addition to the websites listed in the book, these also proved useful:

Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East, various electronic pre-publication entries.

http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublication.php

The Ancient Near East Today offers a website and journal, quite good.

https://www.asor.org/anetoday

If you don't already know about Mythic Babylon and would like to learn more, check out the Design Mechanism Forums. It can be found for purchase at these locations:

Design Mechanism Store / Lulu / DriveThru RPG / Aeon Games (UK)

Reading City of Djinns, by William Dalrymple

City of Djinns by William Dalrymple, 1993, 350pp

I first read this many years ago and decided to re-read it again after I finished Rudyard Kipling's Kim with my book club. 

The subtitle, A Year in Delhi tells you pretty much exactly what you get - an account of Dalrymple and his wife's time in Delhi. Like most travelogues, this book features a few of the  trials and tribulations associated with travel and living in a new place, but it offers much more than that. During his stay, Dalrymple delved into the history of the city, and the reader is treated to a book that weaves back and forth in time, telling us what the city as like way back when, an then revealing it again in 1993. 

He covers a wide variety of topics, from historic people and places to the state of modern eunuchry, partridge fighting, and sufism. And the book has some great characters, like partridge aficionado Punjab Singh (whose name is surely an Indian version of Indiana Jones) and the archaeologist B.B. Lal. For a GM like me who likes to infuse their made up worlds with the verisimilitude of the real world, these characters are inspiration gold. It's these characters and some of the situations they find themselves in that I'd like to share with you here today.

One of the more interesting characters in the book is Pir Syed Mohammed Sarmadi, a very successful fraudulent dervish. Dalrymple describes him as -

"A hugely fat sufi with a mountainous turban, and elephantine girth, and a great ruff of double chins, he operates one of the most profitable faith healing businesses in India. One of Sarmadi's forebears was beheaded by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb after he wandered into the imperial presence stark naked, shrieking out sufi poetry."

"Everyday, Sarmadi sits cross-legged in his surgery between ten and five, with a short break for a kebab at lunch. It is a small room, and Sarmadi fills a great deal of it. Its walls are lined with powders and sacred texts, framed monograms of Arabic calligraphy and pictures of the Ka'ba at Mecca. There is a continuous queue of folk waiting to see him, and Sarmadi keeps the queue moving. Each petitioner gets about two minutes of his time. Sarmadi will listen, breaking his concentration only to clean his fingernails or to gob into his golden spittoon. When finished, Sarmadi will wave his peacock fan and blow over the petitioner, recite a bit of the Quran, write out a charm or a sacred number, and place it in an amulet. He will then dismiss the supplicant, having first received his fee of fifty rupees, a week's wage for an Indian labourer."

Sarmadi seems to come from a long line of such Sufis, so with a little research, one could round fill out a full faction of them: https://reflectionsofindia.com/2014/07/22/sufisarmad/

Dalrymple also relates some of the stories of past visitors, like Dargah Quli Khan, who visited the city between 1737 and 1741 and reports on the local orgies:

"Hand in hand, the lovers roam the streets, while [outside] the drunken and debauched revel in all kinds of perversities. Groups of winsome lads violate the faith of the believers with acts which are sufficient to shake the very roots of piety. There are beautiful faces as far as the eye can see. All around prevails a world of impiety and immorality. Both nobles and plebeians quench the thirst of their lust here."

Dalrymple later reflects on the modern city: 

"Modern Delhi is thought of either as a city of grey bureaucracy, or as the metropolis of hard-working nouveau riche Punjabis. It is rarely spoken of as a lively city, and never as a promiscuous one. Yet, as I discovered that in December, the bawdiness of Safdar Jung's Delhi does survive, kept alive by one particular group of Delhi-wallahs. You can still find them in the dark gullies of the old city, if you know where to look."

Through Dalrymple, we are  exposed to the 17th Century writings of Niccolau Manucci, son of a Venetian trader who ran away from home at 14 to become a con artist, trickster, and artilleryman in 1660's India. It is partly through his eyes that we learn of Shah Jahan and his in-fighting children Dara, Aurangzeb, Jaharana, and Roshanara.

Of Aurangzeb, he says:

" Although Aurangzeb was held to be bold and valiant, he was capable of great dissimulation and hypocrisy. Pretending to be an ascetic, he slept while in the field on a mat of straw that he had himself woven . . . He ate food that cost little and let it be known that he underwent severe penances and fasting. All the same, under cover of these pretenses he led a secret and jolly life of it. His intercourse was with certain holy men addicted to sorcery, who instructed him how to bring over to his side as many friends as he could with witchcraft and soft speeches. He was so subtle as to deceive even the quickest witted people."

 And Dalrymple tells us of Ibn Battutah, who resided for 8 years in Delhi in the 1330's and 40's with Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluk as a patron. Now, the sultan was a complete bastard (in a pique of anger at the citizens of Delhi, he once gave the entire citizenry 3 days to completely remove themselves to another city 40-days walk away, and when a blind man and a cripple were found still in the city, he had one ejected by catapult, and the other dragged to the new city behind a horse (only his leg arrived). But the sultan liked Battutah (mostly) and at one point decided to send him on a diplomatic mission to China.

Battutah found himself at the head of an entourage of 1000 mounted bodyguards and a long train of camels carrying gifts, such as 100 concubines, 100 Hindu dancing girls, gold candelabras, brocades, swords, and gloves embroidered with pearls. Behind the camels came the most valuable gift of all - a thousand thoroughbred horses from Turkestan.

But only 100 miles into his journey, his train was attacked by Hindu rebels (the country was full of rebels) and Battutah was separated from his group and captured. He managed to escape and re-join his party. At Calicut on the Malabar coast, he loaded everything onto four dhows to sail to China, but lingered on shore for Friday prayers. A sudden storm blew up, grounding and breaking up the boats. The slaves, troops, and horses all drowned. Not daring to return to Delhi, he hightailed it to China on his own.

I'll return to Ibn Battutah in a future post, and maybe we'll also look at another travel writer - Tim Mackintosh Smith - who not only wrote an annotated translation of The Travels of Ibn Battutah, but also Travels With a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah.

As for Dalrymple,  he's an evocative writer and I found this book a pleasure to read. It won two awards, has been adapted into a play, and (I'm quite sure, though it doesn't say so on Wikipedia) was turned into a television series in the UK. Here's the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Djinns

The Oxus Civilization

The Oxus Civilization

This is a tale of two books. I'll get to the second book later - for now, let's consider this one:

Origins on the Bronze Age Oasis Civilization in Central Asia 

by Fredrik Talmage Hiebert, 1994, 240pp

This book contains an archaeological survey of the oasis civilizations Margiana (and by extension, of Bactria, which is closely related). Together, these are known as the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex) cultures, of which little is written in English.

The author spent a fair amount of time excavating at Gonur Depe, one of the more impressive archaeological sites in the Mugrab delta in Turkmenistan, and it's quite clear he's a expert on the subject. The constructed remains of this ancient civilization are impressive. The finds of artifacts are a little less so, but they reveal interesting ties to both the Indus civilization, and to Sumer/Akkad/Early Babylonia. The oasis civilizations were rich in agriculture, and consequently in food, human resources, and textiles - much like Sumer and Akkad. But also like Sumer and Akkad, they were poor in minerals and metals, necessitating trade with the nearby mountainous communities (which are not covered in this book, and which were likely the source of both lapis-lazuli and tin for both of these civilizations).

To understand this importance of this culture a little more, check out this image of the site of Gonur Depe in Turkmenistan - the one at which Talmadge excavated:

Gonur Depe is a large site of 55 Hectares occupied in different stages between c.2500 BC and c.1500 BC. The larger built-up portion in the centre of the image is known as Gonur North, and was occupied up to about 1900 BC. The southern section with the thick-walled fortress in the centre was occupied from 1900 onward. Fans of the Glorantha game setting might well wonder if Middle Bronze-Age Gonur South was the original Pavis, and Gonur North the Big Rubble.

Gonur is the largest ruin in the Murghab Delta region, but over 150 other settlements have also been found so far. 

The remains are as impressive as any to be found c.2000 BC. It's really too bad more isn't written about them in English. An updated survey, geared to the lay-person, is sorely needed.

This particular book offers such a survey, but it's now more than 20 years out of date, and spends far too much time describing the ceramic complex of the sites to be of interest to the general reader. Apart from that, the book is well written offers a sufficient survey of the archaeological remains of these sites, but doesn't offer much synthesis - it doesn't spend much time trying to put all the pieces together to create a picture of the civilization.

A more contemporary take - one that builds upon both early and late excavations, and takes into account our understanding of other cultures both near and far, would be a far more interesting read. Such a book hasn't been available in English, as far as I can tell. 

At least not until now. Luckily for us ancient history junkies, Routledge has released a monster entry in their 'World Of' series, called The World of the Oxus Civilization. The hardback version available now sells for a mere $200 U.S. dollars and is nearly 1000 pages. But there's a more affordable Kindle version on the market, and a paperback is scheduled to be released next March. 

These books contain collections of articles, each in its own chapter and each by a different author. Each chapter deals with a special topic, such as a specific period in history, writing, the law, social organization, kingship, queenship, and what have you. My copy of The Elamite World, for example, has 41 chapters and is split into 8 parts. These parts are: 

1. Imagining Elam (Research & Sources), 

2. Land and Peoples, 

3. Elam Through History, 

4. Close Encounters on Eastern and Western Fronts, 

5. Language and Writing, 

6. The Material Culture of Elam

7. Elamite Society, and

8. The Legacy of Elam

So I'm expecting something similar from this book, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

https://www.routledge.com/The-World-of-the-Oxus-Civilization/Lyonnet-Dubova/p/book/9781138722873

History Book Reviews - Three City Books: Ur, Ugarit, and Erbil

This post collects three of the book reviews rescued from my G+ feed. Each of these books discusses the archaeology and known history of a single ancient city: Ur, in the land of Sumer, Ugarit, in the land of Canaan, and Erbil, in the land of Assyria.

1. Ur - The City of the Moon God
by Harriet Crawford, 2015, 146 pages

This book offers a capsule history of the ancient city of Ur, one of the oldest known cities in the world. Located on the lower Euphrates river near the head of the Persian Gulf, this city played an important role in the early history of the ancient near east and, for about 100 years at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, was arguably the most important city in the world.

The author, Harriet Crawford, is one of the most prolific writers on this period and definitely knows her stuff. As a survey, this book covers all the periods that saw people living and working on the site, from the Ubaid period c.5000 BC to its eventual decline sometime during the or after time the Persians ruled Babylon c.500BC. She also discusses the archaeological work of Sir Leonard Woolley in excavating the city in the '20s.

As a light survey, I think it does a fine job. It's accessible to the lay-person and relatively concise. For my money, though, I think I would have preferred something more complete - an encyclopedia of the city of Ur. As such this book is nowhere near complete. It lacks illustrations of many of the key finds discussed in the text, and is missing king lists and other historical data. It's also a little shy on synthesis, which is something I have found in other books by this author - she prefers to lay out facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions. This book mainly focuses on the architecture based on archaeological evidence. It adds little that is new to the discussion of Ur, so if you've already read something about this city or period in some depth, you won't find anything too exciting in here.

If you're interested in cities of the ancient near east (including Ur), then I would point you instead to Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City by Gwendolyn Leick, which tells the story of ancient Mesopotamia, from the first cities to the invasion of the Persians, one city at a time from Eridu to Babylon. It's one of the most remarkable books on ancient history I've ever read, and Ur gets its own chapter. 

2. Ugarit: Ras Shamra 

by Adrian Curtis, 1985, 125pp

Ancient cities fascinate me because they're puzzles. They can be excavated for years, but never fully discovered, so scholars and archaeologists take what they can find and try to create the most complete picture possible. Even the most complete picture still leaves a lot to the imagination, and there are always new places to dig, either sideways or down.

Ugarit is one of those cities. Chances are you haven't heard of it, but it's an interesting place. It lies on a headland on the Mediterranean shore of modern Syria, south of the Turkish border. It was settled and abandoned more than once between 6000 and 2000 BC, and finally reached its peak development in the middle and late bronze age between about 1800 and 1200 BC. It was destroyed and abandoned for good during the cataclysmic Bronze Age Collapse that took place around 1200-1100 BC - the same event that saw the fall of a great many cities in the area, including the Hittite empire of ancient Turkey and the Mycenaean civilization in what is now Greece.

During its heyday, Ugarit was an important nexus for trade, being at the northern edge of Egyptian influence, the eastern edge of Mycenaean influence, the southern edge of Hittite influence, and the western edge of Mittanian and Assyrian (and before them Akkadian) influence. Being always on the edge of great empires, it was both free to develop its own culture and yet close enough to be exposed to what was happening in larger and more influential centres. It was occupied by a mix of Semitic and Hurrian speaking people.

The most important discoveries from Ugarit are the written tablets containing what has become known as the Ugaritic Script - perhaps the earliest alphabetic script - which was used to write the Ugaritic language - a semitic language related to Hebrew. These ancient writing tablets contain records of financial transactions, correspondence, and most important, the most complete records of Canaanite myth so far discovered.

Ugarit by Adrian Curtis describes the early history of the city, life in its golden age (including a brief summary of some of the sordid affairs of its kings), a description of the city based on archaeology, a summary of the myths discovered, and two more in-depth essays on what the religion of the city might have looked like and why all of this is relevant to bible scholars.

I particularly enjoyed reading about King Ammistamru's troubles involving his brothers and what appear to be two divorces, all of which seemed to need the interference of the Hittite king to be settled. I also enjoyed reading the myths of the city god, Baal, and the discussion of how he relates to the Hebrew god, Yahweh.

This volume by Curtis is one of a few book length treatments of the city I'm aware of. Another, by Marguerite Yon, translated into English from the original french, is a little newer and probably probably more up-to-date, since a major find of 300 tablets was discovered in the years between when these two books were published. I haven't read that book, but would be inclined to suggest it instead of this one simply because it is more current. But if you happen to see the Curtis book on a used book shop shelf somewhere, by all means pick it up and give it a read.

And if you already know something about Ugarit and would like to learn more, then be sure to check out the historical novel by my friend, Richard Abbott: The Flame Before Us which is set in Ugarit during its final fall c.1200 BC. 

3. A City from the Dawn of History: 

Erbil in the Cuneiform Sources 

by John MacGinnis, 2014, 128 pages

My ideal book on an ancient city would include both original written texts and archaeological data, both of which are thin on the ground. Rather good books have been written about the cities of Ebla and Mari. I recently reviewed one on Ur and another on Ugarit. This book focuses on Erbil (anciently known as Irbilum, Urbilum, Urbel, and Arbail) which is located in Iraqi Kurdistan on the Lesser Zab river. It's not my ideal book, but it has enough to keep me interested.

Unlike Ebla, Mari, Ugarit, and Ur, the city of Erbil is still an inhabited city of about 1.5 million people. There is evidence for settlement here as far back as the Ubaid period (C.5000 BC), so Erbil is a contender for the title of the world's oldest continuously inhabited city. Being inhabited, Erbil hasn't been able to benefit from an extensive archaeological program, but with the help of UNESCO it is about to implement one as part of a revitalization program. This book, therefore, focuses on what was anciently written about Erbil in the cuneiform texts from the late 3rd millennium to the time of Alexander the Great - hence the subtitle.

Check out this Wikipedia article to see a picture of the ancient heart of Erbil, located under the citadel on what is obviously an ancient tell. A "tell" is a city mound, built up over centuries of continuous habitation in one spot. 

A City From the Dawn of History does a good job of describing the history of Erbil (such as is possible) through the ancient period. The author makes some educated guesses based on scant resources for the early periods, and those texts are provided in translation. Later texts, from the late Assyrian period, are only summarized, rather than translated, and in this I was a little disappointed - it would have been nice to have more of these written out in full.

One of the more interesting treatments in this book is the analysis of how the name for the city was written during different time periods. The various names are shown in cuneiform, transliterated, and translated, so we can see how not only the name changed, but how cuneiform writing itself changed - and that's a fascinating thing!

Around 3100 BC, during the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the name was written Ur bi lum followed by the sign KI. This last sign is written, but not pronounced. It's what's called a determinative and it's used to classify the word - in this case as a land or large city. The same signs, Ur-bi-lum, could be used to describe something else, if a different determinative was used.

By c.1700 BC the name was spelled Ur bi el , a phonetic spelling, followed by the KI sign. The actually cuneiform symbols look very different from those of 500 years earlier - they are simpler.

By the late second millennium, the name is written Ar ba il and now preceded by the determinative URU (meaning city). KI is no longer used.

By the middle of the 1st millennium, the name is written using the sign for the number 4 and the sign for god, DINGIR, preceeded by the URU determinative. This is because scribes were now using the signs for 4 (pronounced 'arba') and for God (pronounced 'il') to write the name. Using just those two signs one could approximate the sound of the name Arbil. And so the city earned the nickname "City of the Four Gods" - not because it had four gods, but because of a scribal spelling convention.

The actual city god of Erbil was called Ishtar of Arbail and she was one of the most important goddesses of the Assyrian Empire. Erbil was, at that time, one of the key cities of the Assyrian heartland. Her temple was called Egashankalamma ("House of the Lady of the Land") and King Esarhaddon of Assyria claimed to have covered it in electrum.

A prominent prophet lived here at that time, and a number of those prophecies appear, translated, in another book I reviewed: Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East by Martti Nissinen.

So, to conclude, this book isn't my ideal - it's missing the archaeological information I'd normally look for because the city is still thickly settled. But it really does give you everything else that's available, with some wonderful synthesis and great illustrations. Of the three books presented here, it's the one that presented me with the most pleasant surprises.

RPG Review - Hunters of Alexandria by Paul Mitchener

Hunters of Alexandria by Paul Mitchener, 2015, 111 pages.
A Swords and Sandals Roleplaying Game. D101 Games.

D101 Games: Hunters of Alexandria

This is a sweet little RPG by the incomparable incalculable Dr. Paul Mitchener with an added scenario by publisher Newt Newport.

The game is set in Roman Alexandria in the year 753 after the foundation of Rome. That's 1 AD to you and me...well, to me anyway; you might be more of a CE person. Anyway, the book is set in ancient Alexandria when it is a thriving city under Roman rule. The conceit is that all the players are part of an organization called The Venatores (or Hunters, if you're like me and have a North American education and didn't learn some cool words in Latin) and your job is to seek out and trouble-shoot supernatural threats to the city and empire.

And why not? Roman Alexandria is chock full of larvae lamiae, lares, and lycanthropes, not to mention more exotic things that have creeped in from nearby Aegyptus, like ghouls, sphinxes, and sha.

The book offers a capsule history of Alexandria, a gazetteer of places in the city, some sample characters, a who's who of the city, factions for the PCs to rub up against, some scenario outlines, a full adventure, and all the rules you need to play. Rules are a modified version of fate, but you don't need a copy of fate to play. The game is light enough that you can pick up and play with minimal preparation, and it can do this because you, yes you, can fill in all the blanks you need from your own imagination of what a Roman city is like. Setting the game in Roman Alexandria is actually a brilliant stoke, because it's just exotic enough to give a sense of wonder, and yet familiar enough to make playing there easy.

As good as it is, I do have a few small quibbles with the book. It really could use another pass through an editor or proofreader, though the errors are not significant enough to impede one's enjoyment. And the included scenario, although it does an excellent job of making use of the core text and bringing the setting alive, will need to be given some thought before running it to smooth out some structural inconsistencies – for example some scenes are connected by threads so silky I think the players will easily miss their connection, and the ending will need to be given some thought as none of the 4 possible resolutions presented actually deals with what I think the the most likely outcome. Lastly, there is some questionable advice in this scenario – it's a mystery and the text advises you not to give the players advice when they get stuck (even when the scenario writer doesn't provide enough clues). If you follow this, you may well end up in one of those embarrassing situations where the game grinds to a halt because nobody knows what to do next, and you'll be forced to write a Gumshoe system knock-off - and nobody wants that.

I'm happy to be able to recommend this game. It's short. It's sweet. It's fun. The hiccups in the scenario are easily overcome. And you all need more ancient history in your gaming life than you currently have – stop mumbling, you know it's true! Duo pollice!