The Near East - Ancient and Modern The David Brown Book Company Presents a Selection of titles on
Picturing the Past
Cultural Change
Imaging and Imagining the Ancient Middle East edited by Jack Green, Emily Teeter and John A Larson
Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Coins of the Holy Land by David Hendin
This fully illustrated catalog of essays, descriptions, and commentary accompanies the Oriental Institute special exhibit Picturing the Past: Imaging and Imagining the Ancient Middle East.
This is a full color catalog of the coins featured in the ANS acclaimed temporary exhibit of the same name. All coins are illustrated in full color, with explanatory text, illustrations of related material, maps and family-trees. The volume serves as the ideal introduction to the coinage of the Holy Land, as well as providing a history of the region from the 4th century BC to Crusader times, illustrated by the coinage that was produced there. As such, it contains some of the earliest Jewish coins, as well as the earliest to bear overtly Christian symbolism. The coins contained in this exhibit are often the finest examples of their kind in existence, and the text has been written by one of the foremost experts in the field, so the resulting volume is as attractive to look at as it is informative. 128p, color illus.
Picturing the Past presents paintings, architectural reconstructions, facsimiles, models, photographs, and computer-aided reconstructions that show how the architecture, sites, and artifacts of the ancient Middle East have been documented. It also examines how the publication of those images has shaped our perception of the ancient world, and how some of the more “imaginary” reconstructions have obscured our real understanding of the past. The exhibit and catalog also show how features of the ancient Middle East have been presented in different ways for different audiences, in some cases transforming a highly academic image into a widely recognized icon of the past. 184p, 168 illus. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Museum Publications 34, 2012 9781885923899, paperback – $29.95. Special Offer $24.00
Sea of Pearls Seven Thousand Years of the Industry that Shaped the Gulf by Robert A. Carter
American Numismatic Society, 2011 9780897223195, paperback – $40.00. Special Offer $32.00
Medieval and Ottoman Hajj Route in Jordan An Archaeological and Historical Study edited by Andrew Petersen
Since Antiquity the natural pearls of the Gulf have been famed as the finest, most lustrous and most plentiful that the world can offer. From the beginnings of trade until the 1930s, these pearls were a major product of the Gulf’s coastal peoples. Latterly, from the 17th to the early 20th centuries, rising international demand turned pearling into their economic mainstay.
As one of the five pillars of Islam, the pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj) is central to the life of all Muslims. A network of roads radiates from the Hijaz like a giant spider’s web, connecting Mecca to all parts of the Muslim world. Historically the most significant of these routes starts at Damascus in Syria, and is a direct continuation of the ancient trade route connecting Arabia to the Levant.
There has until now been no book taking the entire history of pearling as its subject. Dr Carter’s ground-breaking work traces its evolution on both the Arabian and the Persian sides of the Gulf, and explores the role it played in shaping the political, social and urban configuration that we see in the region today. Lavishly illustrated, it will fascinate not only those wishing to understand the growth and conduct of the pearl fishery, but also those interested in the history of the region and the origins of the Gulf states. 364p, full color illus throughout.
A significant part of this route runs through Jordan and this book documents the archaeological and architectural remains which line this route, paying particular attention to the forts and cisterns built and maintained by the Ottoman rulers from the 16th century onwards. The final part of the book describes the results of excavations at one of the forts, which gives an insight into the material culture of both the pilgrims and the soldiers who manned the forts. 256p.
Arabian Publishing, October 2012 9780957106000, hardback – $190.00. Special Offer $152.00
Oxbow Books, Levant Supplementary Series 12, August 2012 9781842175026, hardback – $104.00. Special Offer $83.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies Textile Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East
An Examination of Late Assyrian Metalwork
Archaeology, Epigraphy, Iconography edited by Marie-Louise Nosch and Henriette Koefoed
by John Curtis
In the past, textile production was a key part of all ancient societies. The Ancient Near East stands out in this respect with the overwhelming amount of documentation both in terms of raw materials, line of production, and the distribution of finished products. The thirteen intriguing chapters in Textile Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East describe the developments and changes from household to standardised, industrialised and centralised productions which take place in the region. They discuss the economic, social and cultural impact of textiles on ancient society through the application of textile tool studies, experimental testing, context studies and epigraphical as well as iconographical sources. Together they demonstrate that the textile industries, production, technology, consumption and innovations are crucial to, and therefore provide an in-depth view of ancient societies during this period. Geographically the contributions cover Anatolia, the Levant, Syria, the Assyrian heartland, Sumer, and Egypt. 200p, 8 colour & 82 b/w illustrations. Oxbow Books, Ancient Textiles Series 12, September 2012 9781842174890, hardback – $60.00. Special Offer $48.00
Nishapur Revisited The Qohandez Pottery by Rocco Rante and Annabelle Collinet Nishapur in eastern Iran was an important Silk Road city, its position providing links to central Asia and China, Afghanistan and India, the Persian Gulf and the west. Despite previous excavations there are many unresolved questions surrounding the site; when was the city founded? Is Nishapur a Sasanian city? Was it founded by the Sasanian king Shapur I or II? The question of chronology of occupation and the ceramic sequence is also problematic particularly for late antiquity and the medieval period, as well as a complete topography of the site.
Although the Assyrian kingdom that dominated the Ancient Near East between the ninth and seventh centuries BC had a rich material culture, attested particularly by the distinctive stone wall reliefs and colossal gateway figures, practically nothing is known about Assyrian metalwork. There has been no previous survey of this subject, largely because most of the material was not accessible. This volume makes available for the first time a vast amount of previously unpublished metalwork, much of it from the Assyrian capital city of Nimrud. It emerges that Assyria had a thriving metalworking industry probably superior to any contemporary state in the region, and was producing large quantities of sophisticated bronze and ironwork, of high technical quality and sometimes elaborately decorated. This book will therefore be of interest to archaeologists, art historians and metallurgists. 330p, illus.
Oxbow Books, December 2012 9781842175071, hardback – $96.00. Special Offer $77.00
The Tripolye Culture Giant-Settlements in Ukraine Formation, Development and Decline edited by Francesco Menotti and Aleksey G. Korvin-Piotrovskiy
After an introduction to the site and the former American and Iranian excavations, this book presents the stratigraphy and the pottery of the site. The combination of data from the stratigraphical and laboratory analyses gives an accurate and completely new chronology of the site. Moreover, the study also brought to light a new typological sequence of the ceramic, as well as new data about the pottery production at Nishapur. 144p, illus.
The crucial role that the Ukrainian ‘branch’ of the Tripolye culture played in shaping the historical formation of the Ukraine, and indeed that of Europe, is still not fully understood or appreciated. Although we are mostly aware of its finely-crafted and decorated pottery, along with the highly-discussed house architecture and huge settlements (known as ‘giant-settlements’), we often fail to connect the various dots in order to understand the different aspects of its development, from the very first eastward migrations, to the scission into two separate local groups (eastern and western Tripolye culture), the formation of the so-called giant-settlements, and finally to its inexorable decline after more than 2000 years of prosperous existence. This volume has been organised so as to give the reader a clear image of the Tripolye culture in the Ukraine, with a special emphasis placed upon the development of the so-called ‘giant-settlements’. 174p, b/w illus.
Oxbow Books, November 2012 9781842174944, hardback – $80.00. Special Offer $64.00
Oxbow Books, September 2012 9781842174838, paperback – $80.00. Special Offer $64.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies Umm al-Biyara Excavations by Crystal-M. Bennett in Petra 19601965 by Piotr Bienkowski Umm al-Biyara, the highest mountain in Petra, southern Jordan, was the first Iron Age Edomite site to be extensively excavated. It was a domestic, unwalled site of stone-built longhouses dating to the 7th-6th centuries BCE. The stratigraphy, pottery, small finds and inscribed material, including the important bulla of Qos-Gabr King of Edom, are described, supplemented by chapters on the use of space and a landscape study of mountain-top sites in the Petra region. The later Nabataean remains on the edge of the summit indicate a major Nabataean complex of buildings, possibly a palace, which would make this the first Nabataean palace in Petra to be explicitly identified. 160p, 183 b/w illus.
Oxbow Books, 2011 9781842174395, hardback – $70.00. Special Offer $56.00
Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean from the 3rd to the 1st Millennia BC edited by C. Michel and M.L. Nosch The written sources from the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean Area from the 3rd to the 1st millennium contain rich terminologies describing textiles. The Greek word for a long shirt, khiton, ki-to in Linear B, derives from the Semitic root ktn. The Akkadian term for linen is kitm, but the Old Assyrian kutnum is made of wool and the Arab and English word for cotton today has the same root. This example illustrates on the one hand how connected some textiles terms are across time and space, but it also shows how very carefully we must conduct the etymological and terminological enquiry with constantly changing semantics as the common thread. The survey of textile terminologies in 22 chapters presented in this volume demonstrates the interconnections between languages and cultures via textiles. 463p.
Oxbow Books, Ancient Textiles Series 8, 2010 9781842179758, hardback – $70.00. Special Offer $56.00
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Iconoclasm and Text Destruction in the Ancient Near East and Beyond edited by Natalie N. May The purpose of the conference from which this volume emerged, was to analyze the cases of and reasons for mutilation of texts and images in Near Eastern antiquity. Destruction of images and texts has a universal character; it is inherent in various societies and periods of human history. Together with the mutilation of human beings, it was a widespread and highly significant phenomenon in the ancient Near East. However, the goals meant to be realized by this process differed from those aimed at in other cultures. For example, iconoclasm of the French and Russian revolutions, as well as the PostSoviet iconoclasm, did not have any religious purposes. Moreover, modern comprehension of iconoclasm is strongly influenced by its conception during the Reformation. This volume explores iconoclasm and text destruction in ancient Near Eastern antiquity through examination of the anthropological, cultural, historical, and political aspects of these practices. 450p, 15 illus, 86 color plates. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Oriental Institute Seminars 8, August 2012 9781885923905, paperback – $29.95. Special Offer $24.00
Bismaya Recovering the Lost City of Adab by Karen Wilson, with Jacob Lauinger, Monica Louise Phillips, Benjamin Studevent-Hickman, and Aage Westenholz An expedition from the University of Chicago excavated the site of Bismaya (ancient Adab) from 1903–05. The excavations were directed first by Edgar J. Banks and then, briefly, by Victor S. Persons. Over 1,000 artifacts, many of them early cuneiform documents, were sent to Chicago, where they are now housed in the Oriental Institute Museum. The results of the Bismaya excavations were never properly published, and most of the material was never published at all. Banks wrote a readable popular account that appeared in 1912 and indicated that his field methods were considerably less than satisfactory. However, that was not the case. Banks kept a field diary and this monograph presents the large and significant corpus of unpublished material, including analyses of stratigraphy, architecture, sculpture, cylinder seals, metalwork, and pottery, and discussions of chronology, the succession of the first kings of Adab, and administrative practices during the third millennium B.C. 194p, 47 figures, 113 plates, 13 tables. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Oriental Institute Publications 138, August 2012 9781885923639, paperback – $80.00. Special Offer $64.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies Slaves and Households in the Near East
Ankara Arkeoloji Müzesinde bulanan Bogazköy Tabletleri II
edited by Laura Culbertson
Bogazköy Tablets in the Archaeological Museum of Ankara II by Rukiye Akdogan and Oguz Soysal
This volume contains papers that emerged from the seminar “Slaves and Households in the Near East” held at the Oriental Institute March 5-6, 2010. Despite widespread mention of enslaved people in historical records from the ancient, medieval, and early modern Near East, scholars struggle to understand what defines this phenomenon in both particular contexts and in general. The purpose of the seminar was to seek new understandings of slavery through scholarly exchange and exploration of new approaches. In particular, contributors examined slavery in the context of households, an approach that allows scholars to expose different dimensions of the phenomenon beyond basic economic questions. Households, whether domestic units, temples, or the building blocks of political organizations, can be used as the prism through which to view the dynamics among enslaved people and their immediate contacts. The volume contains micro-historical examinations of slavery in contexts spanning almost four millennia. 152p, 1 figure, 3 tables.
The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Seminars 7, 2011 9781885923837, paperback – $24.95. Special Offer $20.00
Ancient Israel Highlights from the Collections of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago by Gabrielle V. Novacek On January 29, 2005, the Oriental Institute celebrated the official public opening of the Haas and Schwartz Megiddo Gallery. This occasion marked the return of some of the most extraordinary artifacts ever excavated in the southern Levant to permanent public display. The Oriental Institute’s prolific history of exploration in the region is testament to a long-standing scholarly passion for discovery and the pursuit of knowledge. This volume draws from the momentum generated by the opening of the Megiddo Gallery and presents a selection of highlights from the Institute’s greater Israel collection. 130p, 4 b/w & 68 color photos.
The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Museum Publications 31, 2011 9781885923653, paperback – $41.95. Special Offer $34.00
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This is the first volume in a new series, Chicago Hittite Dictionary Supplements, designed to augment and supplement the work of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary project. The Hittite tablets, acquired by the Ankara Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi, bear the siglum AnAr. The best-preserved and attractive pieces of these tablets have previously been made accessible to the scholarly public; the others, however, mostly still useful and in reasonable condition, remained untouched in the Ankara Museum for years. The represented text genres herein include historical, administrative and technical, lexical, mythological texts, hymns and prayers, rituals, cult administration and inventory texts, divination documents, festival descriptions, and compositions in languages other than Hittite (Hattian, Hurrian, Luwian, Sumerian, and Akkadian). With the present edition of 389 pieces in cuneiform copies, there are almost no more AnAr fragments remaining in the Ankara Museum that would be worth publishing. 50p, 64 plates. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago Hittite Dictionary Supplements 1, 2011 9781885923813, paperback – $24.95. Special Offer $20.00
The Oriental Institute 2010–2011 Annual Report edited by Gil Stein The Oriental Institute Annual Reports contain yearly summaries of the activities of the Institute’s faculty, staff, and research projects, as well as descriptions of special events and other Institute functions. 304p, 272 figs.
The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2011 9781885923882, paperback – $24.95. Special Offer $20.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies The Oxus Treasure
Love and Devotion
by John Curtis
From Persia and Beyond edited by Susan Scollay
In May 1880, Captain F.C. Burton, a British political officer in Afghanistan, rescued a group of merchants who had been captured by bandits while travelling between Kabul and Peshawar. With them was a rich and impressive collection of gold and silver objects dating back to the fifth and fourth centuries BC. From the banks of the River Oxus, the entire hoard was, in due course, bequeathed to the British Museum. Consisting of around 170 objects, including vessels, a gold scabbard, armlets, coins and much more, the collection is an example of ancient goldsmithery at its very best. With exciting and descriptive insight placing the treasure into historical and cultural context, this book takes a closer look at the individual wonders that make up the Oxus Treasure - one of the British Museum’s most celebrated and cherished collections. 64p, 30 color illus.
Jointly published by Macmillan and the State Library of Victoria in association with the Bodleian Library, Oxford, this book accompanies an exhibition of original manuscripts relating to Persian poetry and its milieu to be held at the State Library from March 2012. With contributions by Australian and international scholars and superb examples of the art form as it is portrayed in works like the Bodleian’s famous Shahnama of Firdausi, it is easy to see how the beauty of Persian manuscripts would capture the minds of early European travellers and influence art and literature in the West. This book is lavishly illustrated to feature the gorgeous colours and intricate details of these Persian masterpieces. 222p, illus.
British Museum Press, Objects in Focus, 2012 9780714150796, paperback – $10.00. Special Offer $8.00
Macmillan Art Publishing, August 2012 9781921394508, paperback – $70.00. Special Offer $56.00
Arabic and Persian Seals and Amulets in the British Museum
An Investigation into Early Desert Pastoralism
by Venetia Porter, with special assistance from Robert Hoyland and Alexander Morton, contributions by Shailendra Bhandare, and scientific analysis by Janet Ambers, Sylvia Humphrey, Nigel Meeks, and Margaret Sax
Excavations at the Camel Site, Negev by Steven A. Rosen
This catalogue is in two parts. The first focuses on the 638 Arabic, Persian and Indian seals in the British Museum covering material from the 8th to the 20th century. The Introduction covers seal practice in different periods and levels of society; the role of the seal and the alama or motto, the use of figural representation on the seals, seal engravers, the forgery of seals and the importance of the stones used are described. The features of the seals themselves, in particular the palaeography and dating of early Islamic seals, some grammatical features of the inscriptions, and the range of designs present on the seals are analysed. The types and form of Islamic names, the range of phrases that commonly appear and the characteristics of later seals are also discussed. The second part of the book focuses on 170 amulets in the collection preceded by an introduction to the subject. 208p, illus.
British Museum Press, British Museum Research Publication 160, 2011 9780861591602, paperback – $80.00. Special Offer $64.00
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This book focuses on two primary purposes, one is theoretical/methodological and the second substantive. Briefly stated, the book comprises a case study of excavations at an early (ca. 2800 B.C.) pastoral site in the Negev, providing detailed analyses and a synthetic overview of a seasonal encampment from this early period in the evolution of desert pastoral societies. It thus both demonstrates the feasibility of an archaeology of early mobile pastoralism and grapples with the basic anthropological and methodological issues surrounding the subject. Substantively, both the architectural and material culture assemblages uncovered constitute the first detailed analysis of this early desert culture and include materials previously unreported for the region and period. Historically, the Camel Site is placed in the larger perspective of the beginnings of multi resource nomadism in relation to the rise of complex societies. 215p, over 100 photos, figures and illus.
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Monograph 69, 2011 9781931745833, hardback – $69.95. Special Offer $56.00 9781931745840, paperback – $39.95. Special Offer 32.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies Ancient Iran from the Air by David Stronach and Ali Mousavi This book features many of the more exceptional landscapes and monuments of Iran as seen through the lens of the world’s foremost aerial photographer, George Gerster. The photographs, which were taken between 1976 and 1978, are presented in six chapters, each authored by one or more scholars of international repute, and the work as a whole is edited by two of the main contributors, David Stronach and Ali Mousavi.
Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan I Legal and Economic Documents. Revised edition. by Nicholas Sims-Williams During the last twenty years, more than 150 documents in Bactrian, the language of preIslamic Afghanistan, have come to light. These documents provide unique information on the history of Afghanistan and neighbouring lands in the 4th to 8th centuries C.E., as well as revealing a Middle Iranian language which was hardly known before.
Ancient Iran from the Air takes the reader on an aerial odyssey that explores the country’s infinitely varied landscapes; many of the more noted sites associated with Iran’s rich prehistoric past; the storied capitals of the Achaemenid and Sasanian empires; the memorable monuments of Saljuk and Safavid Isfahan; and, last but not least, on a journey that celebrates the age-old virtues of Iran’s largely unsung vernacular mud-brick architecture. 192p, 107 color & 6 b/w illus.
The first volume of Nicholas Sims-Williams’ edition, which was published in 2001, contained all the legal and economic documents which were known up to that time. The present, substantially revised edition includes a number of additional documents as well as incorporating significant improvements to the text and translation. However, some sections of the earlier edition, in particular the glossary, have been omitted, since they have been superseded by the equivalent sections of Bactrian Documents II (published in 2007 and still available). 171p.
Philipp von Zabern, Zaberns Bildbände Archäologie, August 2012 9783805344531, hardback – $60.00. Special Offer $48.00
Khalili Collections, Studies in the Khalili Collection 3.1, July 2012 9781874780922, hardback – $70.00. Special Offer $56.00
Archäologie in Eurasien Volume 27 Archäologie in Eurasien publishes monographic contributions to the archaeology of the Black Seaarea, Northern Caucasia, the Eurasian steppe, Mongolia and Northern China. 301p. Contents include: Geophysikalische Prospektion mit Fluxgate-Gradiometer (Von Volker Heyd und Christoph Skowranek); Cultural Sequence, Stratification and Architectural Remains (Mehmet Özdogan, ˜ Hermann Parzinger, Zeynep Eres and Özgür Yilmaz); Pottery Appendix (Mehmet Özdogan ˜ and Özgür Yilmaz); Clay, Bone, Horn and ˜ and Özgür Yilmaz); Human Fine Groundstone Objects (Mehmet Özdogan Remains (Yasemin Yilmaz)
Philipp von Zabern, August 2012 9783805345132, hardback – $87.00. Special Offer $70.00
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Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan III Plates by Nicholas Sims-Williams During the last twenty years, more than 150 documents in Bactrian, the language of preIslamic Afghanistan, have come to light. These documents, which have been deciphered and published by Nicholas Sims-Williams, provide unique information on the history of Afghanistan and neighbouring lands in the 4th to 8th centuries C.E., as well as revealing a Middle Iranian language which was hardly known before. The purpose of the present volume is to illustrate the new documents as comprehensively as possible. In addition to 230 pages of photographs, the volume contains a complete catalog of the documents. 270p, including 230 b/w plates.
Khalili Collections, Studies in the Khalili Collection 3.3, July 2012 9781874780915, hardback – $70.00. Special Offer $56.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies Canhasan Sites 3
Seals, Sealings and Tokens from Bactria to Gandhara (4th to 8th century CE)
Canhasan I: The Small Finds by David French The primary aim of this volume is to present a descriptive account and catalog of the registered small-finds from the Canhasan I mound in southcentral Anatolia. The small-finds have been grouped, described and then illustrated according to material, e.g., clay, stone, bone. The separation into discrete groups and the description of individual objects have both been deliberately simplified, the intention being to provide (where possible chronologically) an orderly arrangement from which those interested are able to scan and note the range of materials and, if they wish, to take up relevant aspects or indeed to inspect the objects for further study and research. One object, an ivory bracelet - not only emphasises, by its presence at Canhasan, the distant source of the material but points directly to the nature and dynamics of trade/transfer/exchange in the 6th millennium. The bracelet documents the role of personal display and human vanity as an incentive for material acquisition. 210p, 76 figures, 44 plates.
by Judith A. Lerner, Nicholas Sims-Williams and Nicholas Sims-Williams This volume presents the Bactrian and Gandharan seals, sealings, and tokens in the Aman ur Rahman collection, which span the period from the second half of the 4th well into the 8th century CE. As the largest gathering of such glyptic art in the world, the publication brings this previously little-known collection to public and scholarly attention and places it within the context of the history and culture of the vast crossreads that extended from Afghanistan to Northern India. This area came under the successive control of Sasanian Persians, Hunnic tribes, and Turks, and it was home to such religious beliefs as Buddhism, Hinduism and Zoroastianism. These many influences are reflected in the iconography and style of the seals made and used in the region. Judith A. Lerner draws upon evidence from numismatics, textual remains, contemporary sculpture, painting and decorative arts. Supplementing her study are chapters on the seal inscriptions by Nicholas Sims-Williams and Harry Falk. 222p.
British Institute at Ankara, BIAA Monographs 45, 2010 9781898249245, hardback – $90.00. Special Offer $72.00
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Veröffentlichungen der numismatischen Kommission 421, 2011 9783700168973, paperback – $104.00. Special Offer $83.00
Balboura Survey and Settlement in Highland Southwest Anatolia Volume 1: Balboura and the history of highland settlement Volume 2: The Balboura Survey: detailed studies and catalogues by J. J. Coulton The Balboura Survey (1985–1994) investigated the settlement history of a small district in the ancient region of Kabalia in the mountains of southwestern Turkey. Although the survey’s focus was on the Hellenistic-Early Byzantine city of Balboura and its western territory, the fieldwork revealed significant prehistoric occupation, and the project included research into Ottoman and recent settlement. The first volume of the final publication analyses settlement in the survey area from the Chalcolithic to the 20th century, placing it in the context of the adjoining districts. The second volume contains detailed discussions of the prehistoric pottery and of the Hellenistic and later pottery, which provide a chronological framework for the interpretation of the survey, and a major study of Hellenistic and Roman inscriptions examined during the project, many of them unpublished. Five detailed catalogues present the Hellenistic and later pottery, the evidence of ancient activity across the city site, the rural sites and their pottery, known inscriptions from the territory of Balboura, and Balbouran funerary monuments. Volume 1 252p, 110 line & half tone figures and 32 tables
Volume 2 506p, 353 line & and half tone figures and 101 tables British Institute at Ankara, BIAA Monographs 43, 2012 9781898249221, hardback – $160.00. Special Offer $128.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies People from the Desert
Alttürkische Handschriften
Pre-Islamic Arabs in History and Culture edited by Nader Al Jallad
Teil 18: Buddhica aus der Berliner Turfansammlung. Teil 1: Das apokryphe Sutra Säkiz Yükmäk Yaruk. edited by Simone-Christiane Raschmann
People from the Desert: Pre-Islamic Arabs in History and Culture provides a collection of text-based studies that investigate different aspects of the history, culture and literature of the pre-Islamic period. It presents detailed studies of the poetry of Imru’l-Qays, al-Shanfara, ‘Antarah, al-Khansa’ and more. It also offers in-depth studies of pre-Islamic religions, narratives, trade, women, the concepts of life and death and much more. 208p.
Reichert Verlag, Textualia 2, August 2012 9783895008726, paperback – $168.00. Special Offer $134.00
This catalog lists 250 Old Turkic manuscript fragments of the apocryphal sutra of Säkiz Yükmäk Yaruk. This work incorporates the results of a complete edition of the sutra by Japanese scholar Juten Oda, which contains all world-wide transmissions of the Old Turkic fragments and is modified with some new compositions and breakdown of the fragments. The, until now, mostly ignored remaining titles and independent texts are now presented. The results of a paper-analysis of 61 fragments of the Säkiz Yükmäk Yaruk are also presented for the first time. German text. 311p, illus. Franz Steiner Verlag, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 0.26, 2012 9783515101080, hardback – $104.00. Special Offer $83.00
Ägypten und Anatolien
Mitteliranische Handschriften
Politische, kulturelle und sprachliche Kontakte zwischen dem Niltal und Kleinasien im 2. Jarhtausend v. Chr. by Francis Breyer
Teil 4: Iranian Manuscripts in Syriac Script in the Berlin Turfan Collection edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams
This is a history of the contact between pharonic Egypt and the Hittite-Luwian world. It covers the Egyptian-Anatolian cultural contact for the whole period of Hittite expansion and supremacy in the near east. With that focus, this monograph closes a great gap in the study of the connections of Egypt to its neighbors. First, not only is the contact between the two ancient cultures thoroughly represented and analyzed, but also is connected to a modern cultural-studies oriented discourse. As a result, next to the political connections stands above all the cultural exchange, the mutual awareness of players on both sides as in the interplay in the fields of religion and customs, economy and technology, art and iconography, writing and language. Thus the depiction is characterized through the correlation of cultural-historical as well as archaeological, philological and linguistic evidence, from the heartlands of both cultures and from the wider zone of contact in the Levant. German text. 638p, illus.
The manuscripts brought from Chinese Turkistan to Germany by the Turfan expeditions of 19021914 include many Christian texts, none of which have previously been catalogued. This catalogue covers all the Sogdian and New Persian manuscripts in Syriac script, in total nearly 500 folios and fragments, which are presented in a systematic sequence, beginning with biblical and liturgical texts and ending with miscellaneous and secular material. It is shown that in some cases a large number of fragments belong to a single manuscript, and that many pieces can be joined together. Since most of the texts are translated from Syriac, the Syriac originals are identified wherever possible. In the case of fragments which have been wholly or partially published, full bibliographical details are given; inaccurate readings found in published sources are systematically corrected. The catalogue ends with indexes and concordances, including a complete index of names of people and places. German text. 250p.
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Contributions to the Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean 25, 2010 9783700165934, paperback – $240.00. Special Offer $192.00
Franz Steiner Verlag, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 18.4, 2012 9783515101417, hardback – $100.00. Special Offer 80.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies An Archaeological Guide to Bahrain by Rachel MacLean and Timothy Insoll People have lived on the islands of Bahrain for over six thousand years. There are traces of their lives scattered across the landscape or hidden in the sands: burial mounds, villages, palaces, temples, and forts. This guidebook introduces readers to Bahrain’s rich and varied past, and takes them to some of the most important sites in the Kingdom. Using the evidence from decades of archaeological work it not only details what can be seen by the visitor today, but how people once lived, worked and worshipped here. It is an indispensable guide for residents and visitors to Bahrain’s unique heritage. 162p, color and b/w illustrations throughout.
On the Road to Reconstructing the Past: Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Proceedings of the 36th International Conference edited by Erzsébet Jerem, Ferenc Redö and Vajk Szeverényi The volume comprises 54 papers, while the attached CD contains the full material (84 contributions) presented at the 2008 CAA conference in Budapest. The studies are grouped around four large topics: Remote Sensing and Arial Photography; Data Acquisition and Management; GIS and Intrasite Analysis and finally Virtual Reconstruction and Visualisation. This collection, along with the framework in which it was produced, offers an image of the present relationship between archaeology and computer science. After the political transitions of the late 20th century, the main topic of Hungarian and, in general, Eastern European archaeology has been the gigantic task resulting from overdue infrastructural development: organizing large-scale preventive excavations, their implementation, documentation and presentation. The tasks could only be solved by means of recent advances in information technology. The organizers of the Budapest conference believed that this theme would draw attention to other more basic problems of archaeology. 428p.
Archaeopress, 2011 9781905739363, paperback – $27.95. Special Offer $22.00
Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies Volume 41 (2011) Papers from the forty-fourth meeting, London, 22-24 July 2010 edited by Janet Starkey Highlights of Volume 41 (2011) include: Some observations on women in Omani sources (Olga Andriyanova); Through evangelizing eyes: American missionaries to Oman (Hilal al-Hajri); Research on an Islamic period settlement at Ras Ushayriq in northern Qatar and some observations on the occurrence of date presses (Andrew Petersen) and Oman and Bahrain in Late Antiquity: the Sasanians’ Arabian periphery (Brian Ulrich). For a full list of contents, please see our website. 436p, illus in colour & b/w.
Archaeopress, Seminar for Arabian Studies 41, 2011 9781905739400, paperback – $110.00. Special Offer $88.00
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Archaeolingua, CAA Conference Proceedings, 2012 9789639911307, paperback – $62.00. Special Offer $50.00
Archaeological, Cultural and Linguistic Heritage Festschrift for Elisabeth Jerem in Honour of her 70th Birthday edited by Peter Anreiter, Eszter Bánffy, László Bartosiewicz, Wolfgang Meid and Carola Metzner-Nebelsick More than 50 authors, from many countries, have contributed to this impressive volume which honours Erzsébet Jerem, founder and longtime editor of the Archaeolingua publication venue. Main focus is on the archaeology of Hungary and adjacent regions, with particular stress on Iron Age cultural elements which, from an archaeological point of view, may be labelled Celtic. An important part of the contributions however is of linguistic, philological or epigraphic interest which deal, in an interdisciplinary way, with problems concerning Celtic Studies as a whole or in detail, or that are of relevance to cultural history in general. 639p, illus. Archaeolingua, Main Series 25, August 2012 9789639911284, hardback – $148.00. Special Offer $118.00
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies Israel and Babylon
In the Midst of Jordan
The Babylonian Influence on Israelite Religion by Hermann Gunkel, edited by K.C. Hanson
The Jordan Valley during the Middle Bronze Age (circa 2000-1500 BCE). Archaeological and Historical Correlates by Aren M. Maier
Franz Delitzsch’s lectures in 1902 and 1903 set off the Babel-Bible controversy, which rocked Europe and North America. In this searing critique of Delitzsch, Gunkel provides his own analysis of the relationship between ancient Israel and Babylon. In this edition, Gunkel’s original work is newly translated, with a new Foreword, notes, bibliographies, and indexes. 78p.
This volume brings together a variety of types of finds and approaches, to form a coherent picture of the role and significance of this region during this period. Starting from a general regional overview, a critical review of the finds from the various sites in the region is presented, followed by discussion of various aspects of the material culture, historical sources, trade and chronology, and an attempt to synthesize the settlement pattern and processes, from the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age until the onset of the Late Bronze Age. The volume concludes with an appendix with a detailed list on all MB sites in the Jordan Valley, and a list and discussion of all 14C dates from the Jordan Valley. The volume should be of interest to scholars dealing with the Bronze and Iron Ages of the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as archaeologists and ancient historians in general. 298p.
James Clarke & Co 2011 9780227173671, paperback – $30.00. Special Offer $24.00
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Contributions to the Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean 36, 2011 9783700166023, paperback – $96.00. Special Offer $77.00
Israel
Ägypten und Levante XX/2010
by Peter Hirschberg
Internationale Zeitschrift für ägyptische Archäologie und deren Nachbargebiete/International Journal for Egyptian Archaeology and Related Disciplines edited by Manfred Bietak
Peter Hirschberg has lived in Jerusalem for several years, guiding numerous travel groups and teaching a great number of courses in advanced education in Israel/Palestine. In this excellent travel guide, he introduces the most important biblical sites against the background of biblical evidence and the newest findings in biblical archaeology. He not only aids a deeper understanding of the significance of particular places, but he also demonstrates how a study trip or a pilgrimage to the Holy Land may assist us in approaching the ‘spirit of the Bible’ in a novel way. The focus of this book is the narrative of Jesus, hence sites that are of importance in the New Testament are treated with particular emphasis. The major sites of the Old Testament are also given their due attention. The volume is richly illustrated and written in an accessible style, making it an indispensable travel companion for the interested visitor to the Holy Land. German text. 348p, illus. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Biblische Reiseführer 6, 2011 9783374028412, paperback–$32.00. Special Offer $26.00
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Highlights of volume 10 include: A Stone Vessel of Princess Itakayet of the 12th Dynasty from Tomb VII at Tell Misrife/Qatna (Syria) (A Ahrens); A signet ring with a cryptographic inscription in Bonn (C. Jurman); Contributions to the Chronology of the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period (T. Schneider); Objects of Prestige? Chariots in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean and Near East (M.H. Feldman and Co Sauvage) and The Old to Middle Babylonian Transition: History and Chronology of the Mesopotamian Dark Age (F. van Koppen). For a full list of contents, please see our website. 463p.
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Ägypten und Levante 20, 2011 9783700169604, paperback – $149.00. Special Offer $119.00
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Late Antiquity and Medieval Persia’s Imperial Power in Late Antiquity The Great Wall of Gorgan and the Frontier Landscapes of Sasanian Iran by Eberhard Sauer, H. O. Rekavandi, T. J. Wilkinson and J. Nokandeh The Gorgan Wall is guarded by over 30 forts, is longer than Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall put together and is the most monumental ancient border defence system between Central Europe and China. Yet few have heard of it. Dating proposals have ranged over more than a millennium, and majority opinion attributed the wall to the Parthians. Scientific dating has now established that it was created in the 5th/6th century AD and belongs to one of the largest empires of antiquity, that of Sasanian Persia (3rd-7th centuries AD). In the hinterland of the wall there were massive square fortifications, one of which has yielded traces of dense occupation, probably neat rows of army tents. The wall cut through a landscape that a millennium earlier was heavily settled and irrigated by canals which enabled a flourishing culture to emerge in the steppe. This project has shed light on what made one of antiquity’s largest empires and earlier civilisations succeed. 600p, illus. Oxbow Books, British Institute of Persian Studies Monograph 2, December 2012 9781842175194, hardback – $150.00. Special Offer $120.00
Late Antiquity Eastern Perspectives, From the Sasanians to Early Islam edited by Teresa Bernheimer and Adam Silverstein In the past four decades scholars have debated the place of early Islam within the late antique world, particularly in relation to the issue of where and when ‘Late Antiquity’ends. Although the Sasanian empire (in what is now modern Iran) became equally powerful as the Byzantine empire, and the two often forged their characters and practices on the basis of their relations with each other, that has rarely translated into equal coverage for the eastern part of the late antique world in studies of the period. Late Antiquity: Eastern Perspectives aims to redress this balance and situate Iran within the broader world of this era. Eight papers serve as case studies for considering narratives and perspectives other than those emanating from Byzantium or, more generally, ‘the West’. They demonstrate the potential of eastern source-material, particularly James Howard-Johnston’s double-length article which produces a detailed reconstruction of the Sasanian army. 176p, 4 b/w illus & 6 maps.
Gibb Memorial Trust, August 2012 9780906094532, hardback – $110.00. Special Offer $88.00
Averroes Tahafut al Tahafut: The Incoherence of the Incoherence, Volumes I and II. 3rd edition translated, with an introduction, commentary and notes by Simon van den Bergh Ibn Rushd, known to Christian Europe as Averroes, came from Córdoba in Spain and lived from 1126 to 1198. He is regarded as the last great Arab philosopher in the Classical tradition, and, under the patronage of the Almohad ruler Abu Ya’quib Yusuf, was a very prolific one. The Tahafut alTahafut, written not long after 1180, is his major work and the one in which his original philosophical doctrine is to be found. It takes the form of a refutation of Ghazali’s Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), a work begun in 1095 which attacked philosophical speculation and declared some of the beliefs of the Philosophers to be contrary to Islam. Averroes sets his Aristotelian views in contrast with the Neo-Platonist ones attributed to the philosophers by Ghazali. 630p. Gibb Memorial Trust, 1978, reprinted 2008 9780906094563, paperback – $60.00. Special Offer $48.00
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Late Antiquity and Medieval Selbst - und Fremdwahrnehmung im Prozess kultureller Transformation by Sevket Kucukhuseyin It took centuries for Byzantine Anatolia to become a predominantly Turkish and Muslim area. We have yet to explain how it came to be that the Turkish-Muslim immigrants, who for a long time constituted a minority, did not merge into the autochthonous Christian majority, but that, on the contrary, it was the immigrants’ language and religion that became prevalent. This study contributes to a better understanding of this complicated process, which remains insufficiently explored. It examines perceptions of the self and others as found in the oldest Anatolian-Muslim narrative sources, comprising historiographies, hagiographies and popular novels dating from the 13th-15th centuries. It focusses on the question of the extent to which the mental perceptions of identity and alterity to be found in these texts reflect this longterm process of transformation, or even had an impact on it. 488p.
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Sitzungsberichte der Phil.-hist. Klasse 825, September 2012 9783700170709, paperback – $96.00. Special Offer $77.00
A Baghdad Cookery Book by Muhammad Ibn Al-Hasan Al-Baghdadi, a new translation by Charles Perry Al-Baghdadi’s Kitab al-Tabikh was for long the only medieval Arabic Cookery book known to the English-speaking world, thanks to A.J Arberry’s path-breaking 1939 translation, which was reissued by Prospect Books in 2001. For centuries, it has been the favourite Arab cookery book of the Turks. The original manuscript is still in Istanbul, and at some point a Turkish sultan commissioned a very handsome copy which can still be seen in The British Library in London. In the twentieth century the Iraqui scholar, Daoud Chelebi, produced a modern transcription which served as the basis for Arberry’s translation. Charles Perry has re-visited the manuscript and discovered many possible errors and amendments that affect the interpretation of these essential recipes for the understanding of medieval Arab cookery. He has produced a new English translation incorporating these amendments and fully annotating his variations with the ‘authorised’ version. Scholars will now have a definitive text on which to work. 128p. Prospect Books, Petits Propos Culinaires 79, 2005 9781903018422, paperback – $19.95. Special Offer $16.00
Geschichte Wassaf’s Deutsch übersetzt von Hammer-Purgstall by Sibylle Wentker This current volume presents the third of five sections of the Geschichte Wassaf’s (Tarih-i Wassaf) translated into German by the Austrian orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (17441856). In it, the author of this important work on Persian history, araf ad-Din ‘Abd Allah b. Fadl Allah Allah Wassaf, from Shiraz, describes the history of his home province of Fars and the Mongolian rulers in Iran, whilst also dealing with neighbouring dynasties. The third part of his chronicle contains a description of the reigns of the Ilkhan Gaykhatu (1291-1295), Baydu (1295) and Ghazan (1295-1304), with long passages also being devoted to the history of India and Egypt. Particularly interesting are the accounts of the devastating effects of the introduction into Iran of paper money on the Chinese model. This current section of Wassaf’s chronicle gives a detailed account of what was achieved during Ghazan’s reign and the measures he took to Islamise the country. 366p. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Sitzungsberichte der Phil.-hist. Klasse 827, September 2012 9783700172048, paperback – $77.00. Special Offer $62.00
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Linguistics Grammatical Case in the Languages of the Middle East and Europe Acts of the International Colloquium Variations, Concurrence et Evolution des cas dans Divers Domaines Linguistiques, Paris, 2-4 April 2007 edited by Michèle Fruyt, Michel Mazoyer, and Dennis Pardee The volume contains twenty-eight studies of various aspects of the case systems of Sumerian, Hurrian, Elamite, Eblaite, Ugaritic, Old Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew, Indo-European, the languages of the Bisitun inscription, Hittite, Armenian, Sabellic, Gothic, Latin, Icelandic, Slavic, Russian, Ouralien, Tokharian, and Etruscan. The volume concludes with a paper on future directions. 420p.
The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 64, 2011 9781885923844, paperback – $45.00. Special Offer $36.00
The Development of Arabic as a Written Language Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies Volume 40, 2010 edited by M.C.A. MacDonald Highlights include: The development of Arabic as a written language (Christian Julien Robin); A glimpse of the development of the Nabataean script into Arabic based on old and new epigraphic material (Laïla Nehmé); The evolution of the Arabic script in the period of the Prophet Muhammad and the Orthodox Caliphs in the light of new inscriptions discovered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Ali Ibrahim Al-Ghabban); The relationship of literacy and memory in the second/eighth century (Gregor Schoeler); The Use of the Arabic script in magic (Venetia Porter); The Old Arabic graffito at Jabal Usays: A new reading of line 1 M.C.A. Macdonald). 179p, illus.
Archaeopress, 2010 9781905739349, paperback – $60.00. Special Offer $48.00
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Personal Names in Sogdian Sources by Pavel Borisovich Lurje This volume continues the Middle Iranian portion of the Iranisches Personennamenbuch. It deals with personal names attested in published texts in the Sogdian language, an eastern Iranian vernacular which has come down to us from texts composed between the first centuries CE and the 11th century in the Sogdian heartland and along the route of the Great Silk Road. Over 1,600 names and terms are collected, arranged alphabetically, and include all personal names found in Sogdian texts published to date, as well as adjectives denoting origin, nicknames, and titles that were also used as personal names. A standard entry begins with the name in transliteration, its transcription, and any indications of the person’s gender. Next are provided quotations from the texts in which the name appears. These are followed by notes on the prosopography of the bearer of the name and the name’s etymology, as well as remarks on finer details. Namesakes are included in a single entry. 527p.
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Iranische Onomastik 8, 2010 9783700168386, paperback – $104.00. Special Offer $83.00
Bactrian Personal Names by Nicholas Sims-Williams Bactrian was the principal language of administration in what is now Afghanistan from the time of the Kushan empire (1st to 3rd centuries C.E.) until the early Islamic period. The surviving Bactrian inscriptions and documents, coins and countermarks, seals and sealings attest a large number of personal names, whose various linguistic origins - Persian, Sogdian, Indian, Hunnic, Turkish, and of course native Bactrian - mirror the variety of peoples and religions which combined to form the unique culture of this region during the 1st millennium C.E. In this comprehensive study, Nicholas Sims-Williams analyses the etymology, structure and meaning of the names themselves and where possible identifies the persons who bore them. It will be of interest both to specialists in onomastics and to linguists and historians concerned with the languages and culture of pre-Islamic Afghanistan and neighbouring regions. 199p.
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Iranische Onomastik 7, 2010 9783700168416, paperback $120.00. Special Offer $96.00
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Linguistics
Modern Islam and the Middle East
Persian Language in History
Encountering Islam
edited by Mauro Maggi and Paola Orsatti
Joseph Pitts: An English Slave in 17thcentury Algiers and Mecca by Paul Auchterlonie
The volume - of interest to students of Persian, Iranian philology, and comparative and general linguistics - contains fourteen papers that cover a diversity of themes relating to the history of the Persian language, including Middle Persian. Editions of so far unpublished texts and new language materials are also included. Part I looks at the Historical and Descriptive Grammar of Persian; Part II discusses Middle Persian; Part III, Non-standard New Persian; Part IV, Literary New Persian and Part V explores Dialectology. For more detailed information about the contents, please see our website. 364p.
Reichert Verlag, Beiträge zur Iranistik 33, 2011 9783895006913, hardback – $115.00. Special Offer $92.00
Arabische Welt. Grammatik, Dichtung und Dialekte
For three centuries after 1500, Muslim ships based in North African ports terrorized European shipping, enslaving hundreds of thousands of Christians. This is the fascinating story of one Englishman’s experience of life as both Christian slave and Muslim soldier. Captured by Algerian pirates in 1678, Joseph Pitts was sold as a slave in Algiers and underwent forced conversion to Islam. Sold again, he accompanied his third master to Mecca, becoming the first Englishman known to have visited the Muslim Holy Places. Granted his freedom, Pitts became a soldier before venturing on a daring escape while serving with the Algiers fleet. Encountering Islam contains a faithful rendering of the definitive 1731 edition of Pitts’s book, together with critical historical, religious and linguistic notes. The introduction tells what is known of Pitts’s life, and places his work against its historical background, and in the context of current scholarship on captivity narratives and Anglo-Muslim relations of the period. 368p, illus. Arabian Publishing, 2012 9780955889493, hardback – $96.00. Special Offer $77.00
Beiträge einer Tagung im Juli 2008 in Erlangen zu Ehren von Wolfdietrich Fischer edited by Shabo Talay and Hartmut Bobzin This volume contains a selection of 15 contributions stemming from a conference of the same name held in July 2008 in honor of the Erlanger Orientalist Wolfdietrich Fischer. Wolfdietrich Fischer, who held the chair of Oriental Philology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg from 1964 to 1995, provided impetus in his dissertation on the study of the colloquial Arabic for the world-renowned Arab dialectology in Germany, and with additional works on Arabic philology, grammar and poetry shaped German Arabic studies and brought them international acclaim. The contributions are devoted to these priorities, and the volume is divided thematically into three chapters. German text. 276p, 3 illus.
Reichert Verlag, 2010 9783895007194, hardback – $84.00. Special Offer $67.00
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Modern Islam and the Middle East Dubai High
Sons of Sinbad
A Culture Trip by Michael Schindhelm and Aurore Belkin
The Photographs by Alan Villiers
In early 2007, writer and theatre director Michael Schindhelm was appointed by the Dubai authorities as consultant on a projected opera house, and in early 2008 found himself with a broader remit as director of the newly founded Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. His diary of 2008 is a partly fictionalized account of his first twelve months of both working and living in Dubai. It is a meditation, from a cultural perspective, on the nature of this extraordinary city and its project to reinvent itself according to new rules of its own devising. From the outset there were profound cultural issues to be faced and ultimately, his projects were undone by the global financial crash of late 2008.
Alan Villiers (1903-82) was a renowned Australian sailor, writer and photographer. Originally published in 1940, Sons of Sindbad is his account of sailing with the Arabs in their dhows in southern Arabia, along the East African coast and in the Arabian Gulf, to record a nautical and cultural tradition that even then was disappearing. Arabian Publishing, in association with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, has now republished this sailing and adventure classic in an abridged form and a large format, and with many more photographs, previously unpublished, from the Museum’s Villiers Collection.
Despite his woes, the author retains some sympathy for the Dubai project. He remains optimistic, seeing in Dubai and other Gulf States a glimmer of hope for international cultural dialogue, leading to increased understanding between the Arab world and the West. 237p, illus.
This book depicts the experiences of the sailors and divers and the hardships they faced in their perilous environment. Villiers’ powerful photographs and words form a fine tribute to the skills and endurance of the Arab sailors, and a fitting valediction to the age of sail before the onset of oil and modernization. 224p, b/w photos.
Arabian Publishing, 2011 9780955889479, hardback – $50.00. Special Offer $40.00
Arabian Publishing, 2011 9780954479251, hardback – $70.00. Special Offer $56.00
Seen in the Yemen Travelling with Freya Stark and Others by Hugh Leach Seen in the Yemen brings the people, architecture and landscapes of this ancient culture alive to the reader through the medium of the author’s remarkable black-and-white photographs, taken in the 1970s, and here reproduced in duotone. His book is also a tribute to one of the most famous of all Arab and Asian travellers, the late Dame Freya Stark (1893-1993). In the mid-1970s, at the age of eighty-three, she made two visits to the author, who was then serving in Sana’a. Their travels together through north Yemen marked the start of a long friendship. Yemen today, like the rest of Arabia, is undergoing rapid and inevitable change.This book records a time when town and country had only recently embarked on the decades of upheaval, and much was visually unchanged. The author’s artistic eye imparts an unforgettable aura of romance and nostalgia to his pictures which, like Freya Stark’s, will cast their spell over readers present and future. 308p, illus. Arabian Publishing, 2011 9780955889455, hardback – $90.00. Special Offer $72.00
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Modern Islam and the Middle East Non-Muslims in Muslim Majority Societies With Focus on the Middle East and Pakistan by Kajsa Ahlstrand and Göran Gunner In a world where almost all societies are multireligious and multi-ethnic, we need to study how social cohesion can be achieved in different contexts. In some geographical areas, as in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, people of different religious belonging have, through the ages, lived side by side, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in dissonance. In other geographical regions, as in Scandinavia, societies have been quite religiously homogeneous but only recently challenged by immigration. In order to discuss the situation for Non-Muslims in Muslim majority societies, a consultation was convened with both Muslim and Christian participants from Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Sweden. Some of the participants work in academic settings, others in faith-based organizations, some in jurisprudence and others with theological issues. This book presents articles that discuss issues such as freedom of religion, minority rights, secular and religious legislation, and inter-religious dialogue in Muslim majority societies. 166p. Lutterworth Press, 2011 9780718892449, paperback – $36.00. Special Offer $29.00
Die Syrische Steppe Mobile Viehzucht, internationale Entwicklungshilfe und globale Märkte by Andreea Bretan The Syrian desert has for 50 years been the focus of a debate on overgrazing, environmental protection, and rural development. State and international institutions blame the mobile livestock herders who live and make their livelihood in the steppe for pollution and the progressive land degradation. In a concentrated action, 60% of the steppe is supposed to be afforested by grazing protection reserves. This has far-reaching consequences for Syrian pastoral nomads. They will have to travel around these areas, may not set up camp there, and will lose control over the decision of when they can graze the regrown resources. The growing pressure on the few remaining free steppe areas leads to conflicts and economic crises. The study provides the bandwidth, but also limitations of the flexible adaptation of nomadic livestock enterprises and includes a discussion on the economic and political conditions that frame the relations between nomads and those settled in what is now Syria. German text. 208p, 5 b/w illus, 15 col illus, 6 charts, 13 tbls. Reichert Verlag, Nomaden und Sesshafte 13, 2010 9783895006425, hardback – $115.00. Special Offer $92.00
Art and Architecture of Twelver Shi’ism by James W. Allan Twelver Shi’ism is the dominant faith in southern Iraq and Iran and it has had a major historical role also in India, in particular in the Deccan and in Lucknow, but its distinctive art and architecture have received little attention and seldom appear in books on the arts of the Islamic World. This book looks first at the history of the great Shi’i shrines of Iran and Iraq, a subject almost completely untouched in the standard works on Islamic architecture; at the role of Shi’i and, unexpectedly, Sunni (orthodox Islamic) patronage in their development; at the collecting of relics, and the use of inscriptions and symbols to identify religious buildings; and at the way in which different secondary Shi’i religious buildings (e.g. tekiyehs, ashur khanehs and kerbalas) appeared in Iran and in India. It then turns to the impact of Shi’ism on the craft industries, highlighting in particular the role of shrines in promoting art. 182p. Azimuth Editions, 2012 9781898592297, hardback – $60.00. Special Offer $48.00
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Modern Islam and the Middle East Conflicting Narratives War, Trauma and Memory in Iraqi Culture edited by Stephan Milich, Friederike Pannewick and Leslie Tramontini This volume deals with the Iraqi cultural production under and after Baathist rule, a research field which, in comparison to Iraqi history and politics, has attracted relatively scant scholarly attention. The contributors depict the impact of dictatorship, sanctions, and successive wars on Iraqi culture, analyze the predominant narratives and counter-narratives in Iraqi culture, as well as considering the effect of the demographic shift to exile and diaspora. Further contributions deal with the fragmentation of Iraq’s political culture and artistic representations of diverse identities and historical memories. And last but by no means least, the volume asks how the strategies of those intellectuals who supported and legitimized official politics during the Baathist rule can be approached and studied critically with a view to gaining a better understanding of how official culture functioned. 280p. Reichert Verlag, Literaturen im Kontext. Arabisch – Persisch – Türkisch 35, August 2012 9783895008061, hardback – $117.00. Special Offer $94.00
Europa und Palästina 1799–1948/ Europe and Palestine 1799–1948 Religion – Politik – Gesellschaft / Religion – Politics – Society edited by Barbara Haider-Wilson and Dominique Trimbur The encounter of Occident and Orient is one of the major topics of our time. This volume focuses on the Palestinian realm from 1799 to 1948, a period in which the ordinary interest for the land of the Bible and Christian history was connected to a much greater cultural and political discourse, carried out by the western churches and European societies in general. From 1516/17 Palestine belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Beginning in the nineteenth century, this small territory became an issue for world politics. The maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire constituted one of the guidelines of the European powers. This did not hinder any of them, however, from taking part in a competition for influence in Palestine. The theme Europe and Palestine thus connects European and non-European history from the standpoint of a modern international history and the newly refocused church and religious histories. German and English text. 376p. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 142, 2010 9783700168041, paperback – $89.00. Special Offer $71.00
Why Muslims Participate in Jihad An Empirical Survey of Islamic Religiosity in Indonesia and Iran by Dicky Sofjan Firmly embedded in the Islamic religious thought, practice and ethos, jihad (colloquially, ‘Islamic holy war’) is far from being an anachronism. In the aftermath of September 11, statesman, laymen and scholars and would be researchers have struggled to explain and understand why Muslims would be willing to participate in jihad. Is there some form of logic behind the decision? To what extent does rational instrumentalism determine the variation in the level of willingness to participate? Can socioeconomic status indicators tell us something about the profiles of the jihad participants and its prospective doers? Does identity politics have any significant bearing on the Muslims’ level of participation? Based on empirical survey on Islamic religiosity in Indonesia and Iran, this study sets out to examine these pertinent issues. It delves into the various dimensions of religiosity, while explaining to what extent and how religious affection affects Muslim participation in jihad. 210p.
ATF Press, 2006 9789794333990, paperback – $8.00. Special Offer $6.00
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Bargains – Stocks are limited and orders are filled on a ‘first come, first served’ basis Anatolian Iron Ages 5 edited by A Çilingiroglu and G Darbyshire This volume focuses on the archaeology of Anatolia between the collapse of the Hittite empire and the Persian conquest. It ranges from the discussion of broad problems of chronology and cultural interaction to the presentation of new material from both major and less well known sites. Although most of the papers relate to the area of present-day Turkey, a significant feature is the inclusion of papers placing Anatolian archaeology in its wider context. 240p. British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, BIAA Monographs 31, 2005 9781898249153, hardback – $100.00. Special Offer $29.98
Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology The example of Catalhöyük edited by Ian Hodder and Team Members In the early 1990s the University of Cambridge reopened excavations at the Neolithic site of Catalhöyük in central Turkey, abandoned since the 1960s. The aim of the volume is to discuss some of the reflexive or postprocessual methods that have been introduced at the site in the work there since 1993. These methods involve reflexivity, interactivity, multivocality and contextuality or relationality. 300p, b/w plates. BIAA/McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Monograph Series, 2000 9781902937021, hardback – $70.00. Special Offer $29.98
Saddling the Dogs
Catalhöyük Perspectives
Journeys through Egypt and the Near East edited by Diane Fortenberry and Deborah Manley
Themes from the 1995-99 Seasons edited by Ian Hodder
The papers here cover a range of journeys in Egypt, Greece and east as far as Persia and are linked by the light they shed on the experience of travel in these regions from the 17th to the early 20th century. Each of them is of interest for what it reveals about the realities of travel in Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East at different times. 181p. Oxbow Books, 2009 9781842173671, paperback – $35.00. Special Offer $9.98
In this synthetic volume we most clearly describe the stories we have been telling ourselves during the data recovery/interpretation process. This volume thus provides a contextualization of the work carried out in Volumes 3 to 5 it records the framework of thought within which the data were collected and studied, but it is also the result of the interpretation that occurred in the interaction with data. 300p. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Çatalhöyük Research Project 6, 2005 9781902937298, hardback – $78.00. Special Offer $25.98
The Cities of Pamphylia
Inhabiting Çatalhöyük
by John D Grainger
Reports from the 1995-99 seasons edited by Ian Hodder
Pamphylia, in modern Turkey, was a Greek country from the early Iron Age until the Middle Ages. In that land there were nine cities which can be described more or less as Greek, and this book is an investigation of their history. John Grainger brings together a wide variety of exiguous and fragmentary sources to tell the cities’story. He considers the processes of city foundation, settlement, urbanisation and evolution, and the cities’mutual relations. 270p, 16 plates, 41 b/w illus. Oxbow Books, 2009 9781842173343, paperback – $60.00. Special Offer $13.98
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Volume 4 deals with various aspects of the habitation of Çatalhöyük. Part A discusses the relationship between the site and its environment; Part B looks at evidence from human remains which inform us about diet and lifestyle; Part C looks at the ways in which houses and open spaces in the settlement were lived in. A picture is built up of how people moved through and lived in the natural and cultural environment of the places we subsume under the name of ‘Çatalhöyük’. 446p. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Çatalhöyük Research Project 4, 2005 9781902937229, hardback – $125.00. Special Offer $29.98
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Stocks are limited and orders are filled on a ‘first come, first served’ basis – Bargains Changing Materialities at Çatalhöyük
Tille Höyük 4
Reports from the 1995-99 Seasons edited by Ian Hodder
The Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age Transition by G. D. Summers
Volume 5 deals with other aspects of the material culture excavated in the 1995-99 period. In particular it discusses the changing materiality of life at the site over its 1100 years of occupation. It includes a discussion of ceramics and other fired clay material, chipped stone, groundstone, worked bone and basketry. A central question concerns change through time, and the degree and speed of this change. 560p, 268 b/w illus, 246 tbls and CD-ROM. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Çatalhöyük Research Project 5, 2005 9781902937281, hardback – $120.00. Special Offer $29.98
This is the first archaeological documentation of the continuity of settlement at Tille Höyük from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. As the only site in the Ataturk Dam region to document closely this transition, it should be essential reading for those concerned with this period in the Near East. 203p, with 74 figs and 29 plates.
British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, BIAA Monographs 15, 1993 9781898249016, hardback – $70.00. Special Offer $29.98
Historical Topography of Samarra by Alastair Northedge This is the first fundamentally new work to come out in half a century on Samarra, in Iraq. Northedge sets out to explain the history and development of this enormous site using both archaeological and textual sources to weave a new interpretation of how the city worked: its four caliphal palaces, four Friday mosques, cantonments for the military and for the palace servants, houses for the men of state and generals. 426p, 91 plates, 116 b/w illus. British School of Archaeology in Iraq, Samarra Studies 1, 2008 9780903472227, paperback – $80.00. Special Offer $19.98
The Asvan Sites 3, The Early Bronze Age by A. G. Sagona The three sites discussed in this volume provide a series of overlapping sequences that flesh out the cultural developments in East-Central Anatolia during most, if not all, of the third millennium BC. The ceramic evidence, forming the greater part of the material remains, is generously illustrated. 260p, with 160 figs and 3 col plates.
British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, BIAA Monographs 18, 1994 9781898249023, paperback – $63.00. Special Offer $25.98
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The Near East
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