Mesopotamia. From Gilgamesh to Artabanus, 3300-120 BC.
Belin| N° d'inventaire | 34073 |
| Format | 17 x 24 |
| Détails | 1039 p., numerous color reproductions, paperback with flaps. |
| Publication | Paris, 2017 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782701164908 |
Between arid desert and rich river valleys, brilliant and open civilizations developed. At the very beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, the Sumerians invented cuneiform writing, irrigated cereal agriculture, urban civilization around vast palaces, and the first forms of statehood. Later, as merchant caravans from Anatolia to the Indus Valley traced trade routes and transported metals and precious products, kings had legislation written down and established the rules of public accounting and diplomacy. At the turn of the 1st millennium BC, Mesopotamia was the center of gravity of great empires: Assyrian, Babylonian, and then Achaemenid Persian. Their capitals have left impressive remains and the activity of their scribes has transmitted to us the essential part of their written tradition, combining the Assyrian Royal Annals, the Epic of Gilgamesh or Mesopotamian astrology… Since the rediscovery, in the middle of the 19th century, of the architectural remains of this civilization and the decipherment of thousands of cuneiform texts, historians have been able to reconstruct the essential events that punctuated 3,000 years of the history of the Mesopotamian Near East. This work aims to present, over the long term, a vision of the places and the actors of this history, to highlight the inventiveness of their achievements and the importance of the material and cultural heritage that they have left us.
Between arid desert and rich river valleys, brilliant and open civilizations developed. At the very beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, the Sumerians invented cuneiform writing, irrigated cereal agriculture, urban civilization around vast palaces, and the first forms of statehood. Later, as merchant caravans from Anatolia to the Indus Valley traced trade routes and transported metals and precious products, kings had legislation written down and established the rules of public accounting and diplomacy. At the turn of the 1st millennium BC, Mesopotamia was the center of gravity of great empires: Assyrian, Babylonian, and then Achaemenid Persian. Their capitals have left impressive remains and the activity of their scribes has transmitted to us the essential part of their written tradition, combining the Assyrian Royal Annals, the Epic of Gilgamesh or Mesopotamian astrology… Since the rediscovery, in the middle of the 19th century, of the architectural remains of this civilization and the decipherment of thousands of cuneiform texts, historians have been able to reconstruct the essential events that punctuated 3,000 years of the history of the Mesopotamian Near East. This work aims to present, over the long term, a vision of the places and the actors of this history, to highlight the inventiveness of their achievements and the importance of the material and cultural heritage that they have left us.