Ancient Iraq

Auteur :

Éditeur : Penguin Books	Date & Lieu : 1980, London
Préface :	Pages : 496
Traduction :	ISBN : 0-14-020828
Langue : Anglais	Format : 130x195mm
Code FIKP : Liv. Eng. Rou. Anc. N° 825	Thème : Général

Présentation

Table des Matières

Introduction

Identité

PDF

Ancient Iraq

Georges Roux

Penguin Books

Of the great civilizations which flourished for over three thousand years between the Tigris and the Euphrates, little seemed to remain.
Ages of decline tended to obliterate almost every trace of the art, science, and literature of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. During the last century, however,there has been an unceasing effort on the pa rt of a rcha eoIog ists to u n cover th e monuments and texts which reveal the history and civilization of the region once called Mesopotamia.
Ancient Iraq is the first full political, cultural, and economic history to attempt to cover the whole of Mesopotamia from the days of prehistory to the Christian era. Dr Roux describes the empires, dynasties and religions of each millennium and suggests something of the splendour of Babylon before its capture by Cyrus. That so vast a subject makes such absorbing reading is due not only to the inevitable fascination of the past,butto the light,yet exact,touch of a talented historian.

Dr Georges Roux was bom at Salon-de-Provence in 1914. The son of an officer in the French Army, at the age of nine he accompanied his parents to the Middle East where he lived for twelve years in Syria and Lebanon before returning to France in 1935. He graduated in medicine at the University of Paris and practised in that city for several years; but he had by then become so interested in Ancient Near Eastern History that in his spare time he read assyriology at the Ecole du Louvre and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, subsequently pursuing his oriental studies side by side with his medical career. In 1950 he joined the Iraq Petroleum Company as a medical officer and served for two years in Qatar and seven years in Iraq. His original research work in southern Mesopotamia and the articles he wrote for specialized periodicals such as Sumer and the Revue d’Assyriologie have won him admission to the restricted circle of professional archaeologists and assyriologists.
Dr Roux now lives in Paris.

Table des Matières

Contents

Foreword To The Second Edition / 12

Introduction To The First Edition / 13

I. The Geographical Setting / 19
The Twin Rivers / 22
Regional Variations / 26
Trade Routes / 29

2. In Search of The Past / 34
The Buried Cities of Iraq / 35
Dating the Past / 39
Archaeological Research in Iraq / 44

3. From Cave to Farm / 49
The Pcdaeolithic of Iraq / 52
Mesolithic and Neolithic / 55

4. From Village to City / 61
The Hassuna Period / 62
The Samarra Period / 65
The Halaf Period / 66
The Ubaid Period / 69

5. Birth of a Civilization / 75
The Uruk Period / TJ
The Jemdat Nasr Period / 82
The Sumerian Problem / 85

6. The Gods of Sumer / 90
The Sumerian Pantheon / 91
Tales of Creation / 96
Life, Death and Destiny / 101

7. An Age of Heroes / 106
From ‘Adam’ to the Deluge / 106
The Great Flood / 110
Dynasties of Supermen / 114
The Story of Gilgamesh / 118

8. The Early Dynastic Period / 122
The Sumerian City-States / 124
Early Sumerian Rulers / 130
Outline of History / 134

9. Semitic Interlude / 14O
The Semites / 141
Sargon of Akkad / 145
The Akkadian Empire / 148

10. Sumerian Renaissance / 154
Ur-Nammu and Gudea / 155
Shulgi, Amar-Sin and the Sumerian Empire / 161
The Fall of Ur / 165

II. The Amorites / 169
Isin, Larsa and Babylon / 171
Eshnunna, Assur and Mari / 175
Shamshi-Adad I and his Sons / 179

12. HAMMURABI / 184
The Statesman / 184
The Lawgiver / 189

13. In The Days of Hammurabi / 195
The God in his Temple / 196
The King in his Palace / 200
The Citizen in his House / 204

14. New Peoples / 208
The Indo-Europeans / 209
Asia Minor and the Hittites / 213
Hurrians and Mitannians / 216
Syria and Egypt / 218

15- The Kassites / 223
Hammurabi's Successors / 224
Iraq under Kassite Rule / 227

16. Kassites, Assyrians And The Oriental Powers / 233
Egypt versus Mitanni / 233
The Time of Suppiluliumas / 236
Assur and Susa versus Babylon / 240

17- The Time of Confusion / 246
Israelites and Phoenicians / 248
The Neo-Hittites / 251
The Aramaeans / 253
The Dark Age of Mesopotamia / 257

18. The Rise of Assyria / 262
Genesis of an Empire / 263
Ashumasirpal 267
Shalmaneser III / 273

19. The Assyrian Empire / 278
Assyrian Eclipse / 279
Tiglathpileser III / 282
Sargon II / 287

20. The House Of Sargon / 293
Sennacherib / 294
Esarhaddon / 299
Ashurbanipal / 304

21. The Glory of Assyria / 312
The Assyrian State / 313
The Assyrian Army / 320
Assyrian Arts 323

22. The Scribes of Nineveh / 328
Mesopotamian Science / 330
Mathematics and Astronomy / 334
Medicine / 338

23. The Chaldaean Kings / 343
The Fall of Nineveh / 343
Nebuchadrezzar / 348
The Fall of Babylon / 352

24. The Splendour of Babylon / 359
Babylon, the Great City / 360
The New Year Festival / 365
Economic Life 369

25. Death of a Civilization / 374
The Achaemenian Period / 375
The Hellenistic Period / 381
The Parthian Period / 387

Epilogue / 391

List of Abbreviations / 396

Bibliography And Notes / 399

Chronological Tables / 457

Maps / 470

Index Of Names / 481

Index Of Subjects / 495

Illustrations

Proto-historic buildings and objects (Drawing by the author)
Harp from the Royal Cemetery of Ur (Courtesy British Museum)
Gold helmet of Meskalamdug, from the Royal Cemetery of Ur (Drawing by the author)
Gold dagger from the Royal Cemetery of Ur (Courtesy British Museion)
Fragment of the Stele of the Vultures, from Telloh (Courtesy Louvre Museum)
Bronze head of Sargon (?), from Nineveh (Courtesy Iraq Museum)
Statue of Gudea, ensi of Lagash, from Telloh (Courtesy Louvre Museum)
The ziqqurat of Ur (Courtesy Robert Harding Associates, London)
Central stairs of the ziqqurat of Ur (Courtesy Robert Harding Associates; London)
Statue of Ebih-Il, from Mari (Courtesy Louvre Museum)
Votive dog, from Telloh (Courtesy Louvre Museum)
Head of a god, from Jabbul, Syria (Courtesy Louvre Museum)
A private house at Ur (Drawing by the author)
The Temple of Ishtar-Kititum at Ishchali (Drawing by the author after a reconstruction by Harold D. Hill)
Relief from Tell Halaf (Courtesy Prof. W. Casket, Cologne)
Assyrian statue at Nimrud (Photograph by the author)
Specimen of Assyrian writing on stone, from Nimrud (Courtesy Iraq Petroleum Company)
Stele of Esarhaddon, from Zenjirli {Courtesy Vorderasiatische Museum, Berlin)
Assyrian scene of war. Relief from Nineveh (Courtesy Louvre Museum)

Maps

Mesopotamia: Geography Prehistory Third Millennium B.C.
Sumer and Akkad
Assyria
The Assyrian Empire
The Near East in the Second Millennium B.C.