Week 1. September 8 Introduction: overview of the seminar.
Week 2. September 15 Travelers, antiquarians and Assyrians: Roots of modernity, colonialism and orientalism in Assyria.
- Diaz-Andreu,Margarita; 2007. “Biblical archaeology,” inA World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology: Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Past.Oxford University Press, 131-166.
- Bohrer, Frederick N.; 1998.“Inventing Assyria: Exoticism and Reception in Nineteenth-Century England and France,” Art Bulletin 80: 336-356.
- Holloway, Steven W.; 2004.“Nineveh Sails for the New World: Assyria Envisioned by Nineteenth-Century America” Iraq 66: 243-256.
- Holloway, Steven W.; 2006."Introduction: Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible” In Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible.S.W.Holloway (ed). Sheffield Phoenix Press, 1-41.
- Frahm, Eckart; 2006.“Images of Assyria in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century western scholarship.”In Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible.S.W.Holloway (ed). Sheffield Phoenix Press, 74-94.
- Cohen, Ada and Steven E. Kangas; 2010. “Our Nineveh Enterprise,” in Assyrian reliefs from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II: a cultural biography. A. Cohen and S.E. Kangas (eds.). Hanover: Hood Museum of Art and University Press of New England, 1-47.
- Larsen, Morgens Trolle; 1996.The conquest of Assyria: excavations in an antique land 1840-1860. London and New York: Routledge. Skim through and read sections.
Week 3. September 22 Family business in Anatolia: The city-state of Ashur and Assyrian trading colonies. The archaeology of early Ashur.
Presentations: Kültepe (Muge+Willis), Ashur’s limmu (eponym official) stelae and its significance for Assyrian chronologies (Zack).
Response Paper 1 Due
- Chalavas, Mark (ed.); 2006. The ancient Near East: historical sources in translation. Malden MA: Blackwell, 102-104.
Assyrian colonies in Anatolia
- Berdan, Frances F.; 1989.“Trade and markets in precapitalist states,” in Economic anthropology.StuartPlattner (ed). StanfordUniversity Press, 78-107.
- Veenhof, Klaas R. and Jesper Eidem; 2008. Mesopotamia: The Old Assyrian Period. Academic Press Fribourg. Read 147-182.
- Kuhrt, Amélie; 1998.“The Old Assyrian merchants,” in Trade, traders and the ancient city. H. Parkins& C. Smith (eds.), Routledge: London, 1-15.
- Barjamovic, Gojko; 2008.“The Geography of Trade – Assyrian Colonies in Anatolia c. 1975 – 1725 B.C. and the Study of Early Interregional Networks of Exchange” In Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian Period. J.G. Dercksen (ed.) (PIHANS 111), Leiden: Nederlands Instituutvoor het NabijeOsten, 87-100.
- Bajramovic, Gojko; 2010. A Historical Geography of Anatolia in the Old Assyrian Colony Period. (CarstenNiebuhrInstitute Publications 38). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. (Good Maps)
The city of Ashur
- Harper, Prudence O et. al.; 1995. Discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris: Assyrian origins. Antiquities in the VorderasiatischesMuseum, Berlin. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Week 4. September 28 (Wednesday). From Bronze to Iron: The archaeology of the Middle Assyrian Period.
Presentations: Tell Sabi Abyad (with emphasis on ceramics) (Willis), Mitanni-Middle Assyrian continuity in Upper Mesopotamian landscapes: dunnu-dimtu settlements (Muge).
Response Paper 2 Due.
- Kuhrt, Amélie; 1995. The Ancient Near East: c. 3000-330 B.C. 2 Vols. Routledge: London and New York, 348-365.
- Postgate, J.N.; 1992.“The Land of Assur and the Yoke of Assur.”World Archaeology 23: 247-263.
- Neumann, J. &Simo Parpola; 1987.“Climatic change and the 11th-10th c. eclipse of Assyria and Babylonia,” JNES 46: 161-182.
- Gilibert, Alessandra; 2008. "On Kār Tukultī-Ninurta: chronology and politics of a Middle Assyrian ville neuve." In Fundstellen. Gesammelte Schriften zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altvorderasiens ad honorem Hartmut Kühne. D. Bonatz, R. M. Czichon, and F. J. Kreppner (eds). Wiesbaden: 177-188.
- Feldman, Marian H.; 2006. “Assur Tomb 45 and the Birth of the Assyrian Empire,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 343: 21-43.
Dur Katlimmu
- Kühne, Hartmut; 2000. “Dūr-katlimmu and the Middle-Assyrian empire,” in La Djéziré et l’Euphrate Syriens de la Protohistoire à la fin du IIe Millénaire av. J.-C. Tendances dans l’interprétation historique des données nouvelles (Subartu VII). Olivier Rouault and Markus Wäfler (eds.), Brepols: 271-277.
Tell Sabi Abyad
- Duistermaat, Kim; 2008. The pots and potters of Assyria: Technology and organization of production, ceramic sequence and vessel function at Late Bronze Age Tell SabiAbyad. Turnhout : Brepols.
- Wiggermann, Frans A.M.; 2000. “Agriculture in the Northern Balikh Valley: The case of Middle Assyrian Tell SabiAbyad,” ,” in Rainfall and agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia. R.M. Jas (ed.), Proceedings of the Third Mos Symposium, Leiden 1999; Istanbul: NederlandsHistorisch-ArchaeologischInstituut, 171-231.
- Akkermans, Peter M.M.G.; 2006. "The Fortress of Ili-pada. Middle Assyrian Architecture at Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria" in Les espaces Syro-Mésopotamiens. Dimensions de l’expérience humaine au Proche-Orient ancien. P. Butterlin, M. Lebeau, J.-Y. Monchambert, J. Montero & B. Muller (eds.). Turnhout: Brepols, 201-211.
Further bibliography
- Altaweel, M.; 2008 The imperial landscape of Ashur: settlement and land use in the Assyrian heartland (Heidelberger StudienzumAlten Orient 11), Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag.
- Lyon, Jerry D.; 2000. “Middle Assyrian expansion and settlement development in the Syrian Jazira: the view from the Balikh valley.” In Rainfall and agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia. R.M. Jas (ed.), Proceedings of the Third Mos Symposium, Leiden 1999; Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut, 89-126.
- Postgate, J. Nicholas; 1997c. “Middle Assyrian to Neo-Assyrian: the nature of the shift,” in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten: XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Heidelberg 6.-10. Juli 1992.H. Waetzoldt& H. Hauptmann (eds.); Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 159-168.
- Akkermans, Peter M.M.G; José Limpens; Richard H. Spoor; 1993. “On the frontier of Assyria: excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad, 1991,” Akkadica 84-85: 1-52.
Week 5. October 5 (Wednesday) The city of Nimrud and Aššurnasirpal II: ideology of the empire, narratives of state. Critical review of art historical studies of Assyrian palace reliefs.
Presentations: Banquet Stele (Zack)
Response Paper 3 Due.
Ideology and sovereignty
- Eagleton, Terry; 1991.“Introduction” Ideology: an introduction. London:Verso, 1-40.
- Smith, Adam; 2011. “Archaeologies of sovereignty,” Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 415-32.
- Liverani, Mario; 1979."The Ideology of the Assyrian Empire" in Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires. M.T. Larsen (ed.). Copenhagen: 297-317.
Study of Assyrian reliefs
- Winter, Irene J.; 1981."Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs", Studies in Visual Communication 7: 2-38.
- Pittman, Holly; “The White Obelisk and the problem of historical narrative in the art of Assyria,” Art Bulletin 78 (1996) 334-355.
Nimrud
- Oates, J. and D. Oates; 2001. Nimrud: an Assyrian imperial city revealed, London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq. (Read pp. 27-70) (On Reserve Shelf)
Week 6. October 12 (Wednesday) When texts are not just texts: Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: symbolisms of power, mythologies of kingship and the royal rhetoric.
Presentation: Balawat Gate Bronzes (Muge-archaeology, Zack-visual narratives).
Response Paper 4 Due.
Kingship
- Ataç, Mehmet-Ali; 2010.Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Excerpts
Assyrian Royal Inscriptions
- Tadmor, Hayim; 1997. “Propaganda, literature, historiography: Cracking the code of the Assyrian royal inscriptions,” in Assyria 1995. Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. SimoParpola&R.M. Whiting (eds.). Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 325-338.
- Machinist, Peter; 1993. "Assyrians on Assyria in the First Millennium B.C." in Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike. K. Raaflaub (ed). Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 77-104.
Week 7 October 19 (Wednesday) Empire, frontiers and landscape: the Jazira and the Upper Tigris Region – a case of agricultural colonization?
Presentation: Ziyaret Tepe (Willis)
Response Paper 5 Due.
Landscape and politics
- Smith, Adam T.; 2003. The political landscape: constellations of authority in early complex polities. Berkeley: University of California Press. Excerpts.
Jazira
- Wilkinson, Tony J.; Jason Ur, Eleanor Barbanes Wilkinson, Mark Altaweel; 2005.“Landscape and settlement in the Neo-Assyrian Empire,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 340: 23-56.
- Wilkinson, Tony J.; 1995."Late-Assyrian Settlement Geography in Upper Mesopotamia" in Neo-Assyrian Geography. Mario Liverani (ed.); Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Dipartimento di Scienzestoriche, archeologiche e anthropologichedell’Antichità, Quaderni di GeografiaStorica 5: Roma: Sargon srl, 139-159.
- MorandiBonacossi, Daniele; 1996.“Landscapes of power: the political organisation of space in the Lower Habur valley in the Neo-Assyrian period,” SAAB 10.2: 15-49.
Upper Tigris Basin
- Radner, Karin and Andreas Schachner; 2001. “From Tušhan to Amēdi: topographical questions concernin the Upper Tigris region in the Assyrian period,” in Salvage Project of the Archaeological Heritage of the Ilısu and Carchemish dam reservoirs: activities in 1999. N. Tunaet. al. (eds.); Ankara: Middle East Technical University, Centre for Research and Assessment of the Historic Environment, 749-776.
- Parker, Bradley J.; 2002. “At the edge of the empire: conceptualizing Assyria’s Anatolian frontier ca 700 BC,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21: 371-395.
- MacGinnis, John and Timothy Matney; 2009. “Archaeology at Frontiers: Excavating a Provincial Capital of the Assyrian Empire.” Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies 23: 3-21.
Week 8 October 27 Religion and the exercise of power: the Assyrian urban festivals and cult places.
Presentations: Bit akitu temples (Zack), Tell al Rimah temple (Willis)
Performance
- Mitchell, Jon P.; 2006. “Performance” in Handbook of material culture. Christopher Tilley et. al. (eds.). London: Sage Publications, 384-401.
Aššur and the politics of religion
- Holloway, Steven W.; 2002. Aššur is king! Aššur is king! Religion in the exercise of power in the Neo-Assyrian empire. Brill: Leiden.
Magic and magic rituals
- Schwemer, Daniel; 2011. "Magic rituals: conceptualization and performance," in Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Karen Radner and Eleanor Robson (eds). Oxford university Press, 418-442.
- Nakamura, Carolyn; 2004.“Dedicating magic: Neo-Assyrian apotropaic figurines and the protection of Assur,” World Archaeology 36: 11-25.
Akitu festival
- Pongratz-Leisten, Beate; 1997. “The interplay of military strategy and cultic practice in Assyrian politics,” in Assyria 1995. Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. SimoParpola& R.M. Whiting (eds.). Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 245-252.
- Porter, Barbara Nevling; 2004. "Ritual and Politics in Assyria: Neo-Assyrian Kanephoric Stelai for Babylonia" Hesperia Supplements, Vol. 33, ΧΑΡΙΣ: Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr (2004), 259-274.
Further reading
- Bidmead, Julye; 2002. The akītu festival: religious continuity and royal legitimation in Mesopotamia. Gorgias Dissertations Near Eastern Studies 2. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press.
Week 9 November 3 Memory, time and the geological landscapes of ritual and politics: Assyrian rock reliefs and other royal monuments on the periphery.
Presentations: Nahr el-Kalb, Karabur.
- Volk, Lucia; 2008."When memory repeats itself: The politics of heritage in post civil war Lebanon," International Journal of Middle East Studies 40: 291-314.
- Shafer, Ann Taylor; 2007. “Assyrian royal monuments on the periphery: ritual and the making of imperial space” Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context: Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by her students. Jack Cheng and Marian H. Feldman(eds.). Leiden: Brill Publishers, 133-160.
- Harmanşah, Ömür; 2007. “Source of the Tigris: event, place and performance in the Assyrian landscapes of the Early Iron Age,” Archaeological Dialogues 14.2 (December): 179-204.
- Schachner, Andreas, 2006. “An den Ursprung des Tigris schriebichmeinenNamen – ArchäologischeForschungen am Tigris-Tunnel.” Antike Welt 37: 77–83.
- Taşyürek, O. Aytuğ; 1975. “Some New Assyrian Rock Reliefs in Turkey,” Anatolian Studies 25: 169-180.
- Taşyürek, O. Aytuğ; 1979.“A Rock Relief of Shalmaneser III on the Euphrates.”Iraq41: 47-53.
- Ma"ila-Afeiche, Anne-Marie (ed.); 2009. Le Site de Nahr el-Kalb. BAAL Bulletind'Archeologieetd' Architecture Libanaises Hors Serie V.
- Kreppner, Florian Janoscha, 2002, "Public Space in Nature: The Case of Neo-Assyrian Rock Reliefs." AltorientalischFeorschungen29: 367-83.
Week 10 November 9. (Wednesday) Sargon and Dur-Sharrukin: city building as a metaphor for Empire.
- Joffe, Alexander H.; 1998. “Disembedded capitals in Western Asian perspective,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 40: 549-580.
- Van de Mieroop, Marc; 1999a. “Literature and political discourse in Ancient Mesopotamia: Sargon II of Assyria and Sargon of Agade,” in MunusculaMesopotamica: Festschrift für Johannes Renger, B. Böck, E. Cancik-Kirschbaum, T. Richter (eds.), Ugarit Verlag, Münster: 327-339.
- Albenda, Pauline; 1986.The palace of Sargon, king of Assyria: monumental wall reliefs at Dur-Sharrukin, from original drawings made at the time of their discoveryin 1843-1844 by Botta and Flandin. Paris: Editions Recherchesur les Civilisations.
- Caubet, Annie (ed.); 1995. Khorsabad, le palais de Sargon II, roid’Assyrie.Actes du colloqueorganisé au musée de Louvre par le Service culturel les 21 et 22 janvier 1994. Paris: La documentation Français.
Week 11 November 23 (Wednesday). Nineveh and the social production of urban space. Sennacherib’s new quarries.
Presentations: Berkeley excavations at Nineveh, Hanging Gardens of Nineveh
- Lefebvre, Henri; 1991. The production of space. D.Nicholson-Smith (trans.), Balckwell: Oxford. Originally published as Production de l’espace, Editions Anthropos 1974.Excerpts.
- Lumsden, Stephen; 2005. "The production of space at Nineveh," in Nineveh: Papers of the XLIXeRencontreAssyriologiqueInternationale, London 7—11 July 2003. D. Collon and A. George (eds). London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 187-197.
- Stronach, David; 1995.“Notes on the topography of Nineveh,” in Neo-Assyrian geography.MarioLiverani (ed.); Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Quaderni di GeografiaStorica 5: Roma: Sargon srl, 161-170.
- Russell, John Malcolm; 1987. “Bulls for the palace and order in the empire: The sculptural program of Sennacherib’ Court VI at Nineveh,” Art Bulletin 69: 520-539.
- Frahm, Eckart; 2008. "The Great City: Nineveh in the Age of Sennacherib,” in Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies (2008), 13-20.
Week 12 December 1. Violence and the state, violence as spectacles of the state: Lion hunts, bodily violence and the performance of empire. Assurbanipal and the palace relief program at Nineveh.
- Foucault, Michel; 2006. "Governmentality" in Anthropology of the state: a reader. Akhil Gupta (ed.). Malden MA: Blackwell, 131-143.
- Bahrani, Zainab; 2008.Rituals of war: the Body and Violence in Mesopotamia. Zone Books: The MIT Press.
- Na’aman, Nadav; 1991. “Forced participation in alliances in the course of the Assyrian campaigns to the West,” in Ah Assyria... Studies in Assyrian history and Ancient Near Eastern historiography presented to HayimTadmor. M. Cogan and I. Eph’al (eds.); ScriptaHierosolymitana 33. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 80-98.
- Stronach, David; 1997.“Notes on the fall of Nineveh,” in Assyria 1995.Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.SimoParpola&R.M. Whiting (eds.). Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 307-324.
- Weissert, Elnathan; 1997b. “Royal hunt and royal triumph in a prism fragment of Ashurbanipal (82-5-22,2),” in Assyria 1995. Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Simo Parpola & R.M. Whiting (eds.). Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 339-358.
- Aker, Jülide; 2007. “Workmanship as ideological tool in the monumental hunt reliefs of Assurbanipal” In Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context: Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by her students. Jack Cheng and Marian H. Feldman(eds.). Leiden: Brill Publishers, 229-264.
Week 13 December 8. Class Presentations of Research Projects
December 20. Final deadline for papers.
