Mid-term Take-home Essay Questions

Please write an essay of 3-4 pages (12 font double-spaced) on one of the following topics. You are encouraged to use all class notes, readings, wiki website content. Usually further research is not expected, but you are again strongly recommended to use reference books placed on reserve for our class and listed on the back of your syllabus. When writing your essay, please make careful use of appropriate referencing to the sources you have used.

1. With the first archaeological excavations during the 19th century as part of the colonialist enterprise in the Near East, Europeans were introduced to the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia. Discuss the ways in which the Mesopotamian civilizations were represented at that time, and how they were incorporated into the narratives of world history. Narrative is defined by scholars as a form of telling, where the knowledge of the author becomes a form of political power. Can we suggest such narrativity in the writing of world history? What was the role that was played by archaeology and archaeological museums in this process? How were the historical geographical terms such as Near East and Fertile Crescent formed?

2. Discuss various definitions of social complexity in archaeological literature. What are the different political, economic and cultural features of a complex society? Address specifically how social complexity is associated with particular aspects of material culture, urbanization, emergence of writing and craft production in Early Mesopotamia. Give examples to how archaeological evidence may or may not present evidence of social complexity in Mesopotamia.

3. Discuss domestic, symbolic and cultic components of architecture in Neolithic sites you have seen in class (such as Çatalhöyük, Nevalı Çori, Göbeklitepe). What are the similarities and differences between these sites in terms of the use and articulation of space? What are the various interpretations of such spaces presented by scholars that you have read?

4. What are the outstanding architectural technologies among Uruk period buildings and the Early Dynastic structures we have studied in a comparative perspective?. Point out the continuities and discontinuities in the techniques of wall decoration, use of particular architectural materials, aspects of monumentality, inclusion of pictorial imagery on the monuments and the like. How do you thing such material evidence is useful in talking about social and cultural history in early Mesopotamia?

5. Refined archaeological field techniques such as archaeobotany, climatology, pollen-core analysis, micromorphology, osteoarchaeology, ethnoarchaeology, dendrochronology are being used more and more in contemporary archaeological projects. In what ways do you think such methodologies are advancing our understanding of ancient cultures? Discuss and compare archaeological cases in which such techniques were used to arrive complex interpretations versus earlier excavations where they were not available. What is missed, what is gained?

Due: Friday October 20th, 2006 in class.