What do you think?
Rate this book
Very Short Introductions #374
The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction
This book explores the lands of the ancient Near East from around 3200 BCE to 539 BCE. The earth-shaking changes that marked this era include such fundamental inventions as the wheel and the plow and intellectual feats such as the inventions of astronomy, law, and diplomacy.
#374
#374
168 pages, Paperback
First published November 18, 2013
97 people are currently reading
1120 people want to read
About the author
Amanda H. Podany
10 books104 followersDr. AMANDA H. PODANY is a historian and author specializing in the study of the ancient Near East, and a professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly Pomona. She has written several books on ancient Near Eastern history for a wide readership, most recently the critically acclaimed Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East (Oxford UP, 2022). In the book she recounts more than 3,000 years of history through the eyes of people of all walks of life: rich and poor, female and male, young and old. She is also the narrator of the audiobook version, available from Audible.
Podany's other books include The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2014), Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East (Oxford UP, 2010), and The Land of Hana: Kings, Chronology, and Scribal Tradition (CDL Press, 2002). The Land of Hana pertains to Podany's scholarly research (also discussed in many articles), which focuses on Syria in the second millennium BCE, with attention to chronology, scribal practice, international relations, and kingship.
She has a particular interest in making recent findings in her field accessible to a wider audience and, in that spirit, co-wrote (with Marni McGee) a book for young adult readers called The Ancient Near Eastern World (Oxford UP, 2004). She is also the author and presenter of a 24-part series of lectures for Wondrium/Great Courses called Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization (also available on Audible). She has been the recipient of a research award from the NEH and received the Norris and Carol Hundley Award from the American Historical Association for her book, Brotherhood of Kings. Recently, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings was selected as a finalist for a PROSE award from the Association of American Publishers. Podany received her MA in archaeology of Western Asia from the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, and her PhD in history of the Ancient Near East from UCLA. She was also the original bass player for the band that became the Bangles.
Podany's other books include The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2014), Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East (Oxford UP, 2010), and The Land of Hana: Kings, Chronology, and Scribal Tradition (CDL Press, 2002). The Land of Hana pertains to Podany's scholarly research (also discussed in many articles), which focuses on Syria in the second millennium BCE, with attention to chronology, scribal practice, international relations, and kingship.
She has a particular interest in making recent findings in her field accessible to a wider audience and, in that spirit, co-wrote (with Marni McGee) a book for young adult readers called The Ancient Near Eastern World (Oxford UP, 2004). She is also the author and presenter of a 24-part series of lectures for Wondrium/Great Courses called Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization (also available on Audible). She has been the recipient of a research award from the NEH and received the Norris and Carol Hundley Award from the American Historical Association for her book, Brotherhood of Kings. Recently, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings was selected as a finalist for a PROSE award from the Association of American Publishers. Podany received her MA in archaeology of Western Asia from the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, and her PhD in history of the Ancient Near East from UCLA. She was also the original bass player for the band that became the Bangles.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
Read
April 1, 2025There does not seem to be much to criticize about this overview. It's rather matter of fact (not to say a bit dry), and it limits itself to Mesopotamia, whilst the concept of the 'Near East' normally covers a much larger territory. Yet it also is striking that Podany paints a fairly classical picture of the historical developments in that area around the Tigris and the Euphrates. She very much zooms in on textual sources, and so - inevitably - the emphasis is on the more or less stable periods, such as the Akkadian Empire, the 3rd dynasty of Ur, the classical Babylonian period, and of course also the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. Inevitably, Podany mentions the importance of surrounding pastoral and nomadic cultures, but in my opinion she does not emphasize enough how delicate the balance and how intense the interaction was between 'regular' and 'peripheral' elements. This means that this very short introduction clings too much to the classical paradigm of the increasingly prosperous and marvelous cultures that follow each other neatly in Mesopotamia. It’s a missed opportunity to correct that image, hence my rather low rating (2.5 stars).
January 4, 2022
This is of course short and concise - as the subtitle promises -, but at the same time it is also very dry, boring even. Podany follows the classic chronology and mainly focuses on text fragments in cuneiform form (with imprinted characters on clay tablets). It does emphasize the great continuity in traditions over well over 2,000 years, thus correcting the image that, unlike Egypt, Mesopotamia did not have a cohesive culture.
April 27, 2018
As a caveat, yes the book is rather short. When I turned the final page I felt a momentary frustration because I found that I wanted more; longer chapters, more material. But then, this book is A Very Short Introduction. It achieves exactly what it set out to do – provide a clear and interesting introduction to the subject that hooks the reader into wanting to find out more. The information is provided in a smooth, readable way; specific strands that are picked out are both entertaining and illuminating; the writing style as a whole is insightful and intelligent whilst avoiding highly technical language and choosing not to pepper the text with references. I highly recommend this book to beginners and hobbyists.
You might be thinking, okay, that’s great for them, but surely someone experienced in the subject can’t get anything out of it, right? I have to admit that the book highlighted two specific cases that were completely new to me - the field is so big that sometimes certain details can pass you by - and more importantly, I would consider this book a great aide memoire. I can see myself returning to it in future if I ever need to step back and place events in the broader context; this book will give me the quick overview I need to remind myself of the sequence. And that’s the reason I’m rating it so highly - not because it's the definitive or comprehensive book on the subject; it isn't – but because it achieves the job it sets out to do, and is genuinely useful across the spectrum of readers.
9 out of 10
May 17, 2020
With Cyrus’s victory, the era of Mesopotamian independence was over. Local culture changed only slowly after the Persian conquest, but in time cuneiform writing and the Akkadian language fell out of use, and the temples to the great Mesopotamian gods were abandoned. Someone must have melted down the gold statues of the gods, no longer fearing their wrath. The evidence for the splendid ancient Near Eastern culture eroded gradually away, the rivers changed their courses, and dirt and sand blew over the ancient cities. Thousands of years passed before modern excavations began and the world once more became aware of its first civilization.
May 11, 2022
I read this book to quickly get some context on the ancient Near East. And at 128 pages in length, the book basically succeeds at its goal. It gave me context while also making me really want to read more to fill in the gaps.
Ancient Mesopotamia was pretty exceptional because, according to the author, it is where the first cities and civilizations arose. (I would have appreciated it if the author put this into the context of when civilization first arose in Egypt/the Indus River Valley/China, but it is a "very short" book). Something fascinating about the ancientness of this civilization is that it was actually almost completely forgotten until the 19th century, its memory preserved only in the Tanakh and Greek histories (according to the author). And even by the time of the ancient Greeks, it was ancient. Xenophon passed by Nineveh, the capital of the long-past Neo-Assyrian Empire, on his march to the sea: he wrote that "[we] marched to a great stronghold, deserted and lying in ruins. The name of this city was Mespila [Nineveh], and it was once inhabited by the Medes [should be Assyrians]. The foundation of its wall was made of polished stone full of shells, and was fifty feet in breadth and fifty in height. Upon this foundation was built a wall of brick, fifty feet in breadth and a hundred in height; and the circuit of the wall was six parasangs."
However, thankfully for us, many of the ancient cities of the Near East have been somewhat preserved in the form of "tells" - hills formed by the accretion of millennia of remodeling and rebuilding. The nuclei of many modern Middle Eastern cities are actually on tells that contain the layered history of thousands of years of settlement. And even more fortunately, in the ancient Near East one of the main forms of documentation was cuneiform clay tablets, which are extremely durable.
The ancient Sumerians "invented" cities around 3600 BC, which marked a major threshold for humanity. Cities are different from towns and villages in that they require large-scale cooperation and organization to operate. The Sumerian cities were centered around cult sites for their deities - each city was associated with/belonged to a specific deity. Interestingly, it seems as though the first cities did not have kings, possibly for as long as 600 years - the word for king is not present in any of the early records. This is interesting to me because it indicates that religion (along with advances in agriculture) was probably a critical factor in uniting people and bringing them together to build the first cities and civilization. The early cities seem to have been temple economies in which the temples/priests ran vast estates. The large-scale organization required to run cities was the impetus behind the development of writing, another huge milestone in the development of civilization. The technology of writing as we know it today was by no means obvious - the earliest 'writing' started off more as pictograms of what people had deposited in the temples. Podany goes through a few other systems the Sumerians experimented with to record temple estate details: "A few earlier attempts at creating a system to help with the impossible task of remembering details about these properties had proved less satisfactory. Officials had tried making small tokens (one to represent each item) and putting them in a bowl, or sealing them in a clay ball, or impressing them on a piece of clay. They had varied the shapes of the tokens, one shape for a sheep, one for a pitcher of beer, one for a sheaf of wheat, and so on." Drawing pictures on clay tablets eventually caught in. This system evolved over hundreds of years into a syllabary that could represent any word. As the technology of writing improved, Podany notes that early on the use of writing must have seemed almost magical to those who used it: it gave writers the ability to talk to other through large distances in both space and time.
It was only around 2900 BC that hereditary kingship became a common feature of Mesopotamia. From that point royal culture became an integral part of the development of civilization. In terms of religion, "Order was maintained in the universe because the king of the gods possessed an object called the “Tablet of Destinies” on which were inscribed the me (pronounced “may”). These me were never written down on any earthly tablet, as far as we know, for human edification."
In 2334 BC, Sargon of Akkad created what the author calls the world's first empire. Besides being a first for human civilization, his rise also forecasted the growing influence of Semitic peoples/cultures in the Near East (Akkadian is a Semitic language). (The author unfortunately doesn't specifically mention that Sumerian was a non-Semitic language isolate). Interestingly, the myth around Sargon claims that "he was born in secret [and] miraculously survived being cast off down a river in a basket", which is very similar to the Moses story. It's one of many parallels that Mesopotamian culture has with ancient Jewish culture.
Around 2100 BC, Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur created the first known law code. The author goes through several interesting examples of cuneiform texts that record legal agreements in ancient Mesopotamia. I was surprised at the sophistication of their agreements even back then. "Approximately 120,000 cuneiform tablets written during the Third Dynasty of Ur have been discovered... One can trace the careers of individual officials, or examine the taxes paid by specific provinces in different years, or try to understand the principles that underlay the taxation system, or even look at the role of blind workers, or the responsibilities of messengers. Almost nothing this detailed has survived from any other ancient civilization." Interestingly, if the historical Abraham existed, he was likely born in Third Dynasty Ur (before migrating to Harran and from there to Canaan/Egypt).
In 1792 BC, Hammurabi became king of the "Old" Babylonian Empire. "Whereas during the Third Dynasty of Ur most of the documents that have been found were produced by the great institutions (the temples and palaces), in the Old Babylonian period vast numbers of documents were private: loans, rental agreements, sales (of houses, fields, slaves), marriage contracts, and letters, for example." Interestingly, "every decade or so, a king of this period would proclaim a mesharum, or redress, which attempted to restore the economy and society to some ideal state that was thought to have existed in the past. In order to do so, the king cancelled all private (but not commercial) debts, freed all people who had been enslaved because of their debts, and restored to its original owner land that had been sold under economic stress." This is very similar to the Biblical concept of the Jubilee that was supposed to happen every 49 years.
At the height of the Bronze Age, relatively stable kingdoms arose in Egypt, Anatolia (the Hittites), and Mesopotamia (the Assyrians and Babylonians). Interestingly, "The whole system of foreign relations that had been created over the course of a millennium in Syria and Mesopotamia was adopted wholesale by the Egyptians and by the Hittites when they joined the international community," and they used cuneiform texts, often written in Akkadian, to communicate. This era seems very similar to the Hellenistic period that would occur around 1000 years later.
The Bronze Age collapse occurred around 1200 BC. "The Sea Peoples, a collection of refugees and fighters from the Aegean and other regions in the west, burned and looted cities along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean on their way to Egypt. One of their campaigns in northwestern Anatolia during this violent time might well have given rise to the legend of the Trojan War. The Egyptian king was able to repulse them, and many of them settled in the southern Levant. One of contingents of Sea Peoples, the Peleset, gave their name to the region where they settled: Palestine."
"The chaos of these years had a domino effect. Whatever its causes—drought, famine, disease, refugee populations on the move—one result was the end of the international community of great kings." This period lasted for about 150-200 years. To the people going through it, it must have felt like a massive and perhaps permanent regression compared to the past (although this period also coincides with the flourishing of the Kingdom of Israel). But interestingly, in the next phase of empire-building, civilization continued to 'progress' even further.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire, which lasted from 911-609 BC, was ~4x larger than any empire that had proceeded it and united Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia for the first time. The Neo-Assyrian kings were brutal. Their palaces feature many scenes of lion-hunting, people-smashing, and other violent events. "When [Assurnasirpal's] palace was complete, the king threw what might have been the biggest party that had ever been held. He claimed to have hosted 69,574 people from across his empire (and beyond) at a feast that lasted ten days." The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser is the one famous for conquering Israel and shipping ten of the twelve tribes across the Euphrates.
Fascinatingly, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal collected a huge library that survived (in pieces) to the present day. This library has given us many of gems of Near Eastern literature such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as a lot of insight into the people of that time. I am fascinated by this boast of Ashurbanipal:
I can recognize celestial and terrestrial omens (and) discuss (them) in the assembly of the scholars.
I can deliberate upon (the series) “(If) the liver is a mirror (image) of heaven” with able experts in oil divination.
I can solve complicated multiplications and divisions which do not have an (obvious) solution.
I have studied elaborate compositions in obscure Sumerian (and) Akkadian which are difficult to get right.
I have inspected cuneiform signs on stones from before the flood, which are cryptic, impenetrable (and) muddled up.
The last boast especially interests me because of its relation to Jubilees 8.3 about Kainan, son of Arpachshad son of Shem son of Noah: "He discovered an inscription, which people long ago had carved on a rock. He read what was on it and copied it. He acted wickedly because of what was on it, as it had on it the teaching of the watchers, according to which they would observe the omens of the sun, the moon, and the stars - on it was every sign of heaven." The Epic of Gilgamesh contains a flood story almost identical to the Noah story.
The Neo-Babylonian Empire came right on the tail of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and lasted ~75 years, from 626 BC–539 BC. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar is famous for destroying the First Temple in Jerusalem and deporting the Jewish elite to Babylon. Despite this reputation, the Babylonians were much less brutal than their Assyrian predecessors and were actually mainly energetic builders. The author recounts how the last king, Nabonidus, excavated a temple of Shamash before renovating it in order to find its foundation stone. Nabonidus actually found it, and even cooler, we actually have his written account: "… and (then) Shamash, the great lord, revealed to me (the original foundations) of Ebabbar, the temple (which is) his favorite dwelling, (by disclosing) the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which no king among my predecessors had found." Amazingly, Nabonidus had found the 1,700-year-old foundation stone left by Naram-Sin, the king of Akkad, and was able to read it.
The author also describes the Babylon new year festivities, called Akitu: "The people of Babylon feasted and celebrated, and they lined the streets as the parade went by, hoping to catch a glimpse of their patron god. The king and Marduk rode at the head of the procession, followed by other gods and goddesses who had arrived from major cities of the empire for the occasion. All were dressed in luxurious garments and carried along in extravagantly decorated chariots, accompanied by musicians, singers, and dancers. Following the gods came the elites of Babylon—the priests, royal family members, and other influential citizens—along with prisoners of war and booty from military campaigns." This was interesting to me because the Jewish exiles certainly witnessed this festival many times, and I wonder if the idol-smashing sentiment of the Tanakh was in part inspired by this festival. Given how ancient Jewish culture was in many ways an offshoot of Mesopotamian culture, and how every Mesopotamian city had a temple that served as a house for its god and the god's statue, it makes me think how radical and strange the completely empty Holy of Holies in Jerusalem must have been.
In 539 BC Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and the rest of the Near East. According to the author, this marked the end of Near Eastern civilization as it had been for around 2600 years - the cuneiform script, the gods, and the other distinctive markings of this civilization would slowly fade away and be forgotten until the 1800s.
Ancient Mesopotamia was pretty exceptional because, according to the author, it is where the first cities and civilizations arose. (I would have appreciated it if the author put this into the context of when civilization first arose in Egypt/the Indus River Valley/China, but it is a "very short" book). Something fascinating about the ancientness of this civilization is that it was actually almost completely forgotten until the 19th century, its memory preserved only in the Tanakh and Greek histories (according to the author). And even by the time of the ancient Greeks, it was ancient. Xenophon passed by Nineveh, the capital of the long-past Neo-Assyrian Empire, on his march to the sea: he wrote that "[we] marched to a great stronghold, deserted and lying in ruins. The name of this city was Mespila [Nineveh], and it was once inhabited by the Medes [should be Assyrians]. The foundation of its wall was made of polished stone full of shells, and was fifty feet in breadth and fifty in height. Upon this foundation was built a wall of brick, fifty feet in breadth and a hundred in height; and the circuit of the wall was six parasangs."
However, thankfully for us, many of the ancient cities of the Near East have been somewhat preserved in the form of "tells" - hills formed by the accretion of millennia of remodeling and rebuilding. The nuclei of many modern Middle Eastern cities are actually on tells that contain the layered history of thousands of years of settlement. And even more fortunately, in the ancient Near East one of the main forms of documentation was cuneiform clay tablets, which are extremely durable.
The ancient Sumerians "invented" cities around 3600 BC, which marked a major threshold for humanity. Cities are different from towns and villages in that they require large-scale cooperation and organization to operate. The Sumerian cities were centered around cult sites for their deities - each city was associated with/belonged to a specific deity. Interestingly, it seems as though the first cities did not have kings, possibly for as long as 600 years - the word for king is not present in any of the early records. This is interesting to me because it indicates that religion (along with advances in agriculture) was probably a critical factor in uniting people and bringing them together to build the first cities and civilization. The early cities seem to have been temple economies in which the temples/priests ran vast estates. The large-scale organization required to run cities was the impetus behind the development of writing, another huge milestone in the development of civilization. The technology of writing as we know it today was by no means obvious - the earliest 'writing' started off more as pictograms of what people had deposited in the temples. Podany goes through a few other systems the Sumerians experimented with to record temple estate details: "A few earlier attempts at creating a system to help with the impossible task of remembering details about these properties had proved less satisfactory. Officials had tried making small tokens (one to represent each item) and putting them in a bowl, or sealing them in a clay ball, or impressing them on a piece of clay. They had varied the shapes of the tokens, one shape for a sheep, one for a pitcher of beer, one for a sheaf of wheat, and so on." Drawing pictures on clay tablets eventually caught in. This system evolved over hundreds of years into a syllabary that could represent any word. As the technology of writing improved, Podany notes that early on the use of writing must have seemed almost magical to those who used it: it gave writers the ability to talk to other through large distances in both space and time.
It was only around 2900 BC that hereditary kingship became a common feature of Mesopotamia. From that point royal culture became an integral part of the development of civilization. In terms of religion, "Order was maintained in the universe because the king of the gods possessed an object called the “Tablet of Destinies” on which were inscribed the me (pronounced “may”). These me were never written down on any earthly tablet, as far as we know, for human edification."
In 2334 BC, Sargon of Akkad created what the author calls the world's first empire. Besides being a first for human civilization, his rise also forecasted the growing influence of Semitic peoples/cultures in the Near East (Akkadian is a Semitic language). (The author unfortunately doesn't specifically mention that Sumerian was a non-Semitic language isolate). Interestingly, the myth around Sargon claims that "he was born in secret [and] miraculously survived being cast off down a river in a basket", which is very similar to the Moses story. It's one of many parallels that Mesopotamian culture has with ancient Jewish culture.
Around 2100 BC, Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur created the first known law code. The author goes through several interesting examples of cuneiform texts that record legal agreements in ancient Mesopotamia. I was surprised at the sophistication of their agreements even back then. "Approximately 120,000 cuneiform tablets written during the Third Dynasty of Ur have been discovered... One can trace the careers of individual officials, or examine the taxes paid by specific provinces in different years, or try to understand the principles that underlay the taxation system, or even look at the role of blind workers, or the responsibilities of messengers. Almost nothing this detailed has survived from any other ancient civilization." Interestingly, if the historical Abraham existed, he was likely born in Third Dynasty Ur (before migrating to Harran and from there to Canaan/Egypt).
In 1792 BC, Hammurabi became king of the "Old" Babylonian Empire. "Whereas during the Third Dynasty of Ur most of the documents that have been found were produced by the great institutions (the temples and palaces), in the Old Babylonian period vast numbers of documents were private: loans, rental agreements, sales (of houses, fields, slaves), marriage contracts, and letters, for example." Interestingly, "every decade or so, a king of this period would proclaim a mesharum, or redress, which attempted to restore the economy and society to some ideal state that was thought to have existed in the past. In order to do so, the king cancelled all private (but not commercial) debts, freed all people who had been enslaved because of their debts, and restored to its original owner land that had been sold under economic stress." This is very similar to the Biblical concept of the Jubilee that was supposed to happen every 49 years.
At the height of the Bronze Age, relatively stable kingdoms arose in Egypt, Anatolia (the Hittites), and Mesopotamia (the Assyrians and Babylonians). Interestingly, "The whole system of foreign relations that had been created over the course of a millennium in Syria and Mesopotamia was adopted wholesale by the Egyptians and by the Hittites when they joined the international community," and they used cuneiform texts, often written in Akkadian, to communicate. This era seems very similar to the Hellenistic period that would occur around 1000 years later.
The Bronze Age collapse occurred around 1200 BC. "The Sea Peoples, a collection of refugees and fighters from the Aegean and other regions in the west, burned and looted cities along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean on their way to Egypt. One of their campaigns in northwestern Anatolia during this violent time might well have given rise to the legend of the Trojan War. The Egyptian king was able to repulse them, and many of them settled in the southern Levant. One of contingents of Sea Peoples, the Peleset, gave their name to the region where they settled: Palestine."
"The chaos of these years had a domino effect. Whatever its causes—drought, famine, disease, refugee populations on the move—one result was the end of the international community of great kings." This period lasted for about 150-200 years. To the people going through it, it must have felt like a massive and perhaps permanent regression compared to the past (although this period also coincides with the flourishing of the Kingdom of Israel). But interestingly, in the next phase of empire-building, civilization continued to 'progress' even further.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire, which lasted from 911-609 BC, was ~4x larger than any empire that had proceeded it and united Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia for the first time. The Neo-Assyrian kings were brutal. Their palaces feature many scenes of lion-hunting, people-smashing, and other violent events. "When [Assurnasirpal's] palace was complete, the king threw what might have been the biggest party that had ever been held. He claimed to have hosted 69,574 people from across his empire (and beyond) at a feast that lasted ten days." The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser is the one famous for conquering Israel and shipping ten of the twelve tribes across the Euphrates.
Fascinatingly, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal collected a huge library that survived (in pieces) to the present day. This library has given us many of gems of Near Eastern literature such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as a lot of insight into the people of that time. I am fascinated by this boast of Ashurbanipal:
I can recognize celestial and terrestrial omens (and) discuss (them) in the assembly of the scholars.
I can deliberate upon (the series) “(If) the liver is a mirror (image) of heaven” with able experts in oil divination.
I can solve complicated multiplications and divisions which do not have an (obvious) solution.
I have studied elaborate compositions in obscure Sumerian (and) Akkadian which are difficult to get right.
I have inspected cuneiform signs on stones from before the flood, which are cryptic, impenetrable (and) muddled up.
The last boast especially interests me because of its relation to Jubilees 8.3 about Kainan, son of Arpachshad son of Shem son of Noah: "He discovered an inscription, which people long ago had carved on a rock. He read what was on it and copied it. He acted wickedly because of what was on it, as it had on it the teaching of the watchers, according to which they would observe the omens of the sun, the moon, and the stars - on it was every sign of heaven." The Epic of Gilgamesh contains a flood story almost identical to the Noah story.
The Neo-Babylonian Empire came right on the tail of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and lasted ~75 years, from 626 BC–539 BC. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar is famous for destroying the First Temple in Jerusalem and deporting the Jewish elite to Babylon. Despite this reputation, the Babylonians were much less brutal than their Assyrian predecessors and were actually mainly energetic builders. The author recounts how the last king, Nabonidus, excavated a temple of Shamash before renovating it in order to find its foundation stone. Nabonidus actually found it, and even cooler, we actually have his written account: "… and (then) Shamash, the great lord, revealed to me (the original foundations) of Ebabbar, the temple (which is) his favorite dwelling, (by disclosing) the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which no king among my predecessors had found." Amazingly, Nabonidus had found the 1,700-year-old foundation stone left by Naram-Sin, the king of Akkad, and was able to read it.
The author also describes the Babylon new year festivities, called Akitu: "The people of Babylon feasted and celebrated, and they lined the streets as the parade went by, hoping to catch a glimpse of their patron god. The king and Marduk rode at the head of the procession, followed by other gods and goddesses who had arrived from major cities of the empire for the occasion. All were dressed in luxurious garments and carried along in extravagantly decorated chariots, accompanied by musicians, singers, and dancers. Following the gods came the elites of Babylon—the priests, royal family members, and other influential citizens—along with prisoners of war and booty from military campaigns." This was interesting to me because the Jewish exiles certainly witnessed this festival many times, and I wonder if the idol-smashing sentiment of the Tanakh was in part inspired by this festival. Given how ancient Jewish culture was in many ways an offshoot of Mesopotamian culture, and how every Mesopotamian city had a temple that served as a house for its god and the god's statue, it makes me think how radical and strange the completely empty Holy of Holies in Jerusalem must have been.
In 539 BC Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and the rest of the Near East. According to the author, this marked the end of Near Eastern civilization as it had been for around 2600 years - the cuneiform script, the gods, and the other distinctive markings of this civilization would slowly fade away and be forgotten until the 1800s.
August 30, 2018
This is a very short introduction to the Ancient Near East, a region that roughly covers the Middle East and some surrounding lands. The heart of the Ancient Near East was Mesopotamia (the land between and around the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, now Modern day Irak).
We know Mesopotamia is said to be the Cradle of Civilisation: the place where the agricultural revolution started, the oldest writing systems were invented and the first cities and kingdoms were built. If it happened somewhere else before, historians have no records of that fact (which doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means there's no older trace of civilisation found).
How were those societies organised (Workforce, administration, political power...) ? What was the role of religion? Did people rule more by diplomacy or by war; in fact, how important was diplomacy at the time? What was the place of women in the society? How did they maintain order in the society? What importance had the rule of law? Some of these question arose when I read an extract of one of the oldest written laws, the Hammurabi Laws (1750s BCE).
It appears that religion (via the Temples) was central to everything:
- That's how the workforce was mobilised for farming, building and crafting . The temples owned vast lands and large amounts of animals. They produced beer, bread, wool. Were the workers paid by the Temple? It seems like they were given some of the goods produced by the temples, but no more than a pittance - after all, they worked for the gods.
- That's where a kingship came from: the gods wanted humans to be ruled by kings, just like gods themselves had their own king. Lots of donation and support to the temples would make a king more powerful. In fact the first world's emperor, King Sargon, leader of the Akkadian Empire used religion to strengthen his reign: he made his daughter the highest priestess of the moon god, one of highest religious positions in the kingdom.
- They had scribes to administer all the dealing at the Temple and soon became administrative powers, often working with the state.
- Gods witnessed treaties: they would write down various gods's names as witnesses to a treaty. This was the best way to ensure each kingdom would respect the terms of the treaties, so big was the fear of the gods. This and sending daughters in marriage to another kingdom.
- Priests and priestesses could be very powerful. It was in fact one of the best ways for a woman to be educated (reading and writing) and become independently rich and powerful. The first literary works for which we know the author were hymns the moon goddess written by Enheduanna, a high priestess.
Mesopotamia had a rich mythology with higher gods, lesser gods, the myth of creation and the Great Flood. The gods were immortals but they loved, lied and quarreled like humans. According to their myth of creation, one day lesser gods were tired of working the fields for the higher gods, so the gods decided to create humans to do the badbreaking labor. That's one way to explain our miserable human condition, I guess. At least it's not a consequence of our sins.
This book is a small gem. Though it's written by an academic, the style is very clear and pleasant. It's not as poetic as Gombrich's style in
, but it's good storytelling.
We know Mesopotamia is said to be the Cradle of Civilisation: the place where the agricultural revolution started, the oldest writing systems were invented and the first cities and kingdoms were built. If it happened somewhere else before, historians have no records of that fact (which doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means there's no older trace of civilisation found).
How were those societies organised (Workforce, administration, political power...) ? What was the role of religion? Did people rule more by diplomacy or by war; in fact, how important was diplomacy at the time? What was the place of women in the society? How did they maintain order in the society? What importance had the rule of law? Some of these question arose when I read an extract of one of the oldest written laws, the Hammurabi Laws (1750s BCE).
It appears that religion (via the Temples) was central to everything:
- That's how the workforce was mobilised for farming, building and crafting . The temples owned vast lands and large amounts of animals. They produced beer, bread, wool. Were the workers paid by the Temple? It seems like they were given some of the goods produced by the temples, but no more than a pittance - after all, they worked for the gods.
- That's where a kingship came from: the gods wanted humans to be ruled by kings, just like gods themselves had their own king. Lots of donation and support to the temples would make a king more powerful. In fact the first world's emperor, King Sargon, leader of the Akkadian Empire used religion to strengthen his reign: he made his daughter the highest priestess of the moon god, one of highest religious positions in the kingdom.
- They had scribes to administer all the dealing at the Temple and soon became administrative powers, often working with the state.
- Gods witnessed treaties: they would write down various gods's names as witnesses to a treaty. This was the best way to ensure each kingdom would respect the terms of the treaties, so big was the fear of the gods. This and sending daughters in marriage to another kingdom.
- Priests and priestesses could be very powerful. It was in fact one of the best ways for a woman to be educated (reading and writing) and become independently rich and powerful. The first literary works for which we know the author were hymns the moon goddess written by Enheduanna, a high priestess.
Mesopotamia had a rich mythology with higher gods, lesser gods, the myth of creation and the Great Flood. The gods were immortals but they loved, lied and quarreled like humans. According to their myth of creation, one day lesser gods were tired of working the fields for the higher gods, so the gods decided to create humans to do the badbreaking labor. That's one way to explain our miserable human condition, I guess. At least it's not a consequence of our sins.
This book is a small gem. Though it's written by an academic, the style is very clear and pleasant. It's not as poetic as Gombrich's style in
, but it's good storytelling. 
June 24, 2023
I was a bit bored in the beginning because of all these Kingdoms and Kings with strange names but I started to enjoy it more at the end. Looking at the kings relationships with God , their taxation system, cuneiform tablets and how the Kingdoms conquer each other.
The Ancient Near East for me is a history that is more lesser known and way less interesting compared to the Greeks or Romans. Or maybe because they come way earlier so there is very little we know about them.
The Ancient Near East for me is a history that is more lesser known and way less interesting compared to the Greeks or Romans. Or maybe because they come way earlier so there is very little we know about them.
January 2, 2015
Great book for someone who wants a very, very basic introduction to the highly complex history of the Near East from the earliest times until the Persian conquest. This short book did a good job of staying focused on the "cuneiform lands".
August 23, 2023
Well organized. The chapters are chronological but most start from a specific text and privilege a particular topic - trade, kingship, religion, law, agriculture, diplomacy, etc.
June 17, 2025
it took a while for me to actually become interested in the text, but once i was, i found it to be a pretty easy read. though i do think that most of the information in this book failed to stick in my brain, i must say that i did like the book as a whole. i mean, it did what it set out to do — you can’t really ask for much more than that. in the future i will be purchasing and (hopefully) reading more books on the ancient near east. i believe that this is a good starting point for anyone interested in that period of history, or at least it was for me.
February 27, 2022
A very good VSI about the mostly landlocked cuneiform land (Mesopotamia, Syria, Elam, & Anatolia). Not a lot of trees in the region and most things are made of mud/clay, leaving very good archeological evidences.
• Beginning of Cities (3600-2900BCE): 3100 BCE, Uruk is perhaps the earliest large scale town with a population of ~25,000. There is no evidence of a royal palace, but the temple is the most important structure. Proto-cuneiform tablets kept track of perhaps possessions of the temple. People have seals to use on clay document of transactions. Evidence of long-distance travel to establish colonies.
• Early Dynastic period (2900-2334 BCE): Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) started to have kings in 2900BCE. They’re called “lugal” (literally big man). Their scribes now write in cuneiforms and describe complex thought (commemoration of king’s piety, descriptions of battles, etc). Excavated cave include expensive materials & sacrificed servants.
• The Akkadian Empire (2334-2193 BCE): Mostly city states or states of a few cities before. But ~2330s BCE Sargon conquered an empire that includes almost all Iraq, and some part of Syria. Document show large amount of gold suggesting resource movement from empire’s periphery to the center.
• The third Dynasty of Ur (2193-2004 BCE): Ur-namma started a dynasty and standardized a lot inc. brick size. Standardization of the calendar proved difficult as people don’t want to change the name of the months. Excavations found 120,000 tablets, mostly on payment, offerings. Taxation is paid in goods mostly.
• The Old Assyrian colonies (1950-1740 BCE): Assur (in Mesopotamia) and Kanesh (in Anatolia) had significant trade. Assyrian merchants travel to Kanesh (and beyond) to sell their textiles with good profits. Records show treaties even governing the handling of theft and murder of foreigner (Assyrians in Kanesh). Records also contain letters of regular merchants revealing family dealings and conflicts.
• The Old Babylonian period (2004-1595 BCE): Hammarubi is a house-hold name in ancient history and eventually controlling much of near east. But here we see tablets showing him at a time being a not particularly powerful king. He created a stela with 275 laws inscribed. His empire lasted 200 years with diminishing power towards the end. Ultimately, it was conquered by the Hitties.
• The Late Bronze Age (1595-1155 BCE): The era showed peace and alliance among the kings. Letters were exchanged between them and traveled as far as Egypt (they would write in Akkadian in these letters). Letter would profess affection and include gifts. Formal treaties were witnessed by the gods. In one coincidence, a broken promise “led” to plague. The period ended by invasion of Sea People (a collection of refugees and fighters from the Aegean and other regions in the west).
• The Neo-Assyrian Empire (972-612 BCE): The empire covers much of huddle east. In reliefs, you can see military tacit (building a tall tower to shoot at city defense) and weaponry (an ancient armored vehicle not unlike WWI tanks). During this period, scholars know how to perform Pythagorean calculation (though perhaps not possessing a proof of the namesake theorem). King Assuranipal collected tablets of knowledge, among these tablets there is the epic of Gilgamesh. The empire is eventually weakened by civil war or rival heirs.
• The Neo-Babylonia Empire (612-539 BCE): This period included the king Nebuchadnezzar II (made famous by the Bible for deporting the Jews). Documents show him anointing old inscription and thus perpetuating tales of the ancients. There were elaborate ceremony in which the priest would slap the cheek of the king(!) to show piety of the king to the gods. The last Babylonian king didn’t believe in god Marduk, which was highly unusual. The Persian Cyrus took advantage of that and by showing piety to Marduk himself, managed to subdue the region.
I wish all VSIs are written like this one: mostly limited to major findings and only discuss nuance or anecdotes of the discipline itself when it’s necessary.
• Beginning of Cities (3600-2900BCE): 3100 BCE, Uruk is perhaps the earliest large scale town with a population of ~25,000. There is no evidence of a royal palace, but the temple is the most important structure. Proto-cuneiform tablets kept track of perhaps possessions of the temple. People have seals to use on clay document of transactions. Evidence of long-distance travel to establish colonies.
• Early Dynastic period (2900-2334 BCE): Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) started to have kings in 2900BCE. They’re called “lugal” (literally big man). Their scribes now write in cuneiforms and describe complex thought (commemoration of king’s piety, descriptions of battles, etc). Excavated cave include expensive materials & sacrificed servants.
• The Akkadian Empire (2334-2193 BCE): Mostly city states or states of a few cities before. But ~2330s BCE Sargon conquered an empire that includes almost all Iraq, and some part of Syria. Document show large amount of gold suggesting resource movement from empire’s periphery to the center.
• The third Dynasty of Ur (2193-2004 BCE): Ur-namma started a dynasty and standardized a lot inc. brick size. Standardization of the calendar proved difficult as people don’t want to change the name of the months. Excavations found 120,000 tablets, mostly on payment, offerings. Taxation is paid in goods mostly.
• The Old Assyrian colonies (1950-1740 BCE): Assur (in Mesopotamia) and Kanesh (in Anatolia) had significant trade. Assyrian merchants travel to Kanesh (and beyond) to sell their textiles with good profits. Records show treaties even governing the handling of theft and murder of foreigner (Assyrians in Kanesh). Records also contain letters of regular merchants revealing family dealings and conflicts.
• The Old Babylonian period (2004-1595 BCE): Hammarubi is a house-hold name in ancient history and eventually controlling much of near east. But here we see tablets showing him at a time being a not particularly powerful king. He created a stela with 275 laws inscribed. His empire lasted 200 years with diminishing power towards the end. Ultimately, it was conquered by the Hitties.
• The Late Bronze Age (1595-1155 BCE): The era showed peace and alliance among the kings. Letters were exchanged between them and traveled as far as Egypt (they would write in Akkadian in these letters). Letter would profess affection and include gifts. Formal treaties were witnessed by the gods. In one coincidence, a broken promise “led” to plague. The period ended by invasion of Sea People (a collection of refugees and fighters from the Aegean and other regions in the west).
• The Neo-Assyrian Empire (972-612 BCE): The empire covers much of huddle east. In reliefs, you can see military tacit (building a tall tower to shoot at city defense) and weaponry (an ancient armored vehicle not unlike WWI tanks). During this period, scholars know how to perform Pythagorean calculation (though perhaps not possessing a proof of the namesake theorem). King Assuranipal collected tablets of knowledge, among these tablets there is the epic of Gilgamesh. The empire is eventually weakened by civil war or rival heirs.
• The Neo-Babylonia Empire (612-539 BCE): This period included the king Nebuchadnezzar II (made famous by the Bible for deporting the Jews). Documents show him anointing old inscription and thus perpetuating tales of the ancients. There were elaborate ceremony in which the priest would slap the cheek of the king(!) to show piety of the king to the gods. The last Babylonian king didn’t believe in god Marduk, which was highly unusual. The Persian Cyrus took advantage of that and by showing piety to Marduk himself, managed to subdue the region.
I wish all VSIs are written like this one: mostly limited to major findings and only discuss nuance or anecdotes of the discipline itself when it’s necessary.
August 11, 2016
At first I was really pleased with the title of this book. The term “Near East” has unfortunately fallen in disuse, and has been replaced with “Middle East,” which is traditionally a very different geographical area. However, the way term “Near East” is used in this book is not quite the way it’s been colloquially used either. The book basically covers the ancient Mesopotamia and its related cultures, and not, as I had expected, ancient Egypt, Persia and Israel. Apparently the way that archeologists and historians use this term is much narrower than what I had expected. I don’t have a problem with this per se, but this may cause confusion with many readers.
Having the issues of nomenclature out of the way, let me just say that this is a very fascinating book, especially if you are a fan of history. My understanding of this region and its ancient civilizations has been rather cursory, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover how rich and sophisticated this period of history was. It seems that of all the ancient civilizations this is the last one to be fully explored and understood, and was more or less completely unknown for thousands of years. However, thanks to the nature of its written records – cuneiform tablets – the written records of these civilizations that have been unearthed over the past century or so are extremely extensive and help us get a very detailed picture of this region in ancient times.
The book is written in chronological order, starting in about fourth millennium BC. It covers several major consecutive civilizations and periods that had arisen and fallen over the course of about three millennia. The final end of all of these civilizations and the cultures that sustained them came in sixth century BC with the Persian conquest by Cyrus the Great. The book covers many interesting topics: religion, language, trade, warfare, and the legal system. The ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi is one of the oldest preserved written documents, and perhaps the oldest legal code anywhere. After reading this short book it is even clearer how much all of the subsequent civilizations, and we moderns in particular, culturally owe to this ancient region and its civilizations.
The book is very clearly written and it’s very accessible. I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to anyone interested in ancient history.
Having the issues of nomenclature out of the way, let me just say that this is a very fascinating book, especially if you are a fan of history. My understanding of this region and its ancient civilizations has been rather cursory, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover how rich and sophisticated this period of history was. It seems that of all the ancient civilizations this is the last one to be fully explored and understood, and was more or less completely unknown for thousands of years. However, thanks to the nature of its written records – cuneiform tablets – the written records of these civilizations that have been unearthed over the past century or so are extremely extensive and help us get a very detailed picture of this region in ancient times.
The book is written in chronological order, starting in about fourth millennium BC. It covers several major consecutive civilizations and periods that had arisen and fallen over the course of about three millennia. The final end of all of these civilizations and the cultures that sustained them came in sixth century BC with the Persian conquest by Cyrus the Great. The book covers many interesting topics: religion, language, trade, warfare, and the legal system. The ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi is one of the oldest preserved written documents, and perhaps the oldest legal code anywhere. After reading this short book it is even clearer how much all of the subsequent civilizations, and we moderns in particular, culturally owe to this ancient region and its civilizations.
The book is very clearly written and it’s very accessible. I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to anyone interested in ancient history.
March 24, 2016
The Sumerians were the oldest civilization (sorry China, you're not even close).
Chapter 8, the Late Bronze Age, details a time of international peace. There was a section on the Armana letters, from which we know how intimate and friendly the great powers were with each other. They discovered that Akkadian was the language of diplomacy. Egyptian officials were trained in diplomacy. Hugh Nibley said the Armana letters have significance for the Book of Mormon.
There is almost nothing on Israel. Pretty much the last two chapters are relevant to the Bible. The Book described Babylonians as great builders. helps in understanding Isaiah's invectives against Babylon's thinking she was a great city (Isa 47). Overall, helpful.
Chapter 8, the Late Bronze Age, details a time of international peace. There was a section on the Armana letters, from which we know how intimate and friendly the great powers were with each other. They discovered that Akkadian was the language of diplomacy. Egyptian officials were trained in diplomacy. Hugh Nibley said the Armana letters have significance for the Book of Mormon.
There is almost nothing on Israel. Pretty much the last two chapters are relevant to the Bible. The Book described Babylonians as great builders. helps in understanding Isaiah's invectives against Babylon's thinking she was a great city (Isa 47). Overall, helpful.
December 12, 2023
Really good introduction to the field quickly spanning the course of the entire ancient Mesopotamian civilisation from the earliest appearance of organised social structures to the Persian invasion thousands of years later. Thinking about history in this longer term way than we are used to and going back all the way to the very early days of what we would recognise today as the preludes to "western civilisation" has changed my view on the interaction between humans and our planet profoundly. In a short period of time, from the end of the last ice age relatively recently, humans went from paleo-writing systems and small social networks to composing literature, formally organising religion and constructing cities.
March 8, 2019
An excellent to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East! I found it so informative and interesting! It is true what Amanda Podany says in the first chapter: "The popular image of history as a story of progress from primitive barbarism to modern sophistication is completely belied by the study of the ancient Near East"! I highly recommend it!
November 10, 2020
Breve reseña histórica de los acontecimientos más importantes en la historia de los pueblos de Mesopotamia
May 28, 2025
Amanda H. Podany’s The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction is one of the most engaging and insightful entries in the VSI series that I’ve read. It’s concise, well-organized, and—most importantly—deeply committed to reframing how we think about the civilizations of the ancient Near East. Podany makes a clear and convincing argument that the peoples of Mesopotamia, Akkad, Babylonia, and the surrounding empires should not be treated merely as distant precursors to Mediterranean or European civilizations. Instead, they deserve to be studied as vibrant, complex societies in their own right. Their innovations in governance, diplomacy, literature, and law, especially in the areas of women’s property rights and legal protections, mark them as deeply sophisticated cultures with values and structures worth recognizing on their own terms.
I really enjoyed this book. It is exactly what I hope for from this series: short, engaging, and packed with insight. It’s not just a quick tour through one of the world’s most important early civilizations. It’s also a book with a clear and compelling approach, one rooted in Podany’s expertise in cuneiform tablets, which she uses not simply as sources, but as voices from the ancient world that bring the narrative to life. The documents are written by ancient scribes, kings, students, priests, and merchants gives it a richness that many introductory texts lack. She moves beyond the familiar images of ziggurats and statues to reveal a world that was highly bureaucratic, deeply religious, and surprisingly interconnected.
The book begins with the rise of city-states in Sumer and follows the arc of Near Eastern civilization up through the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Instead of just listing dynasties and kings, Podany focuses on themes: the invention of writing, the organization of temple economies, the development of early law codes, the education of scribes, and the diplomacy of empires. She shows how this region was not isolated, but part of a complex international system that included Egypt, the Hittites, the Mitanni, and others.
Some of my favorite details include:
The oldest known international peace treaty, between the Hittites and Egyptians, survives in both Hittite and Egyptian versions.
A letter from a Babylonian king to an Egyptian pharaoh complaining about the quality of gold he received, and demanding better treatment as a “brother.”
The story of Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, who was both a high priestess and the first known author whose name survives.
The surprisingly modern-sounding complaints of students learning to write, preserved on clay tablets complete with grammatical errors.
A legal case involving a woman who divorced her husband and took back her dowry, showing the presence of legal rights and protections for women in some contexts.
I don’t have any major critiques. This is a fantastic introduction to a region that is often treated only as a backdrop to biblical stories or classical antiquity. Podany’s book reminds us that the ancient Near East was its own sophisticated, dynamic world. Her passion for the subject is evident on every page, and her ability to distill centuries of history into readable and thought-provoking prose is admirable.
Highly recommended for students, teachers, lifelong learners, or anyone curious about the earliest urban societies and how we know about them. A truly rewarding read.
For more details, check out my video:
https://youtu.be/N5Wk5gLwBb0
For more reviews, check out my channel:
http://www.youtube.com/@SpencerReadsE...
I really enjoyed this book. It is exactly what I hope for from this series: short, engaging, and packed with insight. It’s not just a quick tour through one of the world’s most important early civilizations. It’s also a book with a clear and compelling approach, one rooted in Podany’s expertise in cuneiform tablets, which she uses not simply as sources, but as voices from the ancient world that bring the narrative to life. The documents are written by ancient scribes, kings, students, priests, and merchants gives it a richness that many introductory texts lack. She moves beyond the familiar images of ziggurats and statues to reveal a world that was highly bureaucratic, deeply religious, and surprisingly interconnected.
The book begins with the rise of city-states in Sumer and follows the arc of Near Eastern civilization up through the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Instead of just listing dynasties and kings, Podany focuses on themes: the invention of writing, the organization of temple economies, the development of early law codes, the education of scribes, and the diplomacy of empires. She shows how this region was not isolated, but part of a complex international system that included Egypt, the Hittites, the Mitanni, and others.
Some of my favorite details include:
The oldest known international peace treaty, between the Hittites and Egyptians, survives in both Hittite and Egyptian versions.
A letter from a Babylonian king to an Egyptian pharaoh complaining about the quality of gold he received, and demanding better treatment as a “brother.”
The story of Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, who was both a high priestess and the first known author whose name survives.
The surprisingly modern-sounding complaints of students learning to write, preserved on clay tablets complete with grammatical errors.
A legal case involving a woman who divorced her husband and took back her dowry, showing the presence of legal rights and protections for women in some contexts.
I don’t have any major critiques. This is a fantastic introduction to a region that is often treated only as a backdrop to biblical stories or classical antiquity. Podany’s book reminds us that the ancient Near East was its own sophisticated, dynamic world. Her passion for the subject is evident on every page, and her ability to distill centuries of history into readable and thought-provoking prose is admirable.
Highly recommended for students, teachers, lifelong learners, or anyone curious about the earliest urban societies and how we know about them. A truly rewarding read.
For more details, check out my video:
https://youtu.be/N5Wk5gLwBb0
For more reviews, check out my channel:
http://www.youtube.com/@SpencerReadsE...
November 24, 2025
The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction by Dr. Amanda H. Podany is an introductory history book about the Ancient Near East, specifically the “cuneiform lands” as the author describes them, which include Mesopotamia, Syria, Elam, and Anatolia. This book covers the history of cuneiform civilization from c. 3600 BC, when the first cities were created, to 539 BC, when Cyrus the Great overthrew the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Podany quotes primary sources to give readers an impression of what life was like in the Ancient Near East. Throughout the book, we meet a diverse set of people ranging from kings, to traders, to priestesses, to laborers. Podany stated in a later interview, for her book Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East, that she wanted her readers to know about our “shared humanity”. That is, she wanted readers to view the people of the Ancient Near East as human and not “cartoon characters”. I see the same philosophy governing this work as well.
As the title of the book suggests, this is indeed a very short introduction to the history of the Ancient Near East. At first I found that the book greatly lacked detail, but in the process of reading it I grew to like the brevity of it more and more. This is the clearest work I have ever read on the subject and helped me to finally understand the overall picture of the history of Mesopotamia and surrounding lands, and I believe the conciseness of the work is to thank for this. To anyone wanting an introduction to the history of ancient Mesopotamia, I would strongly recommend this book. For someone wanting an introduction with more detail, Podany’s most recent book Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East expands on this work and includes many of the same primary sources and discussions of the same historical figures. Overall, this is a phenomenal work of popular scholarship and serves as a fantastic introduction to this time period.
As the title of the book suggests, this is indeed a very short introduction to the history of the Ancient Near East. At first I found that the book greatly lacked detail, but in the process of reading it I grew to like the brevity of it more and more. This is the clearest work I have ever read on the subject and helped me to finally understand the overall picture of the history of Mesopotamia and surrounding lands, and I believe the conciseness of the work is to thank for this. To anyone wanting an introduction to the history of ancient Mesopotamia, I would strongly recommend this book. For someone wanting an introduction with more detail, Podany’s most recent book Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East expands on this work and includes many of the same primary sources and discussions of the same historical figures. Overall, this is a phenomenal work of popular scholarship and serves as a fantastic introduction to this time period.
September 25, 2020
I was very pleased with this book.
The author does a very good job describing the progress from the early settlements of Mesopotamia to the sprawling ancient cities that became the cradle of civilisation.
The timeline is also well explained,in a way where you understand who was conquered and who was conquering.
You also get a glimpse of their documents and religious aspects of their culture and the way they dealt with their contemporary international relations.
A book worth reading if you want to have a grasp of the cultures of that area in the ancient times.
The author does a very good job describing the progress from the early settlements of Mesopotamia to the sprawling ancient cities that became the cradle of civilisation.
The timeline is also well explained,in a way where you understand who was conquered and who was conquering.
You also get a glimpse of their documents and religious aspects of their culture and the way they dealt with their contemporary international relations.
A book worth reading if you want to have a grasp of the cultures of that area in the ancient times.
Read
January 31, 2026it had never occurred to me that monarchy had to be invented, so I was blown away by the fact that the earliest settlements had no word for the concept of a king because they did not have one. insane!
also, the fact that writing was invented for the purpose of temple-accounting... those gods weren't chill at all, they had to know the exact number of goats delivered to them!!!!
p.s. when it comes to building libraries and collecting clay tablets/books, I completely get Ashurbanipal: I am him, he is me
also, the fact that writing was invented for the purpose of temple-accounting... those gods weren't chill at all, they had to know the exact number of goats delivered to them!!!!
p.s. when it comes to building libraries and collecting clay tablets/books, I completely get Ashurbanipal: I am him, he is me
August 5, 2025
Een toegankelijk geschreven korte introductie op deze periode, erg interessant! Podany haalt voor elke periode schriftelijke bronnen aan - persoonlijke brieven, betalingen, religieuze teksten - dat maakt het erg tastbaar en niet saai.
Hoe meer ik over het Oude Nabije Oosten lees, hoe meer zonde ik het vind dat deze periode zo slecht belicht wordt in het hedendaagse onderwijs. Het is juist de tijd/regio waarin zo veel van de menselijke samenleving is ontstaan.
Hoe meer ik over het Oude Nabije Oosten lees, hoe meer zonde ik het vind dat deze periode zo slecht belicht wordt in het hedendaagse onderwijs. Het is juist de tijd/regio waarin zo veel van de menselijke samenleving is ontstaan.
May 26, 2019
Packed with interesting texture and details — perfect appetizer for deeper research into ancient, once thriving worlds within our world. Podany delivers more than dry facts, obscure names and distant dates — she’s a storyteller who makes it palpable. An informative and enjoyable read.
January 8, 2021
أتممتُ اليوم قراءة كتاب "الشرق الأدنى القديم: مدخل قصير جدا" من سلسلة تصدرها جامعة أكسفورد وتأليف الدكتورة أماندا بوداني، أستاذة الشرق الأدنى القديم في جامعة ولاية كاليفورنيا للتقنية في بومونا. يوفر الكتاب مدخل شائق لتاريخ طويل يمتد من المدن الأولى في بلاد النهرين – العراق الحالي وجنوب غرب إيران وجنوب شرق الأناضول ووشمال شرق سوريا – وحتى سقوط بابل عام 539 قبل الميلاد. يتطرق الكتاب لموضوع الثقافة المسمارية – وتقصد بوداني بذلك كل الشعوب التي استخدمت الخط المسماري في الكتابة. يتناول الكتاب أهم الأحداث في فصول قصيرة وبذلك نقرأ عن ملوك سومر ولكش وأور ومنهم إي-أناتم وكوديا وأورنمو، قبل أن ننتقل للحديث عن سرجون الأكدي ونارام سين. يبحر الكتاب بنا لنقرأ عن عصر حمورابي وعلاقاته بمملكة ماري، والمستوطنات الآشورية في الأناضول ونقلهم الخط المسماري هناك. يناقش الكتاب قوانين أورنمو وحمورابي ورسائل لعائلات التجار في مستوطنة كانيش ويعطينا نبذة عن الحياة العادية في ذلك العصر. في الحديث عن عصر الدبلوماسية الدولية في أواخر العصر البرونزي، نقرأ عن الحثيين ومصر ورسائل تل العمارنة ومكانة اللغة الأكدية كلغة دبلوماسية في ذلك العصر. يتطرق هذا الفصل أيضا للعلاقات الأخوية بين الملوك وطموح ملوك آشور للصعود وهذا ما تحقق بعد ذلك. يركز فصل الإمبراطورية الآشورية على العنف الذي اتسمت به بلاد آشور ولكنه يفرد جزء مهم لمكتبة آشوربانيبال وتوضيح الكم الهائل لنصوص العرافة في تلك المكتبة ومشاكل تتعلق بعدم تنقيب الموقع بشكل علمي من قبل هنري لايارد. في الفصل الأخير، عن الإمبراطورية البابلية الكلدية "الكلدانية"، نقرأ عن الانجازات العمرانية لنبوخذنصر الثاني، وهوس نبونائيد بعبادة إله القمر وإقامته عشر سنوات في تيماء في الجزيرة العربية وحرّان أيضًا، وكيف اهتم بالآثار وافتخر بالعثور على أسس معابد من زمن نارام سين، ويفرد تفاصيل شيقة عن كيفية الاحتفال بعيد رأس السنة البابلية وأهمية الطقوس في حياة الشعب البابلي، ومزاعم فارسية أخمينية بأن الشعب البابلي أستقبل قورش بأذرع مفتوحة لأنه أعاد الاحتفالات برأس العام التي تأجلت لسنوات بسبب غياب الملك نبونائيد.
الكتاب شيق جدا ويتناول تحليل وشرح لنصوص أصيلة من مختلف العصور، ويوفر قائمة قراءات أخرى قيّمة، ويأتي كل هذا بأسلوب بعيد عن الممل ويوفر إطلالة ممتازة عن حضارة الشرق الأدنى القديم وبيان أثرها وعمق تأثيرها الحضاري. أرجو لكم قراءة ممتعة.
Quotes:
- The region is known as the “cradle of civilization” for good reason. Here, men and women first tried to live peacefully together in densely urban cities and found ways, through law and custom, to thrive and prosper.
- The image of history as a story of progress from primitive barbarism to modern sophistication is completely belied by the study of the ancient Near East. For example, women in early times had many rights and freedoms: they could own property, run businesses, and represent themselves in court. Diplomats traveled between the capital cities of major powers ensuring peace and friendship between the kings. Scribes and scholars studied the stars and could predict eclipses and the movements of the planets. Some of these achievements were lost in subsequent centuries, only to be reborn in more modern times.
- Uruk in 3100 BCE was vastly bigger than any community that had existed before, not just in Mesopotamia but, as far as we know, anywhere. It was enclosed by a city wall ten kilometers around, and may have had a population of as many as twenty-five thousand.
- One reason for Sargon’s propaganda success, perhaps, was his use of religion to legitimize his reign. Not only did he claim that the gods gave him his empire (just as the earlier Sumerian kings had claimed that their local gods chose them for kingship), he also placed his daughter in one of the highest religious positions in all of Mesopotamia: she became the high priestess of the moon god Nanna in the city of Ur, where the god had his chief residence.
- Ur-Namma also was the first king known to have put laws in writing. The laws were probably originally inscribed on a stone stela, but all that survives of them are copies on three broken clay tablets. Unfortunately, only thirty-seven of the laws appear on these tablet fragments; there must have been more.
- Of the twenty-five laws for which a punishment is preserved in Ur-Namma’s collection, twenty (80 percent) resulted in the imposition of a fine or other payment on the condemned man, and one resulted in a physical punishment (having one’s mouth scoured with salt). The death penalty was imposed only in four cases, for homicide, rape of a virgin wife of another man, adultery by a married woman, and some other crime pertaining to lawlessness (the meaning of the law is unclear). No one was sent to prison as a penalty for committing a crime.
- The Hittites had learned the cuneiform script when they came in close contact with Syria and Mesopotamia, perhaps when the Hittite king Mursili I had attacked Babylon and brought an end to Hammurabi’s empire. Their scribes sometimes wrote in Akkadian but also adapted the script to represent their own language of Hittite, which they called nesumnili, the language of Nesa (this was their name for Kanesh, the city that, long before, had been home to Assyrian merchants).
- Of the literary tablets (which probably came from the library) 739 contained lists of omens and how to interpret them, 636 were reports of omens observed and questions about them, but only 19 were epics or myths and another 19 were historical texts.
#GilgameshNabeel
الكتاب شيق جدا ويتناول تحليل وشرح لنصوص أصيلة من مختلف العصور، ويوفر قائمة قراءات أخرى قيّمة، ويأتي كل هذا بأسلوب بعيد عن الممل ويوفر إطلالة ممتازة عن حضارة الشرق الأدنى القديم وبيان أثرها وعمق تأثيرها الحضاري. أرجو لكم قراءة ممتعة.
Quotes:
- The region is known as the “cradle of civilization” for good reason. Here, men and women first tried to live peacefully together in densely urban cities and found ways, through law and custom, to thrive and prosper.
- The image of history as a story of progress from primitive barbarism to modern sophistication is completely belied by the study of the ancient Near East. For example, women in early times had many rights and freedoms: they could own property, run businesses, and represent themselves in court. Diplomats traveled between the capital cities of major powers ensuring peace and friendship between the kings. Scribes and scholars studied the stars and could predict eclipses and the movements of the planets. Some of these achievements were lost in subsequent centuries, only to be reborn in more modern times.
- Uruk in 3100 BCE was vastly bigger than any community that had existed before, not just in Mesopotamia but, as far as we know, anywhere. It was enclosed by a city wall ten kilometers around, and may have had a population of as many as twenty-five thousand.
- One reason for Sargon’s propaganda success, perhaps, was his use of religion to legitimize his reign. Not only did he claim that the gods gave him his empire (just as the earlier Sumerian kings had claimed that their local gods chose them for kingship), he also placed his daughter in one of the highest religious positions in all of Mesopotamia: she became the high priestess of the moon god Nanna in the city of Ur, where the god had his chief residence.
- Ur-Namma also was the first king known to have put laws in writing. The laws were probably originally inscribed on a stone stela, but all that survives of them are copies on three broken clay tablets. Unfortunately, only thirty-seven of the laws appear on these tablet fragments; there must have been more.
- Of the twenty-five laws for which a punishment is preserved in Ur-Namma’s collection, twenty (80 percent) resulted in the imposition of a fine or other payment on the condemned man, and one resulted in a physical punishment (having one’s mouth scoured with salt). The death penalty was imposed only in four cases, for homicide, rape of a virgin wife of another man, adultery by a married woman, and some other crime pertaining to lawlessness (the meaning of the law is unclear). No one was sent to prison as a penalty for committing a crime.
- The Hittites had learned the cuneiform script when they came in close contact with Syria and Mesopotamia, perhaps when the Hittite king Mursili I had attacked Babylon and brought an end to Hammurabi’s empire. Their scribes sometimes wrote in Akkadian but also adapted the script to represent their own language of Hittite, which they called nesumnili, the language of Nesa (this was their name for Kanesh, the city that, long before, had been home to Assyrian merchants).
- Of the literary tablets (which probably came from the library) 739 contained lists of omens and how to interpret them, 636 were reports of omens observed and questions about them, but only 19 were epics or myths and another 19 were historical texts.
#GilgameshNabeel
Read
July 14, 2025A neat little book on the Ancient Near East. It isn't anything to write home about, but still it serves as a good overview over the vast period. Some very interesting passages on the way archeology works nowadays and all the associated challenges. And the few maps that are in here are great as well. But the author could have stressed the uncertainty and disagreements (among experts) surrounding especially some of the earlier events a little more.
Read
January 30, 20232. Temple. Sheep. God. Inanna.
November 14, 2023
Disconcertingly brief
June 8, 2024
Un breve pero eficiente resumen de la historia de Mesopotamia para aquellos que se adentran por primera vez en ella. Para mayor especialización recomiendo el conocido manual de Mario Liverani.
January 6, 2025
A wonderful brief intro. Exactly what it claims to be and a great refresher for me but also something I can recommend to ppl new to the area!
January 21, 2026
Good introduction!
February 14, 2026
A good starting point if you don't know anything about Mesopotamia.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews