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A Companion to Assyria
A Companion to Assyria is a collection of original essays on ancient Assyria written by key international scholars. These new scholarly contributions have substantially reshaped contemporary understanding of society and life in this ancient civilization.The only detailed up-to-date introduction providing a scholarly overview of ancient Assyria in English within the last fifty years Original essays written and edited by a team of respected Assyriology scholars from around the world An in-depth exploration of Assyrian society and life, including the latest thought on cities, art, religion, literature, economy, and technology, and political and military history
648 pages, ebook
Published March 20, 2017
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About the author
Eckart Frahm
16 books29 followersEckart Frahm is professor of Assyriology, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University. He lives in New Haven.
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April 7, 2021
As the authors within this work take pains to explain, it has been many decades since the publication of the last, single volume, history of the Assyria. This work is not meant fill the vitally important niche within Assyrian studies, however. Rather than being a chronological history of Assyria, it is instead an attempt to bring together the most recent scholarship of the region from the past few decades. As such, rather than being organized chronologically, with a single narritive, A Compaion to Assyria is instead a collection of essays by prominent Assyriologists, organized by themes.
Generally, speaking, the work succeeds at its goals. Each of the chapters is authorative, well written and engaging. However, due to the structure of the work itself, there is occassionally a fair bit of repetition as different authors skim over some of the same details or events. Also, not every chapter is of equal length, and some are actually rather short. This means that the chapter on Assyrian religion (which is actually somewhat substantial) is dwarfed by the chapter on Architecture which stretches on for nearly a 100 pages. This is awesome if you're interested in Assyrian architecture, less awesome if you're fascinated by Assyrian religion.
Still, this was a well edited and interesting collection and I'm glad I read it!
Generally, speaking, the work succeeds at its goals. Each of the chapters is authorative, well written and engaging. However, due to the structure of the work itself, there is occassionally a fair bit of repetition as different authors skim over some of the same details or events. Also, not every chapter is of equal length, and some are actually rather short. This means that the chapter on Assyrian religion (which is actually somewhat substantial) is dwarfed by the chapter on Architecture which stretches on for nearly a 100 pages. This is awesome if you're interested in Assyrian architecture, less awesome if you're fascinated by Assyrian religion.
Still, this was a well edited and interesting collection and I'm glad I read it!
Displaying 1 of 1 review