Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City

by Gwendolyn Leick

Over 7,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, urban living began...

Mesopotamia, situated roughly where Iraq is today, was one of the greatest ancient civilizations. It was here that the very first cities were created, and where the familiar sights of modern urban life - public buildings and gardens, places of worship, even streets and pavements - were originally invented.

This remarkable book is the first to reveal everyday life as it was in ten long-lost Mesopotamian cities, beginning with Eridu, the Mesopotamian Eden, and ending with Babylon, the first true metropolis: cosmopolitan, decadent, multicultural and the last centre of a dying civilization. Using archaeological fragments of jewellery, textiles and writings Gwendolyn Leick paints a colourful picture of the lives of Mesopotamians - from poets and priests to business-women and divorcees - and the incredible achievements of their advanced and imaginative society.

As Leick convincingly shows, Mesopotamian antiquity has as much interest as, and even greater importance than, Egypt; and her welcome book helps redress the balance of knowledge in its direction. - Independent on Sunday

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Archaeology, Ancient, Middle East, Historical

381 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Gwendolyn Leick is an anthropologist and Assyriologist. She is the author of various publications on the Ancient Near East, including A Dictionary of Near Eastern Mythology and Sex & Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature. She also acts as a cultural tour guide in the Middle East, lecturing on history, archaeology and anthropology.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Mesopotamia' was published in 2001 and the spectre of subsequent wars loomed as I read it. For example, 'The ruins of the ancient city of Ur lie fifteen miles south-west of Nasiriyah...' reminded me of where I'd come across that name before: in Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War. The recon marines who invaded Iraq in 2003 got into an intense firefight in Nasiriyah. Fascinating as it was to learn about the excavations of humankind's earliest recorded cities, I dread to think what state these sites are in after the continual conflicts of the past two decades. Nonetheless, there is some comfort in the extraordinary lengths of time that these cities have already survived, despite millennia of warfare, environmental changes, and other upheaval.

The book devotes a chapter to each city, examining the archaeological evidence and how it has been interpreted. A clear theme is Western Europeans, especially representatives of the British Museum, blatantly stealing massive volumes of artefacts in the 19th century. Also, a tendency for American archaeological digs to be funded on the basis that they'd substantiate information from the bible. Leick thoroughly acknowledges the depressing colonialist trappings of how most ancient Mesopotamian cities were excavated. However this does not prevent the book from conveying the excitement and fascination of what was discovered.

The span of time covered by 'Mesopotamia' is quite dizzying, and reminded me of looking through a hefty world history (probably Dorling Kindersley) in the primary school library as a child. I remember reading about Sumerian civilisation and realising with astonishment what a very long time human beings have been living in cities. This book filled me with the same sense of awe and supplied a great many striking details. Leick recounts the architectural and infrastructural innovations of successive cities, as well as what is known and hypothesised about the political, social, and religious life of their inhabitants. The developments of hereditary hierarchies, the changing roles of women, and the treatment of the gods are recurring themes I found especially interesting. The naditu women of Sippar were an especial highlight, also the development of written language and the purposes it was used for. I appreciated the inclusion of photographs and quotes from translated material, which added vividness.

Leick writes clearly and accessibly, while being careful not to project contemporary assumptions onto our distant ancestors. I was left with the impression that we still know relatively little about many of the first cities (including the location of Akkad), yet what we do know and surmise still sheds striking light on how people lived in cities many thousands of years ago.

[Justin Evans · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another one for the 'great topic, awful book' category. I could have given it two stars, but I'm tired of giving out stars for effort and intention.

I wrote an undergrad thesis on Epicurus, so I'm used to making a lot of interpretation out of a very little evidence. I was very proud when I handed in my first full draft; my supervisor, a world-renowned expert on that stuff, told me I'd convinced him, and my heart nearly exploded. Then he told me that I had to re-write the whole thing, because it was totally unreadable. A rough couple of weeks there, but my thesis was much the better for it (and still pretty much unreadable, to be honest).

When Leick handed in her first draft, her editors were obviously on coffee break, and decided to just let her get on with it.

Among the pearls of wisdom she hands over to us about previous researchers, the one most characteristic of her prose style is the claim that "In his [Hans Nissen's] accounts he stresses the environmental importance for culture formation." Apparently Leick needs a grammar lesson, so here's one: 'environmental' in this sentence is an adjective. It modifies the word 'importance,' which is a noun that really should be followed by 'of'. She means, I know, 'the importance of the environment'; what she wrote, unfortunately, means 'the environmental importance for culture formation (presumably the formation of human culture) [of something unnamed].' Leick also dislikes pronouns, so Leick's sentences in this book by Leick often become, like, repetitive in the extreme, and this is clearly something that Leick is, like, comfortable with. As if that wasn't distracting enough, the most common words in this book are 'may,' 'perhaps' and, confusingly, 'must.' And paragraphs usually start with the infamous undergrad constructions "Although x... (insert five lines), actually y," thus effectively burying what the reader would like to know under a stack of almost functionless verbiage.

Style, of course, isn't the sort of thing for which academics are renowned, but we're usually okay with structure and organization, because we can just copy whatever the last person did. Leick decided to get original with it. The book is 'structured' thus: ten chapters, one ancient city per chapter. Each chapter is 'organized' thus: over-long discussion of the archaeologists who dug up the old cities; incredibly brief history; random thoughts suggested (I can only assume) by whatever it was Leick had for breakfast. She's an anthropologist, and seems to have left her theoretical brain in the fifties: she deals with each city more or less synchronically, i.e., instead of telling a historical narrative, she just describes whatever the human species has been lucky enough to dig up. Given that almost everyone is unfamiliar with almost all of the cities she's describing, that means you're faced with a barrage of undigested factoids, occasionally anchored by a name you might remember from Sunday School (Nebuchadrezzar! Hammurabi!) Because she's too hip or disciplinarily bound to actually narrate history, you'll have no way of linking the chapters together, and will become increasingly frustrated as she refers to historical events without explaining them.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with human civilization, you will learn a few things. For instance, people have religions, commercial concerns, they eat food, we live with political structures, and we have a very bad habit of trying to kill each other. You might think that it would be helpful to organize a book around these themes, but not for Leick, who prefers to bring up ancient religions at the end of each chapter, often by summarizing the plot of some epic or hymn. In chapter after chapter, plot will be summarized.

Finally, Leick is/believes herself to be remarkably good at uncovering the ideological agenda of previous anthropologists, historians and archaeologists (i.e., they were orientalists), as well as contemporary bureaucrats and politicians. This is odd, since she's so bad at reflecting on her own ideological biases. A rough guide to her interpretation of evidence is: the less we know about a place, the more likely it is that the place in question was radically democratic, individualistic, anti-hierarchical etc... Apparently men and women in the B.C. 3000s approximated the gender politics of the nineties and the sexual politics of the 60s. Free love! Girl Power!

This is actually less fatuous than my favorite paragraph, however:

"The ziggurats in the context of the southern city were as urban in their connotation as the downtown high-rise skyline is in our age. In our capitalist world, skyscrapers accommodate corporate business and symbolize dynamic enterprise, with straight sides and almost invisible taper emphasizing essentially democratic values. In Mesopotamia, the ziggurats suggest eternal values and a hierarchical social order... Skyscrapers only became possible after the invention of electric lifts! The ziggurat was functional, too."

i) in what other context could we possibly be?
ii) feel free to explain the democratic symbolism of skyscrapers to: those who work there; those who work there as janitors; those who don't work there; those who work there as security; those who security are employed to keep out etc etc...
iii) doesn't the structure of a skyscraper symbolize hierarchy just as much, if not more, than a squat ziggurat?
iv) is she surprised by the idea that skyscrapers are only possible with electric lifts? are we meant to be surprised? And why bother writing that sentence at all? She doesn't go on to explain the material conditions for the construction of ziggurats (e.g.: "ziggurats were only possible after improvements in brick making"). She doesn't describe the functionality of skyscrapers. How are those sentences connected *at all*?
v) doesn't the reliance of skyscrapers on electric lift technology suggest that they aren't essentially symbolic at all, but rather driven by the desire to use urban land most effectively? and that any symbolism is the result of specific architectural intention (like the awesome 'vagina' building in Chicago) rather than height?

You could do that kind of analysis on the whole book. Nice pictures but.

Rant over.

[Nicky · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading David Damrosch’s The Buried Book, I was eager to read more about Mesopotamia — a place and culture which has influenced so much of humanity’s subsequent history, but about which we often know all too little. This book looked like the perfect way to get more information: it discussed the building of early cities, which includes so much of what’s relevant to humanity. Interaction, education, religion, etc, etc.

Unfortunately, it’s badly written. Or rather, it’s overwritten: sentences meander along to conclusions which don’t always make sense, or which could have been put much more cogently. Suppositions go unsupported, instead phrased in a kind of hopeful, artistic way.

For example, Leick mentions the lagoon beneath the first city, Eridu. She links this to vessels found in presumed temples throughout Mesopotamia, containing water. Okay, I can go with that; I’ll trust your link there. And then:

"Perhaps the fountains and pools in Middle Eastern buildings of much later centuries retain a faint memory of the old lagoon in the very south of Mesopotamia."

What Middle Eastern buildings? What centuries? What are the links that would cause that memory to be retained? What’s the evidence? Why are you saying this, is it important? Or is all of this speculative, more poetry than history? Without being able to judge that, the whole thing falls apart somewhat. Combined with the overly abstruse sentences, and I found myself unconvinced it’d be worth my time. I didn’t finish the book.

Originally reviewed for my blog.

[CS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

That was positively enlightening. My brain just soaked up all this new and exciting information about this area - most of which I never learned in high school.

Even though this wasn’t fiction, by the end, I almost felt sad at the loss of these enigmatic, fantastic cultures. They made their mark - some more than others - to our civilization and now rest partially unearthed, waiting for their secrets to be greedily digested by those intrigued with the past.

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn’t looking forward to this one, I expected it to be a tough read instead I came away with a better understanding of old Mesopotamia. Aside from its history, this also recaps its excavation history of ten Mesopotamian cities.

What helped this to be a less daunting read was its style; it didn’t join all the dots but did what it could with the information it had. This info was organised with one chapter focusing on one city.

I also liked how it included passages found on stone tablets written in cuneiform. This was a mixture of fiction and documents. I read these with wide eyes just amazed at how lucky we are to have these old texts.

I was thinking how I’m only reading this because for years I had wanted to read Homer’s epics that looked impossible to me. And years back I would never would have thought a read like this would be fascinating.

[Iset · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leick explores the ancient world of Mesopotamia through some of her key cities, from the very oldest to the later examples, including sites such as the famous cities of Ur, Akkad, Nineveh, and Babylon. Each chapter covers one city, and is begun by a recounting of the archaeological work done at the site. A portrait is painted of the city at its height, any peculiar local cultural customs are examined, and any notable personages connected with the city are recalled. The chapter then closes with a section on mythology, religion, and the gods in the city.

The sections on mythology and gods shed some great insight onto the religious beliefs of the Mesopotamians, especially since so much less is known about their religious beliefs than, say, the Greek and Roman pantheons. I particularly enjoyed the insights about Queen Pu-Abi and the nadith priestesses, hints and clues as to what kinds of roles women may have had, and the extent of their power in the Mesopotamian world. Leick reveals the strong local traditions separating Assyria, Persia, Babylon, Akkad and Sumer, all of which had their own separate cultures and perhaps should not be grouped together as much as they are. She also examines the waves of immigration that the region was subjected to, such as Elamites, Medes, Aramaeans and Semitic tribes. The centrefold photos were a nice visual aid, but it was disappointing that they weren't in colour. The discussions about excavations were a great inclusion, but the narrative style seemed a little clinical.

[Sean Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather a different History on Mesopotamia as it's concentration on the leading City at a particular point in History, makes the book rather confusing to anybody without a certain Knowledge of 'the birth of civilisation'as the 4000+ year history, the cities tended to Overlap. Still hugely interesting, I particularly enjoyed the story of Eridu the very first city before recorded history and the luxury the inhabitants lived by, fascinating stuff!

[Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book (electronic version on a Kindle) and found the format ideal. Leick discusses ten different ancient Mesopotamian cities, roughly in order of their peak dates of influence. For each city, she describes both the modern history of excavations and research, and what we know or believe about the culture and history of each ancient community.

Some readers might prefer a book that gave greater place to the overall sweep of ancient Mesopotamian history, but one virtue of Leick's approach is that you get to meet each city on its own terms - and in fact, those terms are not parallel, trying to cram all ten cities into one scheme could create a misleading mess. For example, Leick's first city, Eridu, seems to have been a shrine from early on, and offers Leick a chance to describe early Mesopotamian cosmology. The fourth city, Akkad, doesn't have a confirmed location yet, so that discussion is based almost entirely on written references. Chapters 8 and 9 on Ashur and Ninevah focus hundreds of years later, miles upstream, and with a very different cultural context. The structure also means it will be easy to return to this book to reread about particular cities as I run across other treatments of them.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An eclectic examination of Mesopotamian history. Each chapter covers one city and generally describes archaeological findings, writings about the city, and what is known about the culture. The coverage is unavoidably patchwork, especially for the older periods, due to the limited evidence available. Nevertheless, Leick does a good job of describing what evidence is available and calling out theories that do not follow from the evidence as speculative. Leick avoids a grand central thesis or sweeping narrative to tie the book together, which is probably appropriate considering the complexity of the topic, but it does make the book read more like a collection of essays than a cohesive whole.

It would be helpful to have read a basic, chronological history of the region before beginning this book. The chapters are ordered more or less chronologically, but naturally there is significant overlap in the histories of the different cities, which was sometimes confusing. The chapters on Ashur and Ninevah, for example, reference many events concerning Babylon, which is not covered until the final chapter.

[Jonas]

The following book review was first published on my Substack, feel free to check out my other posts on there (Jonas@lifeamongbooks) :)

Mesopotamia - The Invention of the City, published in 2001 by the anthropologist Gwendolyn Leick, came to be my fourth book in my reading project of the Ancient Near East. In each of the chapters Leick leads us through a specific city of the Ancient Near East, covering its rediscovery and the archeologists excavating its ruins but of course also showing us what we know of the cities history, religious rites and customs and broader culture. Starting with some of the oldest known urban settlements such as Eridu or Uruk and ending with the still famous Babylon.

This certainly isn’t the review I thought I’d write after reading the first few chapters of Mesopotamia. That’s because honestly I didn’t enjoy it as much in the beginning, however that was mostly due to a false expectation on my part. Going into the book and having read only the title I expected to read a book more focused on the actual invention of life in urban communities or at least a detailed study of how people came to congregate into ever bigger communities. If I’d have managed to read the back of the book before finishing it, this false expectation could have been prevented. As it turns out, the book made up of portraits (corresponding to a chapter each) of Mesopotamian cities. In my defense, I still think the title is a bit ill-chosen but with that out of the way lets get to the good part - and that is the rest of the book.

Granted Leick’s book isn’t reinventing the wheel in terms of writing about history, but she manages to write an engaging and interesting history of the cities nonetheless. What was especially interesting was the emphasis on the connection between religion and urban life - each city being home to a specific deity. After a city was put to ruins following a war, later stories told how the specific deity left the city just before that and therefore chaos reigned. The book also features many translated excerpts from poems, hymns or other compositions - most of them interesting as well.

The chapters of Mesopotamia are all structured fairly similarly in terms of the order different aspects get discussed. I don’t think this was a bad choice (it may well would have been in a book with twice the page count) as you always kind of knew what to expect when starting a new chapter (in terms of what questions get discussed not what answers you will get) and it helped to differentiate between the different cities - well, in my head at least. The one thing I would have wished for whilst reading were one or two additional maps. The book only contains one map of Mesopotamia itself without the adjacent lands. A bigger map would have been helpful especially when talking about some of the trade routes (or empires) that spanned across way bigger territories than just Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia is an good introduction to some of the great cities of the Ancient Near East - more specifically Mesopotamia. If you’re interested in reading more about the period you’re missing out if you don’t read this. However, if you’re not interested in the topic I don’t think this will be the book to hook you.

[Hendrik Borginon · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this history of Mesopotamia, Leick focuses on 10 of its most important cities. The book is structured with a chapter devoted to each city. This strategy works out very well in the early chapters where the order of cities roughly corresponds with the timeline. In these early parts she writes masterfully about the emergence of the first city states and the intertwined worlds of intercity politics and the position of associated city gods in the pantheon. As we advance in the book, particularly in the final Nineveh and Babylon chapters, the structure grows cumbersome. Each chapter tries to give a full account of its city and refers back to periods we’ve already passed. As the book spans 4000 years, keeping up with all cross references becomes increasingly confusing and an unfamiliar reader will find it hard to make sense of the barrage of names and dates by the end of the book. I wouldn’t recommend this as an introduction to Mesopotamian history, but could imagine it being more worthwhile for a more knowledgeable reader.

[Sean Mcmillin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was an interesting subject that was poorly executed. I appreciate all archaeologists do, I just wish more of them knew how to write interesting books. This was dryer then the region it discusses I wanted a book to tell me about ancient Mesopotamia cities, instead I got a book that told me about artifacts that where found in layer T-7 and all about the wonderfully world of pottery fragments, and how different kinds of dirt make different kinds of pottery. I am sure all of that is useful information, but maybe be more forward in telling people what the book contains.

[Rebecca Renner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry, disorganized, and lacking in insight. Just when I think she’s gotten onto something interesting, I’ll realize she’s describing another archeologist’s work—work she derides by saying that scholar’s views make his Marxism apparent. Sigh. It’s hard to believe this was published in 2001 and not 1971. Hopefully one of the other books I have on the subject will be better.

[Lee Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking more for a layman's understanding of Mesopotamia, and this is not quite that. However, nor is it a super-technical, jargony archaeological study either, so it's accessible to a wider audience. It's well written and organized, and I'd recommend it to anyone with a slightly better understanding of archaeology to start with.

[James F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City is a history of ancient Mesopotamia organized around ten cities, Eridu, Uruk, Shupparak, Akkad, Ur, Nippur, Sippar, Ashur, Nineveh and Babylon. These are discussed in the chronological order of their periods of greatest influence, but leaving aside Ur and Babylon, and the yet unlocated Akkad, they are also in geographical order from South to North. Each chapter begins with the modern re-discovery and excavation history (except of course for Akkad) and a physical description of the remains, then summarizes the history, and explains what is typical or unique in each city, usually ending with the city god or goddess or the role of the city in literature and myth.

The best book I have read on ancient Mesopotamia is Hans Nissen's The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000-2000 BC, but this is a close second; Leick uses Nissen as a source in the first five chapters and tends to accept his view as to the role of climate change in the region as an explanation of the history. She is a professor of anthropology as well as an Assyriologist, which gives the book a somewhat different perspective than other things I have read. Where the last book I read on the subject, Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat's Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, treated everything as definitely known with no indication of controversy, Leick's book is almost as much about what we don't know as about what we do know (and frequently criticizes what we formerly thought we knew), which gave it a real interest.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overview of roughly 7,000 years of history (7,000 BCE to 500 BCE). Ten famous cities are each given a chapter. A brief history of modern excavation is followed by a brief description of the archaeology. The remainder (most) of the chapter focuses on one or more key facets of the history (cuneiform tablets, not archaeology).

The disadvantage of this style is that it feels disjointed and missing big parts. I believe this is the author's intention. She frequently points out that there is both overwhelming amounts of data and major holes, some of several thousand years. One of the cities (Akkad) has not yet been identified, although it was a major capital!

The holes and gaps will probably continue for quite some time given the political situation. Leick published this in 2001, before the war and looting but while economic sanctions were isolating Iraq.

This is the first serious (college level) book I have read specifically on this area. I feel that I have a broad overview, especially when I remember that western European history only goes back about 2,500 years. I also now realize that there are huge gaps waiting to be filled.

'Only' three stars, my basic rating. A bit dry and general, but if you want a brief introduction it's great .

[Paul Fitz-George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit this was a very heavy academic read to begin with by writers very much obsessed with this fascinating area's history.

I became somewhat confused with the pantheon of gods described and the jumps from city state to city state were initially confusing, as where the builders' names, the term 'mud brick' becoming a little tedious.

That said, it picked up well in the second part and names we have heard of with respect to classical music 'Belshazzar' and the fabulous hanging gardens soon came to life in its pages.

It all came together at the end and it has been a good summary for me, of an area that I previously had just basic a knowledge of before. It will also entice me back to the British Museum to see the many artefacts that they have from the great empires that existed in Mesopotamia.

[Brendan McKee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This excellent book provides a broad history of Mesopotamia in a rather novel way: by focusing on the great cities. Each chapter focuses on a city, ten in total, that was important in a particular era. This way, both the broad scope of history and the nitty gritty events are explored seamlessly. I particularly enjoyed getting to read about some of the smaller, day-to-day events that define city life in places like Uruk or Babylon, as these sorts of details would often be missing from other books. If I have one criticism, it is that the chapters are occasionally uneven, as certain locations have less history or archaeological evidence than others. I can hardly hold this against the author though, and over all I think this is one of the best introductions to Mesopotamia that’s out there.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very attractive book if you're into this sort of thing. Covers a number of cities from their foundation to eventual abandonment. Nicely presented.

[P.]

This is a fun and easy read and manages to take itself less seriously than some on the subject. Who doesn't need a smile when knee deep in dust?

[Bertie Brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the ancient Mesopotamian cities with each chapter (of which there are ten) covering a different city.

When I read the first chapter I got the impression this was going to be a long, arduous, and unfulfilling use of my time. However for maybe the first time my enjoyment of the book greatly increased the more I read of it. To begin with I found the book quite confusing to read, it felt like every point was explained in a very convoluted manner, and lacked a lot of compelling descriptive writing. however, I began to understand as i read the book that this was just Lieck trying to write precisely on the topic and not make points using too many assumptions. Her style and approach to writing is essentially the opposite of a writer like Tom Holland who generally writes using more vivid descriptive writing which sometimes lacks historical accuracy. As the book went on I found her style of writing easier to read, although it was never exactly a pageturner. It also helped that the content of the book greatly improved later on, as she structured the book to go from the earliest settlements to the latest settlements. As a result of the massive period between the oldest city's abandonment like Eridu and Shurrupak, there is little historical records or archeological remains. it often felt like she was clutching at straws for the first few chapters and trying to write in an overly convoluted manner simply to fill out the chapter.

there are a few features of the book that I found to be extremely frustrating, for example, her unwillingness to use dates throughout the book. I understand that dating periods so long ago can be quite a challenge so using vague dating is the best way to establish a timeline but she could have simply given the rough date of events like saying the early second century BCE. instead, she refers to all dates using a vague period in Mesopotamian history like UR III or Early Dynastic II which even a reader with a modest understanding of the subject wouldn't be able to date. She does have (like so many writers who use this dating system) a chronological section in the book, which shows the exact dating of these periods, but almost no one who is in the flow of reading would stop flick back to the beginning of the book to search for the period so it feels like a complete waste.

I also felt she spoke too much about the archeological research behind the sites. I do think it's important to have context behind how we uncovered information about a civilization or city but I think this is more acceptable in an overarching book about a specific city. As when an already relatively short book discusses ten different cities it feels like an unnecessary addition, especially as most of the excavations are pretty cut and dry and not what I'm particularly interested in. Although I will say when discussing the excavation and survival of certain cities I like how she discusses the modern use of the sites for political purposes and the difficulties in accessing them. The book was published in 2001 when Iraq was ruled by Saddam Hussein and the country was in conflict with the US.

The book is well researched and Leick does have quite a few interesting points on the cities she discusses. She also makes good use of surviving archeological material which provides a clear factual basis for the points she conveys. I particularly liked her use of Cuneiform tablets to understand courtly life and the inner workings of the ruling elite, as well as the use of propaganda for public inscriptions.

my favorite chapters were towards the end of the book such as Assur and Nineveh in which she traces the history of the cities in relation to Assyrias empire. I found it interesting to read about the strategic importance of the city of Assur as a middle point between the Assyrian empire's Mesopotamian regions and its wider near Eastern, Egyptian territories a role which would make it become the defactor capital of the Empire. These are also some of the few cities where there is more knowledge of rulers and the key events that took place, such as the assassination of Sennacherib and the intrigue around his son Esarhaddon.

If you Like books from authors like Tom Holland, you probably won't enjoy this book but if you are someone who already has a decent knowledge of Mesopotamian history and likes more of an academic approach to writing this might be worth a read.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful concise and entertaining survey of the entirety of Mesopotamian history and more through a look at ten forgotten ancient cities, from their founding, flourishing, struggling, and often revivals to then their ultimate demise. From prominent ancient personalities both men and woman, to ancient text, religion, society, culture, military and political conquest, religion , art, architecture, trade, migrations, to invention and agriculture Ms. Leick is able to capture it all in a very readable book that will spurn you on to wanting to know more.

The map and chronology at the beginning of the book are useful tools in helping you through. Having had some minor exposure to the once lost era will make the read more enjoyable. Perhaps Leonard Woolley's "The Sumerian's" or Samuel Noah Kramer's "The Sumerian's, Their History Culture and Character" will help as both authoritarians are still quite relevant, most readable and are hardly a waste of your time. Now if you need a good flavoring and first place to start I'd highly recommend "Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth" by Diane Wokstein and Samuel Noah Kramer as well as "Inanna, Lady of the Largest Heart (Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna {first known author in the history of the world-2,300 BC}) by Betty De Shong Meador. Neither book covers the same literature and both will leave you wondering if these stories can be true while through your further readings you will find them to be just that.

[Alessandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm impressed by the amount of knowledge that there is now about the sumerians and how much we have inherited from them. I particularly liked the pieces were the way of life and the mythology were described. I also liked how women contribution was highlighted where it was due. Discovering that the first poet we know the name of was a woman and that she laid the groundwork of poetry rules for the following millenia was great as well as the story of creation of men who were at some point drunk and created disabled people but interestingly found a function for all of them.

The book might require some reading on Sumerian history and kings to have an organic view of how these cities evolved and to fully appreciate it. I think I might pick it up again at some point.

[Todd Ewing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fine book. It explores the great cities of Mesopotamia in a rough chronological order, focusing on each one separately in time. While I enjoyed the archaeological history of the site (the discovery and excavations) I sometimes got a little lost, focusing on the individual trees as opposed to the entire forest. Knowing the history, helped keep things in a sequence, but there were times when I wished there was a more general chronology to keep them side by side. Also, illustrations linked to the Kindle version would have been nice as well to help visualize hat the author is describing. Overall, though, I enjoyed the book.

[Hanna (lapetiteboleyn) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely interesting look at the world of ancient Mesopotamia, through the stories of ten major cities: how they rose, fell, and the subsequent archaeology. There are occasional hiccups in the writing that makes me think that maybe the editor was a little underpaid (a 'son-in-law' is described as being married to a sister, which confused me for a solid twenty seconds) and Leick, despite thoroughly knowing her stuff, has the dry kind of writing style that makes undergraduates weep with boredom. Overall I found it a fascinating read, but only after I'd really started to work at it.

[chloé · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really enjoyed this !!! i liked that it went city by city, but then worked chronologically through the history of each city, almost working through the layers that would have been excavated !!!!

as always with this kind of book, i’d have loved more pictures! they mention such amazing items and places and i’d have loved to have had those pictures alongside the text but i also appreciate it’s not always possible lol 😁

very much enjoyed!!!!!!!!! just sorry it took me sooo long !

[Read by Fred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of history books. I was expecting a more engaging narrative, but it felt a bit dry. The book did get much more riveting when the author described the last three cities Ashur, Nineveh and Babylon.

I did enjoy the author talking about the archeologists who excavated these sites - this was very informative.

[Rob Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a wonderful treatment of the various Mesopotamian cities. However, it is for the person who has a deep interest in those ancient cities, archeology, and ancient near eastern history. This is not a light survey for the general reader. One thing comes out clearly, while the ancient Mesopotamians were transcendent for several millennia, they are to we moderns alian in culture and ways.

[Naz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although informative, the information was haphazardly placed. Too often I was wondering if i was reading about the kings or their gods. One section title suggested a story about a specific women but then it was barely about her. This format would have benefited from a section about all their gods and creation stories and then the various cities and royalty.

[Yeongbae K · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read to page 15. I stopped reading due to the author’s liberal habit of putting words in quotes. For example, there were so many examples of ‘temple’.

Such liberal and gratuitous use of quotes was distracting. There could have been other ways to convey the message without resorting to it.

I do not recommend the book.