Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Uruk, the First City: Builders and Organizers, 3500-3300 BCE
2. The Uruk Period: Colonizers, Scribes, and the Gods, 3300-3000 BCE
3. The Early Dynastic Period: Kings and Subjects, 2900-2400 BCE
4. The Early Dynastic Period: Queens, Diplomats, and Weavers, 2400-2300 BCE
5. The Early Dynastic Period: Royal Couples, Divine Couples, and Envoys, 2400-2300 BCE
6. The Akkadian Period: A Conqueror and a Priestess, 2300-2200 BCE
7. The Ur III Period: Brickmakers, Litigants, and Slaves, 2200-2000 BCE
8. The Isin-Larsa Period: Kings and Military Commanders 2000-1800 BCE
9. Merchants and Families
10. Princesses and Musicians 11. The Old Babylonian Period: A Lawgiver, Land Overseers, and Soldiers, 1792-1750 BCE
12. The Old Babylonian Period: Naditums and Scribal Students, 1792-1712 BCE
13. The Late Old Babylonian Period: Barbers, Mercenaries, and Exiles, 1742-1550 BCE
14. The Late Bronze Age: Businessmen, Charioteers, and Translators, 1550-1350 BCE
15. The Late Bronze Age: Gift Recipients and Royal In-Laws, 1450-1333 BCE
16. The Late Bronze Age: Negotiators, Sea Traders, and Famine Sufferers, 1333-1000 BCE
17. Empire Builders, Sculptors, and Deportees 18. The Neo-Assyrian Period: Conspirators, Diviners, and Officials, 681-648 BCE
19. The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods: Gardeners, Artisans, and a Centenarian Priestess, 648-544 BCE
20. The Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Periods: Brewers, Rebels, and Exorcists 544-323 BCE

Cast of Characters
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Bibliography

About the Author

Amanda H. Podany is Professor Emeritus of History at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and the author of Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East and The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction. She is also the author and instructor of an audio and video lecture series for Wondrium called Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization.

Reviews

Adopting a truly innovative approach, Podany has provided us with a wonderfully vivid and compelling account of the region.
*The Past*

[A] remarkably lively...chronicle.
*Science*

Podany makes her subject accessible, pointing out that, from what people ate (bread and beer) to how they amused themselves (playing board games), 'life hasn't changed dramatically from earliest times'.
*The New Yorker*

This is a masterpiece. Writing in a warm, conversational tone and using ancient texts and letters, Podany tells the story of ordinary people from the ancient Near East, bringing them to life through their own words. This is a joy to read, spanning four thousand years of history, with interesting facts and details on every page. Highly recommended!
*Eric H. Cline, author of 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed*

This vivid and engaging narrative offers a genuinely new and exciting approach to ancient Middle Eastern history. Combining the very latest research—there are new insights here, even for specialists—with empathy and imaginative flair, Professor Podany invites us to consider the people of the distant past as real human beings, with bodies and minds, senses and emotions. I loved every page of this book and can't wait to share it with my students.
*Eleanor Robson, author of Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History*

Amanda Podany has an amazing ability to make people of the ancient Near East—from weavers to queens, farmers to kings—come alive, taking us through the millennia-long history of the region with short stories based on original documents. This book is a fascinating read.
*Marc Van De Mieroop, author of Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography*

This book is truly impressive. Podany has managed to breathe life into people who have been dead for thousands of years, whose remains are nothing more than a name on a clay tablet, and to reconstruct what life may have been like for them in the brief moments we see in the evidence. As Podany says, "each person's story becomes a window into their era", and the windows all show a colourful existence full of humanity.
*Owain Williams, Ancient History*

This rich and rewarding history connects us effortlessly to a vibrant and very human place.
*Paul Collins, Times Literary Supplement *

In this delightfully readable work P. describes the history and culture of ancient Mesopotamia from its urban origins (c. 4000 BCE) up to the fall of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great (331 BCE)...The book is largely held together by the remarkable stories of everyday people and their experiences. These stories are artfully narrated and animated by Podany's lively writing, and she is to be praised for her extensive research of archaeological remains together with her scrutiny of countless clay cuneiform tablets documenting Mesopotamian life in all its richness and complexity.
*Classical Review*

Podany offers a great many highly entertaining historical vignettes, introducing Mesopotamian rulers, but also merchants, musicians, priests, poets, gardeners, brewers, barbers, artisans, charioteers, mercenaries, conspirators, slaves, and of course the eponymous 'weavers and scribes'. Many of them were women. They all come to life in this illuminating history, thanks to the author's impressive ability to synthesise arcane technical studies by other scholars (and herself) without dumbing them down, and to turn the data and statistics these studies provide into engaging stories... It offers an enormous amount of detailed information, in accessible prose, and stands out as a unique achievement of synthesis. Highly recommended!
*Eckhart Frahm, World Archaeology*

Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.
*Choice*