Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History

by Mieroop,Marc Van De

• ISBN13: 9780415195331
• ISBN10: 0415195330
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-07-08
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

To understand the history of Mesopotamia, historians have had to rely on cuneiform texts which represent the oldest tradition of human history. The number and variety of texts written in cuneiform script are enormous, and present a unique source for the study of this ancient culture. Clear and accessible, Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History explores the possibilities and challenges these sources offer. Marc Van De Mieroop considers the political, social, and economic conditions that these texts illuminate as well as the way historians have used these sources to validate their readings of particular historical events. Filled with examples taken from the entirety of Mesopotamian history, Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History offers readers insight into how we have come to learn about this fascinating chapter of the human past.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction	p. 1
The First Half of History	p. 9
Administrative documents	p. 13
Private legal documents	p. 17
Letters	p. 22
Historiographic texts	p. 25
Literay texts	p. 27
Scholarly texts	p. 32
History from Above	p. 39
Assyrian royal inscriptions	p. 40
Sargon of Agade	p. 59
Mesopotamian history and narrative	p. 76
History from Below	p. 86
Prosopography	p. 89
Innaja, an old Assyrian merchant	p. 92
The effects of war	p. 98
Economic History	p. 106
Theories of ancient economics	p. 108
The primitivism-modernism debate	p. 109
Marxist interpretations	p. 111
Max Weber	p. 115
Modernist approaches	p. 120
Agriculture in Ur III Lagash	p. 123
Gender and Mesopotamian History	p. 138
Conclusions	p. 161
Notes	p. 167
Annotated bibliography	p. 171
Bibliography	p. 176
Index	p. 194
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