Overview

Etudes Mesopotamiennes - Mesopotamian Studies 4 provides the first complete presentation of the ceramic vessels from the levels associated with the Neo-Assyrian occupation of Tell Masaikh, excavated by a French-Syrian archaeological mission between 1996 and 2010. Located in the valley of the Middle Euphrates in Syria, at a crossroads for encounters and on a key axis for communications and trade from Assyria to the Mediterranean, as well as from Anatolia to Babylonia, Tell Masaikh corresponds to the ancient city of Kar-Assurnasirpal, founded on the left bank of the Euphrates by Assurnasirpal II during his military conquests, and later becoming one of the residences of the Assyrian governor Nergal-eresh. But rather than showing the imposition of a material culture that only conforms to the models of the Assyrian Empire, the ceramic production of Tell Masaikh bears witness to an open cultural horizon, where Assyrian, Babylonian, Kassite and Levantine traditions blend and interact. In light of data documenting Syria's archaeological heritage in a region whose ancient history is still relatively obscure, this book not only presents a catalogue of previously unpublished finds, but also anchors the study of this material in a broader historical reflection on the ways Assyrian power interplayed in a specific regional context.

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9781803277141

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Ilaria Calini is a Post-doc researcher at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes / Universite Paris Sciences et Lettres, working on cultural interactions in the Assyrian world and between Assyria and ancient Greece. An associate member of the research team UMR 8210 - AnHiMA (Anthropology and History of the Ancient Worlds), she has been a member of the French-Syrian Archaeological Mission to Terqa and Tell Masaikh since 2008, and excavated at Tell Masaikh/Kar-Assurna?irpal between 2008 and 2010. Since 2010 she has been working on the Assyrian provincial capital of Qasr Shemamok/Kilizu, in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as on other sites in the region. She is responsible for the study and publication of the ceramic material.

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