This chapter covers the shift in metal procurement sites from the Carpatho-Balkans to the Caucasus during the Eneolithic of Europe, and the apparent demographic changes that resulted; the relationship to the Kura-Araxes phenomenon and the Khirbet-Kerak wares of Palestine; examines influences from the Near East and Anatolia on sites such as Leilatepe (Azerbaijan), Tekhuta (Armenia), Berikldeebi (Georgia), and Trialeti (Georgia); and describes the advent of steppe influences in the form of kurgan and wagon cultures.

The first city networks were as old as the first cities. The mud brick metropolises of the fourth millennium were built to accelerate a burgeoning regional trading system. Settlements were linked, for example, through the alpha city of Uruk. This chapter also explores the later Babylonian and Ur “world systems.” These were effectively knowledge-based global cities at the heart of robust trading networks. With the advent of the city came the first bureaucratic administrators finding advantages in large concentrated forms of living in a hitherto decentralized world. The strange new idea was hardly normal. Cities were labor intensive, dangerous places that exacted high demands on their populations. With their invention came new social hierarchies. The movement of unprecedented global resources through cities required seminal bureaucratic breakthroughs—not least of which cuneiform writing. This increased the power of a privileged few, extracting exorbitant tribute and labor. Cities were in reality systems of concentrated power and global resource management whose walls functioned to keep their populations in, rather than simply to repel invaders.

In “The Book of Isaiah in the Neo-Assyrian Period,” Michael Chan offers an overview of the centuries of Assyrian dominance in the Levant. He takes five exegetical case studies that demonstrate the historical and literary impact of that Mesopotamian power on Isaiah and his successors in the eighth and seventh centuries bce. In particular, he observes how Assyrian imperial propaganda was subverted by the prophets in various ways.

Investigation of the Bee-nymphs of Mt. Parnassus and the ancestral Indo-European strain and Anatolian strains of divination introduced into European Hellas by migrant pre-Aeolian communities.

Greek hybrids cannot be read in isolation. To understand them requires an examination of the Near Eastern antecedents. The Greek imagination was powerfully influenced by a creative engagement with other cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean. These engagements were characterized by bilingualism, intermarriage and the movement of artisans, traders, poets and itinerant religious practitioners. Such a pattern of cultural exchange can be seen in the so-called International Style of the Late Bronze Age, which relied heavily on hybrid motifs to fashion a shared visual language for the elites of Egypt and the Near East. In this context, the significance of hybrids varied depending on audience or market. Taweret in Egypt was utterly transformed when taken up on Crete. Greek and Near Eastern cosmogonies shared many characteristics, but Greek speakers freely adapted old motifs. Wherever we find traces of cultural exchange, ideas and objects always take on new forms in Greek settings. Each instance of a hybrid emerging in a Greek context it is testimony to the flexibility of hybrids to convey new meanings in new settings. Hybrids gave a face to the shock of the new.

This chapter presents new, annotated translations of the surviving passage of Isidoros of Charax’s Parthian Stations (written around AD 1–14), together with testimonia and fragments (mostly from Pliny the Elder) arranged as 21 extracts. The chapter introduction shows that Isidoros’ geographical work on the far east of the Roman world, commissioned by Augustus, was far more wide-ranging that the short text we have, which lists stathmoi (stations, stopping-points) within Parthia alone. Partly based upon Artemidoros, it is ‘the only surviving example in Greek of a type of record commonly found in Latin’. New maps show the western and eastern halves of this part of Isidoros’ itinerary, spanning from Mesopotamia to eastern Afghanistan.

This paper deals with the Palmyrene divine title MR ‘LM’ which can be translated as Master of the World, of the Universe or of the Eternity. As a point of departure, it takes the theory of relativity and the sense of the time and space in the reference to the divine competences. Does the god called by this particular name have unlimited power, when he is the ruler of the entire universe and time? This paper shows the equal relevance of the title to the two Palmyrene gods: Bel and Baalshamin, remembering the transdivine character of the epithets

As a way of encouraging learning from others, this chapter seeks to demonstrate the various ways in which the development of Judaism and Christianity alike displayed profound debts to the wider culture of pagan belief and practice. The story is first told in respect of the way in which archaeological research has transformed our understanding of Judaism. It also argues that it would be quite wrong to have a low view of the religious practice and belief of the ancient Middle East and Egypt. The second half of the chapter turns to consider two significant influences from classical culture on Christianity, the mystery cults and pagan philosophy. In the latter case attention is drawn to more recent evaluations of later Neo-Platonism and theurgy. The chapter ends with a discussion of polytheism.

History helps us understand how abstract (imagined) constructs providing artificial trust and recognition - needed for large scale cooperation - have evolved over time, greasing and optimizing human cooperation amongst strangers. This first chapter on the history of constitutions in this book looks into the earliest examples of constitutions known to man. Prehistoric constitutions developed for the first time in the city states of Mesopotamia; the Code of Hammurabi being its most famous example. These precursors were always close-knit with religion.

A historical introduction, presenting all the most recent bibliography and research on the town and the Roman conquest, the cohors XX Palmyrenorum, the final demise of Dura, and an overview on the discovery and the location of the Dura papyri.