The Babylonian World - 9780415497831

Specialists in the part of the world that is now occupied Iraq in its prehistoric and protohistoric period filter their research, mostly of the primary epigraphic research, through issues of current interest such as ecology, productivity, power relations, economics, epistemology, scientific paradigms, and complexity. The arrangement of their studies, however, moves from the hard evidence of geography, ecology, and material culture to softer sources, primarily cuneiform tablets. Among the topics are land and land use in the middle Euphrates Valley, Babylonian sources of exotic raw materials, the Babylonian economy in the first millennium BC, women and gender, the role and function of goddesses in Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh and the literary traditions of ancient Mesopotamia, Mesopotamian astral science, and relations with the Persian Empire. The 2007 edition was cloth bound. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)