Iraq's Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden


Book Description

Ethnoarchaeological fieldwork near a mound called al-Hiba, in the marshes of southern Iraq.




Iraq's Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden


Book Description

What can the present tell us about the past? From 1968 to 1990, Edward Ochsenschlager conducted ethnoarchaeological fieldwork near a mound called al-Hiba, in the marshes of southern Iraq. In examining the material culture of three tribes—their use of mud, reed, wood, and bitumen, and their husbandry of cattle, water buffalo, and sheep—he chronicles what is now a lost way of life. He helps us understand ancient manufacturing processes, an artifact's significance and the skill of those who create and use it, and the substantial moral authority wielded by village craftspeople. He reveals the complexities involved in the process of change, both natural and enforced. Al-Hiba contains the remains of Sumerian people who lived in the marshes more than 5,000 years ago in a similar ecological setting, using similar material resources. The archaeological evidence provides insights into everyday life in antiquity. Ochsenschlager enhances the comparisons of past and present by extensive illustrations from his fieldwork and also from the University Museum's rare archival photographs taken in the late nineteenth century by John Henry Haynes. This was long before Saddam Hussein drove one of the tribes from the marshes, forced the Bedouin to live elsewhere, and irrevocably changed the lives of those who tried to stay.




The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs


Book Description

This text is for those wishing to develop an understanding of a cultural legacy and lifestyle that survives today only as a fragmented cultural inheritance. The book illustrates how the economy and lives of the Ma'dan (Marsh Arabs) that spans over 5000 years remained similar to the ancient practices of their Sumerian forebears.




Eden Again


Book Description




Southern Iraq's Marshes


Book Description

The Mesopotamian marshes are important for economic, social, and biodiversity values and have been home to indigenous human communities for millennia. They are regarded as a legendary site. This multi-authored book contains chapters written by world-renowned experts in their field. Both basic and applied information are made available, making the book a must-have for a wide spectrum of users. For example, an understanding of the natural and the social aspects of the marshes, as described here, is an obvious prerequisite for a pest management plan in this area. Scholars interested in wetlands can use this book as a guide to compare different wetlands areas in Asia. The bibliography section contains valuable references to the marsh areas and research in the field. This book serves as an up-to-date comprehensive source of information on different aspects of the southern marshes of Iraq and is aimed at academic scholars, environmentalists, and decision makers.




The Wetland Book


Book Description

The Wetland Book is a comprehensive resource aimed at supporting the trans- and multidisciplinary research and practice which is inherent to this field. Aware both that wetlands research is on the rise and that researchers and students are often working or learning across several disciplines, The Wetland Book is a readily accessible online and print reference which will be the first port of call on key concepts in wetlands science and management. This easy-to-follow reference will allow multidisciplinary teams and transdisciplinary individuals to look up terms, access further details, read overviews on key issues and navigate to key articles selected by experts.




The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood


Book Description

In THE ARK BEFORE NOAH, British Museum expert Dr Irving Finkel reveals how decoding the symbols on a 4,000 year old piece of clay enable a radical new interpretation of the Noah's Ark myth. A world authority on the period, Dr Finkel's enthralling real-life detective story began with a most remarkable event at the British Museum - the arrival one day in 2008 of a single, modest-sized Babylonian cuneiform tablet - the palm-sized clay rectangles on which our ancestors created the first documents. It had been brought in by a member of the public and this particular tablet proved to be of quite extraordinary importance. Not only does it date from about 1850 BC, but it is a copy of the Babylonian Story of the Flood, a myth from ancient Mesopotamia revealing among other things, instructions for building a large boat to survive a flood. But Dr Finkel's pioneering work didn't stop there. Through another series of enthralling discoveries he has been able to decode the story of the Flood in ways which offer unanticipated revelations to readers of THE ARK BEFORE NOAH.




Jus Post Bellum


Book Description

Jus post bellum is the body of international legal norms and rules of international law that applies to a post-conflict situation as it moves to a status of peace. This book provides a detailed legal analysis of all aspects of jus post bellum, and uses case studies to show its relevance to the reality of situations on the ground.




Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations


Book Description

In this book, Anne Porter explores the idea that mobile and sedentary members of the ancient world were integral parts of the same social and political groups in greater Mesopotamia during the period 4000 to 1500 BCE. She draws on a wide range of archaeological and cuneiform sources to show how networks of social structure, political and religious ideology, and everyday as well as ritual practice worked to maintain the integrity of those groups when the pursuit of different subsistence activities dispersed them over space. These networks were dynamic, shaping many of the key events and innovations of the time, including the Uruk expansion and the introduction of writing, so-called secondary state formation and the organization and operation of government, the literary production of the Third Dynasty of Ur and the first stories of Gilgamesh, and the emergence of the Amorrites in the second millennium BCE.




Triangular Landscapes


Book Description

Between the Roman annexation of Egypt and the Arab period, the Nile Delta went from consisting of seven branches to two, namely the current Rosetta and Damietta branches. For historians, this may look like a slow process, but on a geomorphological scale, it is a rather fast one. How did it happen? How did human action contribute to the phenomenon? Why did it start around the Roman period? And how did it impact on ancient Deltaic communities? This volume reflects on these questions by focusing on a district of the north-eastern Delta called the Mendesian Nome. The Mendesian Nome is one of the very few Deltaic zones documented by a significant number of papyri. To date, this documentation has never been subject to a comprehensive study. Yet it provides us with a wealth of information on the region's landscape, administrative geography, and agrarian economy. Starting from these papyri and from all available evidence, this volume investigates the complex networks of relationships between Mendesian environments, socio-economic dynamics, and agro-fiscal policies. Ultimately, it poses the question of the "otherness" of the Nile Delta, within Egypt and, more broadly, the Roman Empire. Section I sets the broader hydrological, documentary, and historical contexts from which the Roman-period Mendesian evidence stem. Section II is dedicated to the reconstruction of the Mendesian landscape, while section III examines the strategies of diversification and the modes of valorization of marginal land attested in the nome. Finally, section IV analyses the socio-environmental crisis that affected the nome in the second half of the second century AD.