The Curse of Agade


Book Description




The Curse of Akkad


Book Description

From an ice age that gave humans an evolutionary leg up to an El Niño that frustrated Hitler's battle plans, an exploration of climate shifts of the past shows that the weather is often a critical player in important events.




Understanding Collapse


Book Description

In this lively survey, Guy D. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted.




Akkadian Empire


Book Description

Akkadian Empire The Akkadian Empire was one of the first empires in human history and certainly the first to involve the central government of a large, multi-ethnic populace. It also introduced things like the very first postal system and facilitated advances in science, art, and medicine. The heart of the empire, the city of Akkad, became the most important trading center in the ancient world and one of the largest cities in the world. Then, in a relatively short time, the empire disintegrated, and the city itself was abandoned. Now, we don't even know where the city of Akkad was located. How is this possible? How could an empire which controlled most of the civilized world suddenly fall apart? Successors of the Akkadians thought that they had the answer. Many texts from the Babylonians and others talk of the Curse of Akkad, a curse placed on the empire after its king offended the gods which led to its destruction. For thousands of years, historians assumed that the story of the curse was nothing more than a quaint legend. However, modern research shows that the Akkadian Empire was most likely destroyed by a cataclysmic change as a result of sudden and unprecedented climate change. Inside you will read about... ✓ Origins: The Black Heads and King Sargon ✓ Palace Conspiracies and Assassinations ✓ Naram-Sin and the Curse of Akkad ✓ The 4.2 Kiloyear Event ✓ The Fall of the Akkadian Empire ✓ The Search for Akkad And much more! In little more than two hundred years, the Akkadian Empire rose from nothing to become the most important and powerful empire in the world, and then went back to obscurity. This is the story of the rise and sudden fall of the Akkadian Empire.




The Fall of Cities in the Mediterranean


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This book explores some of the most prominent literary responses to the collective trauma of a fallen city.




From Hittite to Homer


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This book takes a bold new approach to the prehistory of Homeric epic, arguing for a fresh understanding of how Near Eastern influence worked.




The Flood: the Akkadian Sources


Book Description

The story of the primeval cataclysmic flood which wiped out all life on earth, save for one family, is found in different ancient Mesopotamian texts whence it reached the Biblical and Classical literary traditions. The present book systematically collects the earliest attestations of the myth of the Flood, namely all the cuneiform-written Akkadian sources - from the Old Babylonian to the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, including Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh -, presenting them in a new synoptic edition and English translation which are accompanied by a detailed philological commentary and an extensive literary discussion. The book also includes a complete glossary of the Akkadian sources.




The Sumerians


Book Description

The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. "There are few scholars in the world qualified to write such a book, and certainly Kramer is one of them. . . . One of the most valuable features of this book is the quantity of texts and fragments which are published for the first time in a form available to the general reader. For the layman the book provides a readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture. For the specialist it presents a synthesis with which he may not agree but from which he will nonetheless derive stimulation."—American Journal of Archaeology "An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity."—Library Journal




The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction


Book Description

This book explores the lands of the ancient Near East from around 3200 BCE to 539 BCE. The earth-shaking changes that marked this era include such fundamental inventions as the wheel and the plow and intellectual feats such as the inventions of astronomy, law, and diplomacy.




Conceptualising Divine Unions in the Greek and Near Eastern Worlds


Book Description

This volume is an interdisciplinary investigation and contextualization of the various concepts of divine union in the private and public sphere of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds.