Review by Diana Bentley
The ancient Near East has not always attracted the popular attention it deserves, especially in comparison with other cultures of the surrounding area, like Greece, Rome, and Egypt. This latest work by Amanda H Podany, Professor Emeritus of History at California State Polytechnic University, should certainly help redress the balance. Adopting a truly innovative approach, Podany has provided us with a wonderfully vivid and compelling account of the region.
An astonishing wealth of tablets and other texts have been uncovered by archaeologists working in the Middle East. Many document mundane administrative matters. Large numbers of others, though, record the ventures of some of the region’s political rulers, as well as the activities of its everyday folk: its scribes and weavers, merchants and farmers, bakers and priests. These Podany uses to great effect. As she reminds us, while much is known about the political world and leadership of some eras, little has been discovered about others. Nonetheless, the life of common people continued and was often documented. The illiterate hired scribes to record transactions and write letters but, in time, more people became literate themselves.
Focusing her narrative on the areas in which cuneiform writing was used, Podany starts in the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk around 3500 BC and progresses to the 4th century BC, taking us into the world of both the leaders and the ordinary people – as she puts it, ‘knocking on doors and settling in for a while with individuals whose lives tell us something about the time in which they lived.’
Excavating Northamptonshire