Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
I would have definitely loved this book 4 years ago. These days I’ve enough familiarity with Mesopotamian history that something like this doesn’t feel super useful. The research is basically good: this is a book full of translated quotes from ~Ancient near eastern texts related to the Old Testament~ with a bit of context for what it could reveal about daily life.
Which is solid! but it kind of begs the question of why I wouldn’t instead just picked up the book it’s citing ^^
Also, I was a bit alarmed to find information that was actually totally ~wrong~
On P. 51 Nemet-Nejat says “Other writing systems were influenced by Mesopotamia’s cuneiform system and developed soon after. They include Egyptian hieroglyphs…”
I’m jumping in right here. This is an open question !! Who influenced who’s development is not conclusively known. I prefer arguments supporting an indigenous origin for the Egyptian language.
“… Proto Elamite from Iran… the Indus Valley script from Pakistan and India…”
I’m jumping back in. THIS IS ALSO AN OPEN QUESTION!! The Indus script is so ancient and divergent from cuneiform, (and also untranslated) that it’s impossible to say which influences came from which direction.
“…Minoan Linear A from Crete… Hittite hieroglyphs… and Chinese writing.”
I’m jumping back in. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE !!! The Chinese written language developed completely independently from cuneiform. It developed out of very ancient indigenous pictographic writing systems. There simply was ~no contact~ between Mesopotamians and proto-Chinese peoples.
This sort of thing just kept happening. And it left a bad taste in my mouth, because I’m ~just ignorant enough~ that there were almost certainly untruths that slipped under my radar. so I didn’t finish reading the book. It’s not worth it to risk getting bad info. There’s certainly better out there
Which is solid! but it kind of begs the question of why I wouldn’t instead just picked up the book it’s citing ^^
Also, I was a bit alarmed to find information that was actually totally ~wrong~
On P. 51 Nemet-Nejat says “Other writing systems were influenced by Mesopotamia’s cuneiform system and developed soon after. They include Egyptian hieroglyphs…”
I’m jumping in right here. This is an open question !! Who influenced who’s development is not conclusively known. I prefer arguments supporting an indigenous origin for the Egyptian language.
“… Proto Elamite from Iran… the Indus Valley script from Pakistan and India…”
I’m jumping back in. THIS IS ALSO AN OPEN QUESTION!! The Indus script is so ancient and divergent from cuneiform, (and also untranslated) that it’s impossible to say which influences came from which direction.
“…Minoan Linear A from Crete… Hittite hieroglyphs… and Chinese writing.”
I’m jumping back in. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE !!! The Chinese written language developed completely independently from cuneiform. It developed out of very ancient indigenous pictographic writing systems. There simply was ~no contact~ between Mesopotamians and proto-Chinese peoples.
This sort of thing just kept happening. And it left a bad taste in my mouth, because I’m ~just ignorant enough~ that there were almost certainly untruths that slipped under my radar. so I didn’t finish reading the book. It’s not worth it to risk getting bad info. There’s certainly better out there
This took me a while to get through, it’s dense but readable. I had to look up several terms but most are listed in the back of the book. I felt this was a pretty comprehensive history and a great starting point for info on the ancient world.
Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia by Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat is a comprehensive volume on the dawn of civilization from 4000 BCE (and before) to the rise of Greek civilization (mid first millennium BCE). How comprehensive? Exhaustive.
There are many long lists with detailed explanations and examples. For examples, the section crafts includes: carpentry, pottery,glass, textiles, basketry, leather, stone sculpture, seals, metals, jewelry, ivory, and songs.
In the interest of completeness, the editing tends towards redundancy rather then conciseness. For example there is a discussion of money...
"...silver, which now began to serve the three classical functions of money: as a medium of exchange, as a unit of account, and as a standard of value."
A mere seven pages later the following is offered...
"Currency has four difference functions: (1) as a standard of value, (2) as a medium of exchange, (3) as a means of payment, and (4) as a means of accumulating wealth."
Certainly the major contribution of this place and time was writing. By 1500 BCE much of civilization as we know it was in place, including recognizable government, religious, family, trade, diplomatic, judicial, and medical structures, as well as technologies for manufacturing, farming, housing, and transportation. Someone transported back 3,500 years might have little difficulty understanding society. Much from back then survives today.
Our base 60 math (minutes, seconds, degrees of arc) comes from these people.
Before we give these people too much credit, we also need to remember...
"Caution must be exercised at all times, since many facets of Babylonian technology have their roots in prehistory. For example... wool... the arts of bleaching, spinning, fulling, dyeing, and weaving were fully developed by the fourth millenium... pottery... metalwork... The potter's wheel was already widely used before 4000 BCE... We know even less about early metal, since it was melted down and reused."
If you want to know anything about Mesopotamia (except lists of kings and battles), this is the book.
More some trivia about Mesopotamia: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2016/11/ancient-mesopotamia-by-karen-rhea-nemet.html
There are many long lists with detailed explanations and examples. For examples, the section crafts includes: carpentry, pottery,glass, textiles, basketry, leather, stone sculpture, seals, metals, jewelry, ivory, and songs.
In the interest of completeness, the editing tends towards redundancy rather then conciseness. For example there is a discussion of money...
"...silver, which now began to serve the three classical functions of money: as a medium of exchange, as a unit of account, and as a standard of value."
A mere seven pages later the following is offered...
"Currency has four difference functions: (1) as a standard of value, (2) as a medium of exchange, (3) as a means of payment, and (4) as a means of accumulating wealth."
Certainly the major contribution of this place and time was writing. By 1500 BCE much of civilization as we know it was in place, including recognizable government, religious, family, trade, diplomatic, judicial, and medical structures, as well as technologies for manufacturing, farming, housing, and transportation. Someone transported back 3,500 years might have little difficulty understanding society. Much from back then survives today.
Our base 60 math (minutes, seconds, degrees of arc) comes from these people.
Before we give these people too much credit, we also need to remember...
"Caution must be exercised at all times, since many facets of Babylonian technology have their roots in prehistory. For example... wool... the arts of bleaching, spinning, fulling, dyeing, and weaving were fully developed by the fourth millenium... pottery... metalwork... The potter's wheel was already widely used before 4000 BCE... We know even less about early metal, since it was melted down and reused."
If you want to know anything about Mesopotamia (except lists of kings and battles), this is the book.
More some trivia about Mesopotamia: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2016/11/ancient-mesopotamia-by-karen-rhea-nemet.html
challenging
informative
slow-paced
I thought this was a pretty good overview of Mesopotamian culture. An important thing you have to keep in mind, though, is that it is for a general audience and it’s from the second millenium (CE of course). So while a lot of it holds up, to my knowledge at least, there are some things that are a bit outdated or overstated (probably to impress or relate more to non-Assyriologists, although I think this may be common with this history books of this sort?)
This book is still great as a jumping off point, though, especially given how difficult it is to find books on Assyriology topics except in very specific types of bookstores that I frankly don’t have money for :(. But this helped me tentatively fill in a couple of gaps I had in my knowledge and refresh my memory so I could better understand and contextualize some tablets and articles I was reading, so I’m pretty happy with it! Plus it was extremely accessible and easy to read.
I hope someday soon they will update this book, since there is a lot of exciting research that has happened since this book came out!
This book is still great as a jumping off point, though, especially given how difficult it is to find books on Assyriology topics except in very specific types of bookstores that I frankly don’t have money for :(. But this helped me tentatively fill in a couple of gaps I had in my knowledge and refresh my memory so I could better understand and contextualize some tablets and articles I was reading, so I’m pretty happy with it! Plus it was extremely accessible and easy to read.
I hope someday soon they will update this book, since there is a lot of exciting research that has happened since this book came out!
challenging
informative
slow-paced