Status
Available
Publication
Boston: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1962. (80 p., three color ill., 65 b/w ill., chronology, notes, bibliography: 1 folded map ; 21.5 cm)
Language
Physical description
80 p.; 21.5 cm
Local notes
Notes:
Some of the listed objects are from the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.
This is possibly a catalog for an exhibition.
First two paragraphs of text:
"THE GEOGRAPHIC LIMITS of the Ancient Near Eastern world correspond to those of the Western Asia of today. On the west the land, from Asia Minor to Egypt, meets the Mediterranean Sea; on the north lies the Black Sea and on the south the Persian Gulf. The eastern boundary is formed by the mountain chains of eastern and northeastern Persia, which separate Persia from India and Russia and Inner Asia. Further geographical distinctions set apart four areas: Anatolia (Turkey), Mesopotamia (Iraq), Persia (Iran) and the Levant (Syria). Within these natural boundaries lie several modern states and the sites of many ancient ones.
Because of these divisions no uniform culture ever spread throughout the Ancient Near East, but because the mountains of the north never formed impassable barriers, the movements of peoples in Asia often spilled over into the Near East. At various times invasions of newcomers swept through Anatolia and Persia. Mesopotamia underwent first a Sumerian and then a Semitic domination. Mesopotamia in particular was never free from the threat of nomadic tribes living in the mountains of the northeastern and eastern frontiers. The entrance of Guti in the third and Kassites in the second millennium, the rise and fall of the Babylonian dynasties, the formation of the Assyrian Empire and its collapse, were all due, indirectly or directly, to the inability of any one state to impose a lasting hegemony in Mesopotamia."
__________________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
The Ancient Near Eastern World
A Brief Survey of Ancient Near Eastern Art
- Mesopotamia
- Persia
- Anatolia and Syria
Chronology of Ancient Western Asia
Map of Ancient Western Asia [fold out]
CATALOG
Selected Bibliography
Translations in the Text
Notes [very detailed]
Some of the listed objects are from the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.
This is possibly a catalog for an exhibition.
First two paragraphs of text:
"THE GEOGRAPHIC LIMITS of the Ancient Near Eastern world correspond to those of the Western Asia of today. On the west the land, from Asia Minor to Egypt, meets the Mediterranean Sea; on the north lies the Black Sea and on the south the Persian Gulf. The eastern boundary is formed by the mountain chains of eastern and northeastern Persia, which separate Persia from India and Russia and Inner Asia. Further geographical distinctions set apart four areas: Anatolia (Turkey), Mesopotamia (Iraq), Persia (Iran) and the Levant (Syria). Within these natural boundaries lie several modern states and the sites of many ancient ones.
Because of these divisions no uniform culture ever spread throughout the Ancient Near East, but because the mountains of the north never formed impassable barriers, the movements of peoples in Asia often spilled over into the Near East. At various times invasions of newcomers swept through Anatolia and Persia. Mesopotamia underwent first a Sumerian and then a Semitic domination. Mesopotamia in particular was never free from the threat of nomadic tribes living in the mountains of the northeastern and eastern frontiers. The entrance of Guti in the third and Kassites in the second millennium, the rise and fall of the Babylonian dynasties, the formation of the Assyrian Empire and its collapse, were all due, indirectly or directly, to the inability of any one state to impose a lasting hegemony in Mesopotamia."
__________________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
The Ancient Near Eastern World
A Brief Survey of Ancient Near Eastern Art
- Mesopotamia
- Persia
- Anatolia and Syria
Chronology of Ancient Western Asia
Map of Ancient Western Asia [fold out]
CATALOG
Selected Bibliography
Translations in the Text
Notes [very detailed]