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This volume assembles more than 30 articles focusing on the visual, material, and environmental arts of the Ancient Near East. Specific case studies range temporally from the fourth millennium up to the Hellenistic period and geographically from Iran to the eastern Mediterranean. Contributions apply innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to archaeological evidence and critically examine the historiography of the discipline itself. Not intended to be comprehensive, the volume instead captures a cross-section of the field of Ancient Near Eastern art history as its stands in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The volume will be of value to scholars working in the Ancient Near East as well as others interested in newer art historical and anthropological approaches to visual culture.

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Table of Contents

List of Contributors
List of Illustrations
Editors´ Note
Map 1.
Map 2.

Introduction

I. Defining the Field

2. Archaeology and Politics in Iraq - Lamia al-Gailani Werr
3. Forgeries of Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts and Cultures - Oscar Muscarella
4. Beyond the East-West Dichotomy in Syrian and Levantine Wall Paintings - Constance von Rüden
5. Orientalism and Orientalization in the Iron Age Mediterranean - Ann C. Gunter

II. Technologies and Practices of Artistic Production

6. The Historiography of the Concept of "Workshop" in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology: Descriptive Models and Theoretical Approaches (Anthropology vs. Art History) - Silvana Di Paolo
7. The Impact of the "Portable": Integrating "Minor Arts" into the Ancient Near Eastern Canon - Allison Karmel Thomason
8. The Influence of the Physical Medium on the Decoration of a Work of Art: A Case Study of the "Phoenician" Bowls - Francesca Onnis
9. Impressions of the Contest Scene: Glyptic Imagery and Sealing Practice in the Akkadian Period - Yelena Rakic
10. Histories of Cypriot Art through Seal Carving - Joanna S. Smith

III. Text and Image

11. Relating Image and Word in Ancient Mesopotamia - Cory D. Crawford
12. Pictorial Mythology and Narrative in the Ancient Near East - Karen Sonik
13. Art´s Role in the Origins of Writing: The Seal-Carver, the Scribe, and the Earliest Lexical Texts - Jennifer C. Ross
14. Posthumous Images and the Memory of the Akkadian Kings - Melissa Eppihimer
15. Styles of Pictorial Narratives in Assurbanipal´s Reliefs - Chikako E. Watanabe

IV. Social Identities

16. Sexuality, Reproduction and Gender in Terracotta Plaques from the Late Third-Early Second Millennia BCE - Sarah B. Graff
17. Images and Conceptions of Ideal Feminine Beauty in Neo-Assyrian Royal Contexts, c. 883-627 BCE - Amy Rebecca Gansell
18. Uniforms and Non-Conformists: Tensions and Trends in Early Dynastic Fashion - Aubrey Baadsgaard
19. Terracotta Figurines and Social Identities in Hellenistic Babylonia - Stephanie Langin-Hooper
20. The Impressed Image: Glyptic Studies as Art and Social History - Mark B. Garrison
21. Culture on Display: Representations of Ethnicity in the Art of the Late Assyrian State - Brian A. Brown

V. Religion, Ritual and Politics

22. Human, Divine or Both? The Uruk Vase and the Problem of Ambiguity in Early Mesopotamian Visual Arts - Claudia E. Suter
23. A Silent Message: Godlike Kings in Mesopotamian Art - Tallay Ornan
24. When the Subject is the Object: Relational Ontologies, the Partible Person and Images of Naram-Sin - Anne Porter
25. Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Violence: Warfare in Neo-Assyrian Art - Paul Collins
26. The Tell Asmar Hoard and Rituals of Early Dynastic Sculpture - Jean M. Evans

VI. Making and Defining Space
27. A Feast for the Eyes: Depiction and Performance of Ritual within the Sacred Space of Middle Bronze Age Ebla - Alice A. Petty
28. The Art of Building a Late Assyrian Royal Palace - David Kertai
29. The Assyrian Landscape as Ritual - Ann Shafer
30. Aesthetics of the Natural Environment in the Arts of the Ancient Near East: The Elamite Rock-Cut Sanctuary of Kurangun - Javier µlvarez-Mon
31. Art of the Achaemenid Empire, and Art in the Achaemenid Empire - Henry P. Colburn

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