Resources for Ancient Near Eastern Studies

# 1 - April 2000

Sources for the Study of the Third Millennium BC Materials
by Marco Bonechi

RANES # 1-1 Authors

RANES # 1-2 Subjects
NEW (June 2000):
Alalakh
Music, Musical Instruments and Dance

The aim of this publication is to offer the widest possible range of scientific sources dealing with third millennium BC remains from the Near East, in order to help the study of this period. It is currently a work in progress, and thus it is clearly incomplete.

The geographical criterion for this selection is the area of distribution of the cuneiform script and of the cultures related to it, but, arbitrarily, Egypt is not included in it. Chronologically, the main focus is the Early Bronze age, ending with the fall of Ur around 2000 BC and with the beginning of Middle Bronze age in Mesopotamia. Several studies dealing with the periods before the appearance of cuneiform tablets (i.e. the fourth millennium) and after the fall of the Ur III empire (i.e. the beginning of the second millennium) have been included. Purposely, no distinction has been made between "assyriological", "archaeological", "historical" and "anthropological" publications.

However, due to the limits of my competence, several fields are still poorly represented in this issue: remains from Iraq and Syria are much better represented than remains from Iran, the Persian Gulf, Anatolia, Jordan, Israel and Palestine; the "archaeological" bibliography is clearly less complete than the "assyriological" one; and the enormous literature dealing with the Ur III texts is still certainly incomplete. Moreover, many short but relevant entries in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie are not yet included; and, contrarily, sometimes main publications not directly dealing with third millennium matters but of general interest have been included.

Given the character of web publications these limitations may be easily corrected, also thanks to the cooperation of my colleagues. Their kind insights and suggestions, as well as their short scientifical papers (send to mbonechi@etr.it) will be included, with the due credits, in the next issues of RANES # 1.

The user may consult 2 sections.

In the first section (Authors) letters lead to the names of the scholars, and then to the titles (books and papers) so far gathered; they are organized in chronological order.

The second section, (Subjects) under construction, is a thematic one: it deals with various matters randomly selected (presently only few samples are available), in which the relevant literature deriving from the main list is displayed.

The abreviations are those current in the ANE studies (references may be found in AfO, Or, CAD, AHw, PSD etc.).
My thanks to Amalia Catagnoti for her substantial help.

Revised: June 6, 2000