The Development of Civilization: Bronze Age Mesopotamia

Model Questions
1) Examine the process of urbanization and state formation in Mesopotamia with special reference to the role that metal played in it.
2) Explain the process involved in the transformation of simple cultures to complex civilizations, paying special attention to Bronze Age Mesopotamia
3) Describe the elements of social and economic complexity in Ancient Mesopotamia
4) Describe the stages of urban development in the Sumerian Civilization
5) Account for the emergence of complex civilization in Mesopotamia in the Bronze Age

Essential Readings:
Brian Fagan, People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory, Illinois. Delhi: Pearson, 2004 (first pub:1989).
Chapters: 14 and 15.
V. Gorden Childe, What Happened in History. Harmondsworth; Penguin, 1942. Chapter 5
UNESCO, History of Humanity, Vol. II: From Third Millennium to Seventh Century BC, London: 1996.
George Roax, Ancient Iraq, Harmondsworth, 1992.
Susan Pollock, Ancient Mesopotamia, the Eden that never was. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
J N Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, London: 1992.
V. Gordon Childe, 'The Bronze Age', Past and Present , No. 12 (Nov. 1957), pp. 2-15

Additional References for project work:
James Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, New Delhi, Orient Blackswan, pp. ix-xiv, pp.1-39
Karen Rhea Nemat-Nejat, Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendricks Publishers, 2008
Patricia Wattenmaker, The Household and the State in Upper Mesopotamia, Washington, Smithsonian Institute, 1998.
Henry T. Wright, The Administration of Rural Production in an Early Mesopotamian Town, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 1969.
Mario Liverani (ed), Akkad: The First World Empire: Structure, Ideology, Traditions. Padova, Sargon Srl, 1993.
Mc Guire Gibson and Robert D. Biggs, The Organization of Power: Aspects of Bureaucracy in the Ancient Near East, Chicago, Oriental Institute, 1991.
Jean Bottero, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning and the Gods. (tr by Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van de Mieroop), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Robert Mc C Adams, The Heartland of Cities, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Greda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy. New York, 1986.

Ancient Mesopotamia

(courtesy: Bible history.com)