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Artefacts of Complexity: Tracking the Uruk in the Near East

by Nicholas Postgate

The late 4th millennium in South Mesopotamia is universally known as the Uruk Period because it is at Uruk that the German excavations have exposed the most remarkable manifestations of this complex society. Although the Uruk period in Iraq itself remains little understood, in recent decades artefacts and entire settlements have been discovered in places as far apart as the Mahi Dasht in Iran and the Euphrates in South-eastern Turkey. This volume attempts to track the Uruk phenomenon in the Near East, bringing together research on some of the most significant individual sites within the Levant and Egypt, placing emphasis on the artefactual evidence. The eleven papers were originally presented at a conference in Manchester in 1998. The contributors are Hans Nissen, Renate Gut, Mitchell Rothman, Virginia Badler, Joan Oates, Marcella Frangipane, Gil Stein, Fiona Stephen, Edgar Peltenburg, Govert van Driel, Graham Philip and Toby Wilkinson. 258p, many b/w illus and figs (Iraq Archaeological Reports 5, Aris and Phillips/British School of Archaeology in Iraq 2002)

Review Quotes

"Artefacts of Complexity stands out among conference-proceedings volumes as one that will have a long span of academic usefulness"

Jason Ur
Journal of Near Eastern Studies (April 2006)

"required reading for Near East specialists,"

Bradley J Parker
Bibliotheca Orientalis (2006)

Table of contents

Uruk: key site of the period and key site of the problem (Hans J. Nissen); The significance of the Uruk sequence at Nineveh (Renate V. Gut); Tepe Gawra: chronology and socio-economic change in the foothills of Northern Iraq in the era of state formation (Mitchell S. Rothman); A chronology of Uruk artifacts from Godin Tepe in central Western Iran and implications for the interrelationships between the local and foreign cultures (Virginia R. Badler); Tell Brak: the 4th Millennium sequence and its implications (Joan Oates); 'Non-Uruk' developments and Uruk-linked features on the Northern borders of Greater Mesopotamia (Marcella Frangipane); The Uruk expansion in Anatolia: a Mesopotamian colony and its indigenous host community at Hacinebi, Turkey (Gil Stein); Scientific analyses of Uruk ceramics from Jerablus Tahtani and other Middle-Upper Euphrates sites (Fiona M.K. Stephen and Edgar Peltenburg); Jebel Aruda: variations on a Late Uruk domestic theme (Govert van Driel); Contacts between the 'Uruk' world and the Levant during the Fourth Millennium BC: evidence and interpretation (Graham Philip); Uruk into Egypt: imports and imitations (Toby A.H. Wilkinson); Indices; Sites and geographical names; Pottery styles, wares, etc.; Time spans; Persons; General

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