NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ART HISTORY

Classes will be performed through the use of traditional lectures and by the use of interactive methods such as group discussions.

Archeology and Art History of the Near East will be dedicated to the study of the material culture of the ancient societies that haveinhabited a large geographical area limited by the Mediterranean basin, to the west, and by the Indus valley, to the east, dating from prehistoric periods until the arrival of Alexander the Great in the region (330 BC). Some of the topics investigated during the course are as follows: the evolution of social organization (from hunters- gatherers societies to the Mesopotamian Empires); the transformation of administrative techniques (from stamp seals and tokens of the Neolithic period to the cylinder seals and the cuneiform clay tablets of ancient Mesopotamia), the changes in religious practices and beliefs (from the first ceremonial architecture of the aceramic Neolithic period at Gobekli Tepe to the Mesopotamian temples of the fourth-to-first millennia BC). In particular, the latest part of the course will be dedicated to investigating the funerary customs of ancient near eastern societies between the third and first millennia BC.

Modulo A

Invernizzi A. (2007) Dal Tigri all'Eufrate Vol. I. Sumeri e Accadi. Le Lettere, Firenze. Pp. 1-424

Modulo B

Invernizzi A. (2007) Dal Tigri all'Eufrate Vol. II. Babilonesi e Assiri. Le Lettere, Firenze. Pp. 1-386