Continuity and change are major topics of recent studies regarding the cultural transition between the Achaemenid empire and the Hellenistic kingdoms in Egypt, Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran and Central Asia. Research involving scholars of different disciplines has investigated social, economic and political evolution, raising important questions on governmental institutions, local developments and effects on population. A picture emerges showing that, in a frame of substantial cultural continuity with former regional traditions, prospective changes are direct consequences of developments begun during the Achaemenid control over Asia and that, as a rule, both the Achaemenid and the Hellenistic sovereigns adapted former royal ideologies to their policy.

Re-examinations of basic data and new formulations of relevant questions have been brought to our attention by the present book, gathering the proceedings of a Colloquium held in 2004 at the Collège de France of Paris. Twelve papers by well known scholars achieve considerable results, approaching the matter from a regional perspective within the period 350-300 BC, and pointing to literary sources and to numismatic, archaeological or epigraphic evidence, in order to carry on further investigation on historical questions, administration practices, legal aspects, agricultural management, concepts of record-keeping and prosopography. Contents: P.-A. Beaulieu, « L’organisation de la recherche scientifique au IVe siècle avant J.-C. »; T. Boiy, « Aspects chronologiques de la période de transition »; F. Joannès, « La Babylonie méridionale : continuité, déclin ou rupture ? » (cf. abstract n° 79); M. Jursa, « Agricultural Management, Tax Farming and Banking: Aspects of Entrepreneurial Activity in Babylonia » (cf. abstract n° 80); M. W. Stolper, « Iranica in post-Achaemenid Babylonian Texts »; R. J. van der Speck, « The Size and Significance of the Babylonian Temples under the Successors » (cf. abstract n° 134); P. Briant, « L’Asie mineure en transition »; R. Descat, « Aspects d’une transition : l’économie du monde égéen »; M. Chauveau, C. Thiers, « L’Egypte en transition »; A. Lemaire, « La Transeuphratène en transition »; R. Boucharlat, « Le destin des résidences et sites perses d’Iran »; A. Khurt, « Concluding Remarks ».