Mesopotamian Civilization 
Subtitle: The Material Foundations
Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr; Cornell University Press
Published: October 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 340
ISBN-13: 9780801433399
Subjects: Middle & Near Eastern archaeology; Physical geography; Ancient Archaeology; Ancient World History; History: World; To 622; Civilization; Ethnology; Middle East
Description: "The best way to achieve an understanding of the art, architecture, history, and literature of a great civilization such as Mesopotamia's, D. T. Potts believes, is through an analysis of its material infrastructure. Concentrating on Southern Mesopotamia and relying preponderantly on evidence from the third millennium B.C., Potts describes a civilization from the ground up.

He creates an ethnography of ancient Mesopotamia which combines knowledge of its material culture and its mental culture."--BOOK JACKET.

"Potts examines the climate, the landforms, and other conditions that enabled the area to become populated. What natural resources did the earliest Mesopotamians have at their disposal? How did Mesopotamian religious ideals reflect the basic conditions of life in the alluvial plain of Southern Mesopotamia? What contributions to Mesopotamian civilization came from the East and what from the West?

In addressing such questions as these, Potts offers a new foundation for understanding an ancient civilization of great complexity."--BOOK JACKET.