The Ancient Orient:
Subtitle: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published: Grand Rapids, MI
Number of pages: 262
First sentence: Orient is not a term of physical geography, as is also true of the designation Near East, which comprises the same region.
Description: A translation of von Soden's "Einführung in die Altorientalistik". Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985. This work comprises von Soden's comprehensive exploration of just what is known, and what has yet to be discovered, in the study of the Ancient Near East. It is heavily influenced by his own seminal work in ancient Orientalistik, notably his "Grundriss Akkadischer Grammatik" (Outline of Akkadian Grammar), Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (Akkadian Dictionary, which provided the basis for the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary), and other unparalleled and ground-breaking works of Near Eastern scholarship. This comprehensive work includes chapters on "Peoples and Cultures", "Writing and Systems of Writing", "The History of Ancient Western Asia: Historical Sources", "State and Society", "Nutrition and Agriculture", "Artisanry", "Trade and Commerce", "Law", "Sumerian and Babylonian Science", "Literature", and "Building, Art and Music". It is a spare work, shaped by a lifetime of disciplined scholarship as the world's leading philologist of the lingua franca of ancient Mesopotamia, Akkadian.
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