Introduction -- 1. The first half of history. Administrative documents ; Private legal documents ; Letters ; Historiographic texts ; Literary texts ; Scholarly texts -- 2. History from above. Assyrian royal inscriptions ; Sargon of Agade ; Mesopotamian history and narrative -- 3. History from below. Prosopography ; Innaja, an old Assyrain merchant ; The effects of war -- 4. Economic history. Theories of ancient economics ; Agriculture in Ur III Lagash -- 5. Gender and Mesopotamian history -- 6. Conclusions
Summary
Marc Van De Mieroop considers the political, social, and economic conditions that these texts illuminate as well as the way historians have used these sources to validate their readings of particular historical events. Filled with examples taken from the entirety of Mesopotamian history, Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History offers readers insight into how we have come to learn about this fascinating chapter of the human past.-- Provided by publisher
