Babylonians.

• Author: Chavalas, Mark W.

General syntheses of Mesopotamian civilization are rare but welcome, especially by specialists in the field. H. W. E Saggs has produced a brief study of Babylonian history and culture, complementing and updating his previous works on related subjects (The Greatness that was Babylon [London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1962 and 1988], and The Might that was Assyria [London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984]). This is the first in a new series from the University of Oklahoma Press, entitled Peoples of the Past. Forthcoming titles include Aramaeans (John Healey), Assyrians (John Russell), Canaanites (Jonathan Tubb), and Phoenicians (Glen Markoe). Unfortunately, there is no description of the series in this inaugural work; the reader is left to guess its purpose, and whether Saggs has fulfilled it.

The work has ten chapters, roughly arranged in chronological order, incorporating aspects of religion, social structure, writing, libraries, and other topics, often in apparently haphazard fashion. The scholar of the ancient Near East will find few citations in this work, hinting that it is for a lay audience. Although well and clearly written and with few errors, Saggs has not always kept up to date with recent research. A few examples will suffice, although this list could have been longer.

Although Saggs adequately discusses Babylonian prehistoric beginnings, he fails to include the most recent information on the pre-Ubaid south. Research on village sites such as Tell el Oueili have shown that there were permanent settlements before the Ubaid Period, exhibiting fully developed agriculture and irrigation techniques without local antecedents (see Jean-Louis Huot et al., "Ubaidian Village of Lower Mesopotamia: Permanence and Evolution from Ubaid 0 to Ubaid 4, as Seen from Tell el Oueili," in Upon this Foundation: The Ubaid Reconsidered, ed. Elizabeth Henrickson and Ingolf Thuesen [Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1989], 19-42; and Jean-Louis Huot, "The First Farmers at Oueili," Biblical Archaeologist 55 [1992]: 188-95). Further, he fails to mention recent research concerning the expansion of Uruk culture, notably by Guillermo Algaze, who exploits recent excavations and surveys in Syria and Anatolia revealing Uruk-period material (The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Expansion in Early Mesopotamian Civilization [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993]). Saggs also accepts that the Uruk culture modified an old system of recording numbers, without noting recent...