This book covers the aesthetic traditions of Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia, and the Levant, from Neolithic times to the end of the Achaemenid Persian Empire around 330 BCE. It describes and examines the field from a variety of critical perspectives: across approaches and interpretive frameworks, key explanatory concepts, materials and selected media and formats, and zones of interaction.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• The “Art” of the “Ancient Near East”
• PART I: APPROACHES AND METHODS OF ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
• Art and Material Culture
• Meaning and Interpretation
• Style
• Connoisseurship and Classification
• Visual Culture
• Technical Examination and Material Analysis
• Gender and Sexuality
• Semiotics, Reception Theory, and Poststructuralism
• PART II: CRITICAL TERMS AND CONCEPTS
• Representation
• Narrative
• Ideology
• Ritual
• Agency
• Aesthetics
• PART III: MATERIALS, MEDIA, AND ARTISTIC ENVIRONMENTS
• Statuary and Reliefs
• Glyptic
• Religious Architecture
• Palaces and Elite Houses
• Rock Reliefs and Landscape Monuments
• Reconstructing Artistic Environments
• PART IV: INTERACTIONS WITH NEIGHBORING REGIONS AND ARTISTIC TRADITIONS
• The Ancient Near East and Egypt
• The Ancient Near East and the Bronze Age Aegean
• Near Eastern Art in the Iron Age Mediterranean
• PART V: INTERSECTIONS WITH ARCHAEOLOGY, COLLECTING, AND CULTURAL HERITAGE
• Archaeology and the Art of the Ancient Near East
• Cultural Heritage across the Middle East, Ancient and Modern
• End User License Agreement