Mesopotamia

Zainab Bahrani is Edith Porada Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, New York. She is the author of numerous books, including The Infinite Image: Art, Time and the Aesthetic Dimension in Antiquity, winner of the Lionel Trilling Prize in 2015, and Rituals of War: The Body and Violence in Mesopotamia, winner of the American Historical Association's James Henry Breasted Prize.

Introduction: Becoming Art . The Search for Origins: Mesopotamia and the Cradle of Civilization . Uruk: The Arts of Civilization . Early Dynastic Sumer: Images for the People, Temples for the Gods . Early Dynastic Sumer: Art for Eternity . Art of the Akkadian Dynasty . Gudea: Royal Portraits and the Lifespan of Images . The Third Dynasty of Ur . The Age of Hammurabi . Kassite and Assyrian Art at the End of the Bronze Age . Assyrian Art: Narrative and Empire . Assyrian Art in Context . Babylonian Art . Achaemenid Persian Art . Alexander in Babylon and Hellenism in Mesopotamia: Seleucid and Parthian Art . Epilogue: The Past in the Present . Glossary * Further Reading * Sources of Quotations * Acknowledgments * Sources of Illustrations * Index

The only comprehensive survey in print of the art and architecture of ancient Mesopotamia.