Research Paper Topics
The following bibliography will get you started on preparing a paper or presentation for the course. Consult with me for additional references.
Egypt
Caton-Thompson, G. and E. W. Gardner. 1934. The Desert Fayum. London: Royal Anthropological Society.
Menghin, Oswald and Moustafa Amer. 1932. Excavations of the Egyptian University in the Neolithic Site at Maadi. First preliminary report, season 1930-31. Egyptian University, Faculty of Arts, Cairo.
-----1936. Excvations of the Egyptian University in the Neolithic site at Maadi, Second Preliminary Report, Season 1932. (as above).
Reisner, G.A. 1932. A Provincial Cemetery of the Pyramid Age Naga-ed-Der. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
von der Way, T. 1987. "Die Grabungen in Buto und die Reichseinigung". MDAIK 43:419-424. [For the adventuresome!]
Wunderlich, J., T. von der Way and K. Schmidt. 1989. "Neue Fundstellen der Buto-Maadi-Kultur bei Ezbet el-Qerdahi". MDAIK 45:309-318.
Wendorf, Fred and Romuald Schild. 1986. The Prehistory of Wadi Kubbaniya, Vol. 1 and 2.
Berman, Chaim and M. Weitzman. 1979. Ebla. Times Books. (for comparison with Matthaie and/or Pettinato.)
Braidwood, R. J. and B. Howe. 1960. Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Oriental Institute Publication.
Kenyon, Kathleen M. 1956. "Jericho and its setting in near Eastern history." Antiquity 30:184-194.
-----. 1957. Digging Up Jericho. Praeger: New York.
-----. 1959a. "Earliest Jericho." Antiquity 33:5-9.
-----. 1959b. "Some observations on the beginnings of settlement in the Near East." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 89:35-44.
-----. 1960b. Excavations at Jericho, vol. 1. British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
-----. 1964. Excavations at Jericho, vol. 2. British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
-----. 1967. "Jericho." Archaeology 20:268-275.
Kenyon, Kathleen M. and Diana Kirkbride. 1960. "Excavations at Jericho." Palestine Exploration Quarterly 92, 2:1-32.
Kirkbride, Diana. 1960. "A brief report on the prepottery flint cultures of Jericho." Palestine Exploration Quarterly 92(2):114-119.
-----. 1966. "Beidha: 1965 campaign." Archaeology 19-:268-272.
-----. 1966. "Five seasons at the prepottery Neolithic village of Beidha in Jordan." PEQ 98,1:8-72.
-----. 1967. "Beidha 1965: An interim report." PEQ 99:5-13.
-----. 1968. "Beidha: Early Neolithic village life south of the Dead Sea." Antiquity 42:263-274.
-----. 1972. "Umm Dabghiyah 1971: A preliminary report. An early ceramic site in marginal north central Jazira, Iraq." IRAQ 34:3-15.
-----. 1973a. "Umm Dabaghiyah 1972: A preliminary report." IRAQ 35:1-7.
-----. 1973b. "Umm Dabaghiyah 1973: A preliminary report." IRAQ 35:205-209.
-----. 1974. "Umm Dabaghiyah: A trading post?" IRAQ 36:85-92.
-----. 1975. "Umm Dabaghiyah 1974: A fourth preliminary report." IRAQ 37:3-10.
Matthiae, Paolo. 1981. Ebla. An Empire Rediscovered. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. (another press published the same volume in 1977.) Also see Berman and Pettinato.
Mellaart, James. 1961. "Early cultures of the south Anatolian plateau." Anatolian Studies 11:159-184.
-----. 1967. Catal Huyuk: a Neolithic town in Anatolia. New York: McGraw-Hill. Also see Todd, Ian.
Pettinato, G. 1981. The Archives of Ebla. New York: Doubleday. Also see Matthiae and Berman.
Todd, Ian A. 1976. Catal Huyuk in Perspective. Cummings Publishing Company.
Hole, Frank, Kent V. Flannery and James A. Neely. 1969. Prehistory and human ecology of the Deh Lurah Plain: An early village sequence from Khuzistan, Iran. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, Univ. of Michigan, no. 1. Univ. of Michigan Press. Ann Arbor.
Moorey, P.R.S. 1982. Ur of the Chaldees. Cornell University Press.
Southern Mesopotamia
Adams, Robert McC. 1965. Land Behind Baghdad. University of Chicago Press.
-----. 1966. The Evolution of Urban Society: Early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
-----. 1981. Heartland of Cities. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Adams, Robert McC. and Hans J. Nissen. 1972. The Uruk Countryside: The natural setting of
urban society. University of Chicago Press.
Bottero, Jean. 1995. Textes Culinaires Mesopotamiens. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.
Collon, Dominique. 1995. Ancient Near Eastern Art. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Galpin, Francis William. 1970. The Music of the Sumerians. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press (original in 1936). No illustrations so that this should be coupled with research on the instruments themselves and other references in Saggs below.
Hermann, Georgina. 1968. "Lapis Lazuli: The early phases of its trade." IRAQ 30:21-57. (Would need to be supplemented by general questions on trade or documentation of presence of lapis lazuli, etc.)
Jacobsen, Thorkild. 1976. Treasures of Darkness. A History of Mesopotamian Religion. Yale University Press.
-----. 1987. The Harps that once.... Sumerian Poetry. Yale University Press.
Potts, Timothy. 1994. Mesopotamia and the East. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Powell, Marvin A. 1987. Labor in the Ancient Near East. New Haven: American Oriental Society. (Articles covering a range of periods and places; for example, compensation of craft workers in the UrIII period; collective labor of the same period; work and organization of work in the Old Kingdom; same topic for the New Kingdom - references to gender; slave labor and defining it.)
Saggs, H. W. F. 1962. The Greatness that Was Babylon. Signet classics. (This book has a good bibliography for Mesopotamia on some specific topics, such as medicine, mathematics, marriage, etc. and should be used as a resource.
Stone, Elizabeth C. 1987. Nippur Neighborhoods. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 44. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Wittfogel, K.A. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study in Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Helbaek, Hans. 1960. "The Paleoethnobotany of the Near East and Europe." In Prehistoric Investigations in Iragi Kurdistan. (see Braidwood and Howe).
-----. 1964. "Early Hassunan vegetable food at Tell-es-sawwan near Samarra." Sumer 20:45-48.
-----. 1964. "First impressions of the Catal Huyuk plant husbandry." Anatolian Studies 14:121-124.
-----. 1966. "Pre-pottery Neolithic farming at Beidha." PEQ 98, 1:61-66.
-----. 1969. "Plant collecting, dry-farming and irrigation agriculture in prehistoric Deh Lurah." In Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Deh Lurah Plain. See Hole, Flannery and Neely.
-----. 1972. "Traces of plants in the early ceramic site of Umm Dabaghiyah." IRAQ 24:17-19.
-----. 1972. "Samarran Irrigation agriculture at Choga Mami in Iraq." IRAQ 24-35-48. Weiss, Harvey
-----. 1986. The Origins of Cities in Dry-farming Syria and Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium B.C. Guilford, Conn.: Four Quarters Publishing Co.
Aldred, Sir Cyril. 1980. Egyptian Art. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Breasted, R. 1912. Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. Harper.
Brier, Bob. 1981. Ancient Egyptian Magic. New York: Quell.
Butzer, Karl. 1976. Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Cockburn Aidan and Cockburn, Eve. 1980. Mummies, Disease and Ancient Cultures. Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, I.E.S. 1947. The Pyramids of Eqypt. Penguin Books.
Frankfort, Henri. 1948. Ancient Egyptian Religion. Harper and Row.
-----. 1948. Kingship and the Gods. Univ. of Chicago Press.
Gardner, S Alan. 1961. Egypt of the Pharaohs. Oxford Univ. Press.
Hermann, Kees. 1961. Ancient Egypt: a cultural topography. Univ. of Chicago press.
Hoffman, Michael. 1979. Egypt before the Pharaohs. New York: Knopf Press. (This can be reviewed and critiqued or serve as a framework for delving into the site reports from Hierakonpolis, not listed here, but see me.)
James, T.G.H. 1982. Excavations in Egypt. University of Chicago Press.
-----. 1984. Pharaohs People. University of Chicago Press.
Kemp, Barry. 1989. Ancient Egypt. Anatomy of a Civilization. New York: Routledge.
Lichtheim, Miriam. 1973. Ancient Egyptian Literature. UCLA Press.
Seton-Williams. 1988. Egyptian Legends. Rubicom Press.
Simpson, William Kelley. 1972. The Literature of Ancient Egypt. Yale University Press.
Spencer, A. J. 1982. Death in Ancient Egypt. Penguin Books.
Young, T. Cuyler, P.E. Smith, P. Mortenson. 1982. The Hillv Flanks. Essays on the Prehistory of Southwestern Iran. Oriental Institute Publication.
Passing throuqh the Netherworld. An ancient Egyptian board game. Only for an oral presentation. Teach us how to play and where this game fit into Egyptian society. There is an extensive 50 page description of the game that comes with it.
Egyptian exhibit hall at the Metropolitan. Describe and Critique the exhibition. The Hayes book can be used as a resource.
Study a class of objects (pottery, stone vessels, models for example) at the exhibition at the Metropolitan. What stylistic and technological changes do they show and how do they reflect aspects of Egyptian history.
Compare and contrast Egyptian settlements with those in Mesopotamia. What are the ecological, political and historical factors that shaped them?
Discuss the construction of one of the large monuments in Egypt or Mesopotamia. From the available information and your knowledge of construction, what can you estimate about the time and size of the crews needed to construct these monuments and how might they be organized. For the last question you need to know something about the social structure.
Compare the role of the temple in Egyptian society with that of Mesopotamian society.
Discuss the influence of the environment on Egyptian or Mesopotamian Society. Or discuss both and indicate how and why their settlement plans differed as a result.
Discuss Egyptian or Mesopotamian social organization by looking at specific cemeteries or tombs.
Compare the religious system of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Explain differences in relation to other aspects of the culture.
Archaeo-zoology or Archaeo-botany as fields of study.
Tomb painting as a resource for understanding social organization and ideology. A paper on this topic would require careful planning to maintain chronological control. It also would have to be coupled with other research/discussion on the time period selected.
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