Table of Contents for Near Eastern Archaeology 85.4 (December 2022)

Pp. 244–247: “The Environment We Share: Human–Nonhuman Animal Interactions in the Ancient Near East,” by Romina Della Casa and Lidar Sapir-Hen

The studies in this volume display the complexity of human and animal bonds, contributing to the deconstruction of the dichotomy expressed in Western academic traditions between humans and nature. With the goal of contributing to current interdisciplinary debates about the interactions between humans and other animals through the lens of the ancient Near East, this issue opens a space for interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars who explore how ancient societies interacted with their environs, how they experienced and perceived other animals, and how we can grasp a better understanding of the impact other animals had on human societies.

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Pp. 248–257: “Flattening the Wild in the Ancient Near East,” by Benjamin S. Arbuckle, Christine Mikeska, and Theo McLeod Kassebaum

In this article the authors explore the impact of wild-domestic dualisms on how wild animals are conceived and framed in the zooarchaeology of the ancient Near East. They argue that this dominant framework flattens the wild into an artificially homogenous entity and funnels scholarly engagement with wild animals into a narrow range of topics. They explore examples from the archaeozoological literature as well as ancient texts that suggest that rather than being peripheral and exotic participants, wild animals were ubiquitous and important contributors to hybrid, multispecies Bronze Age societies. They further suggest a more robust zooarchaeology of the wild through application of flat ontologies and related decentering frameworks.

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Pp. 258–269: “Encountering Ancient Environments: The Impact of Nonhuman Animals on Populations of Hittite Anatolia,” by Romina Della Casa

This article surveys different textual genres from Hittite tablet collections of Hattusa (Boğazköy/Boğazkale) and Tapikka (Maşat Höyük) with the goal of exploring specific instances where one can detect human responses, strategies, and adaptations in the face of the active presence and behavior of ancient nonhuman animals (henceforth animals). The examples under study explore the animal side of human-animal encounters and involve locusts, wolves, pigs, dogs, donkeys, horses, sheep, and cattle. They reveal the existence of at least two main interrelated modes through which these animals impacted human behavior. One exhibits animal competition with humans for food, leading ancient Anatolian populations to devise strategies to minimize their impact on nearby resources. The other reflects that the behavior of certain animals encouraged practices of containment, regulation, mobility, and care, depicting, overall, key features of how animals shaped the daily life of ancient Anatolia’s human inhabitants.

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Pp. 270–278: “Ancient Mesopotamian Animal Omens: Structure and Patterns of Meaning,” by Nicla De Zorzi

The article addresses a Babylonian collection of omens regarding animals and their behavior. These omens are part of a large series of terrestrial omens that is known as Šumma ālu (ina mēlê šakin) “If a city (is set on a height).” The main argument of this article is that these animal omens should not be seen as straightforward reflections of actual animal behavior, but are conceived as a culturally constructed bestiarium, that is, as a mirror of human society. This will be demonstrated through a series of case studies.

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Pp. 280–287: “The Merdītu-Offerings: Animal Sacrifice in First-Millennium Babylonian Religious Contexts,” by Rocío Da Riva

Some Late Babylonian texts containing evidence on temple ceremonies refer to a sacrificial offering called merdītu, which was performed on special occasions in the sanctuaries of Uruk and Babylon. The merdītu was a libation of sorts poured directly onto the decapitated head of a sheep and onto the heart extracted from an ox or bull. Although the texts are not very informative, they contain some interesting data on the internal structure of the temples, the ritualization of space, and on the cultic performers involved in the ceremonies.

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Pp. 288–295: “Always a Hunter: The Role of Wild Animals during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of the Southern Levant,” by Lidar Sapir-Hen

By the Late Bronze and Iron Ages in the southern Levant, livestock animals were the dominant meat source, and wild animals constituted a very small supplementary proportion of economy. As a result, wild animals often receive limited attention in studies of these periods. This article aims to examine the role of wild animals based on a large body of published zooarchaeological data. By studying temporal changes in species presence and frequencies, the study tracks the local diminution in several wild species; reveals a clear preference for hunting deer in sites of the Iron Ages, regardless of changes in local landscape; and shows that various other wild animals can be correlated to assemblages that are identified with Egyptian presence. Based on these observations and with correlation to historic events and cultural changes, wild animals’ roles in the economic and symbolic world of past societies are discussed.

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Pp. 296–305: “Human–Animal Encounters on Early Iron Age Stamp Seals,” by Ido Koch

Human-animal relations are manifested in encounters that range from confrontation and subjugation to harmonious coexistence. For thousands of years, these encounters have triggered diverse associations that at times have been materialized into visual languages that, despite spatial and chronological particularities, share scenes and protagonists. This essay deals with the depictions of these animals and scenes on early Iron Age stamp seals from the southern Levant. It provides an overview of three typical scenes: figure atop an animal, figure confronting an animal, and figure alongside an animal. Four animals are depicted: the lion, the bull, the ibex, and the ostrich. At the same time, the Iron Age was the last phase of such iconography after millennia of development. During the Iron Age IIB, additional images became popular and widespread, and the animal encounters lost their importance on the local stamp seals.

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Pp. 306–308: “She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia ca. 3400–2000 BCE,” by Stephanie Lynn Budin

The author reviews the exhibit “She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia” which is on display at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City from October 2022 to February 2023.

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