Archaeology, Artifacts and Antiquities of the Ancient Near East follows the evolution of the author’s scholarly work and interests and is divided into several categories of interrelated fields. The first part deals primarily with excavations and associated artifacts, issues in ancient geography and the identification of ancient sites in northwest Iran, the author’s research involving the culture and chronology of the Phrygian capital at Gordion in Anatolia, and the chronology and Iranian cultural relations of a site in the Emirate of Sharjah. Part two is wide-ranging and includes chapters on Aegean and ancient Near Eastern cultural and political interconnections, the role of fibulae in revealing cultural and chronological matters, and the gender-determined usage of parasols and their recognition in excavated contexts. There are also articles specifically concerned with “Plunder Culture” and the forgery of both objects and their alleged proveniences. "At 1,088 pages, this volume provides a wonderful sample– chosen by Muscarella himself – of forty papers spanning the author’s career and many interests...This volume is so rich that it contains something for everyone." D.T. Potts, NYU, Bibliotheca Orientalis lxxIII n° 3-4, mei-augustus 2016

This conspectus brings together in an accessible and systematic manner a dizzy array of archaeological cultures situated between several worlds.

Any consideration of the Iranian plateau must include the important site of Hasanlu in northern Iran. The Museum carried out excavations from 1956 through 1977. A major aspect of the research focused on the Iron Age settlement. This fortified town was attacked around 800 B.C. The attack and accompanying fire caused the rapid collapse of public buildings. Thus, the site provides a unique opportunity to examine a wide range of objects and materials still in the contexts in which they were stored. University Museum Monograph, 50

Of Demographic Trends in Other Greater Mesopotamian Sub-regions. p. 11.

The Southern Caucasus is a region of great historical, cultural and strategic importance, which means that it has become an indispensable research field for most of the social sciences, particularly archaeology. However, despite its rich potential, research in the areas of modern-day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nakhichevan, North-western Iran and North-eastern Turkey has been inadequate when compared with other important culture basins such as Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. In October 2012, Atatürk University in Erzurum, North-eastern Anatolia, Turkey, with the patronage of the Eurasian Silk Road Universities Consortium (ESRUC), hosted a Symposium of academics from more than 120 science and education institutions around the world to discuss opinions and share information about cultures in this region from its earliest times to the Middle Ages, within the scope of Ancient History, Archaeology, Art History, and Ethno-archaeology. This two volume publication is a compilation of 75 articles, which were evaluated and selected by an Academic Committee, from contributors who presented their academic papers at the Symposium.

This pioneering work revises our notions of the origins and early development of textiles in Europe and the Near East. Using innovative linguistic techniques, along with methods from palaeobiology and other fields, it shows that spinning and pattern weaving began far earlier than has been supposed. Prehistoric Textiles made an unsurpassed leap in the social and cultural understanding of textiles in humankind's early history. Cloth making was an industry that consumed more time and effort, and was more culturally significant to prehistoric cultures, than anyone assumed before the book's publication. The textile industry is in fact older than pottery--and perhaps even older than agriculture and stockbreeding. It probably consumed far more hours of labor per year, in temperate climates, than did pottery and food production put together. And this work was done primarily by women. Up until the Industrial Revolution, and into this century in many peasant societies, women spent every available moment spinning, weaving, and sewing. The author, Elizabeth Wayland Barber, demonstrates command of an almost unbelievably disparate array of disciplines--from historical linguistics to archaeology and paleobiology, from art history to the practical art of weaving. Her passionate interest in the subject matter leaps out on every page. Barber, a professor of linguistics and archaeology, developed expert sewing and weaving skills as a small girl under her mother's tutelage. One could say she had been born and raised to write this book. Because modern textiles are almost entirely made by machines, we have difficulty appreciating how time-consuming and important the premodern textile industry was. This book opens our eyes to this crucial area of prehistoric human culture.