The importance and primary role of the site of Tell Fekheriye (Syria) has always been emphasized in the research history of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology. As known from excavations and written sources, the site was an important centre in the Mittani and the Middle Assyrian periods. However, a systematic study and analysis of the pottery has never been accomplished, although the material offers a local and regional perspective on the ceramic production of a Late Bronze Age urban centre. This book fills this gap, offering an insight into the pottery from the site. The material provides a crucial set of data from Northern Mesopotamia, shedding new light on the Late Bronze Age, and in the phase of power alternation between the Mittani Kingdom and the Middle Assyrian state. This work illustrates the chrono-typological changes in the ceramic assemblages and provides an analysis of the functions related to the ceramic vessels, in context with other findings (sealings). In the end, the analysis of ceramic material as a starting point leads the reader to the investigation of topics related to society and social behaviours, economy, and political assets and administration in this urban centre for roughly 300 years of its history.

Despite ongoing interest in Middle Assyrian glyptic art, the publications of Middle Assyrian seals and seal impressions from excavated sites in the Near East are very rare. The book is the first to offer a comprehensive study on the seal corpus from an archaeological site historically located in the western territory of the Middle Assyrian state. The seal impressions and few original seals, which were found during the excavations in Tell Fekheriye (Syria), substantially add to our understanding of the iconographic repertory and the use of seals in the Middle Assyrian period. The corpus dates to the reigns of the Assyrian kings Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I in the 13th century B.C. It documents practices of governance and administration in the growing Middle Assyrian Empire, points to activities of high-ranking Assyrian officials and unfolds the pictorial reality of political and ideological intensions. While finding detailed information on unpublished materials, their archaeological contexts and interpretations, the reader is also invited to follow a discourse on art, state and society for which the Middle Assyrian seal motifs from Tell Fekheriye provide an excellent case study.

Syria has been a major crossroads of civilizations in the ancient Near East since the dawn of human kind. This volume brings together scholars involved in archaeological activities in Syria and focusses on the scientific aspects of each explored site, allowing researchers to examine in detail each heritage site, its characteristics and identity.

In 1935-40 and again in 1947, the Iranian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum excavated the city of Nishapur, a flourishing center in medieval times located in eastern Iran. This is the fourth volume in a series dedicated to publishing the finds. It presents a survey of glass of the early Islamic period throughout the Near East, discusses the significance of the Nishapur glass findings, and provides a catalogue of the finds with a focus on glass-decorating techniques. Map and site plans, a glossary, a concordance, and an extensive bibliography are included. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Why are some things valuable while others are not? How much effort does it take to produce valuable objects? How can one explain the different appraisal of certain things in different temporal horizons and in different cultures? Cultural processes on how value is attached to things, and how value is re-established, are still little understood. The case studies in this volume, originating from anthropology and archaeology, provide innovative and differentiated answers to these questions. However, for all contributions there are some common basic assumptions. One of these concerns the understanding that it is rarely the value of the material itself that matters for high valuation, but rather the appreciation of the (assumed or constructed) origin of certain objects or their connection with certain social structures. A second of these shared insights addresses the ubiquity of phenomena of 'value in things'. There is no society without valued objects. As a rule, valuation is something negotiated or even disputed. Value arises through social action, whereby it is always necessary to ask anew which actors are interested in the value of certain objects (or in their appreciation). This also works the other way round: Who are those actors who question corresponding objective values and why?

This volume presents papers in honour of Tony James Wilkinson, who was Professor of Archaeology at Durham University from 2006 until his death in 2014. Though commemorative in concept, the volume is an assemblage of new research representing emerging agendas and innovative methods in remote sensing and their application in Near Eastern archaeology.