Discussions on the production, distribution, use, and consumption of pottery from the Neolithic Near East. Ceramics from the Neolithic period carry visual messages through their shapes, styles, and painted decorations. Honoring the work of Dutch archaeologist Olivier Nieuwenhuyse, the chapters in this volume go beyond the technical to address issues of ideology, symbolism, feasting, and communalism in pottery productions in the Near East. Essays exploring aspects of the chaîne opératoire of ceramic production, including archaeometric and experimental techniques in the neolithic pottery tradition, provide new insights into how the vessels were distributed and used. This international volume brings together papers presented at the Third International Workshop on Late Neolithic Pottery from the Ancient Near East.

An analytical bibliography that contains 7407 references, covering the Egyptian prehistory (palaeolithic, neolithic and predynastic) as well as the period of the first two dynasties.

As archaeologist, philologist, and historian, German scholar Ernst Herzfeld (1879–1948) significantly shaped the study of the prehistoric to Islamic Near East. His life and work are reassessed and situated within decisive developments in research and politics in the 20th century, providing new insights into the historiography of the Near East.