This volume sees the publication of fifty-six early Old Babylonian letters from ca. 1880 BCE. They were found by legendary Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir in 1941 at the site of Tell ed-Der, ancient Sippar-Amnanum, in central Iraq. The letters are written in an early dialect of Akkadian and are part of the archives of an ancient firm. This firm consisted of a number of families engaged in local agriculture, the manufacturing of textiles, crediting, and international trade. As such it was part of the same larger trade networks as those already known from the contemporary Old Assyrian archives found in central Turkey. The firm strived to have good relations with local Amorite rulers, such as Sumu-la-El, the first king of Babylon, and they used their own trading agents to represent them in far-away cities such as Mari. For these reasons, the letters are also an important source for Babylonia's political and socio-economic history.

Since the second edition of I.J. Gelb's Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar in 1961, which is still the standard grammar of Old Akkadian to this day, a significant number of new texts from the Old Akkadian period has been discovered and important improvements have been made regarding the analysis of Old Akkadian and Early Semitic grammar - particularly phonology - and writing. The present volume seeks to update our understanding of the syllabically written textual material from the Sargonic period (2350-2100 BCE), which contains most of our evidence for the Akkadian used at this period. It consists of a detailed investigation of the Sargonic Akkadian syllabary, phonology and morphology, with specific focus on geographical and dialectal variations that are noticeable in this text corpus, but which have not yet been examined thoroughly. The grammatical investigation further compares specific linguistic features of this period with the two later Akkadian dialects, Babylonian and Assyrian, in order to establish the position of the individual sub-groups of Sargonic Akkadian within the dialect geography of Akkadian.

This two-volume book, published open access, brings together leading scholars of constitutional law from twenty-nine European countries to revisit the role of national constitutions at a time when decision-making has increasingly shifted to the European and transnational level. It offers important insights into three areas. First, it explores how constitutions reflect the transfer of powers from domestic to European and global institutions. Secondly, it revisits substantive constitutional values, such as the protection of constitutional rights, the rule of law, democratic participation and constitutional review, along with constitutional court judgments that tackle the protection of these rights and values in the transnational context, e.g. with regard to the Data Retention Directive, the European Arrest Warrant, the ESM Treaty, and EU and IMF austerity measures. The responsiveness of the ECJ regarding the above rights and values, along with the standard of protection, is also assessed. Thirdly, challenges in the context of global governance in relation to judicial review, democratic control and accountability are examined. On a broader level, the contributors were also invited to reflect on what has increasingly been described as the erosion or ‘twilight’ of constitutionalism, or a shift to a thin version of the rule of law, democracy and judicial review in the context of Europeanisation and globalisation processes. The national reports are complemented by a separately published comparative study, which identifies a number of broader trends and challenges that are shared across several Member States and warrant wider discussion. The research for this publication and the comparative study were carried out within the framework of the ERC-funded project ‘The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance’. The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, judges and legal advisors working on the interface between national constitutional law and EU and transnational law. The extradition cases are also of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of criminal law. Anneli Albi is Professor of European Law at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Samo Bardutzky is Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Economic history is well documented in Assyriology, thanks to the preservation of dozens of thousands of clay tablets recording administrative operations, contracts and acts dealing with family law. Despite these voluminous sources, the topic of work and the contribution of women have rarely been addressed. This book examines occupations involving women over the course of three millennia of Near Eastern history. It presents the various aspects of women as economic agents inside and outside of the family structure. Inside the family, women were the main actors in the production of goods necessary for everyday life. In some instances, their activities exceeded the simple needs of the household and were integrated within the production of large organizations or commercial channels. The contributions presented in this volume are representative enough to address issues in various domains: social, economic, religious, etc., from varied points of view: archaeological, historical, sociological, anthropological, and with a gender perspective. This book will be a useful tool for historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and graduate students interested in the economy of the ancient Near East and in women and gender studies.

Urban history starts in ancient Mesopotamia. In this volume Marc Van De Mieroop examines the evolution of the very earliest cities which, for millennia, inspired the rest of the ancient world. The city determined every aspect of Mesopotamian civilization, and the political and social structure, economy, literature, and arts of Mesopotamian culture cannot be understood without acknowledging their urban background. - ;Urban history starts in ancient Mesopotamia: the earliest known cities developed there as the result of long indigenous processes, and, for millennia, the city determined every aspect of Mesopotamian civilization. Marc Van De Mieroop examines urban life in the historical period, investigating urban topography, the role of cities as centres of culture, their political and social structures, economy, literature, and the arts. He draws on material from the entirety of Mesopotamian history, from c. 3000 to 300 BC, and from both Babylonia and Assyria, arguing that the Mesopotamian city can be regarded as a prototype that inspired the rest of the ancient world and shared characteristics with the European cities of antiquity. -