Winter I.J. On Art in the Ancient Near East. Vol. 2. From the Third Millennium BCE

Leiden-Boston: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2010. — (Culture and history of the ancient Near East, v. 34)The studies included in the present volume of collected essays range from specifi c monuments of the third millennium b.c.e. to issues of interpretation, understanding and ethics relevant to the third millennium c.e. The initial preposition of the subtitle has been carefully selected, as were the prepositions of the subtitle of Volume I and the overall title to the two volumes combined. On Art in the Ancient Near East in the main title places emphasis not upon a class of work called ‘Art’, as if a given and unexamined category, but rather upon discourses about what we call art as identifi ed within the cultural production of the ancient Near East. The key preposition of the Vol. I subtitle, then, Of the First Millennium b.c.e... implies that the studies included there purport to speak historically about artistic production and consumption within that time frame. The comparable preposition for the subtitle of Volume II, however, signals a less-contained universe. From the Third Millennium b.c.e...purposely leaves open the sequence and consequences leading from the historical period of early state formation in Mesopotamia to both later periods within the tradition and the current era.