On a Companion to the Ancient Near East

This is an excellent collection of essays on the themes and problems of Ancient Near Eastern studies. The contributors are a motley group across disciplines — languages and linguistics, philology, religious studies, archaeology, history. The opening chapters take up the relationship ancient Near Eastern peoples had with their natural environment, and from there the book moves through systems of thought (philosophy, religion), social life, and reception.

The strongest essays are in that last section, on reception. The chapter on Pharaonic Egypt was particularly good, as were the essays on how Biblical studies and Ancient Near Eastern studies relate. The one essay I took real issue with was “The Decipherment of the Ancient Near East.” Most of it was useful, but the author takes a couple of potshots at Edward Said, postcolonial studies, and postmodernism that struck me as beside the point — whether or not one agrees with those scholars, they have made valuable contributions to the field.

It’s one of the better companions or handbooks I’ve read. It helps to read something like Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East first, for a sense of chronology, which this collection largely assumes; Podany’s book also supplies the human dimension this one lacks, since the Companion tends toward a bird’s-eye view of politics, states, and society. For anyone interested in the subject, it’s worth the read.