CLST 207/3.0 The Ancient Near East

The following is presented for informational purposes only and is subject to change.

Instructor

Caroline Falkner  Learn more about the instructor...
E-mail: falknerc@queensu.ca

Course Description

Introduction to the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Syro-Palestine, Egypt and Anatolia from the Bronze Age to the Greek conquest. Artistic, intellectual, social and political history.

Course Objectives

This course is an introduction to the major civilizations of the Near East from the Bronze Age, starting c.3000 BCE, to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE.

The objectives of the course are:

1. to enable you to appreciate the political, military, social and artistic achievements of the cultures of the Near East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant) from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the fourth century BCE. It was an area with many natural resources and complex trading networks, and it produced innovations in the areas of art, architecture, literature and science that were to influence subsequent peoples. It was also in this area that the earliest scripts were used, the first law codes were produced, and the first empires arose.
2. to demonstrate the techniques used by modern historians to reconstruct the history of a period for which the evidence is incomplete and often poor. The history of the Near East has to be reconstructed from excavated materials such as buildings, inscriptions and papyri, literature and artifacts of all kinds. I hope that by the end of the course you will have some understanding of the problems inherent in assessing and interpreting these very different forms of evidence.

Course Topics

Unit One:	Introduction
Unit Two:	Early Bronze Age (The First Empires):
Assignment One due 25 May 2012 by 7 pm
Unit Three:	Middle Bronze Age (Recovery and Expansion)
Unit Four:	Late Bronze Age (The Age of Empire):
Assignment Two due 8 June 2012 by 7 pm
Unit Five:	Early Iron Age (New and Blended Societies)
Unit Six:	One World
Assignment: Three due 22 June 2012 by 7 pm

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More information:

• Computer Requirements and Internet Access
• Moodle, Our Online Learning Environment 
• Academic Integrity
• Evaluation
• Suggested Time Commitment
• Required Material