Unlike works inherited from Greek or Roman Antiquity, writings from Mesopotamian civilization all come from excavations. Assyriologists work with clay tablets engraved with cuneiform characters. They piece together fragments of texts and organize them chronologically and geographically to gradually construct not only a political but also a social, economic and cultural history of Mesopotamia. The task is immense, and requires a multidisciplinary approach combining archaeology, epigraphy, philology, and history. |