INTRODUCTION

The evolution of writing in southern Mesopotamia towards the end of the fourth millennium BCE marked the beginning of the so-called ‘historical era’ in western Asia. Documents, produced from that time onwards, have provided scholars with an invaluable complement to archaeological data, in the task of reconstructing the various civilizations which emerged in the western Asian regions, and in identifying the cultural features and affinities of these civilizations, and the political and social structures which they developed.

My aim in writing this book is to provide a comprehensive reference work on the peoples, kingdoms, countries, cities, towns, and other sites of western Asia from the Early Bronze Age to the end of the Persian empire, i. e. from the late fourth millennium to 330 BCE. For the purposes of continuity, a number of entries contain brief discussions of periods before and after this time-frame. The main regions covered are Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria—Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Iran and territories lying to its east. I have generally used the designation ‘western Asia’ in reference to these regions, rather than the more common term ‘Near East’, the definition of which varies from one scholar to another, and rarely encompasses any territories east of Iran. There are, however, some contexts where Near East remains an appropriate designation, e. g. in discussions of the Sea Peoples and their constituent groups, and I have retained the term in these contexts. Frequent references are made to Egypt, because of its close cultural, political, and military involvement in the affairs of the lands which lay to the north, east, and northeast of it. But specific treatments of the peoples and places of the Nile valley lie beyond the scope of the present work.

The book contains approximately 1,500 entries, ranging from descriptions of major cities and kingdoms to brief sketches of small villages, sanctuaries, and in a few cases, the sites of apparently isolated monuments. It also includes entries on population groups which were often spread over a number of regions. Generally, cities are listed in alphabetical order under their ancient names, if known, with modern names (italicized) appended in brackets where applicable — thus Tushpa (Van Kale). They appear alphabetically under their modern names if the ancient names are not known — e. g. Agrab, Tell — or if their names changed in different periods of their history — e. g. Ahmar, Tell (Masuwari, Til-Barsip/Tarbusiba, Kar-Shalmaneser). As in many ancient sources, the term ‘city’ is used in a very broad sense to refer to settlements ranging from royal capitals and major urban centres to small townships.

Most entries have bibliographies attached. These have been kept short, generally between one and four items per entry, arranged in order of publication. In a few cases, all the bibliographical information is included within the entry itself. Full publication details appear in the Bibliography. Wherever appropriate, the bibliographies cite articles appearing in standard reference works, such as The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (NEAEHL), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (OEANE), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (PECS), and the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archaologie (RlA). Of course, much new material has come to light since many of these articles were published, and the information they contain needs constant updating. Nevertheless, they provide useful basic information — e. g. about the history of excavation of an archaeological site, the history of the site itself, and the chief features of its layout and architecture — which can be supplemented and amended in the light of more recent investigations and discoveries.

In many entries where our information is based wholly or partly on ancient written sources, a select number of these sources have been cited. Asterisks are used to indicate translated passages, sometimes incorporated into discussions by modern authors. In most cases, the selection has been largely determined by what is relatively accessible to the reader, as illustrated, for example, by the frequent references made to the Toronto Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia series (RIMA, RIMB, RIME). (When citing passages in this series, I have given only the relevant page numbers, not the full reference: e. g. the citation under Baqanu simply reads *RIMA 3: 31 rather than *RIMA 3: A.0.102.5 vi 6, p. 31.) Occasionally, I have included references to more obscure editions and translations of the ancient texts, generally in cases where there are no more readily available sources.

Different scholars have different views on the chronologies of many of the ancient western Asian civilizations. This is particularly evident in discussions of the Bronze Age cities and kingdoms. High, Middle, and Low chronologies have been devised, which differ substantially from one another in the time-frames assigned to them by their proponents. Some scholars adopt one chronology, others another. There is a higher degree of consensus in the chronological schemes applied to the cities and kingdoms of the first millennium BCE — except for the regnal dates of the kings of Urartu, which still remain very problematic (see Appendix III). For the most part, the chronologies I have used are similar to those adopted in the Dictionnaire de la civilisation mesopotamienne, ed. F. Joannes (DCM). I should stress that, like Joannes (et al.), I have not drawn a distinction between dates we can be reasonably certain about, and those which are little more than calculated guesses. The regnal years of most of the NeoAssyrian kings fall into the former category, those of the Late Bronze Age Hittite kings into the latter. (Note that in Neo-Assyrian and various other royal chronologies, the year designated as a king’s accession year runs to the end of the calendar year in which the king took the throne. The numbering of his regnal years begins with the following year. Thus his accession year was counted as the last regnal year of his predecessor.) Cryer (1995) provides a useful overview of the issues and problems associated with ancient western Asian chronology. All dates refer to the period ‘Before the Common Era’ (BCE) unless otherwise indicated.

Classical writers cited in this book are listed in Appendix IV. The titles of their works are not specified in the citations unless two or more works known to have been written by a particular author have survived. For example, all references to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder come from his only surviving work, Naturalis Historia. On the other hand, four works of Xenophon are cited — Agesilaus, Anabasis, Cyropedia, and Hellenica — so that the relevant work needs to be specified on each occasion. Place-names attested in the Classical sources are generally represented by their Latin rather than their Greek forms, in accordance with the convention used in the Oxford Classical Dictionary — e. g. Curium rather than Kourion, Lycia rather than Lykia, Miletus rather than Miletos. There are a few cases where the Greek form is the preferred one — e. g. Assos, Lesbos.

Some variations will be found in the representation of names occurring in a Mesopotamian context. This frequently applies to names ending in ‘um’ in the Old Babylonian period. In later M2 and M1 contexts, the final ‘m’ is commonly dropped: thus Old Babylonian Suhum later becomes Suhu, Hiritum becomes Hiritu, etc.

Twenty maps provide locations for many of the cities and kingdoms dealt with in this book. (My sincere thanks to Dr G. D. Tully for drawing these maps from my drafts.) For more precise and more detailed maps, the reader should consult such works as Roaf (1996) (Near Eastern sites), and Talbot (2000; cited as BAGRW) (Classical Greek sites). Note that there is some variation in the forms of names appearing in the maps — thus Qadesh in maps 3 and 7, but Kadesh in map 6. The form Qadesh is used in the text. In map 15, the Greek forms of the place-names are generally used — thus Korydalla, Letoon, and Xanthos, which appear in the text as Corydalla, Letoum, and Xanthus. These variations reflect the fact that though most of the maps were drawn specifically for this project, a few of them had been prepared prior to the project, and reflect slightly different spelling conventions. Maps 1—12 appear at the beginning of the book. They are general maps of their regions, and their order reflects a rough progression from west to east. Maps 13—20 are more country - or kingdom-specific, and are located near entries in the text directly relevant to them.

What I hope will be a particular merit of this book is its much more comprehensive coverage of ancient western Asian peoples and places, attested in archaeological and/or written sources, than the reader would normally find in general reference works on the Near East. Of course, the list of entries which it contains is far from exhaustive. And I often found it difficult to decide what to include and what to leave out, in order to stay within the contracted word limit, particularly when it came to making selections from among the less well-known archaeological sites and the more obscure cities attested in written records. Other scholars might well have made other choices.

My work on this project has been helped by a number of people, in addition to the consultants whom I acknowledge separately. Here, I would like to express my sincere thanks, for their assistance, to Mr Charles Burney, Mr Caillan Davenport, Em. Prof. Bob Milns, Ms Paola Mior, and Dr Sonia Puttock. My sincere thanks are due also to the School of History, Philosophy, Classics, and Religion, University of Queensland, for its valuable infrastructural support.

It has been a pleasure to work with Routledge staff throughout this project, Richard Stoneman in the project’s early stages, and subsequently Matthew Gibbons and Lalle Pursglove. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to Katy Carter for her meticulous work in copy-editing the text. Her contribution has been invaluable.

Trevor Bryce

University of Queensland

November 2008