Life in the Ancient Near East

Life in the Ancient Near East, 3100-332 B.C.E. By Daniel C. Snell. New Haven: Yale University, 1997. 292 pp., $30.00.

Writing history of any kind requires an informed imagination. This is exactly what Snell exhibits in his efforts to provide his readers with a social and economic view of life in the ancient Near East. Inserted in the factual essays that comprise his chapters are a number of written vignettes depicting the personal experiences of ancient individuals, as Snell imagines them. The names are authentic; the depictions are embellishments on records inscribed on cuneiform tablets he has studied.

Snell's education and experiences authenticate his creative touch. He is professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and has authored Ledgers and Prices: Early Mesopotamian Merchant Accounts and is a coauthor of Economic Texts from Sumer, both published by Yale University. He has contributed to a wide range of publications on Mesopotamian research since 1977. The book under review is his effort to provide a useful and needed synthesis of a vast body of scholarly productivity accumulated over the last two centuries and written with the upper-level college student in mind. When one considers the great span of time (ca. 5500-332 BCE) and territory (modern Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt) covered, writing such a work is a formidable challenge.

The basis for a book of this nature is ancient texts. Interestingly, Mesopotaminan texts provide the main components for this history and its focus because they provide the richest sources on economic and social matters. Other texts, including the Bible, play lesser but significant roles in the formulation of the story. Snell has organized his work in seven chapters, along with an introduction and epilogue. Each chapter deals with these topics: real people, population distribution, social groups, family, women, work, land and agriculture, animal management, crafts, trade, money and prices, the government and the economy, Egypt, Israel and the rest of the world. The seven chapters cover (1) "The Origins of Cities," (2) "The Rise of Empires," (3) "Disunity and Reform," (4) "Retrenchment and Empire," (5) "Assyrian Domination," (6) "Baby]on and a Persian World" and (7) "Trends and Implications." An appendix on theories of ancient economies and societies as well as notes, a 40-page bibliography and an index complete the book.

I found Life in the Ancient Near East rewarding to read. Snell writes clearly and interestingly, and he has packed the 158 pages of actual text with facts and insights that will inform college and seminary students and stimulate their professors who use it as a text. It can quite easily be incorporated into a semester or quarter of study, and having an overall perspective of the economic and social patterns in the ancient Near East will enrich students' awareness of everyday life in Biblical times for the common people, rather than simply focusing on politics and the elite, as so many historians do.

Keith N. Schoville

University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

Copyright Evangelical Theological Society Sep 1999
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