Bibliography

Exhibitions like A Wonder to Behold are based upon decades of careful research into archaeological, visual, and textual evidence. The English-language bibliography presented here is a small selection of the cutting-edge research on the city of Babylon and the ancient artists, technologies, materials, and beliefs that brought it to life. For a fuller bibliography, please see the accompanying catalogue.

Bahrani, Z. 2003. The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
—. 2014. The Infinite Image: Art, Time and the Aesthetic Dimension in Antiquity. London: Reaktion Books.

Baker, H. D. 2007. “Urban Form in the First Millennium BC.” In The Babylonian World, edited by G. Leick, 66–77. London: Routledge.
—. 2014.“Babylonian City Walls in a Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective.” In Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien: 52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale/International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, Münster, 17.–21. Juli 2006, edited by H. Neumann, R. Dittmann, S. Paulus, G. Neumann, and A. Schuster-Brandis, 87–96. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

Beaulieu, P.-A. 2008. “Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon as World Capital.” Journal of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 3: 5–12.

Benzel, K. 2015. “‘What Goes In Is What Comes Out’—But What Was Already There? Divine Materials and Materiality in Ancient Mesopotamia.” In The Materiality of Divine Agency, edited by B. Pongratz-Leisten and K. Sonik, 89–118. Boston: De Gruyter.
—. 2016. “Technologies of Jewelry at Ur: The Physics and Metaphysics of Skilled Crafting.” Metalla 22 (1): 107–12.

Brown, B. A., and M. Feldman, eds. 2014. Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Clayden, T. 2009. “Eye-Stones.” Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 2: 36–86.
—. 2011. “Glass Axes of the Kassite Period from Nippur.” Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 4: 92–135.

Couto-Ferreira, M. E. 2013. “The River, the Oven, and the Garden: The Female Body and Fertility in a Late Babylonian Ritual Text.” In Approaching Rituals in Ancient Cultures. Questioni di rito: rituali come fonte di conoscenza delle religione e delle concezioni del mondo nelle culture antiche: Proceedings of the Conference, November 28–30, 2011, Roma, edited by C. Ambos and L. Verderame, 97–116. Pisa and Rome: Fabrizio Serra.

Finkel, I., and M. Seymour. 2008. Babylon: Myth and Reality. London: British Museum Press.

George, A. R. 1997. “‘Bond of the Lands’: Babylon the Cosmic Capital.” In Die orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, Bruch, vol. 1: Internationales Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, 9.–10. Mai 1996 in Halle Saale, edited by G. Wilhelm, 125–45. Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag.

Graff, S. B. 2013. “Bricks.” In 82nd and Fifth. Video. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/82nd_and_Fifth.
—. 2014. “Sexuality, Reproduction and Gender in Terracotta Plaques from the Late Third–Early Second Millennia BCE.” In Brown and Feldman 2014, 371–90.

Gunter, A. C., ed. 1990. Investigating Artistic Environments in the Ancient Near East. Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
—, ed. 2018. A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Hedegaard, S. S., A. Rodler, K. L. Rasmussen, and C. Brøns. 2016. “Babylonian Blues: Studying the Blue and Turquoise-Green Glazes of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way.” Poster presented at 41st International Symposium on Archaeometry, Kalamata, Greece, May 15–21. http://www.trackingcolour.com/assets/8/3/1193/Babylonian_Blues__ISA__Hedegaard__Rodler__Br_ns__Rasmussen.pdf

Henderson, J. 2013. Ancient Glass: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Koldewey, R. 1914. The Excavations at Babylon. Translated by A. S. G. Johns. London: Macmillan.

Marzahn, J. 1995. The Ishtar Gate: The Processional Way, the New Year Festival of Babylon. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern.

Matson, F. R. 1985. “Brickmakers of Babylon.” In Ancient Technology to Modern Science. Ceramics and Civilization 1, edited by W. D. Kingery, 61–75. Columbus, OH: American Ceramic Society.
—. 1986. “Glazed Brick from Babylon: Historical Setting and Microprobe Analyses.” In Technology and Style. Ceramics and Civilization 2, edited by W. D. Kingery, 133–56. Columbus, OH: American Ceramic Society.

Moorey, P. R. S. 1994. Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence. Oxford: Clarendon.

Nakamura, C. 2005. “Mastering Matters:  Magical Sense and Apotropaic Figurine Worlds of Neo-Assyria.” In Archaeologies of Materiality, edited by L. Meskell, 18–44. Oxford: Berg.

Oppenheim, A. L. 1966. “Mesopotamia in the Early History of Alchemy.” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 60 (1): 29–45.

Oppenheim, A. L., R. H. Brill, D. Barag, and A. Von Saldern. 1970. Glass and Glassmaking in Ancient Mesopotamia: An Edition of the Cuneiform Texts which Contain Instructions for Glassmakers; With a Catalogue of Surviving Objects. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass Press; London: Associated University Presses.

Pedersén, O. 2011. “Work on a Digital Model of Babylon Using Archaeological and Textual Evidence.” Mesopotamia: Rivista di Archeologia, epigrafia e storia orientale antica 46: 9–22.
—. 2018. “The Ishtar Gate Area in Babylon: From Old Documents to New Interpretations in a Digital Model.” Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 11: 160–78.
—. Forthcoming. “Glazed Bricks as Decoration in Babylon: A Short Overview.”

Postgate, J. N. 1997. “Mesopotamian Petrology: Stages in the Classification of the Material World.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7 (2): 205–24.

Rochberg, Francesca. 2000. “Scribes and Scholars: The ṭupšar Enūma Anu Enlil.” In Assyriologica et Semitica: Festschrift für Joachim Oelsner, edited by J. Marzahn and H. Neumann, 359–75. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

Rodler, A. S., S. Klein, G. Artioli, and C. Brøns. 2019. “Probing the Provenance of Archaeological Glaze Colorants: Polychrome Faunal Reliefs of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon.” Archaeometry 61 (4): 837-55.

Sass, B., and J. Marzahn. 2010. Aramaic and Figural Stamp Impressions on Bricks of the Sixth Century B.C. from Babylon. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Seymour, M. 2014. Babylon: Legend, History and the Ancient City. London: I. B. Tauris.

Simkó, K. 2015. “The Magical Potential of Stones Used for Cylinder Seals: New Manuscripts of the Text Known from BAM 194 viii' 9'–14'.” Iraq 77: 203–13.

Thavapalan, S. 2018. “Radiant Things for Gods and Men: Lightness and Darkness in Mesopotamian Language and Thought.” Colour Turn 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.25538/tct.v0i1.675.

Thavapalan, S., J. Stenger, and C. Snow. 2016. “Color and Meaning in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Case of Egyptian Blue.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 106 (2): 198–214.

Van De Mieroop, M. 2003. “Reading Babylon.” American Journal of Archaeology 107 (2): 257–75.

Verderame, L. 2014. “A Glimpse into the Activities of Experts (Ummânu) at the Assyrian Royal Court.” In From Source to History: Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond, edited by D. M. Bonacossi, S. Gaspa, A. Greco. S. Ponchia, and R. Rollinger, 713–28. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

Watanabe, C. E. 2015. “The Symbolic Role of Animals in Babylon: A Contextual Approach to the Lion, the Bull and the Mušhuššu.” Iraq 77: 215–24.

Wengrow, D. 1998. “‘The Changing Face of Clay’: Continuity and Change in the Transition from Village to Urban Life in the Near East.” Antiquity 72 (278): 783–95.

Winter, I. J. 1994. “Radiance as an Aesthetic Value in the Art of Mesopotamia (with Some Indian Parallels).” In Art, the Integral Vision: A Volume of Essays in Felicitation of Kapila Vatsyayan, edited by B. N. Saraswati, S. C. Malik, and M. Khanna, 123–32. New Dehli: D. K. Printworld.
—. 1999. “The Aesthetic Value of Lapis Lazuli in Mesopotamia.” In Cornaline et pierres précieuses: La Méditerranée, de l’Antiquité à l’Islam; actes du colloque organisé au Musée du Louvre par le Service culturel les 24 et 25 novembre 1995, edited by A. Caubet, 43–58. Paris: Documentation Française.
—. 2002. “Defining ‘Aesthetics’ for Non-Western Studies: The Case of Ancient Mesopotamia.” In Art History, Aesthetics, Visual Studies, edited by M. A. Holly and K. Moxey, 3–28. Williamstown, MA: Clark Art Institute.
—. 2003. “‘Surpassing Work’: Mastery of Materials and the Value of Skilled Production in Ancient Sumer.” In Culture through Objects: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of P. R. S. Moorey, edited by T. Potts, M. Roaf, and D. Stein, 403–21. Oxford: Griffith Institute.