Meeting schedule, reserves, this wiki, WebCT etc.
- Monday and Wednesday sessions will be reserved primarily for lectures, while the Friday meetings will be used for discussion of weekly selected topics (there might be exceptions to such overarching plan - such changes will be announced on the wiki and by e-mail).
- The students are required to do the weekly readings listed below in the weekly schedule. The readings will be assigned both from the four survey books ordered at Brown Bookstore as well as various articles and chapters, placed on reserve at the Rock.
- This wiki will be used for posting announcements, comments, discussion, updates on syllabus, assignments etc. Please make sure that you visit this site very very often and use it interactively. Every student registered or auditing this course will have access to editing the wiki. Yes, you can freely edit this site, post your own work, make comments to your colleagues' and professor’s postings. Our extensive use of this site will be mostly running forums on the Friday discussions. You will be asked to post all your written assignments on the wiki (but you will have the option of not to dod so, and use the traditional format of submitting a hard copy to your professor).
- A WebCT site has also been created for this course and may be used every now and then during the semester if it becomes necesasary. You can access WebCT by logging on here.
- You will be writing a lot of papers in this course, and Brown offers academic writing support for all members of the Brown Community, in case you would like to discuss your drafts with colleagues at the Writing Center.
Books available at Brown Bookstore
You are strongly recommended (but not required) to buy the following books now available at the bookstore. Have them on your shelf especially if you are planning to pursue archaeology, ancient history, Near Eastern studies, ancient art in the future as a major/minor. Remember that there are also copies of these books on reserve at the Rock.
- Matthews, Roger; 2003. The archaeology of Mesopotamia: theories and approaches. London and New York: Routledge (very strongly recommended).
- Van de Mieroop, Marc; 2004. A history of the ancient Near East. ca 3000-323 BC. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (strongly recommended).
- Postgate, J. Nicholas; 1992. Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the dawn of history. Routledge: London and New York (strongly recommended).
- Akkermans, Peter M.M.G. and Glenn M. Schwartz; 2003. The archaeology of Syria: from complex hunter-gatherers to early urban societies (ca. 16,000-300 BC). Cambridge World Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (somehow recommended).
