Zainab Bahrani

Regarding Art and Art History

The Symbol, in the meaning of the word used here, constitutes the beginning of art, alike in its essential nature and its historical appearance, and is therefore to be considered only, as it were, as the threshhold of art. It belongs especially to the East and only after all sorts of transitions, metamorphoses, and intermediaries does it carry us over into the genuine actuality of the Ideal as the classical form of art.—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1975)

Mesopotamian Civilization: The Material Foundations

There is widespread interest in the Ancient Near East and its civilizations, and the volumes in this series are designed to contribute across a broad front to our understanding of ancient history, the social sciences, art history and allied disciplines. This first volume focuses upon the material infrastructure of Mesopotamia as the pre-condition for its high cultural achievement, relating its sophisticated literature and religious philosophy to the geographical and material foundations of the land and its society as a whole.