gems, ancient gemology, early gemology, ancient mineralogy, early trade, glyptic

The following studies serve as the archaeological foundation for a history of craft and technology in ancient Mesopotamia, though they are not intended as an attempt to write that history. The goal has been to provide what Leo Oppenheim called a “systematic and critical inventory of the technological achievements of Mesopotamian civilization” in areas such as metalwork, glazed materials, and glass, as a preliminary step toward broader surveys. Integrating this material with the relevant documentary evidence to understand the wider socio-economic environment in which these technologies developed and thrived—a necessary framework for any true history of technology—is a task of a wholly different scale. With few exceptions, the data on material culture and documentary sources from Mesopotamia remain only partially published, scattered, and often accessible only to specialists. Even in Classical Studies, where the documentation is far richer and more thoroughly examined, the history of technology has until recently held a relatively low academic status, likely due to a persistent tendency to treat the subject in isolation, divorced from its social context and economic processes.