Publisher's Synopsis
The editors and the team of Ugarit-Verlag are pleased to launch the next edition of our yearbook Studia Mesopotamica, Jahrbuch fur altorientalische Geschichte und Kultur (StMes). After a long break we have reviewed the concept of this journal. The yearbook, now available online, is dedicated to academic studies on the history, culture, languages, linguistics, archaeology, and art of the ancient Near East from the 3rd millennium BCE until the beginning of the Common Era. As in the previous issues, the primary geographical-cultural focus of StMes is Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria. In the journal's scope are now included cultural interactions between the Mesopotamian region and other areas (i.e., in addition to Syria-Palestine, Anatolia and Iran, also Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, and the Aegean area). Studies on society, economy, religions, warfare, legal systems and traditions, medicine and other scientific fields, technology, and material culture (including food studies) in the ancient Near East and its neighborhood are welcome. Mesopotamian scholarship and scribal culture as well as the ways Mesopotamian scholarly lore was handed on to later civilizations represent other important aspects in historical research on the ancient Near East. History of religions, anthropology and gender studies offer further relevant perspectives to investigate Mesopotamian civilization. Archaeological investigation of Near Eastern sites is another important scope of this journal as it is the current scholarly debate on the preservation of Mesopotamian heritage. Accordingly, excavation reports and articles dealing with current international projects on the preservation of Iraqi heritage will be also welcome. In the light of the growing number of projects in digital humanities in the last decades, StMes is also open to articles that illustrate and discuss new online projects related to digitalization of ancient Near Eastern sources. The journal will be also open to papers related to the history of disciplines dealing with the ancient Near East (i.e., history of Assyriology, Sumerology, and Hittitology) or to the history of very specific study fields (e.g., Hurrian studies, Ebla studies). Critical reflections on past and current theoretical models and methodological approaches in the study of ancient Near Eastern history complete the offer of our journal. Regarding studies on the impact of ancient Near Eastern civilizations on contemporaneous and subsequent cultures through to the Sasanian Empire, this could be of interest for many scholars. In such a perspective, research on Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylonia could be the best and primary target, but also studies on the Mesopotamian legacy in the Parthian period could enrich the yearbook's profile. Finally, we are also interested in receiving papers from junior researchers that are related to ongoing national or international research projects, especially if characterized by an interdisciplinary approach and innovative results. With the hope that some of the aforementioned "new frontiers" will be explored in next issues of StMes, we are pleased to present the new volume. We are also pleased that a new section of the journal will be devoted to book reviews.
