At the Origins of Politics: Formation and Growth of the State in Syro-Mesopotamia - Paperback

by Giorgio Buccellati (Author)

This volume, now available in English, explores how Mesopotamia's urban revolution in the late fourth millennium BC shaped a new mentality, leading to new forms of social interaction, and the development of the state, its laws and its religion to consolidate new managerial hierarchies in the region.

Author Biography

Giorgio Buccellati is Research Professor in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and in the Department of History at UCLA. He founded the Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, of which he served as first director from 1973 until 1983 and where he is now Director of the Mesopotamian Lab. He is currently Director of the International Institute for Mesopotamian Area Studies (IIMAS). With his wife, Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati, he received the Balzan Prize in 2021.