Thinking, Speaking and Representing Animals in Western Asia

Laura Battini is a researcher at the French National Centre of Scientific Research. Among her books are L’espace domestique en Mésopotamie (1999), Making Pictures of War (2016), and La déesse aux oies (2026). She is director of the journal Ash Sharq, and is editor of the series Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology, as well as a blog (https://ane.hypotheses.org/). Her principle areas of research are Mesopotamian architecture and urbanism, materiality and the body, and violence.

• IntroductionPart I: Small Animals: Birds, Reptiles and MongoosesChapter 1: “A Sparrow in the Hand is Better than the Pigeon on the Roof”: An Aviary in the Steppe (Khirbet Es-Samra, Jordan) – Hervé Monchot, Lionel GourichonChapter 2: Mesopotamian Changes in Human-Birds-Landscape Relations as Reconstructed by Archaeological and Iconographic Data from Akkadian to Old Babylonian Period: Seals from the British Museum – Laura BattiniChapter 3: The Reptilian Omens: Linguistic Patterns and Analogical Reasoning in an Ancient Mesopotamian Divinatory Text – Nicole Lundeen, Maya RindererChapter 4: The Mongoose, A Wild Animal in Natural, Religious and Domestic Contexts – Françoise Laroche-TrauneckerChapter 5: Animals, Drums, and the Roll of Thunder: Animal Symbolism in an Omen Sequence from the Astrological Omen Series Enūma Anu Enlil – Lucrezia Menicatti Part II: Animals for the King: Deer, Lions and DogsChapter 6: Wisdom in Stone: A New Perspective on the Late Sasanian Deer Hunt Relief at Taq-e Bustan – Arvin MaghsoudlouChapter 7: ‘Pet’ Lions at the Assyrian Court – Paul CollinsChapter 8: Mesopotamian Lions in Captivity – Chikako E. WatanabeChapter 9: In the Beginning was a Male: Ancient Near Eastern Visual Gender Bias of the Lion and the Lioness – Tallay OrnanChapter 10: Dogs in Hammurabi’s Days – Nele ZieglerChapter 11: Big Babylonian Dogs: Why do Big Dogs Appear in the Art of Babylonia in the Early Second Millennium BC? – Trudy Kawami