Harriet Crawford is Reader Emerita at UCL's Institute of Archaeology and a senior fellow at the McDonald Institute, Cambridge. She is a specialist in the archaeology of the Sumerians and has worked widely in Iraq and the Gulf. She is the author of Sumer and the Sumerians (second edition, 2004).

Introduction

Part 1 The background. 1. Physical geography, Jennifer Pournelle. 2. Hydraulic Landscapes and Irrigation Systems of Sumer, Tony J Wilkinson. 3. Sumerian Agriculture and Land Management, Magnus Widell. 4. The end of prehistory and the Uruk period, Guillermo Algaze. 5. The Sumerian language, Graham Cunningham. 6. History and Chronology, Nicole Brisch.

Part 2 Sumerian society: the material remains. 7. Patterns of Settlement in Sumer and Akkad, Jason Ur. 8. The organisation of a Sumerian town: the physical remains of ancient social systems, Elizabeth C. Stone. 9. Public buildings, palaces and temples, Marlies Heinz. 10. Kings and Queens: Representation and Reality, Claudia E. Suter. 11. Sacred Marriage, Kathleen McCaffrey. 12. In the service of the gods: the ministering clergy, Joan Goodnick Westenholz.

Part 3 Systems of government. 13. Democracy and the rule of law, the assembly and the first law code, Marc Van de Mieroop.14. Administrators and Scholars: The first scribes and their ethos, Jon Taylor. 15. Calendars and counting, Tonia Sharlach. 16. Seals and Sealings in the Sumerian World, Holly Pittman.

Part 4 Life and death. 17. Archaeology of the Sumerian Home: Reconstructing Sumerian daily life, Paul Collins. 18. Women and agency: A Survey from Late Uruk to the End of Ur III, Julia M. Ascher-Greve. 19. A note on Sumerian fashion, Lamia al Gailani. 20. Sumerian Industries and Their Makers: Crafting Textiles, Rita P. Wright. 21. Death and burial, Helga Vogel. 22. Sumerian Mythology, Benjamin R. Foster.

Part 5 The neighbours. 23. Trade in the Sumerian World, Harriet Crawford. 24. North Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC, Augusta McMahon. 25. Cultural Developments in Western Syria and the Middle Euphrates Valley During the Third Millennium BC, Lisa Cooper. 26. Sumer, Akkad, Ebla and Anatolia, Christoph Bachhuber. 27. The Kingdom of Mari, Jean-Claude Margueron, translated by Harriet Crawford. 28. Ebla, Frances Pinnock.

Part 6 The ends of the Sumerian world. 29. Iran and its neighbours, C.C.Lamberg-Karlovsky. 30. The Sumerians and the Gulf, Robert Carter. 31. Mesopotamia, Meluhha, and Those In Between,Christopher P. Thornton. 32. Egypt and Mesopotamia, Alice Stevenson.

Postscript: The Mesopotamian Marshlands, a Personal Recollection