The following offers a few additional references beyond those given in "Half of Asia, for a Thousand Years". You are probably best off reaching this page from specific citations in the "Main Guide" but this page can also be used as an admittedly slipshod sort of "What's New" page. Either way, the proper place to start in using this site is the start page. The explanation of this page provided there is repeated below.
In reality, I'm not providing updates. But since my projects on languages and regions are unlikely to progress as quickly as I'd like, this page would be a logical place to put updates. And although I'm NOT repeating my research on this region and period, and therefore not subjecting new references to the kind of attention I devoted to the ones listed in, notably, the "Main Guide", I still do have my eyes open when I visit libraries and bookstores, and therefore still do occasionally become aware of relevant books. For various reasons, in August 2002 I'm becoming aware of a bunch of such books simultaneously, and this has induced me to put a page up listing the ones I've noticed so far.
If my attention span holds up, I'll also call attention to these books in the "Main Guide" text in some way.
But really, don't count on me, OK? To give you some notion of what's happening here, this is the set of events that led to my starting that list in August 2002: I saw a book on the "new books" shelf of my local public library that fills a niche whose emptiness I had decried in the "Main Guide". The book in question happened also to be relevant, albeit peripherally, to my current research on areas west of the region covered by "Half of Asia, for a Thousand Years", so I borrowed it. Its bibliography then informed me of a series of books covering other topics I'd thought neglected. Separately, I did fairly thorough shelf-reading in a library whose separate existence I had not previously understood, and found there yet another book of interest. This meant that I suddenly knew of something like six books relevant to "Half of Asia, for a Thousand Years" and not mentioned there, to add to two which I'd discovered in the preceding year and a half. This is, obviously, not a sign that I'm keeping up with the scholarly literature; it's only a sign that I'm sometimes awake.
So in my opinion the best thing that could happen would still be this page's complete replacement by pages written by Real Scholars. In the meantime, however, feel free to mail me any suggestions you may have for other updates; assuming I find these, amid the torrents of spam in my mailbox, I'll either add them as you send them, or if I'm feeling energetic enough to look at them but not energetic enough to do what I should be doing, I'll look at 'em myself.
Um, first off, note that of the eight books mentioned above, two turned out on closer examination to be outside the chronological limits of the period, in whole or nearly so. Sorry!
The chief practical implication for the researcher is that while I can try to describe these books to some extent, I am not evaluating them from actual use the way I did many or most of the books in the "Main Guide". This is my chief reason for segregating them over here, rather than integrating them into the "Main Guide". (My other reason is that this way is easier.)
Another fairly obvious implication is that I'm relatively unlikely to find journal articles, chapters in broader books, etc., in this way. Hence the title of this page.
But may it be some use to you anyway.
These books' relevance by footnote is as follows:
Note 17: Reade 1996.
Note 25: Rösler 2002 (with Johnson 1994, also under the R's).
These books' relevance by language, religion, or country is as follows:
Relevant languages:
Agnæan:
Akkadian:
Arabic (including inscriptions of various dialects): Hoyland 2001, to some extent
Aramaic - Eastern:
Aramaic - undifferentiated:
Aramaic - Western:
Avestan:
Bactrian:
Chinese: Mair 2001
Eastern Aramaic:
Elamite:
Gandhari:
Greek:
Hadramitic:
Hebrew:
Khotanese:
Khwarezmian:
Kuchean:
Mandaic:
Middle Persian:
Minæan:
Nabatæan: Hoyland 2001, to some extent
Old Persian:
Pahlevi:
Parthian:
Persian - Old:
Persian - Middle:
Prakrits:
Qatabanian:
Sabæan:
Saka:
Sanskrit:
Sogdian:
Sumerian:
Syriac:
Tibetan: Mair 2001 (pp. 1044-1048, 1147-1148)
Tocharian (both A and B):
Tumshuqese:
Western Aramaic:
Manichæan writings:
Irrelevant languages:
Ardhamagadhi:
Avar:
Azeri:
Baluchi:
Jurchen:
Kashmiri:
Khakas:
Khanty:
Kirghiz:
Komi:
Kurdish:
Lahnda:
Liao:
Mongolian: Mair 2001 (pp. 1049-1050, 1147-1148)
New Persian:
Nuristani:
Old Turkish:
Ostyak:
Pali:
Persian - New:
Rajasthani:
Tangut:
Turkish:
Turkmen:
Uighur: Mair 2001 (pp. 1048-1049, 1147-1148)
Uzbek:
Religions:
Buddhism:
Christianity:
Judaism:
Manichæism:
Zoroastrianism:
Countries or regions:
Afghanistan:
Bactria: Christian 1998
Bahrein: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 19-28 and 270-275
Central Asia: Christian 1998
Chach: Christian 1998
Eastern Saudi Arabia: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 19-28 and 270-275
Ferghana: Christian 1998
The Indian Ocean (see footnote 17): Reade 1996
Iran:
Iraq: Hoyland 2001 deals with the desert, esp. pp. 62-81 and 280-285; Simpson 1996 covers the north during Sasanid times
Kazakhstan: Christian 1998
Khwarizm: Christian 1998
Kuwait: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 19-28 and 270-275
Kyrgyzstan: Christian 1998
Mongolia: Christian 1998
Oman: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 19-28 and 270-275; Nayeem 1996
Qatar: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 19-28 and 270-275; Nayeem 1998
Russia in Asia: Christian 1998
Saudi Arabia (except the Eastern province): Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 62-81 and 280-285; Retsö 2003
Saudi Arabia - Eastern: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 19-28 and 270-275
Siberia: Christian 1998
Sughd: Christian 1998
Tajikistan: Christian 1998
Turkmenistan: Christian 1998
United Arab Emirates: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 19-28 and 270-275; Nayeem 1994
Ustrushana: Christian 1998
Uzbekistan: Christian 1998
Xinjiang-Uigur: Christian 1998
Yemen: Hoyland 2001, esp. pp. 40-51 and 275-280; Schippmann 2001; Retsö 2003 esp. pp. 536-574
The books themselves:
Christian, David. 1998. Inner Eurasia from Prehistory to the Mongol Empire. Volume I of his A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia. Part of The Blackwell History of the World (HOTW) [sic], ed. R. I. Moore. [Oxford and Malden, Massachusetts]: Blackwell Publishers, [1998].
This is not a perfect book. It uses the sort of teleological chronology common in popular palaeontology, putting modern Siberians into the chapter on the Mesolithic because they were still hunter-gatherers, for example. This means in turn that Siberia itself is scanted in favour of sexier subjects. Similarly, though Christian is willing to cite sources not in English, he prefers English-language sources, despite the fact that most of the relevant serious scholarship is in Russian. Nonetheless, this book is the introduction to the history of the northern two- thirds of the region that I could really have used when I began work on the subject myself. The section covering the period 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500 is on pages 121 to 243, with some reference to the bibliography on pages 437 to 459.
Hoyland, Robert G. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam. London and New York: Routledge, [2001].
Looks ideal as the overview which has heretofore been missing, for Saudi Arabia (outside Eastern Province) in particular, and for the peninsula in general. I'll be reading it, and saying more when I have done so.
Mair, Victor H., ed. 2001. The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, c 2001.
I stand by my assertion that Idema and Haft 1997 is the first substantive literary history in a Western language, but this is clearly a much, much more substantive one. I expect it to form a crucial part of my working materials when I get to the chapters that actually deal with Chinese literature.
Nayeem, Muhammed Abdul. 1994. The United Arab Emirates. Volume Three of his Prehistory and Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula. Hyderabad: Hyderabad Publishers, c 1994.
Nayeem, Muhammed Abdul. 1996. The Sultanate of Oman (Prehistory and Protohistory from the Most Ancient Times) (c. 1,000,000 B.C. to 100 B.C.). Volume Four of his Prehistory And Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula. Hyderabad: Hyderabad Publishers, c 1996.
Nayeem, Muhammed Abdul. 1998. Qatar: Prehistory and Protohistory from the most Ancient Times. Volume Five of his Prehistory and Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula. Hyderabad: Hyderabad Publishers, c 1998.
The series began with a volume on Saudi Arabia that however cuts off at 1200 BC, and one on Bahrein that cuts off at 400 BC; neither therefore seemed worth listing on a page covering 475 BC to AD 525. (In contrast, volume three cuts off at 300 BC, volume four at 100 BC as indicated, and volume five at 1 BC.) Moreover, Nayeem's books are in general topically organised, making it difficult to extract information specific to the period dealt with here. But at least he provides references to period-specific archaeological sites. Alas, his treatment of Qatar, especially, appears to scant the first millennium BC as much as everyone else's does; the most I saw on a very quick skim was a short list of sites from that period, on p. 20 - which is still more than any other reference I consulted could offer.
Reade, Julian, editor. 1996. The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. For the most part, the proceedings of a conference by the same name in July, 1988, and not consistently updated. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, [1996].
Although this is a conference papers volume, and to judge by its table of contents it's as disconnected as those usually are, I'm still humiliated in the extreme not to have found it when I was working on what became footnote 17. A number of the papers - notably in the third part, "The Classical Period", pages 249-400 - are directly relevant. Don't let my mistake become yours.
Retsö, Jan. 2003. The Arabs in Antiquity. Their history from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, [2003].
This is not a history of any land area. It claims to be a history of a people, but seems more to be an investigation into what the word "Arab" meant in the fifteen hundred years covered. It is, however, very substantial, and so probably does in fact cover all of the history it claims to in the course of that investigation. You should prefer Hoyland 2001 as an introduction and for archaeology, which Retsö doesn't seem to have any interest in (judging by a fairly quick look). But if your specific interest is in the Arabs of this era, or in any region for which textual sources refer to Arabs, Retsö is probably going to be useful; and in any event, Hoyland's book is relatively weak bibliographically, while this one has a bibliography running forty pages (627-667) and copious endnotes after each chapter. There are three sections. The bulk of the book, pages 103 to 574, "The forgotten origins", surveys sources in chapters organised by type of source and by period ("Arabs in cuneiform sources", "The Old Testament and Arabia", "The age of the Achaemenids", etc.). This should make Retsö's discussions of periods of interest easy to find. The overall survey of modern scholarship is scant (pp. 105-113, mostly devoted to expounding, and refuting, a few earlier scholars' definitions of "Arab" rather than to surveying the field). Retsö seems to focus more on literary than on epigraphic texts, but does deal with both. The opening section, "The remembered origins", deals with pre-Islamic Arabs as portrayed in mediæval Islamic writings. The concluding section, "The solution of an enigma?", presumably offers Retsö's conclusions, in chapters titled "The picture of Arabs in pre-Islamic sources", "The linguistic issue", and "The Arabs and their religion".
Rösler, Wolfgang. 2002. "The Histories and Writing". Chapter 4, pp. 79-94, of Brill's Companion to Herodotus, ed. Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J. F. de Jong, and Hans van Wees. Leiden [etc.]: Brill, 2002.
Johnson, William A. 1994. "Oral Performance and the Composition of Herodotus' Histories". Pp. 229-254 of Number 3 of Volume 35 of Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies, Autumn 1994.
In footnote 25 I complain that I couldn't find a good reference on the writing of Herodotus. Well, thanks to a new book, now I can. I think Johnson, particularly p. 251, is clearer than Rösler, but both also provide access to extensive further discussion. Both are partisan to what is essentially one side in a controversy, over to what extent the Histories are a patchwork of previously composed lectures, with an oral legacy, and to what extent they're a unity of written composition (the side Johnson and Rösler take).
Schippmann, Klaus. 2001. Ancient South Arabia: From the Queen of Sheba to the Advent of Islam. Updated translation by Allison Brown from Geschichte der alt-südarabischen Reiche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998). Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, c 2001.
I have seen no reviews of this book; nor do I have reason to think Schippmann has adequate expertise on the subject. But I do know that his books on the Arsacid and Sasanid empires are respected, so it's at least plausible that he knows what he's talking about. And he does deal with the centuries after Christ, unlike Breton 1999. Use, perhaps, with caution; but it's at least a possibility.
Simpson, St John. 1996. "From Tekrit to the Jaghjagh: Sasanian Sites, Settlement Patterns and Material Culture in Northern Mesopotamia". Pp. 87-126, and plates 1 and 2 (equivalent to pages 455-456) of Continuity and Change in Northern Mesopotamia from the Hellenistic to the Early Islamic Period. Proceedings of a Colloquium held at the Seminar für Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde, Freie Universität Berlin, 6th-9th April, 1994, ed. Karin Bartl and Stefan R. Hauser. Band 17 of Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient, herausgegeben von Volkert Haas, Hartmut Kühne, Hans Jörg Nissen und Johannes Renger. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1996.
Yep, I'm already breaking my rule about citing only books. I came across a review of this volume in a journal, which indicated that it contained general as well as narrow articles. This is the most general article I see in the table of contents, and fills enough of a major gap to be worth citing even if it's the only general article in the book, but I rather doubt that it is, since articles often go beyond the topics implied by their titles. The book contains articles on pre-Islamic times (pp. 1-136), Muslim times (pp. 137-300), and settlement surveys that are, by their nature, not period-specific (pp. 301-452).
Another book observed in the same journal's reviews, I do not have access to; this is Settlement Development in the North Jazira, Iraq by T. J. Wilkinson and D. J. Tucker, Iraq Archaeological Reports 3, Baghdad: British School of Archaeology in Iraq and/or Department of Antiquities and Heritage, 1995. The review indicated that the book dealt with a settlement survey of extremely wide scale and covered the entirety of the last nine millennia, although with its main focus on periods much earlier than that covered by this site.
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Copyright Joe Bernstein <joe@sfbooks.com>, 2002-2003. Electronic transfer permitted.
Written and webbed August 19-20, 2002. Last modified March 16, 2003. Updates are possible, but please do not rely on me for them; see the start page for more information about why not.