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Extending from the late third millennium to the end of the second millennium (24th-12th c.) B.C., this course offers a long-term perspective on the history of the regions today represented by the modern states of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The course takes a comparative approach to historical narratives, focusing especially on how the presence vs. absence of documentary archives, the disappearance and re-emergence of writing systems, and cross-cultural influences shape our understanding of the ancient past. How does high vs. low textual-historical visibility (i.e. the presence vs. absence of documents, or the availability of first- vs. second-hand written evidence) guide scholarly agendas, inform interpretations, generate habits of (over)compensation or disinterest? When and how do other strands of evidence from art, archaeology, and hard science become useful or meaningful for text-based studies? How are histories of textual disappearance and re-emergence constructed?

Emphasis will be on establishing counterpoints against traditional narratives centring on the political history of southern Mesopotamia, in a more holistic treatment of key Bronze Age developments by considering parallel or alternative trajectories in Syria and Anatolia.

Key themes for this course will be: Territorial states (formation, ideologies, administration); Trade (private enterprise vs. state regulation, long-distance networks, overland vs. maritime exchange); International relations (elite gift-giving, diplomacy, vassalage, alliances); Empire (political ethnicity and imperial strategies); and Critical approaches (theories of collapse, political fragmentation, chronological schemes, 'dark ages').