This extensive publication is produced to accompany an exhibition on loan from the Louvre at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa March 18 to July 27, 2020. It contains not only pictures and excellent descriptions of all the exhibits but contains 11 essays from various authors on a variety of topics, such as cities, economy, architecture and the cuneiform writing. This is a useful companion for anyone who wants to go deeper into this fascinating culture. Especially interesting was the article on how Mesopotamia was transmitted from antiquity to us and how it is still depicted or remembered. I found this a very worthwhile and valuable companion to the exhibition.

FTC disclosure: I would like to thank Getty Publications for providing me with an advance reader copy via access to the galley for free through the NetGalley program.

Fascinating! This book captured the fascinating work, with all the exciting elements of discovery adventure of many of the world's firsts in both documentation of earliest civilization and supportive artifacts.

I think most people would say that they have wanted to be an archeologist or paleontologist at one point in their childhood and the discovery of Mesopotamia is ultimate. As an adult I get a bit of that recurring excitement when gardening, wondering what I will dig up, year after year. Wondering what it would be like to happen upon evidence of a lost civilization, to find buried treasure, pottery, dinosaur bones. This book took me there.

I love how it was organized, opening up with beautiful geographical maps, followed by timelines of settlement and people group chronology. More history books should model this just to set the stage for easing the reader in.

It felt like I was stepping into a museum. Everything was well-curated and flowed in ways that made sense with respect to both the timeline and subject matter. Occasionally some of the writing was a little bit dry, but I didn't mind too much. I don’t know much about the behind the scenes/interworking of museums and how artifacts gets acquired and curated. So when this book covered how items have been strategically placed to form full-fledged museums and as featured pieces in others, I felt my interest becoming much more immersive into this type of content as I read on.

The catalogue of exhibitions and mentions of modern and futuristic contributions such as 3-D printing at the end of the book was stellar. I will look forward to visiting the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa and this will make a great conversational/coffee table book!

A very well researched accompaniment to the Getty exhibition in Los Angeles 2020. I did enjoy reading the articles and looking at the collection, however, and it was enjoyable to have a quick read through one of the most enigmatic civilisations in history. As an exhibition accompaniment it works fine however, to anyone interested in the subject there are plenty of online resources available

Amazing pictures and well written and well researched essays make this book a fascinating and engrossing read.
I strongly recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A review copy was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've always loved ancient history. In fact, as a child, I wanted to either study palaentology or egyptology. Both, if possible. When I got older I learned about other, even more ancient cultures and Mesopotamia was one of them. This was the perfect opportunity to read a book aimed at a wider public because it's an exhibition catalog. This also means that there are lots of high quality photographs with short informative texts and essays covering various topics.

The catalog was all over the place.
Now, let me say that the quality of the book, meaning design, layout, photographs, and text length, is extraordinary. The fact that the essay are more on the short side helps avoid the feeling that your drowning in information. For me, some articles could have been longer but I understand that as an exhibition catalog, you don't want to write texts that are too long an overly academic.
Every essay is dense with information but easy to understand and follow. I feel like I've learned a lot but haven't quite retained all the information because it's so much.

The essay cover various topics, like religious believes, the cuneiform writing system, the ascension of kings and governance, the changing dynasties and city-states/empires, and the reception of Mesopotamia by Jews, Greeks, Romans, 19th c. society, and in contemporary times.

I was also thrilled that in context of reception, the authors stressed how the image of Mesopotamia changed depending on who wrote about these diverse cultures and how most texts show a rather Orientalist view, even during time of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Think of the tropes about the Ottoman Empire or the Persians: barbaric nations with selling of women, exotic cities, brutal warriors, and lots of despots. The reality, of course, is much more complex, as the catalog shows carefully and eloquently.
However, and this is an important point, despite the authors taking care in showing how the image of Mesopotamia is distorted according to the people telling the stories and their agendas (not using this word in a negative way but neutral), they absolutely fail at discarding their colonial perspectives when they talk about the French "explorers", who have a whole chapter dedicated to their lives and work.

Every mention of these French "explorers" and archaeologists is drenched in French and European superiority complex and savior narrative. The fact that part of the territories were under British dominion and that it was colonialism and imperialism that allowed them to loot archaeological sites is never mentioned. In fact, colonialism is only mentioned in context of Mesopotamian demographic shifts, NEVER in connection to Europe. Not once!
The French archaeologists are presented as heroes who found the lost art and brought it to the Louvre. No, all of this is stolen loot. It's art theft on a major scale and was only possible due to the political, economic, and military force of the Europeans.
I mean, in one exploration the French wanted to take home 149 crates of looted objects but only 26 survived. Why? Because they were attacked by evil rebells on the Tigris and so 125 crates sank! Lost forever!
Everytime these French grave robbers are mentioned, the framing is that they persisted the bad things happening to them, like weather (their digging was the reason why many objects were destroyed, not only because they sawed things into pieces and lost them but also because changing environment, like air and humidity, lead to objects being destroyed), "rebel groupes" (who do they think were they rebelling against???), or just general nuissances.
I can only imagine how much was lost by sheer incompetence because one time a French dude who, according to the essay's author himself!, was absolutely inadequate to lear excavations and yet, AND YET, he was allowed to do this for 23 years! 23 years and 11 excavations!
Another time a colonel got the job because of his military expertise with was necessary because of evil rebel groups.

There is absolutely no critical engagement with French colonial past. The book reinforces colonial perspective and retroactively excuses the looting as saving the art because of the destrution by the US military and ISIS in the 20th and 21st centuries. If the West hand't effed up the Middle East since time immemorial, the situation would probably never have gotten to this point at the artefacts could've stayed safe and sound in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, as they have done other times and for centuries. They had their own museums, for crying out loud. But because ISIS destroyed cultural heritage now, it was okay for French archaeologists to steal, destroy, and seel however the pleased.
The catalog also constantly emphasises the high quality of the Louvre collection as if it wasn't high quality because they stole the best things, sold the rest, and threw away whatever they didn't need. That's what museums do. Yes, including the throwing away stuff. I know because I've worked in museums.

You cannot write about how the reception and interpretation of Mesopotamia was skewed by historical and political views and how each source had interests in presenting M. a certain way, thus ultimately comment on historiography and our duty as historians to interpret sources within their context and question the sources critically, AND THEN turn around and write what amounts to French archaeologist fanfics with heroic saviors as the ultimate good guys who rightfully took what was theirs because ISIS and also they were so smart and really, really liked rocks and clay. Having helped the field of assyrologie does not exempt you from colonial exploitation and culpability in destroying art or excuse art theft.
No wonder decolonization of museums and restitutions of artefacts is such a laborious task when people within the field themselves cast our long-dead colleagues as Indiana Jones with no flaws or faults.

Honestly, I'm disappointed about the lack of critical engagement in France's colonial past. The colonial romanticism is irritating and scholarly questionable. I'm flabbergasted that something like this would end up in such a high quality publication. And this mindset will be spread to all viewers and readers. It drags down the quality and credibility of the book and the exhibition.

I remember few drawings from high school history. This book is a great culmination of art sharing between two museums. Louvre to Getty. You can imagine what happened in 3900BC. Its fun reading the accouting of cereal on the plaques. Different sculptures, paintings explaine din great etai;. the essays provide context to the excavated artwork.

Mesopoamia edited by Ariane Thomas and Timothy Potts is a scholarly, but readable catalogue of the Mesopotamian collection in the Louvre with excellent pictures of museum objects and succinct coverage of their place in the art, culture and history of Mesopotamia.

What a lovely book and wonderful to just dip into and out of if only to enjoy the amazing photos collected together from all over the world. I haven't read all of it yet but I will continue to enjoy it for a long time. The text of course, is written by expert but it's not unintelligible for a layman like me to read with ease and joy. Lovely book.

I enjoyed learning more about the mesopotamian history. Beautifully illustrated and clear information.

I am a history buff and when I saw this book I was immediately intrigued. While I doubt I will get to California in the next few months, I definitely wanted to read this book. It is a very comprehensive review of Mesopotamia history by various writers and the pictures of the exhibit are detailed and fascinating. There is a lot of information to process and I had to take my time but it was worth it. Would definitely recommend this book. I received an e-book from NetGalley in return for an unbiased review.

A really good start at looking through Mesopotamia history. Photos and images placed throughout the book and explained with the information in each section. Really nice selection of topics and information.

An enjoyably browsable book that will appeal to even the most casual history buffs. Reading it is like wandering through a museum exhibit.

MESOPOTAMIA: CIVILIZATION BEGINS – Ariane Thomas & Timothy Potts, editors
J. Paul Getty Museum
ISBN-10: 1606066498
ISBN-13: 978-1606066492
April 7, 2020
Non-fiction, art, history

This book is a lasting memorial and explanation of the exhibit scheduled at Getty Villa, Malibu, from March 18 to July 27, 2020

MESOPOTAMIA: CIVILIZATION BEGINS is a collection of writings and images celebrating the exhibit. Many of the artifacts in this exhibit are from the Getty Museum but includes artifacts from art museums in France and New York. Editor Ariane Thomas wrote the foreword to the book with a brief history of Mesopotamia.

The name Mesopotamia came from the Greek word for ‘land between the rivers’ meaning the Tigris and the Euphrates in Iraq. Over five thousand years ago the Mesopotamians created one of the earliest urban environments, and even by today’s standards they formed the basis of an advanced culture. During Mesopotamia’s three thousand years of prominence, it had ethnic diversity which resulted in an evolving culture and belief system. Its inhabitants not only developed the first known form of writing (cuneiform) but also excelled in art, poetry, architecture, mathematics, and astronomy. They had schools, teachers, and libraries. They enhanced their agriculture with irrigation and began animal husbandry. Mesopotamia also has had a long-lasting effect on Middle Eastern and European literature, and the mythology given in its stories influenced many later civilizations' beliefs.

Other authors explain more about Mesopotamia. Their essays cover aspects of the culture and include many illustrative historical drawings and documents. One essay is about the French and English who searched for the fabled sites in what must have been arduous excavations to discover these artifacts and send them to their homeland. Another writing covers the misconceptions developed through time about Mesopotamia.

The last half of the book catalogs the artifacts in the exhibit, each with information on its age, the museum that provided it for the exhibit, where it was found, and its original purpose or usage. The gorgeous patterns developed in the textures of clothes, hair, and beards in the sculptures of humans, deities, and mythic guardians only emphasizes the reality applied in the proportion, shape, and features used to create the sculpture. Astounding! Tablets and other objects covered with cuneiform writing include translations of the varying topics or literature.

This book is not only a marvelous tribute to the exhibit but also introduces and explains an important part of human history unfamiliar to many people.

Added information: Timothy Potts (editor) is director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Ariane Thomas (editor) is the curator of the Mesopotamian collections in the department of Ancient Near Eastern Antiquities at the Louvre. Artifacts are from: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Musée de Louvre, Paris; the Musée Auguste Grasset, Varzy; and the Bibliothèque National de France contributed artifacts to this exhibit.

Robin Lee

This book is filled with a fascinating insight into the ancient world of Mesopotamia. Its mind boggling that so many artifacts have been collected from so long ago. The collection describes the history of the region with many photographs and commentaries. The accompanying exhibition looks to be comprehensive and worth a visit if possible.