This volume deals with the Assyrian and the Babylonian Empires and seeks to provide new data
for the ways that enabled these states to govern efficaciously their vast territories and
diverse populations across the ancient Middle East. With both states exerting and distributing
power and authority from centre to periphery the channels through which these were asserted
are understood to be of key concern in order to assess the imperial structures. Elucidating the
mechanisms of control especially in view of the always fragile relations between the state
centre and remote peripheries has long been a major subject in the study on ancient empires.
The volume edited by Shuichi Hasegawa and Karen Radner is specifically concerned with tracing
the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires' reach into and their hold over their more peripheral
regions. The papers collected in this volume cover the period from the 9th to the 6th century
BCE and draw on the rich archaeological and textual data that has come to light in old and new
excavations and survey projects in Jordan Iran Iraq Israel Lebanon Saudi Arabia Syria and
Turkey and in particular at the Dinka Settlement Complex (Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka) the
cemetery discovered at Sanandaj Tel Rekhesh Tell Ali al-Hajj Tell Mastuma and Yasin Tepe.
