1Historical geography has been a pre-occupation of ancient Near Eastern scholars for centuries, beginning with works dedicated to, e.g. the identification of toponyms in the Bible, Talmud, Syriac and Classical sources, by Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars. Nor did early cartographers, like Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), hesitate to produce maps showing the locations of those sites identified by contemporary scholars.
2In more recent times the ancient Near East has been extremely well-served, particularly during the past half century. The Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (TAVO) project (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Sonderforschungsbereich 19), which ran from 1969 to 1993, produced over 100 monographs and nearly 400 individual maps covering both historical periods (prehistory to post-First World War) and natural scientific domains (geology, flora, geomorphology, climate, etc.). A series dedicated specifically to toponyms attested in cuneiform sources (Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes; see Röllig 1986), with identifications and both primary and secondary literature, that was part of TAVO, has long been an indispensable research tool for all Assyriologists and many Near Eastern archaeologists and historians. The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, on the other hand, although more chronologically limited, nevertheless covered the Near East in great detail, and included indices of toponyms with references and indications of whether the site of a given name was identified conclusively, with some probability or not at all (Talbert 2001). The one-volume Helsinki Atlas of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period (Parpola and Porter 2001) contains both maps and lists of toponyms, with coordinates, identifications and literature.
3Despite their great utility, each of the abovementioned works or collections has its shortcomings: the TAVO maps are individual sheets, not always held in libraries let alone in the collections of individual scholars, while both the Barrington Atlas and the Helsinki Atlas are chronologically limited in scope. The volume under review, on the other hand, is very different in conception and offers a level of detail never before available to scholars, students and the interested public. The large format (30.6 × 38.3 cm) book consists of 141 single-page entries with maps, generally in landscape orientation, occupying the upper portion of each page, and an explanatory text filling the lower half written by a specialist. The maps are generally thematic or chronologically and culturally specific, and the temporal coverage ranges from the Epipalaeolithic to the Hellenistic era. In some cases, entries are dedicated to certain key sites in specific time periods. The scholars chosen to both curate the maps and write the accompanying text are largely from French universities, museums and research centers, with a small number of foreign contributors. Bibliographical references, arranged by map/topic are listed separately, and vary from just a few to perhaps a dozen per map, and the volume contains both a simplified chronology and an index, as well as a full listing of the authors and their affiliations.
4Whether one is interested in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic or the topography of Susa in later antiquity, there is no question that this volume will appeal to a wide range of specialists in all branches of ancient Near Eastern studies. Priced at just 55ÿ it is affordable and is certain to attract extensive readership, although the editor and publisher might want to consider publishing editions in languages other than French to ensure even wider readership.
5It is impossible to do justice here to a volume covering 141 topics and their maps which ranges so widely in space and time, beyond giving readers of this review some sense of how rich the material covered is. Entries will be found, for example, on the distribution of deformed crania in the Natufian and Pre-Ceramic Levant (Fanny Bocquentin); the domestication of camelids and equids (Emmanuelle Vila and Marjan Mashkour); the campaigns of Sargon of Agade and Naram-Sin (Bertrand Lafont); the kingdom of Samsi-Addu (Pascal Butterlin); Kassite Babylonia (Mustapha Djabellaoui); the kingdom of Ugarit (Martin Sauvage); Sargon II’s eighth campaign (Mustapha Djabellaoui); the Achaemenid occupation of the Persepolis plain (Julien Cuny); and the Seleucid empire in the reign of Antiochus III (Philippe Clancier).
6Sites known from epigraphic or literary sources, the locations of which are uncertain, are marked with an open ○, as opposed to a solid ● circle for those that can be positively identified. In a half page devoted to the theme of a map, however, it is obviously impossible to delve into the controversies associated with unidentified names or disputed locations. It would have been interesting if the most important, problematic toponyms had been mentioned, even briefly, in the bibliographical section of the book, but this could have proven difficult to manage and edit. In his Introduction, Martin Sauvage explained what the geographical scope of the volume aimed to be, and what was omitted (p. XV). One cannot include everything, but it does seem odd that, whereas the Iron Age settlement of eastern Arabia is included (Guillaume Gernez), the civilizations of South Arabia (principally Saba, Ma’in, Qataban, Himyar) are not. This does a disservice to a region that was of undoubted importance in antiquity, and only serves to entrench already deeply engrained prejudices about just what constitutes the ‘ancient Near East.’ On the other hand, what the volume has done admirably is involve a very broad spectrum of scholars, from retired specialists to doctoral students, and the sense in which this volume is up-to-date, and addresses numerous topics for which, outside of specialist articles, maps have scarcely ever been prepared before, is wonderfully refreshing.
7In sum, this is an immense achievement, beautifully produced, well-bound, affordable and overseen by scholars whose competence is beyond question. It has obviously been a massive, collaborative effort, masterfully coordinated by Martin Sauvage, that drew on the talents of dozens of specialists. Moving beyond a simple layer-cake approach to maps covering a finite number of centuries or a specific period in a specific region, it reframes the use of cartography for teaching and research purposes by asking scholars and their readers to consider phenomena, like the spread of an innovation or the extent of a particular ruler’s conquests, in a graphic format, accompanied by a brief statement of orientation. The volume shows not only great creativity but a way of imagining the ancient Near East that is bound to be an inspiration to all who use it. As a permanent record of the status quaestionis on many issues, anno 2020, it will be invaluable for years and years to come. Martin Sauvage and his entire team deserve our sincerest congratulations and heartfelt thanks for this wonderful piece of work.