The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Land Use and Settlement Patterns (Papers of the Second Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam)

Darwin Press
edited by G.R.D. King and Averil Cameron
ISBN: 0878501061
price: $35.00  

This book reviews the current archaeological evidence for the nature of settlement, the evolution of towns, and the relation of town and country in the geographical area that now includes Syria, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Arabia. The papers offer complementary views and reflect the very different context and landscapes inherited by Muslims from their Byzantine and Sasanian predecessors. Among the issues emerging in several of the contributions are those of the balance between town and country, the alleged "decline" of the classical city, and the nature of the early Islamic amsar ("garrison towns"). Most of the papers are illustrated by maps and figures. Contributors include: Pierre-Louis Gatier, Henry Innes MacAdam, Yoram Tsafrir and Gideon Foerster, Ali Zeyadeh, Robert Schick, Donald Whitcomb, George T. Scanlon, G.R.D. King, Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, Michael G. Morony, and Alastair Northedge. The volume will interest scholars of Byzantine and Islamic history, archaeology, and religion and all those interested in this formative period during which the Near East saw the Byzantine and Sasanian empires and the world of late antiquity changed by Islam.