Excavated archives are never complete. They are the result of ancient sorting and archaeological choices, which makes any reconstruction provisional and subject to revision when new information comes to light. While spectacular new discoveries can reveal previously unknown aspects of ancient cultures, they also highlight all that has been lost. Successive discoveries, from Babylon to Mari and Ebla, have revealed that Mesopotamian history is not singular, but multiple; each site and period has its own history. Such new evidence must be treated with caution and with an awareness of its incomplete nature and the risks of overinterpretation. Cuneiform sources provide an uneven picture of Mesopotamian society over time and across space, offering more insight into the lives of the elite and men than into the experiences of ordinary people and women.Cross-file under New Book:
Cécile Michel, Michael Friedrich and Jorrit Kelder (eds.), Missing Evidence in the Study of Ancient Cultures: Methodological Reflections and Case Studies on Fragmentary Sources (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 50), De Gruyter, 2025.We are very fortunate to have such ancient literature as we have. But it's preservation has been scanty and uneven. We must be very careful about generalizing from it.
For more on Mespotamian scribal practices and the uneven nature of our surviving sources, see here and here.
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