Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE

The legendary overland silk road was not the only way to reach Asia for ancient travelers from the Mediterranean. During the Roman Empire's heyday, equally important maritime routes reached from the Egyptian Red Sea across the Indian Ocean. The ancient city of Berenike, located approximately 500 miles south of today's Suez Canal, was a significant port among these conduits. This book, written by the archaeologist who excavated Berenike, uncovers the role the city played in the regional, local, and “global” economies during the eight centuries of its existence. The book analyzes many of the artifacts, botanical and faunal remains, and hundreds of the texts the author and his team found in excavations, providing a profoundly intimate glimpse of the people who lived, worked, and died in this emporium between the classical Mediterranean world and Asia.

This study uses an early seventh-century Christian martyr legend to elucidate the culture and society of late antique Iraq. Translated from Syriac into English here, the legend of Mar Qardagh introduces a hero of epic proportions, whose characteristics confound simple classification. During the several stages of his career, Mar Qardagh hunts like a Persian King, argues like a Greek philosopher, and renounces his Zoroastrian family to live with monks high in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Drawing on both literary and artistic sources, the author explores the convergence of these diverse themes in the Christian culture of the Sasanian Empire (224–642). Taking the Qardagh legend as its foundation, his study guides readers through the rich and complex world of late antique Iraq.

This book sheds new light on religious clashes of the mid-fifth century regarding the nature (or natures) of Christ. The book focuses on Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, his Syrian allies, and his opponents, led by Alexandrian bishops Cyril and Dioscorus. Although both sets of clerics adhered to the Nicene Creed, their contrasting theological statements led to hostilities, violence, and the permanent fracturing of the Christian community. The book closely examines council transcripts, correspondence, and other records of communication. Using social network theory, the book argues that Theodoret's doctrinal coalition was actually a meaningful community, bound by symbolic words and traditions, riven with internal rivalries, and embedded in a wider world of elite friendship and patronage.