New Online Course on the History of Ancient Syria and Iraq

TORONTO - March 15, 2015 - PRLog -- Beginning  in April the latest in a series of online courses – open to the general public – will be offered by archaeologist Dr. David Lipovitch. This eight-week long course will mark the third of a series of webinars on the art, history, and archaeology of the ancient Near East. These courses only require a web connection and no special download of software. The latest offering, entitled The Land between the Two Rivers: The History and Archaeology of Ancient Mesopotamia will run every Tuesday evening (except May 26th) from 8-10 PM EDT from April 7th through June 2nd, 2015.

The area known as Mesopotamia is comprised today mostly of the regions of Syria and Iraq. The area was home to some of the earliest and most influential cultures of the ancient world including the Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. In the current era, the region is marked by violence, turmoil, and the rampant destruction of cultural heritage. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the region over the millennia and much the same can be said for it in antiquity. Students enrolled in the webinar will learn about the worlds of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylon and their history from the era of hunter-gatherers to the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great. Subjects that will be covered include:

•The development of agriculture

•The first cities

•The rise and fall of empires

•The use of art for propaganda

•The histories of Assyria, Babylon, the Hittites, the Hurrians, Mitanni, Sumer, and Persia.

According to Dr. Lipovitch, “Mesopotamia is in many ways the heartland of civilization. Many of the developments – for better or worse – that we take for granted such as agriculture, writing, government, taxes, propaganda, and warfare were first developed there. And, while the region has changes some over time, in many ways things are not very different and many of the underlying issues of antiquity are still in place today. One cannot genuinely understand the events of the 21st century Middle East without understanding the much broader history of the region back to the Stone Age.”

Dr. Lipovitch has studied the ancient world since he was a child fascinated by the archaeology and mythology of Egypt, the Aztecs, and countless other cultures of antiquity. As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto – after a brief diversion in physical chemistry – he enrolled in double majors studying anthropology and the archaeology of the ancient Near East. Thanks to the encouragement of his mentors there he decided after completing an Honours BA in 1989, to continue his studies and earned an AM (1993) and a PhD (1999) in Hebrew Bible and archaeology from Harvard University. While working on his various degrees he excavated and surveyed in southern Ontario working with both prehistoric Native Canadian sites and historic Euro-Canadian sites, and at Ashkelon, Israel. His dissertation, Can These Bones Live Again? An Analysis of the Persian Period Non-Canid Mammalian Faunal Remains from Tel Ashkelon, Israel examined a poorly understood time period at this important Canaanite, Philistine, and Phoenician site and introduced him to the subfield of zooarchaeology – the study of animal remains in archaeology. Since then he has continued to work on or with excavations in Ontario, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey where he is currently the Staff Zooarchaeologist at the University of Toronto’s excavations at Tell Ta’yinat.

Dr. Lipovitch has been giving public lectures since the 1990s and has done so in three different countries and three different languages. He is an award-winning educator who has taught everything from kindergarten to graduate school. He continues to be an active researcher in archaeology and is currently a Research Affiliate at the University of Toronto’s Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations.

For more information about how to take this course, attend a scheduled lecture, or acquire Dr. Lipovitch’s services, check out his website at http://www.theancientworld.ca or email him at dlipovitch@theancientworld.ca.