The Lower Stratum Families in the Neo-Assyrian Period

Galil (Jewish history, U. of Haifa) here considers families in the low stratum of Neo-Assyrian society, that is, people who were engaged in productive labor and did not own the means of production. He begins by examining the sources; surveying the types of lower-stratum families; and explaining the terminology, the formulation of the texts, and the status of the people. Then he delves into economic and demographic features of the families, from such perspectives as family size, children's age, single-parent families, and number of generations in the family. A second volume will cover the middle stratum--which did productive work and owned the means of production--and the higher stratum, which only exploited the productive work of the lower stratum. The CiP data shows class instead of stratum. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Gershon Galil, Ph.D. (1983), Hebrew University, Jersualem, is Associate Professor and former Chair of the Jewish History Department at the University of Haifa. He has published extensively on Biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature includingThe Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah (Brill, 1996).