Edited by Jonathan Valk
The 69th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, hosted in Helsinki by the University of Helsinki and the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE) on July 8–12, 2024, was interested in how people in the ancient Near East navigated the challenges of life in groups. The ancient Near East offers an immensely rich record of different forms of social organization, from mercantile city-states and expansionist empires to mobile pastoralist confederations and assorted collections of outlaws, as well as everything in between. Over thousands of years and in varied geographic and ecological settings, these social forms underwent constant processes of reform, renegotiation, and reinvention. The Rencontre investigated the kinds of societies people across the ancient Near East built together, as well as how and why. The various contributions assembled here explore a range of questions related to the Rencontre’s overall theme.
 
Author bio:
Jonathan Valk is a distinguished researcher at the Spanish National Research Council's (CSIC) Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East (ILC) and a docent in Ancient Near Eastern studies at the University of Helsinki.