In diesem Band, der aus einer Tagung anlasslich der Berliner Ausstellung Babylon - Wahrheit und Mythos hervorgeht, diskutieren international renommierte Wissenschaftler aus den Altertumswissenschaften erstmals unter dem Fokus -Wissenskultur-. Als erstes gemeinsames Pilotprojekt von Topoi und dem Verlag De Gruyter fur die zeitgleiche Publikation in Print und Open Access ist dieser Band uber die Verlagswebsite auch als eBook -open access- verfugbar.

The Mittani empire is one of the most enigmatic political structures in Mesopotamian history. Reconstructing the emergence and the organisation of this state, whose territory encompassed Upper Mesopotamia touching the Levant and the piedmont plains of the Zagros in the East at the height of its power, is exceedingly difficult. Cuneiform specialists, archeologists and historians discuss the Mittani state with regard to modes of spatial organisation co- and preexisting in the region.

The fifteen articles published in this volume are the written versions of papers presented during the International Symposium "Palaeography and Scribal Practices in Syro-Palestine and Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age," which was held in Leiden on 17th-18th December 2009. This book provides an up-to-date overview on the scribal traditions current in that region during the 15th-12th centuries BCE and gives new impetus to their study.