Hi guys, I'm a little obsessed with bronze age near east, but I'm having trouble conceptualizing the layout of ancient cities. If you know of any good maps that show the organization of the city, or floorplans of buildings, I would really appreciate it.
If anyone is knowledgeable about the organization of bronze age Mesopotamian cities, I'd also love to hear about it!
Here are some sources that look at a wide variety of Mesopotamian cites from the Bronze Age. "Cultutral Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East" by Michael Roaf (1994) This book is rather pricey, at $70 new on Amazon.com and one person, who is obviously on drugs, is offering a used copy for $7,777.92. This book has maps of twenty different Mesopotamian and Persia cities, plus Hattusha, the Hittite capital in Anatolia. The maps are usually on the small side, but the book does describe how Mesopotamian cities were organized.
A more recent book is "Historical Atlas of Mesopotamia" by Norman Bell Hunt (2004) This book has fewer maps, although the maps it does have are bigger. The illustrations in this book are better than the Roaf book, but it is much shorter and not as detailed. It is lower priced, at $17.99 on Amazon.com
You could also check out the Thames and Hudson books "The Hittites" "The Assyrians" and "Babylon". All three books focus on just one civilization. The maps are better and they delve deeply in to the archaeology that has uncovered the secrets of these ancient civilizations. All three are paperbacks and reasonably priced.