ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we follow the story of cities in the Near East during the Iron Age, with a focus on the urban centers of the most powerful states of the region, the Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia, the Babylonians in central Mesopotamia, and the Achaemenid Persians. In addition, a brief look will be taken at certain important centers in Anatolia and the Levant: Phrygian Gordion, Phoenician cities, and Hebrew Jerusalem. Our ending point will be the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great in the 330s BC, an event that marked a significant change of direction in the political and cultural history of the Ancient Near East (Figure 1 0.1).
