Qedem 63. Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, He- brew University of Jerusalem. Mazar, A., Davidovich, U., Panitz-Cohen, N., Rotem, Y., and Sumakaʿi Fink, A. 2022 “The Canaanite City at Tel Reh ̣ ov: From the Early Bronze Age to the End of the Iron Age I.” Near Eastern Archaeology 85(2): 96 –109. https://doi.org/10.1086/719593 Representations of Antiquity in Film: From Griffith to Grind- house, by Kevin M. McGeough. Discourses in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies. 392 pp., 64 figs. Sheffield: Equi- nox, 2022. Hardback, £95.00, paperback, £45.00. Representations of Antiquity in Film: From Griffith to Grind- house by Kevin McGeough appraises the intersection between the Hollywood film industry and archaeological subject matter. While the last two decades have seen many critiques of how ar- chaeology is depicted in popular culture, this volume deals al- most exclusively with film and is particularly comprehensive as well as nearly encyclopedic. It also sits comfortably within the framework of McGeough’s previous publications, which include a trilogy of volumes on the reception of the ancient Near East in the 19th century. The current volume consists of nine chapters (plus an intro- duction and conclusion) in which McGeough discusses a large number of films that focus on antiquity or prehistory. He divides films by large categories but also by subgenres, a structure which allows for discussion of the well-known historical epics of the 1950s and 1960s as a whole in one chapter but also for the subtopic of seductresses and evil women in biblical epics in those films in another. Some of his other topics are musicals relating to antiquity such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), satires such as Life of Brian (1979), “musclemen” films like Conan the Barbarian (1978) and the Scorpion King (2002), films about prehistory, and more recent films such as Noah (2014) and Exodus: Gods and Kings (also 2014). Because of the density of the volume this review can only highlight a few of the many points McGeough makes. One of the early questions asked (within Chapter 1) is whether films that are historical fictions can contribute to our understand- ing of the past. A related question is about the audience: filmgoers may not recognize inaccuracies in what they are seeing, and may or may not understand that the filmmaker is often not trying for accuracy. McGeough points out that while academics want to work with evidence and interpret it, filmmakers are less interested in doing so. He comes back to this point towards the end of the volume (in Chapter 9) when he notes that the makers of One Mil- lion Years B.C. (1996) specifically were not interested in making their dinosaurs accurate because inaccurate ones worked better cinematically (p. 254). An interesting point made in a chapter on epics of the 1950s, and which also applies to other genres, is that many films offer a “political comment on the present disguised in a treatment of the past” (p. 85). For instance, the main character in the film Gladi- ator (2000) holds modern values about family and freedom, but even while recognizing that, the audience that views the film gets to enjoy the violence of the gladiatorial combat (p. 89). And yet, because of the main character’s values, even as filmgoers enjoy the spectacle, the subtle commentary of the filmmaker allows them to exit the film with the impression that the gladiatorial system was awful and that Rome was corrupt. McGeough makes a similar point in a later chapter, when discussing the film 300 (2007), noting that it drew parallels with the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, that is, then-present political issues (p. 277). In this instance, it is doubtful that filmgoers realized that they were watching some- thing with political content, as they were most likely thinking that they were learning history from the film and seeing what the past actually looked like. These issues of presentism permeate the volume, as McGeough makes similar points when discussing satirical films set in Roman periods, which often poke fun at the Romans from the perspective of our modern values and morals, but also work in the other direc- tion by incongruously inserting modern societal problems into ancient contexts. The main flaw in this volume has to do with McGeough’s com- plex writing style: while his analyses of films are multifaceted and interesting, McGeough has written a book about popular culture and academe that is inaccessible to non-academics. The individual chapters of the volume (as well as the volume as a whole), while extremely insightful, are not easily digestible and are often over- whelming due to the sheer amount of content in each. This re- viewer recognizes that McGeough’s goal was to write for an aca- demic audience, not a popular one, but what is needed next is to let the public, that is, filmgoers, become aware of the points he makes about the films they enjoy. Rachel Hallote School of Humanities Purchase College SUNY rachel.hallote@purchase.edu Pottery from Tell Khaiber: A Craft Tradition of the First Sealand Dynasty, by Daniel Calderbank. Archaeology of An- cient Iraq 1. Ludlow, 2021. 290 pp., 117 figs., 15 tables, 77 pls. Hardback, £35.00. This book is the revised version of the 2018 doctoral thesis of the author. His work was part of the Ur Region Archaeology Project (URAP, University of Manchester), headed by Jane Moon and Robert Killick. The data examined in this first volume of the Archaeology of Ancient Iraq series was collected during five sea- sons of excavations in Tell Khaiber (2013–2017), led by Stuart Campbell, Moon, and Killick. Excavations at Tell Khaiber are the first with secure, strati- fied layers containing architecture, pottery, objects, and texts con- nected directly to the First Sealand dynasty (ca. 1732–1450 B.C.E. Middle Chronology). The kings of this dynasty ruled the marshes and marshy terrain of southern Mesopotamia outside of Baby- lonian control. However, for a long time the near complete lack 260 BOOK REVIEWS BASOR 390 Please contact me for full PDF: Albert.Dietz@lmu.de