L'Agronomie de la Mésopotamie Antique: Analyse Du «livre de l'Agriculture Nabatéenne» de Qûtâmä: 5 (Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East) - Tapa dura

'Au total, l'Agriculture nabateene, apres avoir ete longtemps meprise, se revele comme un ouvrage d'importance majeure qui apporte des informations precises, variees non seulement sur les techniques agricoles mais sur les principaux aspects des techniques agraires. L'ouvrage de M. El Faiz est a la hauteur de ce monument. Il reste a esperer que l'Agriculture nabateenne trouve un traducteur. Il ne fait pas de doute qu'il merite pleinement.' Georges Tate, Histoire Rurale, 1996.

This book deals with the agronomy of ancient Mesopotamia. It relies on the original, yet hardly known, agronomic encyclopaedia: The "Book of Nabatean Agriculture" written by Qutama (end of Antiquity). The three parts of the book analyze the origin of the Mesopotamian school of agriculture and its economic and agro-technical conceptions. The material is a considerable contribution to the history of the Mesopotamian agriculture. It also contains the knowledge which was basic to the establishment of the agronomic culture of Islam. Besides, the historians of agronomy could, thanks to this new material, relate the Mesopotamian contribution to the development of the science of agriculture.