{"title":"Charming Snakes (and Kings), from Egypt to Persia","authors":"P. Clancier, Damien Agut","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The war between Assyria and Egypt resulted in the deportation of scholars from the Nile Valley to Mesopotamia. Among them were the so-called “snake charmers.” While it was a well-known profession in Egypt, this was not the case in Assyria or Babylonia, where the treatment of snakebites and scorpion stings was left to exorcist doctors. A number of clues from the late Neo-Assyrian and Achaemenid Persian periods suggest that the “snake charmers” from Egypt enjoyed success with the kings of the great empires in the Middle East. Their presence most likely resulted from the professional structure and visibility of the Egyptian “snake charmers,” which were relatively absent in Mesopotamia.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116810391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Descendants of the Sîn-lēqi-unnīnī during the Late Achaemenid and Early Hellenistic Periods – A Family of Priests, Scribes and Scholars and Their Archival and Learned Texts","authors":"Johannes Hackl, J. Oelsner","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract It is by now well established that authors and copyists of scholarly works also drafted legal documents, if only occasionally. This article examines newly available prosopographical information concerning the scribal activities of the Sîn-lēqi-unnīnī during the mid to late fourth century BCE. It offers new datings of learned texts that have been known to academic circles for a long time and argues that the extant archival texts from Early Hellenistic Uruk mainly belonged to the archives of the Aḫûtu and Ekur-zakir families. In addition, it presents cases of transference of linguistic items peculiar to one or the other genre, giving rise to some general remarks on cross-genre imprints.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132961845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Egyptian Scholars, Priests and Temples between Autonomy and State Authority","authors":"B. Muhs","doi":"10.1515/JANEH-2020-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/JANEH-2020-0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Egyptian temples and priests reshaped the Egyptian legal system throughout the first millennium BCE, as a result of both temple autonomy and state authority. In the early Third Intermediate Period (c. 1069–850 BCE), royal enforcement of laws diminished, and temples filled this vacuum by extending the use of judicial oracles, both to resolve disputes, and to document transactions. In the late Third Intermediate Period (c. 850–664 BCE), the temples decreased the use of judicial oracles, and introduced temple notary contracts to document transactions. Temples thereby established that written documentation took precedence over verbal witnesses, and they also developed systems of legal procedures employing these temple notary contracts. In doing so, the temples encouraged individuals to invest in private property. In the Saite and Persian Periods (664–332 BCE), resurgent royal and later imperial authorities brought uniformity to the forms of temple notary contracts, and to the system of legal procedures employing them. The temples may have produced codes of laws and legal procedures at this time, if they had not done so already in the late Third Intermediate Period. Priests also introduced the practice of antiquarian legal scholarship, to establish ancient legal precedents. Finally, in the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BCE), the royal authorities continued to regulate temple courts and temple notaries. Nonetheless, they accepted at least some claims based on antiquarian legal scholarship by priests.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132229063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Weather Prediction in Babylonia","authors":"M. Ossendrijver","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper addresses developments in the prediction of weather phenomena in Late Babylonian scholarly texts. Previously published and unpublished texts are analyzed and the underlying methods are compared with omen-based weather prognostication, developments in Babylonian astronomical prediction and reporting practices in the astronomical diaries. It is found that some texts combine long-term astronomical prediction with inferential methods for predicting weather phenomena. It is argued that these new methods for predicting weather phenomena are part of a larger Babylonian effort to predict and explain non-astronomical phenomena by relating them to predictable astronomical phenomena.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"260 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115814724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-frontmatter2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-frontmatter2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"193 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114747600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tuṭṭanabšum: Princess, Priestess, Goddess","authors":"N. Kraus","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Tuṭṭanabšum, daughter of Naram-Suen, was one of the most powerful women of the Akkadian dynasty. The princess was installed as the high priestess of Enlil at Nippur; she held one of the highest cultic positions for the head of the Sumerian pantheon, in a city whose temple served as the religious capital of Sumer. Now, an administrative tablet from the Iraq Museum shows that Tuṭṭanabšum, like her father, was also elevated to the realm of the divine. Never before has there been evidence that a member of the Akkadian royal family other than the king was given divine status. The tablet demonstrates that the divinity adopted by Naram-Suen after his victory in the Great Rebellion applied not only to the king, but to other members of the royal family. Tuṭṭanabšum, therefore, was not only a member of the royal house and one of the highest cultic officials in the empire, but was also elevated to the divine realm.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125017300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Continued Relevance of MUL.APIN in Late Babylonian Astronomy","authors":"J. Steele","doi":"10.1515/JANEH-2020-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/JANEH-2020-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The astronomical compendium MUL.APIN was composed sometime before the seventh century BC and is known from many copies dating between the Neo-Assyrian and the Seleucid period. In this paper I argue that MUL.APIN continued to be read and understood throughout this period, and that there was still an active tradition of astronomy founded upon MUL.APIN until the end of cuneiform astronomy.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115717602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Tablet to Talmud: Canonised Knowledge in Late Antiquity","authors":"M. Geller","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article explores whether key features of Babylonian textual standardisation may have may have influenced basic patterns of text and commentary in the Babylonian Talmud. The paper takes the view that canonicity is a complex process involving different levels of standardising texts. On the whole, canonicity preserved major texts (like Gilgamesh, the Bible, the Hippocratic Corpus), but others considered as non-canonical (or ‘outside’) could still be used for explanatory purposes. The structure of the Babylonian Talmud (Mishnah, Gemara, Tosephta-based Beraitôt) serves as a useful model for comparison with earlier cuneiform compendia.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132975910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Changing Marriage Practices in Babylonia from the Late Assyrian to the Persian Period","authors":"C. Waerzeggers","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Based on an analysis of marriage contracts, this paper argues that at the time of the Persian conquest (539 BCE) Babylonians practiced two types of marriage depending on their social status. Non-elite families negotiated different terms of marriage than elite families, in three areas: bridal wealth, household creation, and regulations about adultery and divorce. However, these divergent marriage practices became less pronounced and eventually obsolete in the course of the Persian period. This article first presents the evidence for the two marriage types and then seeks to find an answer, albeit a partial one, to the question why these traditions changed from c. 490 BCE onwards.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124713843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Aramaic Incantation Bowl and the Fall of Hatra","authors":"Enrico Marcato","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2020-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2020-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present paper offers an analysis of certain Northern Mesopotamian demons attested on an Aramaic incantation bowl in square script. This object displays at its centre a list of evil entities drawn from a Mandaic forerunner, some of which are paralleled in the epigraphic corpus of Hatra and nearby sites. The analysis explores whether this may provide new evidence regarding the fate of Hatra’s inhabitants and cults in the aftermath of the fall of the city in 240/1 AD; the suggested scenario is that some Hatrenes could have been deported to Babylonia, where they encountered the Mandaean culture in its early phases and acquainted it with a part of their pantheon.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"58 33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133885744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}