Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History最新文献

{"title":"The Ideology of Rim-Sin II of Larsa","authors":"Harold Torger Vedeler","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2015-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2015-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The great rebellion against Samsuiluna of Babylon represents a watershed moment in the history of ancient Mesopotamia. In the span of a single year, most of the major cities of the south rose up against Babylon, catching Samsuiluna off guard and plunging the entire region into crisis. The Kassites made their first appearance in history, fighting against both Babylon and the rebels, and when Samsuiluna finally restored his kingdom four years later, the damage caused by the fighting was so severe that much of the south was abandoned, forcing the Babylonian king to accommodate large numbers of refugees and reconsolidate his rule in the north. Rim-Sin II, the leader of the rebellion, remains, nonetheless, an enigmatic figure. Hailing from Larsa and taking his name from the famous Larsite king of a generation before, he was eventually defeated and killed by Samsuiluna, but not before he had taken steps to secure his place as king of the entire south. Based on his year names and a letter, Rim-Sin II clearly saw himself as the legitimate king of southern Mesopotamia, using culturally weighted ideology to secure the support of important figures in the cities he sought to control. This study considers how he appealed to past kings for ideological justification as he attempted to cleave his own state away from that of Babylon, and how he aligned himself to the standard Old Babylonian royal narrative of divine selection to justify his claim to power.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133043248","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":"State-Sponsored Sacrilege: “Godnapping” and Omission in Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions","authors":"Shana Zaia","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2015-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2015-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Because of the symbolic and religious importance of cult statues in ancient Mesopotamia, these images were targeted on numerous occasions by invading forces as part of the conquest of a foreign polity. In the case of the Assyrians, triumphant kings would sometimes list cult statues from a newly-conquered city or group as spoils of war, alongside members of the royal family, their subjects, and their precious goods. Such acts of divine deportation are sometimes called “godnapping” in secondary literature. A conspicuous feature in godnapping reports is the paucity of divine names mentioned. Deported cult images are instead simply called “gods” of a foreign king, people, or city. Because godnapping has thus far been studied purely as a political tactic, the omission of names has been ascribed to the Assyrians’ disinterest in or ignorance of non-Assyrian divinities. This study proposes viewing godnapping not through a political lens but rather a religious one, arguing that the Assyrians would certainly have been aware of which cult statues they were deporting, and that they would have considered the non-Assyrian cult images gods in their own right. Focusing upon the religious and inscriptional traditions of the Assyrians, this paper seeks to demonstrate that omitting divine names in deportation accounts may have been purposeful and meant to prevent these gods from seeking retribution. Instead of using the traditional approach of examining the political ramifications for the conquered polity whose gods have been deported, this paper turns instead to the religious and psychological consequences for those who were deporting the gods and exposes the Assyrian perspective of godnapping as presented in their own inscriptions.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131183778","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":"Religious Continuity and Change in Parthian Mesopotamia: A Note on the Survival of Babylonian Traditions","authors":"L. Dirven","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2014-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2014-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract During the period of Arsacid domination, Mesopotamia was characterized by an extraordinarily varied religious landscape. Religion in Arsacid Mesopotamia has not received much attention so far and an all-encompassing study dealing with religious continuity and change in the region is still lacking. For most Assyriologists, religion in the Parthian period is quite different from the preceding periods. Graeco-Roman historians have not shown a great interest in the period either. In short, the study of religion in Parthian Mesopotamia is still split up in diverse cultural and linguistic traditions that are the result of the academic training of the researchers. A profound study of religion in Mesopotamia during this period has to break free from these traditional confines and study the various religious traditions in their social, cultural, and religious context, with a keen eye for religious interaction and diversity on a local level. In present-day research, the focus is on continuity of Babylonian culture and religion. In the first part of this article, I shall argue that the case for continuity has been overstated of late. In fact, change was equally important and this change set in as early as the Achaemenid period. In the second part I shall argue that Babylonian culture was never confined to temples and cuneiform and that the Babylonian deities always had led a life outside their traditional homes as well.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123579049","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":"Judeans in Sippar and Susa during the First Century of the Babylonian Exile: Assimilation and Perseverance under Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Rule","authors":"Yigal Bloch","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2014-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2014-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present study discusses the attestations of persons of Judean origin in Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets (of the period between 550 and 490 bce) as possible evidence of some aspects of the social history of the community of Judeans exiled to Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar II. Although the number of such attestations is very small, it is nonetheless possible to single out two groups which display different patterns of personal name giving across generations. In one instance, a group of merchants in the city of Sippar (belonging mostly to a single family) uses, in part, distinctly Judean personal names in the first generation of the exile, but abandons them completely in favor of Babylonian theophoric names in the next generation. In another instance, a group of individuals active mostly in Susa and probably belonging to the families of royal officials (as suggested by names and patronymics of the type of Beamtennamen – names expressing a pious wish for the well-being of the king) displays the use of Yahwistic personal names even though the fathers of those individuals bore Babylonian theophoric names. It is suggested that the persistence of Yahwistic – hence distinctly Judean – names among royal officials or their direct offspring, even after the previous generation bore Babylonian names, reflects a considerable measure of tolerance toward ethnically foreign elements in the royal administration (the relevant examples date from the period after the establishment of the Achaemenid empire). In contrast, the progressing adoption of Babylonian names among the Judean merchants in Sippar in the first half of the sixth century bce seems likely to reflect assimilation into the native Babylonian society, fostered by the necessity to pursue commercial dealings with the Ebabbar temple of Šamaš and the social circles centered around the temple, which consisted of conservatively minded upper strata of the native Babylonian society. Editions of the cuneiform tablets discussed in the present study are provided in the Appendix.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128244254","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":"Recent Developments in the Social and Economic History of Ancient Egypt","authors":"Juan Carlos García","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2014-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2014-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent developments in Pharaonic social and economic history help provide a more balanced interpretation of ancient Egypt. Landscape research shows the succession of several micro-regions in the Nile Valley. The conditions prevailing in some of these regions show that cattle rearing played a crucial economic role, while mobile populations from Egypt and abroad could lead lifestyles alternative to cereal cultivation. Trade also appears as a largely underestimated activity, where markets, private merchants and agricultural “entrepreneurs” fuelled exchanges not only within Egyptian borders but also abroad. Their role was crucial in the transformation of agrarian produce into wealth while their activities were in many ways autonomous from any institution, including temples or the crown itself. Not surprisingly, the social structure appears less rigidly organized than previously thought. Elites and peasantry, for instance, actually encompassed very distinct social groups whose goals and interests were not always coincident. While the former included not only officials and high dignitaries but also local potentates and chiefs of villages, the latter encompassed a variety of conditions, from poor rural workers and forced labourers to wealthy cultivators and rich peasants. The local power of such sub-elites enabled them to head extensive patronage networks. Their cooperation with the royal administration was crucial for the stability of the monarchy, even if their appearance in official sources is rather elusive. Politics, the negotiation between factions and groups for power, between the core of the kingdom and the provinces, were common practice, quite far in fact from the supposedly autocratic power of pharaohs.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127282604","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 Casualty Figures in Darius’ Bisitun Inscription","authors":"John O. Hyland","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2013-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2013-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Babylonian and Aramaic versions of the Bisitun inscription give precise enumerations of enemies killed and captured by the armies of Darius I in 522–521 bc. But the figures are absent from Bisitun’s other versions, and their accuracy and historical value remain in question. This study reviews their textual reliability and modern reconstructions and argues that they do not reflect accurate counts of battlefield dead or prisoners. It proposes that the Babylonian text offered more space for additional material than its Elamite or Persian counterparts and that its casualty figures enhanced Darius’ military narrative by quantifying his superiority to subordinates: enemy losses are highest when the King commands in person, less for generals in separate commands, and lowest for Darius’ non-Persian lieutenants. Explanations are considered for a possible exception, the victory of the satrap Dadaršiš in Margiana.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"109 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134167874","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 Historicality of the King: An Exercise in Reading Royal Inscriptions from the Ancient Levant","authors":"Matthew J. Suriano","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2014-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2014-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The problem with using royal inscriptions as historical sources is their inherent bias. The interests of the king drive the narratives of royal inscriptions. Yet this essential feature reveals their underlying concept of history. In royal inscriptions, historical thought is defined by the life and experience of the king. This article will present a hermeneutic for reading royal inscriptions that focuses on the individual king. The article will first look at the concept of historical time in epigraphic Hebrew and Old Aramaic sources before examining the complicated ways in which this concept is rendered in the principal genres of royal writings, the memorial and the dedicatory inscription. A survey of features found in memorial inscriptions from Dibon (the Mesha Stele) and Sam’al (Kulamuwa), followed by a study of the Old Byblian dedicatory inscriptions, will explore the complex process of configuring time and narrative around the king. In each genre of royal inscription, the linear time of the ruler intersects with cyclical traditions of kingship, revealing the historicality of respective king.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133209103","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":"Intellectual History and Assyriology","authors":"N. Veldhuis","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2013-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2013-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present article proposes to understand knowledge and knowledge traditions of ancient Mesopotamia as assets, deployed by actors in the social contexts in which they found themselves. This approach is illustrated with three examples from different periods of Mesopotamian history.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130156566","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 History of Science and Ancient Mesopotamia","authors":"F. Rochberg","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2013-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2013-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper views the relevance of cuneiform texts to the history of science from inside, i.e., from the perspective of the available sources, as well as from outside, i.e., from the perspective of historians of science outside the field of Assyriology. It reviews some of the methodological problems that beset the reconstruction of science in the ancient Near East as well as a way forward, which acknowledges localism and pluralism as well the compelling continuity from cuneiform traditions of knowledge to later counterparts (astronomy, astrology, magic, astral-medicine). Cuneiform texts will not instantiate a universal or transcultural science but are essential if science is to be seen as embedded in culture and history.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"72 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128375663","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":"Mesopotamian Political History: The Perversities","authors":"Seth Richardson","doi":"10.1515/janeh-2013-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2013-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay outlines approaches and problems in writing ancient Mesopotamian political history. A brief review of Assyriological studies is contrasted to political history generally. What follows are six points of theory which present problems and opportunities for moving these studies forward, based on a refocus away from the state; the strategic use of ambiguity by political entities; the role of social forgetting; the productive use of absences of evidence; a renewed effort at period history; and an appraisal of environmental explanations of historical change.","PeriodicalId":174647,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121707767","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}