{"title":"Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/15692124-02301000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-02301000","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":"106 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135466279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“When Everything Is Human, the Human Is an Entirely Different Thing …” Animal Powers in the Ancient Egyptian Demonic Imagery and Beyond","authors":"R. Lucarelli","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341336","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341336","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article attempts a comparative analysis of the ancient Egyptian demonic imagery of animal and hybrid figures, according to anthropological studies and theories of perspectivism, as well as by referring to studies of Monster Theory and Cryptozoology. The aim is to disclose what kind of agency real and imaginary animals of the ancient Egyptian Duat (Beyond) possess and how it relates to the agency of humans and other non-human beings populating the Realm of the Dead.","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47479102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Atraḫasīs, behind the First Sin That Cried to Heaven and Related Matters","authors":"Abraham Winitzer","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341337","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper inquires about the source of human blood in the Biblical Primeval History, beginning with the report in the Cain and Abel story of bloodshed and a related cosmic-upsetting noise. It is posited that this unique report and the sophisticated case of ancient philology extending to it from the Eden story and relating ʾādām, “Adam,” dām, “blood,” and ʾădāmâ, “earth” are inspired by the Mesopotamian myth of Atraḫasīs, in which an equally complex case of philological speculation concerning anthropogeny also relates to an outstanding account of bloodshed and a cosmic-upsetting noise. This occasion of a posited transformation of Mesopotamian lore in the Primeval History is considered within the broader context of this intercultural contact and its underlying philological and theological assumptions and motivations.","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44449365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Perilous Sailing and a Lion: Comparative Evidence for a Phoenician Afterlife Motif","authors":"C. López-Ruiz, E. Rodríguez González","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341332","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay introduces new evidence for an eschatological Phoenician motif that alludes to a final sailing and its perils, represented by a monstrous lion attacking or sinking a boat. The lion-and-boat motif was, so far, only documented in a Phoenician funerary stela from late classical Athens, the Antipatros/Shem stela. Excavations at the fifth-century BCE Tartessic site of Casas del Turuñuelo in southwestern Spain has revealed a set of ivory and bone panels that decorated a wooden box, bearing relevant iconography in the so-called orientalizing style. Additional comparanda from the Levant, Iberia, and Tunisia in various media (coins, ivories, amulets), add weight to this interpretation. Our analysis highlights how the artists behind the Athenian and Tartessic artifacts were innovative in their way of representing a theme that was not codified iconographically. Most remarkable is the use of an ivory-carving convention (the Phoenician palmette motif) to portray the stylized boat, a choice corroborated by a painted pottery sherd from Olympia. This “palmette-boat” depiction, in our view, is coherent with Egyptian Nilotic boats, but also with the use of flat or shallow river-boats in the Tagus and Guadiana region, illustrating mechanisms of local adaptation of Phoenician sailing and life-death “passing” symbolism. If, as we suggest, this representation can be added to that in the Athenian document, we now have testimonies of two different local adaptations of a Phoenician theme at the two ends of the Mediterranean oikoumene between the archaic and late classical periods.","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42984907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sacred Texts and the First Myth about the Creation of Writing","authors":"Annette Zgoll","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341333","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000No myth about the origin of writing is known so far for Mesopotamia (only a legend). By applying the new Hylistic methodology for research into mythology, the first known myth of the creation of writing can be reconstructed. The myth we call Nissaba Creates Writing for the Sacred Song of Enlil narrates the creation of writing, which serves to immortalise the divine song at the very moment when the supreme god is creating it orally.\u0000Results of this investigation bear important implications for two phenomena, concerning sacred texts and the origin of writing. (1) From an emic perspective, texts created by the gods turn out to be sacred, even numinous, in their conception. Further analysis of the subscript “Nissaba praise!” or of the subscript ka enim-ma, the latter properly understood as “wording of the divine words,” demonstrates that many Sumerian and Akkadian texts were indeed regarded as sacred texts. Ancient Mesopotamia thus proves to be a culture based on sacred texts. (2) The myth Nissaba Creates Writing for the Sacred Song of Enlil sheds new light on the origins of writing as perceived from the culture of the inventors of writing: the decisive function of the creation of writing was seen not in overcoming economic challenges, but in coping with ritual needs. Re-examining the historical evidence from this perspective opens up new possibilities for a cultural history of the origins of writing.","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49533554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Becoming Marduk: A New Look at a Commentary on Marduk’s Address to the Demons from Assur","authors":"Uri Gabbay","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341330","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article deals with a commentary on the Akkadian composition Marduk’s Address to the Demons from the city of Assur. The first part of the article discusses the unique religious view found in Marduk’s Address and its commentary, in which the āšipu priest is identified with the god Marduk. The second part presents a new philological edition of the commentary.","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48869307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Upon the Roof of the Temple: Reconstructing Cognitive Aspects of Ancient Levantine Small-Scale Altar Usage","authors":"J. Hutton","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341331","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Among the ritual practices denigrated through explicit or implicit criticism levied by the biblical writers is the worship of a deity or deities on the rooftops – sometimes of royal architecture, and at other times on private houses. In the present study I interpret this practice using concepts derived from the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and cognitive linguistics. I summarize previous typologies of objects employed in the sacrificial cult of the ancient Southern Levant, confirming prior arguments for understanding shaft-type limestone altars as stylized models of architectural precursors. From a cognitive perspective, these stylized architectural models prompted offrants to run a conceptual blend that replaced the modest small-scale vegetable or incense offering of the offrant’s small-scale input space with the more sumptuous small-scale offering – or even large-scale animal sacrifice – of the monumental-scale input. This cognitive explanation provides explanation for Deuteronomistic and Priestly attempts to limit the practice, and occasions insight into the temporal aspects of “sacred space.”","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":"53 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41294571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Light of the Land, Sun of the People: The Solarization of Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Lawgivers","authors":"Dylan R. Johnson","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341326","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Ancient Near Eastern kings were always assumed to mediate between the divine and human worlds, but where they fell in the spectrum between mortal and divine varied from one king or dynasty to the next. Additionally, human kings could claim divine or semi-divine status through certain activities attached to the office of kingship. Through a diachronic survey, this study examines how the royal act of lawgiving elevated human rulers above other people. As lawgivers, these rulers could embody certain attributes of gods of justice within their political realms – most evident in metaphors attributing solar imagery and solar language to human rulers in royal ideology. Using cognitive metaphor theory, I examine the various ways that ancient audiences received and processed this figurative language, answering for themselves how the king could simultaneously be a mortal man and represent a solar god of justice.</p>","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting the Hurrian Section of RS 24.643 (KTU 1.148)","authors":"Arnaud Fournet","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341325","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The paper revisits the Hurrian section that is inserted in the Ugaritic-language tablet <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">RS</span> 24.643 (<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">KTU</span> 1.148). The present work comprises two main parts: an individual analysis of each line and clause and a structural analysis of the whole hymn. A near complete elucidation of the hymn is proposed.</p>","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Demons in Egyptian Medical Texts of the New Kingdom: A New Perspective","authors":"Elena Urzì","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341328","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates the presence and action of demons in New Kingdom medical texts, in which these supernatural beings are recognisable only by their determinative, whereas the etymology of certain names is not always clearly understood. Several scholars have presented their own interpretations about this topic, most of whom believe these names can be ascribed to illnesses or to the supernatural sphere, though others have expressed reservations about these ascriptions. A fresh analysis of medical texts from an emic perspective helps in reconsidering this topic: prescriptions and incantations suggest the ancient Egyptians really perceived these entities as supernatural beings and not merely as manifestations of illnesses. The presence of the same demons in other contexts, such as funerary texts, confirms this hypothesis and encourages an in-depth study of the medical sources.</p>","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}