Assyrian Royal Rituals and Cultic Texts

Assyrian Royal Rituals and Cultic Texts PDF Author: Simo Parpola
Publisher: State Archives of Assyria
ISBN: 9789521013409
Category : Akkadian language
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The internal stability and cohesion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to a very considerable degree rested on the public image of the King as an omnipotent earthly representative of God. Many elaborate rituals were designed and performed in order to promote this image and firmly implant it in the minds of the king's subjects, vassals and enemies. The corpus of royal rituals known to us includes a long series of ritual acts to be performed by the king in the temples of Assur, Istar and other gods; rituals performed during the New Year's festival and other seasonal festivals in front of audiences consisting of domestic and foreign dignitaries as well as common people; coronation, battle and victory rituals; rituals designed to secure the continuity of the royal line; a protocol for the royal dinner; directions for performing the daily liturgy in Assyrian temples, and so on. The present volume is a critical edition of all currently known Assyrian royal rituals and related cultic texts written in the Neo-Assyrian language. Many of these texts are previously unpublished or inadequately edited, and very few of them have been previously translated into English. They constitute an extremely important source for the study of Assyrian religion, cult and royal ideology and ancient Near Eastern religion and cult in general.

Textiles in the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Textiles in the Neo-Assyrian Empire PDF Author: Salvatore Gaspa
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501502697
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
This book brings together our present-day knowledge about textile terminology in the Akkadian language of the first-millennium BC. In fact, the progress in the study of the Assyrian dialect and its grammar and lexicon has shown the increasing importance of studying the language as well as cataloging and analysing the terminology of material culture in the documentation of the first world empire. The book analyses the terms for raw materials, textile procedures, and textile end products consumed in first-millennium BC Assyria. In addition, a new edition of a number of written records from Neo-Assyrian administrative archives completes the work. The book also contains a number of tables, a glossary with all the discussed terms, and a catalogue of illustrations. In light of the recent development of textile research in ancient languages, the book is aimed at providing scholars of Ancient Near Eastern studies and ancient textile studies with a comprehensive work on the Assyrian textiles.

The Queens of the Arabs During the Neo-Assyrian Period

The Queens of the Arabs During the Neo-Assyrian Period PDF Author: Ellie Bennett
Publisher: PSU Department of English
ISBN: 1646023099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
The title “Queen of the Arabs” is applied in Neo-Assyrian texts to five women from the Arabian Peninsula. These women led armies, offered tribute, and held religious roles in their communities from 738 to approximately 651 BCE. This book discusses what the title meant to the women who carried it and to the Assyrians who wrote about them. Whereas previous scholarship has considered the Queens of the Arabs in relation to the military and economic history of the Neo-Assyrian empire, Eleanor Bennett focuses on identity, using gender theory to locate points of the women’s alterity in Assyrian sources and to analyze how Assyrian cultural norms influenced the treatment of the “Queens of the Arabs.” This kind of analysis shows how Assyrian perceptions of the Queens of the Arabs, and of Arabian populations more generally, changed over time. As the Queens of the Arabs were located on the periphery of the Assyrian Empire, Bennett incorporates data from the Arabian Peninsula. The shift from an Assyrian lens to an Arabian one highlights inaccuracies in the Assyrian material, which brings into focus Assyrian misunderstandings of the region. The Arabian Peninsula also offers comparative models for the Queens of the Arabs based on Arabian cultures.

The Assyrians

The Assyrians PDF Author: Paul Collins
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1789149622
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
An accessible guide to the history of the Assyrian empire from the perspective of its powerful elites. At the height of its power near 660 BC, the Assyrian empire, centered in northern Iraq, wielded dominance from Egypt to Iran. This vast region was ruled by a series of kings who demonstrated their power with magnificent palaces adorned by sculptures depicting rituals, battles, and hunts. Established by military might, the empire thrived under the guidance of scholars who interpreted divine will and administrators who relocated tens of thousands of people to serve the state. This book relates the history of Assyria through the lens of its royal family and the officials who commissioned its buildings, art, and literature—each a critical part of the foundation for the later Babylonian and Persian empires.

Society and the Individual in Ancient Mesopotamia

Society and the Individual in Ancient Mesopotamia PDF Author: Laura Culbertson
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501517678
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This book provides an overview of social life in ancient Mesopotamia, bringing together leading experts to survey key social domains of daily life as well as major non-dominant social groups. It serves as a point of entry to the current research in this field.

Multilingualism in Ancient Contexts

Multilingualism in Ancient Contexts PDF Author: Louis C. Jonker
Publisher: African Sun Media
ISBN: 1991201176
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Multilingualism remains a thorny issue in many contexts, be it cultural, political, or educational. Debates and discourses on this issue in contexts of diversity (particularly in multicultural societies, but also in immigration situations) are often conducted with present-day communicational and educational needs in mind, or with political and identity agendas. This is nothing new. There are a vast number of witnesses from the ancient West-Asian and Mediterranean world attesting to the same debates in long past societies. Could an investigation into the linguistic landscapes of ancient societies shed any light on our present-day debates and discourses? This volume suggests that this is indeed the case. In fourteen chapters, written and visual sources of the ancient world are investigated and explored by scholars, specialising in those fields of study, to engage in an interdisciplinary discourse with modern-day debates about multilingualism. A final chapter – by an expert in language in education – responds critically to the contributions in the book to open avenues for further interdisciplinary engagement – together with contemporary linguists and educationists – on the matter of multilingualism.

Divine Secrets and Human Imaginations

Divine Secrets and Human Imaginations PDF Author: Angelika Berlejung
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 3161600347
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 695

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Book Description
The articles in this volume of collected essays, written over the last two decades and all revised, updated, and supplemented with unpublished material, are grouped around two themes: Divine Secrets and Human Imaginations. The first essays deal with the production, initiation, use and function, the abduction, repatriation, and the replacement of divine images, their outer appearance, and the many facets of the divine presence theology in Ancient Mesopotamia. The essays on the second topic deal with human imaginations, human constructs, and constructed memories, which assign meaning to the past or to things or experiences that are beyond human control. Thematically, several aspects of the human condition are examined, such as the ideas associated in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East with death, corporeality, enemies, disasters, utopias, and passionate love.

Bloodshed by King Manasseh, Assyrians and Priestly Scribes

Bloodshed by King Manasseh, Assyrians and Priestly Scribes PDF Author: Krzysztof Kinowski
Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
ISBN: 3647500437
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
King Manasseh of Judah is one of the most intriguing characters in the Bible. 2 Kings presents him as the wickedest of monarchs. In 2Kgs 24:3–4, he is accused of having provoked God to destroy Judah on account of the innocent blood he had shed in Jerusalem (cf. 2Kgs 21:16). In his study Krzysztof Kinowski investigates this accusation, viewing it against the biblical and ancient Near East backgrounds, and casts a new light upon Manasseh's role in the fall of Jerusalem. The mention of bloodshed in this affair appears to be the outcome of a process of scapegoating of Manasseh, ongoing in 2 Kings and reflecting both the legal and the cultic paradigms governing the biblical historiography. The link between Manasseh's bloodshed and the destruction of Judah on account of the cultic land's blood-defilement points towards a group of priestly scribes involved in the production of the 2Kgs 21 and 24 narratives. This assumption lies behind the scholarly discussion about the Priestly-like strata and priestly touches in the Books of Kings.

New Perspectives on Ritual in the Biblical World

New Perspectives on Ritual in the Biblical World PDF Author: Laura Quick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567693384
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This volume presents a range of methodologically innovative treatments on ritual action in the Hebrew Bible. They treat a diverse range of ritual phenomena, including space, blessings and oath-taking, from the world of ancient Israel and Judah. The introduction engages with the dominant scholarly models drawn from ritual theory, and the volume explores their applicability to ancient textual material such as the Hebrew Bible. The chapters reflect high-level specialized engagement with specific ritual phenomena through the lens of appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches.

Of Priests and Kings: The Babylonian New Year Festival in the Last Age of Cuneiform Culture

Of Priests and Kings: The Babylonian New Year Festival in the Last Age of Cuneiform Culture PDF Author: Céline Debourse
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004513035
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
Editing and examining source-critically for the first time the Late Babylonian ritual texts dealing with the New Year Festival, this book proposes an incisive re-interpretation of the most frequently discussed of all Mesopotamian rituals.