Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies

Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Author: Agnès Garcia-Ventura
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2021-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1646020898

The present volume collects eighteen essays exploring the history of ancient Near Eastern studies. Combining diverse approaches—synthetic and analytic, diachronic and transnational—this collection offers critical reflections on the who, why, and how of this cluster of fields. How have political contexts determined the conduct of research? How do academic agendas reflect larger social, economic, and cultural interests? How have schools of thought and intellectual traditions configured, and sometimes predetermined, the study of the ancient Near East? Contributions treating research during the Nazi and fascist periods examine the interpenetration of academic work with politics, while contributions dealing with specific national contexts disclose fresh perspectives on individual scholars as well as the conditions and institutions in which they worked. Particular attention is given to scholarship in countries such as Turkey, Portugal, Iran, China, and Spain, which have hitherto been marginal to historiographic accounts of ancient Near Eastern studies. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Selim Ferru Adali, Silvia Alaura, Isabel Almeida, Petr Charvát, Parsa Daneshmand, Eva von Dassow, Hakan Erol, Sebastian Fink, Jakob Flygare, Pietro Giammellaro, Carlos Gonçalves, Katrien de Graef, Steven W. Holloway, Ahmed Fatima Kzzo, Changyu Liu, Patrick Maxime Michel, Emanuel Pfoh, Jitka Sýkorová, Luděk Vacín, and Jordi Vidal.

Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies

Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Author: Agnès Garcia-Ventura
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2021-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1646020871

The present volume collects eighteen essays exploring the history of ancient Near Eastern studies. Combining diverse approaches—synthetic and analytic, diachronic and transnational—this collection offers critical reflections on the who, why, and how of this cluster of fields. How have political contexts determined the conduct of research? How do academic agendas reflect larger social, economic, and cultural interests? How have schools of thought and intellectual traditions configured, and sometimes predetermined, the study of the ancient Near East? Contributions treating research during the Nazi and fascist periods examine the interpenetration of academic work with politics, while contributions dealing with specific national contexts disclose fresh perspectives on individual scholars as well as the conditions and institutions in which they worked. Particular attention is given to scholarship in countries such as Turkey, Portugal, Iran, China, and Spain, which have hitherto been marginal to historiographic accounts of ancient Near Eastern studies. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Selim Ferru Adali, Silvia Alaura, Isabel Almeida, Petr Charvát, Parsa Daneshmand, Eva von Dassow, Hakan Erol, Sebastian Fink, Jakob Flygare, Pietro Giammellaro, Carlos Gonçalves, Katrien de Graef, Steven W. Holloway, Ahmed Fatima Kzzo, Changyu Liu, Patrick Maxime Michel, Emanuel Pfoh, Jitka Sýkorová, Luděk Vacín, and Jordi Vidal.

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament
Author: John H. Walton
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493414364

Leading evangelical scholar John Walton surveys the cultural context of the ancient Near East, bringing insight to the interpretation of specific Old Testament passages. This new edition of a top-selling textbook has been thoroughly updated and revised throughout to reflect the refined thinking of a mature scholar. It includes over 30 illustrations. Students and pastors who want to deepen their understanding of the Old Testament will find this a helpful and instructive study.

At the Dawn of History

At the Dawn of History
Author: Yağmur Heffron
Publisher:
Total Pages: 811
Release: 2017
Genre: Akkadian language
ISBN: 9781575064710

Nearly 50 students, colleagues, and friends of Nicholas Postgate join in tribute to an Assyriologist and Archaeologist who has had a profound influence on both disciplines. His work and scholarship are strongly felt in Iraq, where he was the Director of the British School of Archaeology, in the United Kingdom, where he is Emeritus Professor of Assyriology in the University of Cambridge, and in the subject internationally. He has fostered close collaboration with colleagues in Turkey and Iraq, where he has been involved in archaeological investigation, always seeking to meld the study of texts with that of material remains. The essays embrace the full range of Postgate's interests, including government and administration, art history, population studies, the economy, religion and divination, foodstuffs, ceramics, and Akkadian and Sumerian language--in a word, all of ancient Mesopotamian civilisation.

Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond

Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond
Author: Agnes Garcia-Ventura
Publisher: Lockwood Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1948488256

This book is an enthusiastic celebration of the ways in which popular culture has consumed aspects of the ancient Near East to construct new realities. The editors have brought together an impressive line-up of scholars-archaeologists, philologists, historians, and art historians-to reflect on how objects, ideas, and interpretations of the ancient Near East have been remembered, constructed, reimagined, mythologized, or indeed forgotten within our shared cultural memories. The exploration of cultural memories has revealed how they inform the values, structures, and daily life of societies over time. This is therefore not a collection of essays about the deep past but rather about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC

A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC
Author: Marc Van De Mieroop
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2015-06-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118718178

Incorporating the latest scholarly research, the third edition of A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC presents a comprehensive overview of the multicultural civilizations of the ancient Near East. Integrates the most up-to-date research, and includes a richer selection of supplementary materials Addresses the wide variety of political, social, and cultural developments in the ancient Near East Updated features include new “Key Debate” boxes at the end of each chapter to engage students with various perspectives on a range of critical issues; a comprehensive timeline of events; and 46 new illustrations, including 12 color photos Features a new chapter addressing governance and continuity in the region during the Persian Empire Offers in-depth, accessible discussions of key texts and sources, including the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh

Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel

Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel
Author: Mario Liverani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2021-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000413098

In this volume, Niels Peter Lemche and Emanuel Pfoh present an anthology of seminal studies by Mario Liverani, a foremost scholar of the Ancient Near East. This collection contains 18 essays, 11 of which have originally been published in Italian and are now published in English for the first time. It represents an important contribution to Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies, exposing the innovative interpretations of Liverani on many historical and ideological aspects of ancient society. Topics range from the Amarna letters and the Ugaritic epic, to the ‘origins’ of Israel. Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel will be an invaluable resource for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical scholars, as well as graduate and post-graduate students.

Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society

Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society
Author: R. J. van der Spek
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN:

This book examines the outlook of the ancient Mesopotamians in such areas as their religious values; views on death and burial, health and healing, and scholarship. Specific topics discussed include the heavenly constellations, the historian Berossus, magic and witchcraft, the clergy, the legend of Adapa, and much more.

Ancient Perspectives

Ancient Perspectives
Author: Richard J. A. Talbert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2012-11-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226789373

Ancient Perspectives encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In each society, maps served as critical economic, political, and personal tools, but there was little consistency in how and why they were made. Much like today, maps in antiquity meant very different things to different people. Ancient Perspectives presents an ambitious, fresh overview of cartography and its uses. The seven chapters range from broad-based analyses of mapping in Mesopotamia and Egypt to a close focus on Ptolemy’s ideas for drawing a world map based on the theories of his Greek predecessors at Alexandria. The remarkable accuracy of Mesopotamian city-plans is revealed, as is the creation of maps by Romans to support the proud claim that their emperor’s rule was global in its reach. By probing the instruments and techniques of both Greek and Roman surveyors, one chapter seeks to uncover how their extraordinary planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels was achieved. Even though none of these civilizations devised the means to measure time or distance with precision, they still conceptualized their surroundings, natural and man-made, near and far, and felt the urge to record them by inventive means that this absorbing volume reinterprets and compares.

A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art

A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art
Author: Ann C. Gunter
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 703
Release: 2018-09-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1118336755

Provides a broad view of the history and current state of scholarship on the art of the ancient Near East This book covers the aesthetic traditions of Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia, and the Levant, from Neolithic times to the end of the Achaemenid Persian Empire around 330 BCE. It describes and examines the field from a variety of critical perspectives: across approaches and interpretive frameworks, key explanatory concepts, materials and selected media and formats, and zones of interaction. This important work also addresses both traditional and emerging categories of material, intellectual perspectives, and research priorities. The book covers geography and chronology, context and setting, medium and scale, while acknowledging the diversity of regional and cultural traditions and the uneven survival of evidence. Part One of the book considers the methodologies and approaches that the field has drawn on and refined. Part Two addresses terms and concepts critical to understanding the subjects and formal characteristics of the Near Eastern material record, including the intellectual frameworks within which monuments have been approached and interpreted. Part Three surveys the field’s most distinctive and characteristic genres, with special reference to Mesopotamian art and architecture. Part Four considers involvement with artistic traditions across a broader reach, examining connections with Egypt, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean. And finally, Part Five addresses intersections with the closely allied discipline of archaeology and the institutional stewardship of cultural heritage in the modern Middle East. Told from multiple perspectives, A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art is an enlightening, must-have book for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of ancient Near East art and Near East history as well as those interested in history and art history.