Download or read book Gods Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia written by Jeremy Black and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1992-05-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient Mesopotamia was a rich, varied and highly complex culture whose achievements included the invention of writing and the development of sophisticated urban society. This book offers an introductory guide to the beliefs and customs of the ancient Mesopotamians, as revealed in their art and their writings between about 3000 B.C. and the advent of the Christian era. Gods, goddesses, demons, monsters, magic, myths, religious symbolism, ritual, and the spiritual world are all discussed in alphabetical entries ranging from short accounts to extended essays. Names are given in both their Sumerian and Akkadian forms, and all entries are fully cross-referenced. A useful introduction provides historical and geographical background and describes the sources of our knowledge about the religion, mythology and magic of "the cradle of civilisation".
Download or read book Beliefs Rituals and Symbols of Ancient Egypt Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent written by Dean Miller and published by Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive atlas explores the varied ritual practices and religious beliefs in the ancient cultural region thought to be the cradle of civilization. The captivating history of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the area known as the Fertile Crescent, unfolds through a pictorial and illustrated journey. Through a robust glossary, sidebars, and thematic introductions the social studies content of this fascinating subject becomes easily digestible, for even the most reluctant reader, while the further reading section inspires future research.
Download or read book Ancient Mesopotamia written by A. Leo Oppenheim and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.
Download or read book The Triumph of the Symbol written by Tallay Ornan and published by Saint-Paul. This book was released on 2005 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the history of Mesopotamian imagery form the mid-second to mid-first millennium BCE. It demonstrates that in spite of rich textual evidence, which grants the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses an anthropmorphic form, there was a clear abstention in various media from visualizing the gods in such a form. True, divine human-shaped cultic images existed in Mesopotamian temples. But as a rule, non-anthropomorphic visual agents such as inanimate objects, animals or fantastic hybrids replaced these figures when they were portrayed outside of their sacred enclosures. This tendency reached its peak in first-millennium Babylonia and Assyria. The removal of the Mesopotamian human-shaped deity from pictorial renderings resembles the Biblical agenda not only in its avoidance of displaying a divine image but also in the implied dual perception of the divine: according to the Bible and the Assyro-Babylonian concept the divine was conceived as having a human form; yet in both cases anthropomorphism was also concealed or rejected, though to a different degree. In the present book, this dual approach toward the divine image is considered as a reflection of two associated rather than contradictory religious worldviews. The plausible consolidation of the relevant Biblical accounts just before the Babylonian Exile, or more probably within the Exile - in both cases during a period of strong Assyrian and Babylonian hegemony - points to a direct correspondence between comparable religious phenomena. It is suggested that far from their homeland and in the absence of a temple for their god, the Judahite deportees adopted and intensified the Mesopotamian avoidance of anthropomorphic picorial portrayals of deities. While the Babylonian representations remained confined to temples, the exiles would have turned a cultic reality - i.e., the nonwritten Babylonian custom - into a written, articulated law that explicity forbade the pictorial representation of God.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Light in Archaeology written by Costas Papadopoulos and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-09 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Light plays a crucial role in mediating relationships between people, things, and spaces, yet lightscapes have been largely neglected in archaeology study. This volume offers a full consideration of light in archaeology and beyond, exploring diverse aspects of illumination in different spatial and temporal contexts from prehistory to the present.
Download or read book The Migration of Symbols written by comte Eugène Goblet d'Alviella and published by . This book was released on 1894 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sumerians written by Samuel Noah Kramer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-09-17 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture” from a world-renowned Sumerian scholar (American Journal of Archaeology). The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. “An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity.” —Library Journal
Download or read book The Epic of Gilgamish written by R. Campbell Thompson and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book Guide to Reprints written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 1160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mesopotamia written by Britannica Educational Publishing and published by Britannica Educational Publishing. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrated for numerous developments in the areas of law, writing, religion, and mathematics, Mesopotamia has been immortalized as the cradle of civilization. Its fabled cities, including Babylon and Nineveh, spawned new cultures, traditions, and innovations in art and architecture, some of which can still be seen in present-day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Readers will be captivated by this ancient cultures rich history and breadth of accomplishment, as they marvel at images of the magnificent temples and artifacts left behind.
Download or read book Women at the Dawn of History written by Agnete W. Lassen and published by Yale Babylonian Collection. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the patriarchal world of ancient Mesopotamia, women were often represented in their relation to men - as mothers, daughters, or wives - giving the impression that a woman's place was in the home. But, as we explore in this volume, they were also authors and scholars, astute business-women, sources of expressions of eroticism, priestesses with access to major gods and goddesses, and regents who exercised power on behalf of kingdoms, states, and empires.
Download or read book The New Encyclopaedia Britannica written by and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 1078 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia written by Shiyanthi Thavapalan and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia, Shiyanthi Thavapalan offers the first in-depth study of the words and expressions for colors in the Akkadian language (c. 2500-500 BCE). By combining philological analysis with the technical investigation of materials, she debunks the misconception that people in Mesopotamia had a limited sense of color and convincingly positions the development of Akkadian color language as a corollary of the history of materials and techniques in the ancient Near East"--
Download or read book Potamikon Sinews of Acheloios written by Nicholas J. Molinari and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2016-07-10 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, Potamikon, presents an investigation into the origin and identity of the man-faced bull, as well as a catalogue of coins.
Download or read book The Origins of Monsters written by David Wengrow and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-24 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has often been claimed that "monsters"--supernatural creatures with bodies composed from multiple species--play a significant part in the thought and imagery of all people from all times. The Origins of Monsters advances an alternative view. Composite figurations are intriguingly rare and isolated in the art of the prehistoric era. Instead it was with the rise of cities, elites, and cosmopolitan trade networks that "monsters" became widespread features of visual production in the ancient world. Showing how these fantastic images originated and how they were transmitted, David Wengrow identifies patterns in the records of human image-making and embarks on a search for connections between mind and culture. Wengrow asks: Can cognitive science explain the potency of such images? Does evolutionary psychology hold a key to understanding the transmission of symbols? How is our making and perception of images influenced by institutions and technologies? Wengrow considers the work of art in the first age of mechanical reproduction, which he locates in the Middle East, where urban life began. Comparing the development and spread of fantastic imagery across a range of prehistoric and ancient societies, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and China, he explores how the visual imagination has been shaped by a complex mixture of historical and universal factors. Examining the reasons behind the dissemination of monstrous imagery in ancient states and empires, The Origins of Monsters sheds light on the relationship between culture and cognition.
Download or read book Processions Studies of Bronze Age Ritual and Ceremony presented to Robert B Koehl written by Judith Weingarten and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-10-05 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Koehl has long considered processions to have played an integral role in Aegean Bronze Age societies. Papers concentrate mainly on evidence from Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland, with additional perspectives from abroad, these geographic divisions forming the basic outline of this volume.
Download or read book The Swastika the Earliest Known Symbol and Its Migration written by Thomas Wilson and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-05-28 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the work derives the origins of what we know as a swastika symbol from the earliest cultures. He studies its origins in the ancient shapes of a cross and brings the comparison of different types of cross symbols, which later evolved in the swastika. Further, the author examines the role of the swastika in the extreme Orient (Japan, Korea, China, and Tibet), the classical Orient (Babylonia, Assyria, Chaldea, and Persia, Phenicia, Lycaonia, Armenia, Caucasus, and Asia Minor - including Troy and mentioning Schliemann), Africa (Egypt, Algeria, Ashantee), classical Occident (Mediterranean - Greece, Cyprus, Rhodes, Milos, and Thera), Europe (the Bronze Age, the Gallo-Roman period, the Anglo-Saxon period, and the swastika on ancient coins), the United States of America (in pre-Columbian times, among the North American Indians, and a "colonial patchwork"), Central America (Nicaragua, Yucatan, and Costa Rica), and South America (Brazil and Paraguay). He shows various artifacts associated with the swastika, including spindle-whorls, coins, vases, and idols. The author also notes the importance of this symbol among both the ancient Buddhists and Hindus. It is generally a very deep and interesting study showing the universalism of the swastika symbol in different cultures of the world.
