Download or read book Syro Hittite Monumental Art and the Archaeology of Performance written by Alessandra Gilibert and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ceremonial centers of the Syro-Hittite city-states (1200-700 BC) were lavishly decorated with large-scale, open-air figurative reliefs - an original and greatly influential artistic tradition. But why exactly did the production of such an array of monumental images ever start? This volume explores how Syro-Hittite monumental art was used as a powerful backdrop to important ritual events, and opens up a new perspective by situating monumental art in the context of public performances and civic spectacles of great emotional impact, such as processions, royal triumphs, and dynastic funerals.
Download or read book Feasting in the Archaeology and Texts of the Bible and the Ancient Near East written by Peter Altmann and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together the work of scholars using various methodologies to investigate the prevalence, importance, and meanings of feasting and foodways in the texts and cultural-material environments of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. Thus, it serves as both an introduction to and explication of this emerging field. The offerings range from the third-millennium Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia to the rise of a new cuisine in the Islamic period and transverse geographical locations such as southern Iraq, Syria, the Aegean, and especially the southern Levant. The strength of this collection lies in the many disciplines and methodologies that come together. Texts, pottery, faunal studies, iconography, and anthropological theory are all accorded a place at the table in locating the importance of feasting as a symbolic, social, and political practice. Various essays showcase both new archaeological methodologies—zooarchaeological bone analysis and spatial analysis—and classical methods such as iconographic studies, ceramic chronology, cultural anthropology, and composition-critical textual analysis.
Download or read book Afterlives of Ancient Rock cut Monuments in the Near East written by Jonathan Ben-Dov and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume gathers articles by archeologists, art historians, and philologists concerned with the afterlives of ancient rock-cut monuments throughout the Near East. Contributions analyze how such monuments were actively reinterpreted and manipulated long after they were first carved.
Download or read book Power and Identity at the Margins of the Ancient Near East written by Sara Mohr and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2023-09-15 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Power and Identity at the Margins of the Ancient Near East rethinks the dichotomy between antiquated terms such as “core” and “periphery,” explores lived realities in the margins of central authority, and centers those margins as places of resistance and power in their own right. The borderlands of hegemonic entities within the Near East and Egypt pressed against each other, creating cities and societies with influence from several competing polities. The peoples, cities, and cultures that resulted present a unique lens by which to examine how states controlled and influenced the lives, political systems, and social hierarchies of these subjects (and vice versa). This volume addresses the distinct traditions and experiences of areas beyond the core; terminology used when discussing empire, core, periphery, borderlands, and frontiers; conceptualization of space; practices and consequences of warfare, captive-taking, and slavery; identity- and secondary state–formation; economy and society; ritual; diplomacy; and the negotiation of claims to power. It is imperative that historians and social scientists understand the ways in which these cultures developed, spread, and interacted with others along frontier edges. Using an intersectional approach across disciplines, Power and Identity at the Margins of the Ancient Near East brings together professionals from archaeology, religious studies, history, sociology, and anthropology to make new contributions to the study of the frontier. Contributors: Alexander Ahrens, Peter Dubovský, Avraham Faust, Daniel E. Fleming, Mahri Leonard-Fleckman, Alvise Matessi, Ellen Morris, Valeria Turriziani, Eric M. Trinka
Download or read book Exemplars of Kingship written by Melissa Eppihimer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stretching across the historical region of Mesopotamia, the Akkadian dynasty (ca. 2334-2154 BCE) created a territorial state of unprecedented scale in the ancient Near East by uniting the city-states of Sumer and Akkad and parts of Syria and Iran. To establish and, later, cement their authority over disparate peoples and places, the kings used art and visual culture to extraordinary effect. Exemplars of Kingship conveys the astonishing life of the art of the Akkadian kings by assessing ancient and modern responses to its dynamic forms and transformative ideologies of kingship. For nearly two thousand years after their reign, the Akkadian kings were remembered as exemplary rulers. Modern assessments of ancient memories of Akkadian kingship have concentrated on textual attestations of the kings' place in cultural memory. This book considers the contributions of images to memories of Akkadian kingship. Through close readings of the visuals that remain, Melissa Eppihimer discusses how Akkadian steles, statues, and cylinder seals became models for later rulers in Mesopotamia and beyond who wished to emulate or critique the Akkadian kings-and how these rulers and their contemporaries were reminded of the Akkadian past when they looked at images. Exemplars of Kingship is, therefore, a book about Akkadian art and its reception in antiquity, but it is also concerned with the modern reception of Akkadian art and kingship. It argues that modern responses have constrained our understanding of ancient responses. Through a wide range of examples drawn from almost two millennia, the book highlights the individual decisions that prompted continuity and change during the long history of Mesopotamia and its artistic traditions.
Download or read book A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art written by Ann C. Gunter and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-09-08 with total page 703 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Bone and Ivory Objects from Gordion written by Phoebe A. Sheftel and published by University of Pennsylvania Museum. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gordion is a paramount site for understanding the culture of central Anatolia over more than 3,000 years, from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period, but is most renowned for its Iron Age horizon, when it was royal capital of the mighty Phrygian kingdom. The hundreds of bone and ivory artifacts excavated at Gordion constitute a highly diverse body of material, and this publication presents one of the largest and most important assemblages of its kind in the Near East. The artifacts give remarkable insight into the tools used in crafts and manufacturing processes, a variety of decorative items, the artistic developments among local craftspeople, as well as indications of trading connections with other regions to the east and west. Ivory was a highly valued material used for decorative pieces in many areas around the eastern Mediterranean. The objects from Gordion are a significant addition to this corpus and illustrate both widely dispersed features common in other contemporary ivory-working centers, as well as the singular motifs and styles that developed in the Phrygian milieu. A unique assemblage of ivory horse trappings from the Early Phrygian Citadel are an important illustration of this cultural confluence. While bone was primarily used for strictly utilitarian objects, there are numerous pieces that show this lowly material could be used for high quality items such as inlays set into the wooden furniture exceptionally attested at Gordion. Even the sheep knuckle bone (astragal), decorated with incised designs and letters, gives a glimpse into the daily life in the community.
Download or read book The Bloomsbury Handbook of Material Religion in the Ancient Near East and Egypt written by Nicola Laneri and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-29 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions spanning from the Neolithic Age to the Iron Age, this book offers important insights into the religions and ritual practices in ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern communities through the lenses of their material remains. The book begins with a theoretical introduction to the concept of material religion and features editor introductions to each of its six parts, which tackle the following themes: the human body; religious architecture; the written word; sacred images; the spirituality of animals; and the sacred role of the landscape. Illustrated with over 100 images, chapters provide insight into every element of religion and materiality, from the largest building to the smallest amulet. This is a benchmark work for further studies on material religion in the ancient Near East and Egypt.
Download or read book Making Sense of Monuments written by Michael J. Kolb and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Confederate statues, Egyptian pyramids, and medieval cathedrals: these are some of the places that are the subject of Making Sense of Monuments, an analysis of how the built environment molds human experiences and perceptions via bodily comparison. Drawing from recent research in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and semiotics, Michael J. Kolb explores the mechanics of the mind, the material world, and the spatialization process of monumental architecture. Three distinct spatial-cognitive metaphors—time, movement, and scale—comprise strands of knowledge that when interwoven create embodied contours of meaning of how human interact with monumental spaces. Comprehensive, lucidly written, and thoroughly illustrated, Making Sense of Monuments is a vibrant, extraordinary journey of the monuments we have constructed and inhabited.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Anatolia Volume II written by Sharon R. Steadman and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume in the Archaeology of Anatolia series offers reports on the most recent discoveries from across the Anatolian peninsula. Periods covered span the Epipalaeolithic to the Islamic, and sites and regions range from the western Anatolian coast to Van, as well as the southeast. Also included here are both reviews of recent work at ongoing excavations and data retrieved from the last several years of survey projects. This series presents a forum in which scholars report their most recent data to a global audience, allowing for productive engagement with others working in and near Anatolia. Published every two years, The Archaeology of Anatolia: Recent Discoveries Series is an invaluable vehicle through which working archaeologists may carry out their most critical task: the presentation of their fieldwork and laboratory research in a timely fashion.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Anatolia Volume III written by Sharon R. Steadman and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This third volume in the Archaeology of Anatolia series offers reports on the most recent discoveries from across the Anatolian peninsula. Periods covered here span the Epipalaeolithic to the Medieval, and sites and regions range from the western Anatolian coast to Van, as well as the southeast. The contributors offer nearly real-time updates on their ongoing excavations and surveys across the Anatolian landscape. A new section in this third volume, “The State of the Field,” presents the latest findings in critical areas of Anatolian archaeology. The Archaeology of Anatolia series represents a forum for scholars to report their most recent data to a global audience, allowing for productive engagement with others working in and near Anatolia. Published every two years, it is an invaluable vehicle through which working archaeologists may carry out their most critical task: the presentation of their fieldwork and laboratory research in a timely fashion.
Download or read book Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East written by Claudia Glatz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolution and proliferation of plain and predominantly wheel-made pottery presents a characteristic feature of the societies of the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean since the fourth millennium B.C. This plain pottery has received little detailed archaeological attention in comparison to aesthetically more pleasing and chronologically sensitive decorated traditions. Yet, their simplicity and standardization suggest they are products of craft specialists, the result of high-volume production, and therefore important in understanding the social systems in early complex societies. This volume-reevaluates the role and significance of plain pottery traditions from both historically specific perspectives and from a comparative point of view;-examines the uses and functions of this pottery in relation to social negotiation and group identity formation;-helps scholars understand cross-regional similarities in development and use.
Download or read book From Hittite to Homer written by Mary R. Bachvarova and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a bold new approach to the prehistory of Homeric epic, arguing for a fresh understanding of how Near Eastern influence worked.
Download or read book Language and Religion written by Robert Yelle and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume draws on an interdisciplinary team of authors to advance the study of the religious dimensions of communication and the linguistic aspects of religion. Contributions cover: poetry, iconicity, and iconoclasm in religious language; semiotic ideologies in traditional religions and in secularism; and the role of materiality and writing in religious communication. This volume will provoke new approaches to language and religion.
Download or read book Cities and Power written by Göran Therborn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do cities tell us about power? How does power shape cities? These are the main questions answered by a multidisciplinary set of eminent urban scholar in crisp articles on capital cities from around the world, from Buenos Aires to Tokyo, from Jakarta to Moscow. Focus is on contemporary cities and their manifestations and representations of power, though often with a historical grounding, and the collection also includes an example of archaeological urban analysis, from northern Mesopotamia. Through its variety of approaches by leading scholars of the field, and its variety of cities with their different histories and their diverse national contexts and political organization the book gives a uniquely insightful and easily accessible world overview of cities of power. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Urban Sciences.
Download or read book The Ten Commandments written by Timothy S. Hogue and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-30 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Connects monumentality and material culture to questions of textual authority and literary history. It includes a comprehensive comparative study of the Decalogue (including new translation and analysis) and Levantine monuments that will be of interest to scholars of Hebrew Bible, Jewish studies, religious studies, archaeology, and art history.
Download or read book The Neo Assyrian Empire written by Simonetta Ponchia and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient historians considered the Assyrian empire the crucial starting point of a new political system which was adopted by later empires. In modern historical research, this problem still needs to be investigated in a global perspective that studies the development of the imperial model through ages. Abundant epigraphical and archaeological sources can be used in investigating the expansionistic tacticts, the control structures, and the administrative procedures implemented by the Assyrians through a continuous effort of adaptation to evolving situations and changing needs. The book provides an updated outline of the history of the Assyrian empire and its neighbours, a detailed analysis of the technical and ideological aspects of the construction of the Assyrian empire, and of its long-lasting legacy in the Near East and in the West. For its broad theoretical framework, which includes the reference to studies of ancient and modern empires and imperialism, the book is intended not only for the specialists of Ancient Near Eastern history, but also for a wider public of Classical and Medieval historians and of historians interested in world and global history.
