199. K. Sonik – U. Steinert (Eds,), The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East, London – New York: Routledge, 695-724, 2022
This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex w... more This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world's earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study. Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period methodological issues through thematic analyses and the second encompassing corpus-based explores happiness and joy; fear, terror, and awe; sadness, grief, and depression; contempt, pity, empathy, and compassion. Numerous sub-themes threading through the volume explore such topics as emotional expression and suppression in relation to social status, gender, the body, and particular social and spatial conditions or material contexts. The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East is an invaluable and and medieval studies, and a must-read for scholars, students, and others interested in the history and cross-cultural study of emotions.
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Books by Mario Fales
This book stems from an international conference at the University of Graz on March 2, 2020 – just before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. The conference brought together Austrian specialists from the Graz Department of Ancient History and Classical Studies and from the URANIA für Steiermark Association, with academics from different Italian universities connected by the Cultural Association A.C. CulturArti of Udine within the framework of its second Alpe-Adria Festival of Public Archeology – No Borders project, funded by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region.
A felicitous meeting between specialists from Austria and Italy, under the aegis of a mixed public and private management, now finds its outcome in the present volume, jointly edited by academics and organizers from both countries, with all papers in English.
Historical framework. Outline of grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax).
Presentation of all texts known at present in transliteration, Italian translation, line-by-line commentary. Palaeographical appendix by E. Attardo. Reproduction in line drawings of the main inscriptions (tab. I-X); Map (tab. XI).
REVIEWS: Dominique Charpin, Revue d'Assyriologie 103 (2009), 190; JoAnn Scurlock, JAOS 132 (2012), 313-315; Brigitte Lion, Revue des Etudes anciennes 115 (2013) , n° 1.
Reviews: Pierre VILLARD, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 57/3 (2002), 675-677. doi:10.1017/S039526490003465X
Papers by Mario Fales
This book stems from an international conference at the University of Graz on March 2, 2020 – just before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. The conference brought together Austrian specialists from the Graz Department of Ancient History and Classical Studies and from the URANIA für Steiermark Association, with academics from different Italian universities connected by the Cultural Association A.C. CulturArti of Udine within the framework of its second Alpe-Adria Festival of Public Archeology – No Borders project, funded by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region.
A felicitous meeting between specialists from Austria and Italy, under the aegis of a mixed public and private management, now finds its outcome in the present volume, jointly edited by academics and organizers from both countries, with all papers in English.
Historical framework. Outline of grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax).
Presentation of all texts known at present in transliteration, Italian translation, line-by-line commentary. Palaeographical appendix by E. Attardo. Reproduction in line drawings of the main inscriptions (tab. I-X); Map (tab. XI).
REVIEWS: Dominique Charpin, Revue d'Assyriologie 103 (2009), 190; JoAnn Scurlock, JAOS 132 (2012), 313-315; Brigitte Lion, Revue des Etudes anciennes 115 (2013) , n° 1.
Reviews: Pierre VILLARD, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 57/3 (2002), 675-677. doi:10.1017/S039526490003465X
Luc Bachelot – Frederick Mario Fales
1. Avant-propos et remerciements p. I
2. Le cadre des fouilles archeologiques du Haut Euphrate syrien p. VII
3. Le cadre historique p. XXI
4. Les enjeux de la recherche dans la zone du Tishrin p. XXXIX
Bibliographie p. XLIII
English abstract: The topic of ‘Orientalism’ rose to popularity thanks to the book with this title of 1978 by Edward W. Said (1935-2003), which described the Western attitude of cultural superiority and its practice of exploitative dominance, since Napoleon’s time, over the peoples to the immediate East, especially in Islamic lands.
This paper reviews the achievements of the Palestinian-born but British-educated author, who became, as Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia, a very productive and outspoken intellectual, and spent a large part of his career in decrying the dispersal of the Palestinians by the Israelis in 1948, while at the same time advocating a political solution which would satisfy both the older and the more recent ‘victims’ of historical displacement – a condition which Said himself felt strongly in his personal life.
Viciously criticized and reviled by Neo-conservatives and pro-Zionists on different grounds, Said’s main book attracted on the other hand an enormous audience in many languages, entailing a host of secondary applications in its method over various lands, cultures, and peoples, and also opening by extension new horizons in the field of post-colonial studies, from race to migration to gender issues. The untimely demise of this veritable maître à penser prevented him from witnessing – after 9/11 and the Second Gulf War – the particularly vicious segment of Near Eastern political and military struggles during the last two decades, from the ‘Arab springs’ to the Syrian war and ISIS.
Most unexpected to all concerned was, however, the opening of diplomatic relations between Israel and some Gulf states in August 2020. We may thus ask once again: will this new development finally bring a permanent peaceful solution to the situation of Israel/Palestine so dear to Said’s sensitivity, and will it – more widely – represent the conclusion of the 200-year- old ‘Orientalist’ rift between West and East which he uniquely unveiled?
This website collects recordings of modern Assyriologists reading ancient Babylonian and Assyrian poetry and literature aloud in the original language. It is the first undertaking of its kind, and accordingly some explanation of its aims is called for.
It is intended to serve several purposes, some for Assyriologists, and some for the wider public. First, it aims to foster interest among students of Babylonia and Assyria in how these civilisations’ works of verbal art were read aloud in the past, and how they should be read aloud today.
Second, it provides a forum in which scholars who have theories about Babylonian and Assyrian pronunciation, metre, etc. can present a concrete example of how their theories sound in practice. (In this function the archive does not of course aim to replace scholarly discussion in established channels, but rather to provide a useful complement to written publications).
Third, as a record of the ways in which contemporary scholars read Babylonian and Assyrian, it will some day serve a historical function. Many great Assyriologists, including some who had influential theories of Babylonian metre and phonology, passed into history without leaving a single recording of how they read Babylonian and Assyrian. This archive will provide at least some record of how scholars read Babylonian and Assyrian in the twenty-first century.
Finally, but not least, the questions which students of ancient languages most frequently hear from laymen are: "How did they sound? And how do you know?". This website is meant to serve as an introduction to these issues, providing the public with some idea of how modern Assyriologists think Babylonian and Assyrian were pronounced.
The Recordings
Special characters (tsade and tet) are in Steve Tinney's Ungkam font, derived from sil.org's Gentium font. To display them correctly, download the font from oracc.museum.upenn.edu/doc/user/fonts. The download is free. There are both a Mac Suitcase version and a Win/Linux OpenType version.
2. The many available sources
3. Archaeological information
4. The impact of time and space
5. Strategy, tactics, logistics, economics
6. The final goal: absolute power or pax assyriaca?
Step I. Iraqi antiquities were discovered and first exploited by Great Britain– entailing the removal of many pieces to the West.
Step II. The Mandatary power utilized Iraqi cultural heritage as one of its vectors of a “civilizing” process within the country.
Step III. In the age of decolonization, Iraqi cultural heritage was sponsored by the new élite in a nationalistic perspective, but also to win international favor (salvage digs, tourism).
Step IV. In the last 20 years, political hostility toward the élite has caused the (pre-Islamic) heritage to be decried as ideologically remote from local tradition, and Iraqi archaeologists to be denounced as stooges of Western culture.
Step V. The war of 2003 and its aftermath has caused severe economic shortage, thus forcing the local population to seek and sell antiquities for profit – with the support of Western collectors.
Step VI. The mid-to-long-term block of militant archaeology and of cultural tourism in disrupted Iraq is forcing us toward new avenues of research and teaching, hinging on virtual reconstructions, satellite-based observations,and “Museum digs”.
Some 200 pieces (tablets, seals, figurative works) from the Giancarlo Ligabue Collection plus loans from Venice and Turin archaeological museums.
CATALOGUE IN ITALIAN AND ENGLISH: SEE LINKS