Scholars working on languages, history and archaeology of Mesopotamia and surrounding regions
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Lloyd Graham deposited Which Seth? Untangling some close homonyms from ancient Egypt and the Near East in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 1 year, 1 month ago
This paper aims to disambiguate the proper name “Seth” and its cognates or homonyms – perfect or imperfect – in texts from ancient Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterranean. It considers: (1) the Suteans, West Semitic Amorite/Aramean nomads who feature negatively in Mesopotamian records; (2) S(h)eth in the Hebrew bible, in which a dispara…[Read more]
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited “Migrating Demons, Liminal Deities, and Assyria’s Western Campaigns.” in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 1 year, 4 months ago
Demons and monsters are inherently moveable creatures: from the late second millennium BCE onwards a number of demons and monsters migrate from their native Mesopotamian contexts, moving westward. Of course, these figures do not remain static throughout their journey, instead acquiring the characteristics of the different cultural contexts wherein…[Read more]
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Henry Colburn deposited Von Silber und Getreide – Zahlungsmittel und Wirtschaft im Achämenidenreich in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 1 year, 5 months ago
A short essay on the different forms of money used in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Translated into German by Julia Linke.
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Lloyd Graham deposited “Bad Shepherds” of the Eastern Delta in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 1 year, 7 months ago
During the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE, the Nile’s Eastern Delta was supposedly the locale of truculent “shepherds” who were inimical to Egypt. These problematic herdsmen seem largely to have been refractions of foreign powers generated by independent etymological confusions, behind which lie the Hyksos and the Assyrians; however, the caric…[Read more]
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Lloyd Graham deposited Similarities between North Mesopotamian (Late Halaf), Egyptian (Naqada) and Nubian (A-Group) female figurines of the 6-4th millennia BCE in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 1 year, 11 months ago
Late Halaf female figurines of clay/pottery from northeastern Syria (Type LH.1A; 6th millennium BCE) have close parallels in predynastic Egyptian figurines (4th millennium BCE) in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The lack of provenance for the Egyptian statuettes – all of which were purchased – has long inhibited any comparison with the…[Read more]
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Jonathan Valk deposited The Eagle and the Snake, or anzû and bašmu? Another Mythological Dimension in the Epic of Etana in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 1 month ago
Much of the surviving text of the Epic of Etana tells the story of an eagle and a snake. The eagle and snake are extraordinary creatures, and their story abounds with mythological subtext. This paper argues that the Neo-Assyrian recension of Etana was amended to include explicit references to the eagle and the snake by the names of their…[Read more]
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited Deities, Demons, and Monsters in Mesopotamia. in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 6 months ago
Overview of demons and monsters in Mesopotamia, highlighting works in the Yale Babylonian Collection.
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Lloyd Graham deposited Iconographic similarities between Permian “goddess plaques” (Ural region, 7-8th centuries CE) and Horus cippi (Egypt, 8th century BCE – 2nd century CE) in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 6 months ago
The iconography of the Horus cippus, an amulet popular in Egypt from the late Third Intermediate Period to Roman times (8th century BCE – 2nd century CE), is unexpectedly recapitulated in bronze “goddess plaques” of the 7-8th centuries CE made by Permian peoples – Finno-Ugric groups from the Ural region of northern Eurasia. The likely expla…[Read more]
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited Review of: Jan J. W. Lisman, Cosmogony, Theogony, and Anthropogeny in Sumerian Texts. Vol. 409 of Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 9 months ago
Review of: Jan J. W. Lisman, Cosmogony, Theogony, and Anthropogeny in Sumerian Texts. Vol. 409 of Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. In Rosetta 18 (2015)
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited Review of: Michael B. Hundley, Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East, vol. 3 in Writings from the Ancient World Supplements. Bethesda: Society for Biblical Literature Publications, 2013. in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 9 months ago
Review of: Michael B. Hundley, Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East, vol. 3 in Writings from the Ancient World Supplements. Bethesda: Society for Biblical Literature Publications, 2013. In Rosetta 20 (2017).
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited Inscribed Kassite Cylinder Seals in the Metropolitan Museum. in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 10 months ago
Study of inscribed Kassite cylinder seals held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited Through the Guts of a Beggar: Power, Authority, and the King in Old Babylonian Proverbs. in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 10 months ago
Study of Old Babylonian Sumerian proverbs that speak on authority and how those same proverbs may subtly (or not quite so subtly) rebuke the king and established institutions of power.
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited Shifting Alignments: the Dichotomy of Benevolent and Malevolent Demons in Mesopotamia. in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 10 months ago
A study of the nature of the udug and lama figures as seen in Mesopotamian (primarily Old Babylonian) incantations, as well as an overview of the nature of demons in Mesopotamia.
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited Pigs and Plaques: Considering Rm. 714 in Light of Comparative Artistic and Textual Sources in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 10 months ago
Rm. 714, a first millennium B.C.E. tablet in the collections of the British Museum, is remarkable for the fine carving of a striding pig in high relief on its obverse. Purchased by Hormuzd Rassam in Baghdad in 1877, it lacks archaeological context and must be considered in light of other textual and artistic references to pigs, the closest…[Read more]
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Gina Konstantopoulos deposited The Disciplines of Geography: Constructing Space in the Ancient World in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 2 years, 10 months ago
This article serves as introduction to a special double issue of the journal, comprised of seven articles that center on the theme of space and place in the ancient world. The essays examine the ways in which borders, frontiers, and the lands beyond them were created, defined, and maintained in the ancient world. They consider such themes within…[Read more]
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Henry Colburn deposited Gemelli Careri’s Description of Persepolis in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 3 years ago
This article examines the description of Persepolis, one of the capital cities of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550–330 BCE), by Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (1651–1725) in his illustrated travelogue Giro del mondo (1699–1700). Gemelli Careri’s extensive description of the site—some twenty pages of text accompanied by two plates en…[Read more]
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Lloyd Graham deposited “Then a star fell:” Folk-memory of a celestial impact event in the ancient Egyptian Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor? in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 3 years, 1 month ago
The motif in the centre of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (ca. 2000-1900 BCE) concerns a star that fell to earth and caused the extinction of a population of giant serpents on an enchanted island, whose location is traditionally ascribed to the Red Sea. These creatures could apparently breathe fire, but they themselves…[Read more]
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Lloyd Graham deposited Mythogeography and hydromythology in the initial sections of Sumerian and Egyptian king-lists in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 3 years, 1 month ago
Ancient pseudo-histories may contain kernels of geographic truth. In the Sumerian King List (SKL) the long and south-focused antediluvian era may reflect a combination of the Ubaid and Uruk periods, while the initial post-Flood period, which was short and ruled from the north, may reflect the Jemdet Nasr phase. The SKL’s subsequent return of k…[Read more]
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Lloyd Graham deposited Did ancient peoples of Egypt and the Near East really imagine themselves as facing the past, with the future behind them? in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 3 years, 2 months ago
Linguistic studies in Egyptology, Assyriology and Biblical Studies harbour a persistent trope in which the inhabitants of the Ancient Near East and Egypt are believed to have visualised the past as in front of them and the future as behind them. Analyses of the spatial conceptualisation of time in language have revealed that the opposite is true…[Read more]
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Lloyd Graham deposited King’s Daughter, God’s Wife: The Princess as High Priestess in Mesopotamia (Ur, ca. 2300-1100 BCE) and Egypt (Thebes, ca. 1550-525 BCE) in the group
Assyriologists on Humanities Commons 3 years, 2 months ago
The practice of a king appointing his daughter as the High Priestess and consort of an important male deity arose independently in the Ancient Near East and Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the prime example of such an appointee was the EN-priestess of Nanna (EPN) at Ur; in Egypt, its most important embodiment was the God’s Wife of Amun (GWA) at Thebes. B…[Read more]
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