Fragmentation: Babylonian and Julian Calendars in the Near East, Third Century bce–Seventh Century ce

Author(s):  
Sacha Stern
Author(s):  
Jan Moje

This chapter gives an overview of the history of recording and publishing epigraphic sources in Demotic language and script from the Late Period to Greco-Roman Egypt (seventh century bce to third century ce), for example, on stelae, offering tables, coffins, or votive gifts. The history of editing such texts and objects spans over two hundred years. Here, the important steps and pioneering publications on Demotic epigraphy are examined. They start from the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt found the Rosetta stone, until the twenty-first century.


2020 ◽  
pp. 99-100
Author(s):  
Fanny Bessard

In certain respects, the development of urban retailing and crafts in the Near East from 700 to 950 was a natural response to the Muslim conquests, which joined up the late Roman and Persian trading zones. Still, it was not a self-generated process. Archaeological and textual sources reveal the prominent role that Muslim imperial authority played in the patronage of urban market and production spaces, possibly from as early as the late seventh century. While literary testimonies unanimously depict ‘Abbāsid sovereigns as more coercive in provincial life and the patronage of urban economy to support imperial propaganda, we can extrapolate from earlier accounts orally transmitted that caliphs and governors pursued an active investment policy as early as the rule of ‘Abd al-Malik in the late seventh and early eighth centuries....


Author(s):  
Robert G. Ousterhout

During the seventh century in the Caucasus, Armenia and Georgia witnessed a remarkable period of architectural production and creativity. The Ṭur ‘Abdin witnessed a flourishing at the same time, while architecture in other areas, such as Cyprus, Egypt, and Nubia, developed in relative isolation. With the emergence of Islam in the Near East, by the end of the seventh century, new architectural forms were developed to serve the new religion, dependent on the earlier Byzantine tradition and probably executed by Byzantine artisans.


1999 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 159-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veli Sevin

The Urartian Kingdom, as is well known, played a major power role on the stage of history in eastern Anatolia in the second half of the ninth century BC and remained powerful until the second half of the seventh century BC. With their highly advanced architectural traditions and organised state structure, the Urartians take their place among the most exciting civilisations of the first half of the first millennium BC in the Near East.Extensive detailed research and publication has been carried out on Urartian civilisation for over a hundred years, but the origin and dynamics of the development of this civilisation are still obscure. The Assyrian annals, which start from the 13th century BC, are at present the only source for understanding the early periods. These records were intended as propaganda and their accuracy is in many instances thus questionable.


Iraq ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Marciak ◽  
Robert S. Wójcikowski

This paper offers the first ever discussion of all extant images of Abdissar, Monobazos I and ’tlw (Attalos), Kings of Adiabene. In analysing the numismatic and sculptural data, a few conclusions on the historical context are suggested. First, it is argued that stylistic features of the coinage of Abdissar suggest a date in the first half of the second centuryb.c.e., and this dating bears upon the question of the historical origin of the Kingdom of Adiabene. Adiabene originated as one of many “post-Seleucid” states which arose in the Near East when the Seleucid kingdom started to crumble, before the advent of the Parthians. This suggestion is also corroborated by stylistic features of the coinage which accentuate the divine investiture of royal power in Abdissar. It is also held that the Batas-Herir monument depicts King Abdissar. Second, the images on the coin of Monobazos I clearly reflect the time of Adiabene's economic prosperity and political rise to significance among Parthian “lesser kings” in the first half of the first centuryc.e. Third, the reign of King ’tlw (Attalos) remains largely obscure, but the placement of his sculpture in Hatra clearly shows good political relations and close cultural ties between the kingdoms of Adiabene and Hatra in the first half of the third centuryc.e. Additionally, the authors argue that the images of Oriental kings on the coins of Septimius Severus do not represent any particular Oriental rulers (of Edessa, Adiabene or Hatra), but are merely stereotypical images of what the Romans considered to be typical Oriental royal outfits.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Khaled M. Shuqair

The aim of the present paper is to examine the kind of thinking and the chain of assumptions that lie behind the reduction of metaphor to a mere ornament in Arabic literary theory.   For this purpose, Arabic ornamentalist thinking is traced from the third century A.H. (the ninth century A.D.) to the seventh century A.H. (the thirteenth century A.D.).  This is not to say, however, that the seventh century marks the end of such thinking in Arabic literary theory, but that at that time the Arabic literary theory, and the theory of metaphor, was developed into fixtures with an increasing emphasis given to form over content and the art of verbal expression in general.  Inordinate attention was given to ornate style, and rhetoric became an arena for displaying verbal acrobatics.  The axioms, "closeness of resemblance" and "congruity of metaphorical elements," represent metaphor's highest degree of formalization and stereotyping.  That is why some of the images in classical theory are mainly based on complete parallelism between the objects compared, particularly with regard to form, size and color.  From that time onwards, the fixtures of the classical theory have been kept intact.   Metaphor, and rhetoric in general, is nowadays reduced to textbooks to be studied in abstract and rigid terms developed by the classical theory.  Arabic rhetoric is a dead discipline: it is merely an ornamental repertoire of figures that could only be used as a sweet adorner for the language.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 177-186
Author(s):  
Ralf Bockmann ◽  
Hamden Ben Romdhane ◽  
Frerich Schön ◽  
Iván Fumadó Ortega ◽  
Stefano Cespa ◽  
...  

AbstractThe paper presents first results of a joint German–Tunisian research project in Carthage, Tunisia. Archaeological fieldwork has been undertaken (preceded by a geophysical survey) in the southwestern quarter of the ancient city to study the architecture, chronology and urban context of the circus. The area has, unlike the rest of Carthage, not been targeted by excavations of the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries and, also unlike the rest of Carthage, is mostly not overbuilt, although under pressure from neighbouring communities. The area is the last one allowing a large-scale diachronic urban study in which the circus and its impact on the quarter is in the centre. From our first results, we can date the beginning of the construction of the circus to the late first century AD, with interventions in the early third century and usage continuing into the sixth. We were able to define the extension of the northern cavea and to study the western part of the spina and identify the meta at this point. Information has been obtained on early Roman, pre-circus use of the area as well as data on the Punic phases. Sixth- and seventh-century levels are also well preserved.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Yoshiko Reed

The full publication of 4Q208 and 4Q209 in 2000 has enabled a renaissance of research on the Enochic Astronomical Book, illumining its deep connections with Babylonian scholasticism and spurring debate about the precise channels by which such “scientific” knowledge came to reach Jewish scribes. This article asks whether attention to Aramaic manuscripts related to the Astronomical Book might also reveal something about Jewish scribal pedagogy and literary production in the early Hellenistic age, particularly prior to the Maccabean Revolt. Engaging recent studies from Classics and the History of Science concerning astronomy, pedagogy, and the place of scribes and books in the cultural politics of the third century bce, it uses the test-case of the Astronomical Book to explore the potential significance of Aramaic sources for charting changes within Jewish literary cultures at the advent of Macedonian rule in the Near East.


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