Text-building and Transmission of Pyramid Texts in the Third Millennium bce: Iteration, Objectification, and Change

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-201
Author(s):  
Antonio J. Morales
Keyword(s):  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Pyramid Texts ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mortuary Literature

The emergence of ancient Egyptian mortuary literature in the third millennium bce is the history of the adaptation of recitational materials to the materiality of different media. Upon a gradual development, the transformation of the oral discourse into writing began with the use of papyri for transcribing the guidelines of ritual performances as aide-mémoire, and culminated with the concealment of sacerdotal voices and deeds into the sealed-off crypt of king Wenis (ca. 2345 bce). The process of committing ritual and magical recitations into scriptio continua in the Pyramid Texts was subject to several stages of adaptation, detachability, and recentering. Investigating how the corpus emerged through the combination of recitations from different settings elucidates the transformation of oral written discourse into literary style, the traces of poetic and speech elements in the corpus, and its flexibility to disseminate and adapt to different mortuary practices, beliefs and contexts in the second millennia bce and beyond.

scholarly journals I višap armeni. Appunti per una storia della ricezione

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Gilibert
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Complex Sequence ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unknown Point

Vishaps are large-scale prehistoric stelae decorated with animal reliefs, erected at secluded mountain locations of the South Caucasus. This paper focuses on the vishaps of modern Armenia and traces their history of re-use and manipulations, from the end of the third millennium BCE to the Middle Ages. Since their creation at an unknown point in time before 2100 BCE, vishaps functioned as symbolic anchors for the creation and transmission of religious and political messages: they were torn down, buried, re-worked, re-erected, transformed and used as a surface for graffiti. This complex sequence of re-contextualisations underscores the primacy of mountains as political arenas for the negotiation of religious and ritual meaning.

The Archaeology and History of the Negev and Neighbouring Areas in the Third Millennium BCE: A New Paradigm

Tel Aviv ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Israel Finkelstein ◽  
Matthew J. Adams ◽  
Zachary C. Dunseth ◽  
Ruth Shahack-Gross
Keyword(s):  
New Paradigm ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of

The History of the Judahite Bench Tomb

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Suriano
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Iron Age Ii ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Insight Into

The history of the Judahite bench tomb provides important insight into the meaning of mortuary practices, and by extension, death in the Hebrew Bible. The bench tomb appeared in Judah during Iron Age II. Although it included certain burial features that appear earlier in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, such as burial benches, and the use of caves for extramural burials, the Judahite bench tomb uniquely incorporated these features into a specific plan that emulated domestic structures and facilitated multigenerational burials. During the seventh century, and continuing into the sixth, the bench tombs become popular in Jerusalem. The history of this type of burial shows a gradual development of cultural practices that were meant to control death and contain the dead. It is possible to observe within these cultural practices the tomb as a means of constructing identity for both the dead and the living.

The experience of non-traditional study of the poetics of literary works (on the example of the book “Fontanelle” by Meir Shalev)

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Vadim Markovich Rozin
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Family ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
Family And Marriage ◽  
Nontraditional Approach ◽  
Empirical Material

This article offers a nontraditional approach towards studying the poetics of literary work, which considers personality of the reader and analysis of the reality that he reconstructs and experiences. The empirical material is comprised on the authorial analysis of the poetics of Meir Shalev's novel “Fontanelle”. This literary work features the four major themes: love of the protagonist Michael, creation of the new world from its inception, the characteristic of life values of a person, and discussion of the peculiarities of reality that Meir Shalev builds as an artist. In the first theme, the author reveals several images of love, reflecting on the mystical love of the protagonist for the young woman Ana, love in the family and marriage, love for children. At the same time, the author discusses not only the way that Meir Shalev understands and describes love in “Fontanelle”, but also talks about the own interpretation of love. In the plotline of the second theme, the author also distinguishes two lines: the story the protagonist’s grandfather Apupa, who carries his beloved Amuma on his shoulders across the country, seeking a place where they could create a home and family; and the story of gradual development of a small settlement into a city, created by Apupa and Amuma on the mountain, and several Jewish families at the lower valley. Discussing in the third topic the anchors of human life, the author emphasizes such values as effort, love, family and family line, creativity, indicating that Michael is not alone, he is loved, he gets involved in family history, as well as the history of Israel and Jewish culture, drawing strength in the heroes of this story. The last part of the article gives characteristic to the reality of “Fontanelle” and explains why the author liked it.

The Early Bronze Age in Southeastern Anatolia

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Tuba Ökse
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce

This article presents data on the Early Bronze Age (EBA) of southeastern Anatolia. The EBA chronology of southeastern Anatolia is parallel to northern Syrian chronologies. The traditional EBA I-III chronology of Anatolia is based on the Tarsus sequence and the EBA I-IV chronology of northwestern Syria on the Amuq and Tell Mardikh sequences. The distribution of ceramic groups and special vessel types reflects geographical and chronological differences throughout the third millennium BCE. The relative chronologies of geographical zones and individual periods are based mainly on ceramic distributions; absolute dates obtained from radiocarbon analyses are rare.

Dynastic Change and Institutional Administration in Southern Mesopotamia in the Later Third Millennium BCE: Evidence from Seals and Sealing Practices

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Zettler
Keyword(s):  
Administrative Practices ◽  
The Third ◽  
Early Dynastic ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
Third Dynasty Of Ur

This chapter examines the evolution of seal imagery and sealing practices in southern Mesopotamia during the latter half of the third millennium BCE or the late Early Dynastic period and succeeding Dynasty of Agade and Third Dynasty of Ur. It describes changes in glyptic imagery as well as sealing practices and elucidates the timing of those changes. It concludes that seal imagery and sealing practices were not static, but evolved over the course of the late third millennium and that the introduction of new imagery and changing administrative practices were gradual and seemingly lagged decades behind dynastic change.

The Empires of Western Asia and the Assyrian World Empire

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-110
Author(s):  
Gojko Barjamovic
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Empire

The history of empire begins in Western Asia. This chapter tracks developments in the second and first millennia BCE as imperial control in the region became increasingly common and progressively more pervasive. Oscillations between political fragmentation and imperial unification swung gradually toward the latter, from just a few documented examples in the third millennium BCE to the more-or-less permanent partition of Western Asia into successive imperial states from the seventh century BCE until the end of World War I. The chapter covers about a dozen empires and empire-like states, tracing developments of territoriality and notions of imperial universality using Assyria ca. 2004–605 BCE as a case study for how large and loose hegemonies became the normative political formation in the region.

The Rise of Libraries in Western Asia, c.2600–2300 BCE

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-114
Author(s):  
Kamran Vincent Zand
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce

The chapter compares the find-spots of lexical and literary texts from three different places: Shuruppag and Tell Abu Salabikh in Mesopotamia and Ebla situated in modern-day Syria. In Shuruppag and Ebla lexical and literary texts have been found in official buildings of the ruling elite, also combination with a massive amount of administrative texts. It can be seen that lexical and literary texts were produced, kept, and transmitted by scribes in the context of the administration of the different cities. They played therefore not only an important role in transmission and mastery of the cuneiform writing system, the main administrative tool. Their importance for the elites resulted in the development of a network of knowledge that spread Mesopotamian myths and lore over the Near East in the third millennium BCE.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document