A Praise Poem of Warad-Sîn, King of Larsa, to Nippur

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66
Author(s):  
Zsombor J. Földi ◽  
Gábor Zólyomi
Keyword(s):  
First Person ◽  
Private Collection ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
Royal Inscriptions ◽  
The City

AbstractThis paper publishes a praise poem of Warad-Sîn, king of Larsa. The manuscript, a one-column tablet, comes from a private collection and is unprovenanced. The text might be an excerpt from a longer composition. Its 20 lines long text praises first Nippur, the city of Enlil, then Warad-Sîn speaks in the first person about the commission given to him by Enlil, about his deeds to the city, and about their permanence. The author of this text appears to be familiar both with the literary corpus and the royal inscriptions of the early Old Babylonian period.

The First Millennium bc: Temple Enclosure or Urban Citadel?

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-276
Author(s):  
Barry Kemp
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
The South ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc ◽  
The City ◽  
Frequent Reference

The first millennium bc brought warfare to the interior of Egypt on a significant scale. We have two vivid records, one written and the other pictorial. The former is a first-person narrative of the Napatan (Sudanese) king Piankhy who, having gained control of the south of Egypt, embarked in 730 bc on a methodical subjugation of the rest of the country, then under the rule of several local families. During the seemingly irresistible northward progress of his army Piankhy makes frequent reference to walls with battlements and gates which could be countered with siege towers/battering rams and the erection of earthen ramps, although Piankhy himself preferred the tactic of direct storming. Within the circuit of these walls lay treasuries and granaries and, in the case of the city of Hermopolis in Middle Egypt, the palace of the local king Nemlut together with its stables for horses.

scholarly journals Enkidu and the Harlot: Another Fragment of Old Babylonian Gilgameš

2018 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-21
Author(s):  
A. R. George
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Intercourse ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Wild Man ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

Abstract This article presents a newly deciphered Old Babylonian fragment of the Epic of Gilgameš. The passages of text preserved on it tell of Enkidu’s encounter with the prostitute and of his arrival in the city of Uruk, and clarify the relationship between other sources for the same episode. The perceived difference between the Old and Standard Babylonian poems’ treatment of Enkidu’s seduction disappears. The extant versions can be reconciled in a single narrative, common to all versions, that holds two different weeks of sexual intercourse. The different narrative strategies deployed in describing them are one of the ways in which the poem explores Enkidu’s psychological development as he changes from wild man to socialized man.

3. Old Babylonian cities

2016 ◽  
pp. 33-39
Author(s):  
Trevor Bryce
Keyword(s):  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
Royal City ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sites

What did the city of Babylon look like? There are very few material remains of the royal city from this period, but more can be discovered about Old Babylonian cities from other urban sites in the kingdom, notably Ur and Uruk in its southern part. ‘Old Babylonian cities’ explains that each city had a major temple, or temple precinct, dedicated to its patron or tutelary deity, but the most striking monument in a number of Babylonian cities was a ziggurat: a sacred, stepped building, of between three and seven levels, ascending pyramid-like towards the heavens. The ziggurat of Babylon became notorious in biblical tradition as the ‘tower of Babel’.

scholarly journals Tennina, Lucía. Cuidado com os poetas! Literatura e periferia na cidade de São Paulo, translated by Ary Pimentel, Zouk, 2017.

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kacey Carter
Keyword(s):  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
First Person ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
The Media ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

Cuidado com os poetas! Literatura e periferia na cidade de São Paulo shows how urban peripheral communities of the city, often all referred to erroneously as favelas in the media, are spaces where cultural and literary production flourish. A professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires with a background in anthropology, Tennina combines literary analysis with first-person interviews to effectively counter popular discourses that associate these communities solely with criminality and drug trafficking.

US AGAINST THEM: IDEOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ASHURNASIRPAL II'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST ASSYRIAN REBELS IN ḪALZILUḪA

Iraq ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
Ben Dewar
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Royal Inscriptions ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The City

This paper is a study of the rebellion against the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in the city of Ḫalziluḫa in 882 bc, which is an unusual instance of a rebellion by Assyrians being recorded in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. This paper explores the significance of the rebellion from two angles: the ideological problem of rebellion by Assyrians, and the psychological impact on Assyrian troops of killing their fellow Assyrians. Within the ideology of the royal inscriptions, Assyrians did not normally rebel against the incumbent king, who was in all ways presented as a model ruler. It will be argued that Ashurnasirpal therefore made efforts in his inscriptions to stress that the Assyrian rebels in Ḫalziluḫa inhabited territory that had been lost to Assyria prior to his reign, and had become “de-Assyrianised” and “uncivilised.” It will be argued that a similar message was conveyed to the Assyrian soldiers through the ceremonies surrounding the creation of a monument at the source of the River Subnat, and that this message helped the soldiers to “morally disengage” from the act of killing other Assyrians, thus avoiding “moral self-sanctions” for an otherwise morally problematic act.

THE SURVIVAL FITNESS OF MEMES IN THE INHERITANCE DIVISIONS FROM OLD BABYLONIA SIPPAR

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 318-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susandra J. Van Wyk
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Algorithm ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Oral Culture ◽  
School Practices ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

Today, the clay tablets chiselled by Old Babylonian scribes from the city-state of Sippar are our only evidence of the legal conventions from oral agreements between family members in the division of their inheritance. But why would the Old Babylonians, a predominantly oral culture, go to the expense of hiring a scribe? On face value, it seems understandable that the recording of the division of the inheritance was for the sake of standardisation, legibility and simplification (Yoffee 1991). However, there is more to it. In this paper, I present Dawkins’ meme theory (1976) and assert that the legal conventions of division agreements and scribal school practices in Old Babylonian Sippar are a “meme complex”, a group of memes that co-adapt in order to ensure their own replication (Blackmore 1999, Dawkins 1976, Dennett 1991). The question still remains: why do these memes survive? I propose that the structures of the filters of such memes — driven by simplicity — are standardisation, certainty and legibility. They promote the memes in their evolutionary algorithm of variation, selection and retention. Thus, the recording of the oral division agreement is merely a record designed to protect and carry on the division agreement’s scribal school practices and, to a lesser degree, its legal conventions.

TWO OLD BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE CONTRACTS FROM ISIN

Iraq ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 125-137
Author(s):  
Mohannad Kh. J. Al-Shamari ◽  
Muzahim Al-Jalili
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Marriage Contracts ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
Military Campaign ◽  
The City

Our study establishes that two tablets from the Iraq Museum are marriage contracts dating to the Old Babylonian period and in particular from the city of Isin. The dating formula of IM 201688 refers to a hitherto unpublished year name for Erra-imittī, who became king of Isin in 1868 BC. The event concerns the making of four large copper lions as a votive offering. This might have been done in preparation for a military campaign in connection with the rivalry between Isin and Larsa. The dating formula of IM 183636 is completely damaged. However, the text includes a witness described as a citizen of Isin. These two tablets are a very useful addition to the limited number of published OB marriage contracts and especially those from Isin. The tablets were written using formulaic legal expressions in Sumerian throughout with the exception of proper names. Both texts show a remarkably equal treatment of the two spouses in matters relating to compensation in the event of divorce.

A seal-cutter's trial-piece in Berlin and a new look at the Diqdiqqeh lapidary workshops

Iraq ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Julia M. Asher-Greve
Keyword(s):  
Drill Hole ◽  
Average Quality ◽  
City Wall ◽  
Ur Iii ◽  
Private Collection ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
The City ◽  
New Look

Seal-cutter's trial-pieces present a rarity among Mesopotamian artifacts. To my knowledge the only example apart from the trial-pieces found by C. L. Woolley at Diqdiqqeh and Ur was for decades in a Swiss private collection and is now in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin (Figs. 4b and 5).Though trial-pieces are, like moulds, engraved in intaglio they exhibit three distinct features: form, material and a lack of proficiency of many engravings (Figs. 1–5). Most have irregular contours and uneven surfaces; of the fourteen trial-pieces twelve are limestone or calcite and two potsherds. Although some surfaces are smoothed or polished, they show scratches and indentures, and one piece has a drill-hole on the roughly hewn back. The pieces look like leftovers from or parts of broken objects. Thus material for trial-pieces was only available in, or in proximity to workshops where leftovers from larger stone objects would be available to seal-cutters. Many figures on the trial-pieces demonstrate that the seal-cutter was not very accomplished (Figs. 1f, 2b, 3), two are skillfully executed by a master (Figs. 2a, 4a); most, however, are of average quality (Figs, 1a–d, 2c, 5), evidence for a workshop with masters and apprentices. The rarity of trial-pieces suggests that most seal-cutters trained on cylinders.Of the provenanced trial-pieces all but one, which comes from the Gipar in Ur, were found at Diqdiqqeh. According to the excavators Diqdiqqeh, situated one mile south-east of the city wall of Ur, developed into an artisans' quarter starting with the Ur III period. The surface of this suburb was scattered with ruins of houses and numerous seals, terracottas, amulets and beads. Proportionally these were more numerous than at Ur, which could only be explained by the location of workshops in this area.

scholarly journals The Interior World of Books, Browsing, and Collecting Inside the City

Interiority ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Alison B Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Material Object ◽  
First Person ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Interior Space ◽  
Interior Spaces ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Words And Images ◽  
Book Collectors ◽  
The Many ◽  
The City

A most desirable and collectable material object is the ubiquitous book. A bound composite of printed pages with words and images, it contains a microcosm of myriad narrative viewpoints, experiences, and imaginations. Metaphorically, a book compactly conceals a kind of interior space that protects the provocative lives of people, their character, ideas, and explorations, thus communicating different scales of interiority. Book collectors, called bibliophiles, revere and covet books as their object of desire. The bibliophile as seeker-collector-seller partakes of simple and complex transactions that essentially protect the lives of the books. This essay concentrates on two main book browsing locations within the urban context of Istanbul, Turkey, and the everyday interior spaces of the sahaf, the secondhand bookseller, who continues a tradition of selling new, pre-owned or secondhand ordinary or rare books. Its text moves between historic information and first-person narrative based on fieldwork to express and expand views of interiority theory, through reality and metaphor. The many scales of individual and collective impulses found inside the city streets and their inserted passage structures are exemplified by the significant simultaneity of the desire for the hand-held object and its hand-to-hand exchange.

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