The Caravan-Gods of Palmyra

1932 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
M. I. Rostovtzeff
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Small Object ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
The Common ◽  
Hunting Ground

No ruins of the ancient world outside Italy are more famous than the beautiful romantic remains of Queen Zenobia's city—the desert-city of caravans. No city of the Near East has yielded such an abundance of inscriptions, sculptures and fragments of painting. For more than a century and a half collectors and dealers have found in Palmyra a happy hunting ground; almost every museum has its Palmyrene bust or Palmyrene inscription or some small object such as the common clay tessera. A considerable number of the antiquities found at Palmyra have been published—most of the inscriptions in the Palmyrene dialect of Aramaic or in Greek, numerous sculptures, and many paintings found in tombs. The most important Palmyrene texts have been translated and will shortly be available to those historians who are not acquainted with Semitic languages.

Warfare and Environment in the Ancient World

2013 ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
J. Donald Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Near East ◽  
Mediterranean Area ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Direct Effects ◽  
Environmental Properties ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Ancient Warfare ◽  
The Military

This chapter deals with ancient warfare and the environment. Hunting was often been considered as a form of warfare, and art frequently portrayed humans in battle with animals. Armed conflict had its direct influences on the environment. Along with damage to settled agriculture, warfare had affected other lands such as pastures, brush lands, and forests. It is noted that birds, pigs, bears, rodents, snakes, bees, wasps, scorpions, beetles, assassin bugs, and jellyfish have been employed as weaponized animals in ancient warfare, which, in the Mediterranean area and Near East, had vital environmental properties. The direct effects of battle have been shown by ancient historians, but just as important were the influences of the military-oriented organization of societies on the natural environment and resources.

scholarly journals ‘And God gave Solomon wisdom’: Proficiency in ornithomancy

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham O. Shemesh
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Governmental Power ◽  
The Military

The biblical text accords a great deal of attention to King Solomon’s personal abilities and governmental power. Solomon was described as a judge, poet, constructor and the wisest of all people in the Ancient Near East and Egypt. The current study discusses the interpretation of the midrashim that show how Solomon’s wisdom was manifested in his considerable knowledge of ornithomancy, that is, divination using birds, a practice that was considered as an important wisdom in the ancient world because of its practical applications, particularly in the military sphere. It seems that Solomon’s portrayal as a magician is intended and aimed at emphasising his abilities and his impressive character. Moreover, it may have had the purpose of disproving the conception of Solomon as inferior to his surroundings in this respect and the idea that he or his kingdom could be controlled by nations that command this type of wisdom.

Writing Materials in the Ancient World

2011 ◽  
pp. 2-29
Author(s):  
Adam Bülow-Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Overwhelming Majority ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Ancient Texts

Paper did not exist in the ancient Mediterranean world. Instead, people wrote on an enormous variety of other materials. While almost every substance imaginable has been used as writing material at one time or another, this article focuses on the common ones. First, it considers papyrus since the overwhelming majority of ancient texts are written on this material. It discusses parchment, ostraca, and wooden tablets which receive considerable attention. It also discusses linen (e.g., mummy bandages) and stone (mainly Coptic limestone ostraca inscribed with ink). Looking at Coptic documentary texts, which extend past the end of antiquity, ostraca are the most important medium (47.5%), while papyrus is second (40.5%). Limestone accounts for 10.5%, while skin (leather/parchment), paper, and wood represent less than 1% each.

Mercury's Wings

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. A. Talbert ◽  
Fred S. Naiden
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The West ◽  
Broad View ◽  
Communications Network ◽  
Religious Communication ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
Second Millennium Bce

Mercury’s Wings: Exploring Modes of Communication in the Ancient World is the first volume of essays on ancient communications. The authors, who include Classicists, art historians, Assyriologists, and Egyptologists, take the broad view of communications as a vehicle, not just for the transmission of information, but also for the conduct of religion, commerce, and culture. Encompassed within this scope are varied purposes of communication such as propaganda and celebration, as well as profit and administration. Each chapter deals with either a communications network, a means or type of communication, or the special features of religious communication or communication in and among large empires. The spatial, temporal, and cultural boundaries of this volume take in the Near East as well as Greece and Rome, and cover a period of some 2,000 years, beginning in the second millennium BCE and ending with the spread of Christianity during the last centuries of the Roman Empire in the West. In all, about one quarter of the chapters deal with the Near East, one quarter with Greece, one quarter with Greece and Rome together, and one quarter with the Roman Empire and its Persian and Indian rivals.

scholarly journals Research article, Biological Sciences - Anthropology, Genetics Of cats and men: the paleogenetic history of the dispersal of cats in the ancient world

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Ottoni ◽  
Wim Van Neer ◽  
Bea De Cupere ◽  
Julien Daligault ◽  
Silvia Guimaraes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Near East ◽  
Control Agent ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Domestic Cat ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Anthropogenic Dispersal ◽  
Domestication Process

AbstractThe origin and dispersal of the domestic cat remain elusive despite its importance to human societies around the world. Archaeological evidence for domestication centers in the Near East and in Egypt is contested, and genetic data on modern cats show that Felis silvestris lybica, the subspecies of wild cat inhabiting at present the Near East and Northern Africa, is the only ancestor of the domestic cat. Here we provide the first broad geographic and chronological dataset of ancient cat mtDNA sequences, drawing on archaeological specimens from across western Eurasia and northern and eastern Africa, dating from throughout the Holocene and spanning ~9,000 years. We characterized the ancient phylogeography of F. s. lybica, showing that it expanded up to southeastern Europe prior to the Neolithic, and reconstructed the subsequent movements that profoundly transformed its distribution and shaped its early cultural history. We found that maternal lineages from both the Near East and Egypt contributed to the gene pool of the domestic cat at different historical times, with the Near Eastern population providing the first major contribution during the Neolithic and the Egyptian cat spreading efficiently across the Old World during the Classical period. This expansion pattern and range suggest dispersal along maritime and terrestrial routes of trade and connectivity. Late trait selection is suggested by the first occurrence in our dataset of the major allele for blotched-tabby body marking not earlier than during the Late Middle Ages.SignificanceThe cat has long been important to human societies as a pest-control agent, object of symbolic value, and companion animal, but little is known about its domestication process and early anthropogenic dispersal. Our DNA analyses of geographically and temporally widespread archaeological cat remains show that while the cat’s world-wide conquest began in prehistoric times, when tamed cats accompanied humans on their journeys over land and sea, it gained momentum during the Classical period, when the Egyptian cat successfully spread throughout the ancient world. The appearance of a new coat pattern at the end of the Middle Ages suggests late breeding control that might explain the semi-domestic status of the cat. This distinguishes the domestication process of cats from that of most other domesticates.

Prophets in the Hebrew Bible

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack R. Lundbom
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Hebrew Prophets

“Prophets” in the ancient world were individuals said to possess an intimate association with God or the gods, and conducted the business of transmitting messages between the divine and earthly realms. They spoke on behalf of God or the gods, and on occasion solicited requests from the deity or brought to the deity requests of others. The discovery of texts from the ancient Near East in the 19th and early 20th centuries has given us a fuller picture of prophets and prophetic activity in the ancient world, adding considerably to reports of prophets serving other gods in the Bible and corroborating details about prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Two collections are important: (1) letters from the 18th-century Mari written during the reigns of Yasmaḫ-Addu (c. 1792–1775) and Zimri-Lim (c. 1774–1760); and (2) the 7th-century annals of Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (680–669) and Assurbanipal (668–627). Prophecies at Mari are favorable for the most part, and censures of the king, when they occur, are not harsh. Many simply remind the king of some neglect or give him some warning. One tells the king to practice righteousness and justice for anyone who has been wronged. None censures the people of Mari as biblical prophecies do the people of Israel. Assyrian oracles are largely oracles of peace and wellbeing, typically giving assurance to the king about matters of succession and success in defeating enemies. If prophets admonish the king, it is a mild rebuke about the king ignoring a prior oracle or not having provided food at the temple. According to the Bible, Israel’s prophetic movement began with Samuel, and it arose at the time when people asked for a king. Prophets appear all throughout the monarchy and into the postexilic period, when Jewish tradition believed prophecy had ceased. Yet, prophets reappear in the New Testament and early church: Anna the prophetess, John the Baptist, Jesus, and others. Paul allows prophets to speak in the churches, ranking them second only to apostles. Hebrew prophets give messages much like those of other ancient Near Eastern prophets, but what makes them different is that they announce considerably more judgment—sometimes very harsh judgment—on Israel’s monarchs, leading citizens, and the nation itself. Israel’s religion had its distinctives. Yahweh was bound to the nation by a covenant containing law that had to be obeyed. Prophets in Israel were therefore much preoccupied with indicting and judging kings, priests, other prophets, and an entire people for covenant disobedience. Also, in Israel the lawgiver was Yahweh, not the king. In Mari, as elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the king was lawgiver. Deuteronomy contains tests for true and false prophets, to which prophets themselves add other disingenuine marks regarding their contemporaneous prophetic colleagues. Hebrew prophets from the time of Amos onward speak in poetry and are skilled in rhetoric, using an array of tropes and knowing how to argue. Their discourse also contains an abundance of humor and drama. Speaking is supplemented with symbolic action, and in some cases the prophets themselves became the symbol.

Greek Mythology: Some New Perspectives

1972 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 74-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. S. Kirk
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
New Approach ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
History Of

A new approach to the ancient world is only too often a wrong approach, unless it is based on some concrete discovery. But I think it fair to talk of newperspectives, at least, in the study of Greek mythology. Certainly the old and familiar ones are no longer adequate. Indeed it is surprising, in the light of fresh intuitions about society, literacy, the pre-Homeric world, and relations with the ancient Near East, that myth—one of the most pervasive aspects of Greek culture—has been left in its old and rather cobwebby pigeon-hole. Rose's simple paraphrases are accepted as adequate for students; Nilsson's sparse pages in his history of religion are rightly respected, though some of them are too simple; the Murray-Cook-Harrison-Cornford reconstruction of religion, ritual and myth is regarded as a little excessive, but perhaps not too far out; Kerényi and Eliade are roughly tolerated, if not widely read by Classicists, and their books are ordered in profusion for the library; the psychological side is adequately taken care of, or so it is supposed, by what is left from Freud and Jung, with Cassirer as sufficient authority for the sources of mythical imagination.Many of these critics had their moments of brilliant insight, but most were misleading in their theories taken as a whole. We can now accept that many myths have ritual counterparts, and some have ritual origins, without having to adopt Cornford's belief, developed after Harrison, Frazer and Robertson Smith, that all myths are such.

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