scholarly journals The Amarna Diplomacy in IR Perspective – A System of States in the Making

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-29
Author(s):  
Alex Aissaoui
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
International History ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Amarna Letters ◽  
Power Balancing ◽  
International Anarchy ◽  
Letter Collection

The Amarna diplomacy (ca. 1365–1330 BCE) has been of interest for specialists ever since the discovery of the Amarna letter collection in the late 19th century. While it can be considered as one of the great archaeolo-gical discoveries of all time, it has largely remained out of academic purview in the field of International Relations (IR). IR scholarship continues to turn to the Greco-Roman experience in its attempt to delineate the chronological framework of the discipline. Far from being an anecdote in international history, this article aims to analyze what the letters convey for a student of world politics. What comes out of these missives through textual analysis of the primary sources is not only the various demands, wishes and security concerns of the actors involved but also classical IR themes such as power balancing, security dilemma and international anarchy. While there are question marks and lacunas, this paper asserts that the ancient Near Eastern world constituted an international arena where we see the makings of a genuine system of states more than a millennium before the writings of Thucydides. The Amarna letters, although incomplete, are a gateway to gain deeper synergy between IR theory and international history.

scholarly journals The Absence of Muslim Women in Shaping Islamic Thought: Foundations of Muslims' Peaceful and Just Co-Existence

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 403-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nimat Hafez Barazangi
Keyword(s):  
Muslim Women ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
List Type ◽  
Type Number ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Politics Of Difference ◽  
Women's Role

This paper explores the ethical and legal pedagogy of the current debates on “reforming” Muslim societies, whether they claim to reform social and legal systems, reform educational institutions, or liberate Muslim women. Since these debates claim to achieve balance in global or domestic conflicts, I address the foundations of these debates by answering three questions:Are the rationales for American and/or European governments' interventions justified?;Can the discipline of civil law help in rethinking Islam for Muslims; andAre Muslims themselves ready to critically address the use and misuse of Islam's primary sources (the Qur'an and particularly the Hadith) in their rethinking of Islam?I argue that rather than seeking to “reform others,” in this case Muslims with an elitist attitude and sometimes violent interventions, we scholars of law and religion, scholars of Islam, policy-makers, and social justice researchers would be better off if:we thought of Islam as a religio-moral rational worldview, rather than a set of laws,we recognized Muslims as subject to historical transformation, like any other religious groups, and understood how they developed their present views of Islam, andwe considered our own real responsibilities to address the forms of global injustices as powerful shapers of world politics, particularly the politics of difference—the view that the “other” is inferior, and women's role as mostly complementary to men.

Classical and Near Eastern Slavery in the First Millennium bce

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Near East ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Economic Contribution ◽  
The Difference

Twentieth-century scholarship, guided in particular by the views of M. I. Finley, saw Greece and Rome as the only true ‘slave societies’ of antiquity: slavery in the Near East was of minor economic significance. Finley also believed that the lack of a concept of ‘freedom’ in the Near East made slavery difficult to distinguish from other shades of ‘unfreedom’. This chapter shows that in the Near East the legal status of slaves and the ability to make clear status distinctions were substantively similar to the Greco-Roman situation. Through a survey of the economic contribution of slave labour to the wealth and position of elites in Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Carthage, it is shown that the difference between the ‘classical’ and ‘non-classical’ worlds was not as pronounced as Finley thought, and that at least some of these societies (certainly Carthage) should also be considered ‘slave societies’.

The Near Eastern problem in world politics

1925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iliya Mimovich
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
Near Eastern

The Ritual Background of the Dying God in Cyprus and Syro-Palestine

1982 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
General Type ◽  
Urban Society ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Common Culture ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Roman Literature

In Frazer'sGolden Boughthe leading instance of the central figure whom he called “the dying god” was Adonis, famous from Greco-Roman literature and art but firmly localized in Semitic Phoenicia, Syria, and Cyprus. Since Frazer wrote, his other Near Eastern instances have been so transformed by increasing knowledge that it can be doubted whether they severally belong to the same type or indeed whether any general type exists. Adonis has hardly shared in these discoveries and debates, for research has emphasized instead the large developments which overtook his worship within the Greco-Roman world. Most of this research does not bear at all on the origins of Adonis, but scholars have sometimes been so bemused by the Greek elements as to forget or deny the Semitic. Everything has been called into question at different times. Such features of his myth as the boar and the myrrh tree and the incest are discounted as Greek embroidery; his peculiar festival, with mourning women and miniature gardens of lettuce, is traced to the preoccupations of Greek urban society; even the Semitic derivation derivation of his name is disputed. This Greek exclusivism cannot be sustained. All accounts of Adonis' life and lineage, and all analogies for his worship converge in the Levant — not in a single site or land, but in Phoenicia, coastal Syria and Cyprus together, lands which from the Late Bronze Age onward display a distinctive common culture, above all with respect to religion. This is where Adonis is at home, and where we may look for evidence to explain the figure of the dying god.

scholarly journals Im bann der Würgerin – Kamadme, Lamaštu und Lilith in der Hellas?

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mieszek Jagiełło
Keyword(s):  
Respiratory Tract ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Genital System ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Greco Roman

The following paper explores some possible connections between Greek and Mesopotamian child-killing demons. First, the main Sumerian/Akkadian demoness Kamadme Lamaštu is being characterized and set in comparison with the lil-demons and their singularisation Lilith. Briefly, their modus operandi is being studied with a focus on strangulation. It is being proposed that the reoccurring meme of children being strangled by these demons comes from a misinterpretation of the anatomy of the human body which manifested in the belief in a rāṭu in Mesopotamia or ὁδός in Greece. This organ was believed to be a “channel” that connects women’s genital system with the respiratory tract. With that in mind, some Greek and Roman demons are being considered as potentially being derived from the aforementioned ancient Near Eastern supernatural beings. Hence, the proposal is put forward that the Greek Hesperides, the Theban Sphinx, the Lesbian Gello as well as the Greco-Roman Stri(n)x have in fact been adopted by the Occident from the East.

scholarly journals The origins of the Cold War: Deciphering open access primary sources

2018 ◽  
Vol 79 (11) ◽  
pp. 621
Author(s):  
Amy Dye-Reeves
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Social System ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
Digital Archives ◽  
Yale University ◽  
International History ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

Avalon Project (Yale University)- Cold WarCold War International History ProjectCold War MuseumHarvard Project on the Soviet Social System OnlineNational Security ArchiveOrigins of the Cold WarPrelude to McCarthyism: The Making of a BlacklistThe Wilson Center Digital Archives- Cold War OriginsCold War IntelligenceCold War Politics (1945–1991)Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy: The Cold WarForeign Relations of the United StatesIdeological Foundations of the Cold War–Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and MuseumNational Security Achieve–Debriefing BooksAddress to Congress on the Yalta Conference (Franklin D. Roosevelt)Crimea (Yalta) Conference, 1945Berlin Airlift (Harry S. Truman Presidential Library)Berlin Blockade 1948-1949Berlin Blockade (June 24, 1948–May 12, 1949)The March Crisis and the Berlin AirliftGeorge C. Marshall (The Marshall Plan)Marshall Plan ExhibitPublicizing the Marshall Plan: Records of the U.S. Special Representative in Europe, 1948-1950Truman and the Marshall Plan

Crucifixion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Granger Cook ◽  
David W. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Multidisciplinary Study ◽  
The New Testament

Crucifixion and related bodily suspension penalties were widely employed in Antiquity for the punishment of criminals and in times of war. Jesus of Nazareth is the most famous victim of the cross, and many scholars of crucifixion approach the topic with interest in Jesus’ death; however, scholarship on crucifixion also provides insights into (among other fields) ancient warfare, criminal law, political history, and cultural imagery. Invariably, such a subject requires multidisciplinary study. Current areas of discussion include the definition of crucifixion itself, especially in light of the range of use of ancient terminology. Further debates concern the origins of the punishment, the cessation of its practice (at least in the West), the precise means of death, and whether certain cultures (e.g., Second Temple Judaism) endorsed the penalty. A large portion of this article examines the many issues related to crucifixion as a form of execution in Antiquity. The topic of crucifixion in the ancient world includes a variety of issues: Near Eastern suspensions, Greek and Roman extreme penalties and crucifixion, the practice of penal suspension and crucifixion in Second Temple Judaism, the terminology for crucifixion and suspension, crucifixion in the New Testament, the practice of crucifixion in Late Antiquity, crucifixion and law in the ancient world, the question of crucifixion and martyrdom, Greco-Roman imagery of crucifixion and related punishments, Christian iconography of the crucifixion of Jesus, and the later history of the punishment. The last sections of this article then turn to understandings of Jesus’ crucifixion in the New Testament and other early Christian literature.

Iran's Contributions to Human Rights, the Rights of Women and Democracy

2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dariush Borbor
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
The World ◽  
Iranian History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Heads Of State ◽  
Advanced System ◽  
Democratic Constitution

AbstractMost scholars generally pre-suppose that the concept of democracy is the exclusive creation of classical Greece and a token of the West to the rest of the world. This concept has originated mainly due to the fact that much of the ancient Iranian history was only known through classical Greek writings before the ever-increasing archaeological finds and decipherments of ancient Near Eastern primary sources, which have shed a very different light on the subject. This paper attempts to alleviate and restore a few of the more vital recurring misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misconceptions in this field, and endeavours to present them in a more realistic historic and historiographic perspective in the light of the latest available scholarship. Beginning in 2200 B.C. Old Elamite Kingdom, was the first manifestation in the world of a structured and, at times, democratically elected heads of state based on matriarchal right of descent. Beginning in Elam and continuing at least to the beginning of the Islamic period, no ancient peoples, including the Greeks and the Egyptians, have surpassed the practice of the rights of women, and the equality of men and women as in Iran. In early 7th century B.C. Iran, the pronouncement by Zoroaster, through Avestan literature, was the first manifestation of the rights of women and unequivocal equality of gender in all aspects and positions of society. In the second part of the 7th century B.C. Media, we encounter the ratification by popular vote of the first constitution for a democratically elected confederated empire, headed by Dioces, who was the first recorded popularly elected emperor. In 539 B.C., we come upon the declaration of the first generally accepted Charter of Rights of Nations by Cyrus the Great. In 522-486 B.C., in the reign of Darius the Great, appeared the first confirmation of a written entrenched democratic constitution. In the 4th century A.D. (or earlier) Sasanian Iran, the first appearance of an advanced system of Common Law based on well-documented jurisprudence was materialised. And finally, the confederated system of government in Iran, which survived the vicissitudes of history and changes of several dynasties, remained in force one way or the other to become the most enduring system of government in world history spanning a period of two-and-half millennia.

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