Mesopotamian Religions

Beyond Aššur: New Cities and the Assyrian Politics of Landscape

by Ömür Harmansah

Harmanşah, Ömür; 2012. "Beyond Aššur: New Cities and the Assyrian Politics of Landscape," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 365: 53-77.

This article investigates the making of Assyrian landscapes during the late second and early first millennia b.c.e.... more This article investigates the making of Assyrian landscapes during the late second and early first millennia b.c.e. From the late 14th century b.c.e. onward, the Assyrians designated the emergent core of their territorial state as the “Land of Aššur” in their royal inscriptions. However, over the course of the next several centuries, the cultural geography of the Land of Aššur was continuously redefined while gradually shifting northward from the arid environs of the city Aššur to the well-watered and resourceful landscapes around the confluence of the Tigris and the Upper and Lower Zab Rivers. Contemporaneously, the landscapes of the Upper Tigris basin (southeastern Turkey) and the Jazira witnessed extensive settlement and cultivation as Assyrian provinces and frontiers. Drawing on archaeological survey evidence and a critical reading of the textual accounts of urban foundations, this paper argues that such mobility of Assyrian landscapes was part and parcel of broader processes of environmental and settlement change in Upper Mesopotamia. Assyrian annalistic texts point to an elaborate rhetoric of landscape that portrays state interventions in the form of city foundations and building programs, construction of irrigation canals, planting of orchards, opening of new quarries, and settlement of populations. Furthermore, the making of commemorative monuments such as rock reliefs and stelae allowed the Assyrian state to inscribe symbolically charged places in foreign landscapes and incorporate them into the narratives of the empire. By drawing attention to the long-term trends of settlement in Upper Mesopotamia during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages and the agency of landscapes, the article contextualizes the Assyrian political rhetoric of development at the time of a highly fluid world of geographical imagination.

Ersatzkönige in griechischem Gewand: Die Umformung der shar puhi-Rituale bei Herodot, Berossos, Agathias und den Alexander-Historikern

by Irene Madreiter

published in: : Rollinger R. (ed.), Von Sumer bis Homer, Festschrift für Manfred Schretter zur Vollendung des 60. Lebensjahres (AOAT 325), Ugarit-Verlag Münster, 2005, 339 – 398.

Marduk

by Peter Bartl

in: Eggler J., Uehlinger Ch. (eds.), Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East, (2009)

Online-Prepublication
Text:
more Online-Prepublication
Text:
http://www.religionswissenschaft.unizh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_marduk.pdf
Figures:
http://www.religionswissenschaft.unizh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_illustrations_marduk.pdf

El sacerdocio próximo-oriental y los problemas de su estudio: los sacerdotes mesopotámicos [Priesthood in the Ancient Near East and the problems of its study: the Mesopotamian Priests]

by José Ángel ZAMORA

Published in:

J. L. Escacena - E. Ferrer (Eds.), Entre dios y los hombres: el sacerdocio en la antigüedad (SPAL monografías VII), Sevilla 2006, pp. 27-42.

El siguiente trabajo intenta presentar la dificultad general y las hondas implicaciones de estudiar un fenómeno o una... more El siguiente trabajo intenta presentar la dificultad general y las hondas implicaciones de estudiar un fenómeno o una figura predefinida (en este caso mediante las discutidas categorías de “sacerdocio” y “sacerdote”) en la información proporcionada por la antigua documentación próximo-oriental disponible. Se trata de apreciar no sólo el panorama que sobre el sacerdocio y los sacerdotes nos presentan las culturas del antiguo Oriente Próximo, sino también el modo en que la perspectiva presente aprecia tal panorama.
Este empeño debe afrontar las dificultades de un ámbito de trabajo tan extenso en el espacio como extendido en el tiempo, englobando una variedad de culturas (de pueblos, de lenguas, de escrituras) a la que corresponde una enorme diversidad y heterogeneidad documental. Construir la imagen de un hecho de cultura preciso sobre tales bases es en gran medida temerario (dados los problemas documentales) y a su vez poco riguroso (dada la irreductible variedad subyacente) por lo que, para producir la siguiente síntesis, se extraerán sólo informaciones significativas del área mesopotámica, cuya riqueza de fuentes directas nos deja acceder al hecho estudiado desde una perspectiva también práctica, no descriptiva, y por ello así mismo a aspectos cotidianos del culto. La cultura mesopotámica, que se constituye muchas veces en imagen arquetípica del Oriente, aporta continuidad en algunos de los rasgos culturales más relevantes de la larga y agitada historia próximo-oriental, y permite distinguir al menos hechos comunes o representativos sobre los que construir, sin perder de vista la perspectiva temporal, una síntesis informativa.

Mesopotamian Religious Iconography on the Coins of Edessa and Carrhae

by Edward Dandrow

The Vexilla Coins of Elagabalus and Severus Alexander from Carrhae

by Edward Dandrow

The Revolt of Elagabalus and the Comet Coins of Carrhae

by Edward Dandrow

Sumerian City Laments and the Book of Lamentations: Toward a Comparative Theological Study (Hebrew)

by Nili Samet

This article presents an initial sketch for a comparative theological study of the city lament genre in Mesopotamia... more This article presents an initial sketch for a comparative theological study of the city lament genre in Mesopotamia and in the Bible. First, it surveys the foundations of the theology of Sumerian city laments, referring to issues such as the responsibility sharing among the gods; the cosmological mechanism generating the destruction; the involvement of natural forces in the process of devastation; and the reasons suggested by the laments for the destruction. These issues are then examined from a comparative point of view. Some interesting differences between the Sumerian and the Biblical city lament traditions are recognizable, including the extent to which the god is responsible for the events; the different theological mechanisms developed by each tradition to deal with the problem of theodicy; the relation between nature and history as two arenas of divine activity; and the question if, and how, the destruction could be understood in causal terms of crime and punishment.

Salm nevek

by András László Gér

Ṣalm-names in the Old Testament in: Theologiai Szemle 2011/3: 132-137. (Title in Hungarian: Ṣalm-nevek az Ószövetségben)

Il pianeta Giove nella tradizione mesopotamica

by Lorenzo Verderame

published in "Rivista degli Studi Orientali" 83 (2010), pp. 443-452

Rev. of E. Reiner (in collaboration with D. Pingree), Babylonian Planetary Omens: Part Four, CM 30, Brill – Styx:... more Rev. of E. Reiner (in collaboration with D. Pingree), Babylonian Planetary Omens: Part Four, CM 30, Brill – Styx: Leiden-Boston, 2005

Some Considerations about Demons in Mesopotamia

by Lorenzo Verderame

(in collaboration with A.M.G. Capomacchia) published in SMSR - Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 77/2 (2011), 291-297

The present article provides an analysis of general traits of those particular extra-human beings conventionally... more The present article provides an analysis of general traits of those particular extra-human beings conventionally called “demons” found in ancient Mesopotamian religion. Furthermore, methodological problems on the topic are discussed according to a historical-religious point of view.

Il tema del “giusto sofferente” nell’antica Mesopotamia

by Lorenzo Verderame

Il tema del “giusto sofferente” nell’antica Mesopotamia, in G. Frulla - S. Perini, Tra testo sacro e contesto culturale: generi e tematiche nella Bibbia, Padova, 2012 (in stampa)

Keywords: Righteous Sufferer, Job, Akkadian, Sumerian Keywords: Righteous Sufferer, Job, Akkadian, Sumerian

Osservazioni a margine dei concetti di “ibrido” e “mostro” in Mesopotamia

by Lorenzo Verderame

in stampa negli atti del convegno Monstra. Costruzione e Percezione delle Entità Ibride e Mostruose nel Mediterraneo Antico, Velletri, 8-11 giugno 2011 (in stampa)

KEYWORDS: monster; mischwesen; hybrids; Mesopotamia; Sumerian; Akkadian KEYWORDS: monster; mischwesen; hybrids; Mesopotamia; Sumerian; Akkadian

Here a God, There a God: Conceptions of Divinity in Ancient Mesopotamia

by Michael Hundley

Rev. F. Rochberg, the Path of the Moon

by Lorenzo Verderame

published in Aestimatio 8 (2011), 162-169
http://www.ircps.org/publications/aestimatio/pdf/Volume8/2011-22_VerderameBW.pdf

Reviews in JAOS & JNES

by Gonzalo Rubio

* Review of J. Silva, Gilgamesh o la angustia por la muerte (2nd ed. México, D.F. 1995), in Journal of the American Oriental Society 117 (1997): 378-379
* Review of J. López and J. Sanmartín, Mitología y religión del Oriente antiguo, I: Egipto y Mesopotamia (Sabadell, 1993), in Journal of the American Oriental Society 118 (1998): 575-576
* Review of J. Silva, Gilgamesh o la angustia por la muerte (1st ed. México, D.F. 1994), in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 57 (1998): 148-150
* Review of H. P. Martin, F. Pomponio, and G. Visicato, The Fara Tablets in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Bethesda, Md., 2001), in Journal of the American Oriental Society 126 (2006): 462-63
* Review of R. K. Englund and J. J. Nissen, Archäische Verwaltungstexte aus Uruk: Die Heidelberg Sammlung (Berlin, 2001), in Journal of the American Oriental Society 126 (2006): 462

The omen series shumma izbu: internal structure and hermeneutic strategies

by Nicla De Zorzi

KASKAL 8 (2011), 43-75

Bird Divination in Mesopotamia: New Evidence From BM 108874

by Nicla De Zorzi

KASKAL 6, 85-136

“Ancient Mesopotamia” chapter including entries on Ur, Tell Asmar, Babylon, Khorsabad, and Development of Writing

by Ömür Harmansah

Archaeologica: The World’s Most Significant Sites and Cultural Treasures. Aedeen Cremin (ed.). London: Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2007: 214-223.

• "The Babylonian Dialogue between a Master and His Slave – a New Literary Analysis" (Hebrew), Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Near Eastern Studies 23 (2008), pp. 99–130.

by Nili Samet

This article discusses a Babylonian dialogue between a master and his slave, known among scholars as 'The Dialogue of... more This article discusses a Babylonian dialogue between a master and his slave, known among scholars as 'The Dialogue of Pessimism'. The article seeks to contribute to the understanding of this work, its meaning and messages, on the basis of a new study of its literary features. The article includes a transliteration and a new translation into Hebrew, followed by a brief discussion of the date and formation of the Dialogue. The greater part of the article examines the work's character and underlying intent through literary analysis. The article reviews in detail the influence of Mesopotamian literature in general and Mesopotamian wisdom literature in particular on the dialogue, revealing its ironic and inverted use of citations from the canonical literature. Subsequently, the article takes up cases of double meaning in the Dialogue, and examines the central importance of ironic inversion. The literary analysis reveals that we are dealing with a cynical work, though not necessarily a lighthearted or amusing one, which mocks all values and conventional social orders, and draws an entirely nihilistic conclusion.
In addition, it is suggested that one of the editions of the Dialogue was censored, and omits one of its most provocative lines in order to soften its extremely skeptical message.