ISBN:
9781138635302
,
1138635308
Language:
English
Pages:
xx, 231 pages :
,
illustrations ;
,
24 cm.
Edition:
First published
Year of publication:
2017
Abstract:
It is the quintessential nature of humans to communicate with each other. Good communications, bad communications, miscommunications, or no communications at all have driven everything from world events to the most mundane of interactions. At the broadest level, communication entails many registers and modes: verbal, iconographic, symbolic, oral, written, and performed. Relationships and identities - real and fictive - arise from communication, but how and why were they effected and how should they be understood? The chapters in this volume address some of the registers and modes of communication in the ancient Near East. Particular focuses are imperial and court communications between rulers and ruled, communications intended for a given community, and those between families and individuals. Topics cover a broad chronological period (3rd millennium BC to 1st millennium AD), and geographic range (Egypt to Israel and Mesopotamia) encapsulating the extraordinarily diverse plurality of human experience. This volume is deliberately interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, and its broad scope provides wide insights and a holistic understanding of communication applicable today. It is intended for both the scholar and readers with interests in ancient Near Eastern history and Biblical studies, communications (especially communications theory), and sociolinguistics. Review: Encompassing a wide spectrum of civilizations and periods, from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman imperial period, and ranging in its coverage from Mesopotamia to Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, this volume provides many penetrating insights into the ways Near Eastern people communicated with one another, on personal, state, and international levels. Through its multi-disciplinary approach and use of modern research methods which enhance our understanding of both verbal and written interactions between the ancient Near Eastern peoples, it will be of
Description / Table of Contents:
Communicating in the past; connecting with the past / Gillan Davis and Kyle H. Keimer -- Part I. Imperial and court communications -- Introduction to part I -- The disappearance of cuneiform from the West and elites in the ancient near east / Noel Weeks -- Contrasting representations and the Egypto-Hittite treaty / Samuel Jackson -- Text and context: the question of audience for Sennacherib’s ’Public’ inscriptions / Luis R. Siddall -- Communication and miscommunication in the Southern sky: the Case of Scorpio and the Southern Cross in cuneiform / Wayne Horowitz -- Imperialism and language: observations on bilingual inscriptions from Palmyra / Samuel N.C. Lieu -- Part II. Community communications -- Introduction to Part II -- "Guard it on your tongue!": the Second Rubric in the Deir Alla Plaster texts as an instruction for the oral performance of the narrative / Gareth Wearne -- Juxtaposition and narrative evaluation in Joshua 1-2 / Rachelle Gilmour -- Literature as flexible communication: variety in Hebrew Biblical texts / Ian Young -- The use of paleo-Hebraic script on Jewish revolt coins: a semiotic focus / Rachel Mansfield, Benjamin Overcash, and Stephen Llewelyn -- Part III. Communications between families and individuals -- Introduction to Part III. -- From Dragomans to Babel: the role of interpreters in the ancient near East in the 1st millennium B.C.E. / Peter Zilberg -- Sex, lies and beautiful eyes: divine communication and premarital relations in Sumerian poetry / Louise M. Pryke -- Communication within a dysfunctional family in late antique Egypt / Alanna Nobbs
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