This book examines the sculptures created during the Early Dynastic period (2900–2350 BC) of Sumer, a region corresponding to present-day southern Iraq. Featured almost exclusively in temple complexes, some 550 Early Dynastic stone statues of human figures carved in an abstract style have survived. Chronicling the intellectual history of ancient Near Eastern art history and archaeology at the intersection of sculpture and aesthetics, this book argues that the early modern reception of Sumer still influences ideas about these sculptures. Engaging also with the archaeology of the Early Dynastic temple, the book ultimately considers what a stone statue of a human figure has signified, both in modern times and in antiquity.

/pdf/the-lives-of-sumerian-sculpture-an-archaeology-of-the-early-1vtdg9nvst.pdf

The Lives of Sumerian Sculpture: An Archaeology of the Early Dynastic Temple

This book investigates the founding and building of cities in the ancient Near East. The creation of new cities was imagined as an ideological project or a divine intervention in the political narratives and mythologies of Near Eastern cultures, often masking the complex processes behind the social production of urban space. During the Early Iron Age (c.1200–850 BCE), Assyrian and Syro-Hittite rulers developed a highly performative official discourse that revolved around constructing cities, cultivating landscapes, building watercourses, erecting monuments and initiating public festivals. This volume combs through archaeological, epigraphic, visual, architectural and environmental evidence to tell the story of a region from the perspective of its spatial practices, landscape history and architectural technologies. It argues that the cultural processes of the making of urban spaces shape collective memory and identity as well as sites of political performance and state spectacle.

/pdf/cities-and-the-shaping-of-memory-in-the-ancient-near-east-3ordjk83te.pdf

Cities and the Shaping of Memory in the Ancient Near East

Using a model of cognition as extended and enactive, we examine the role of materiality in making minds as exemplified by lithics and writing, forms associated with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. We address ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause such change, and the spans of time required for neurofunctional reorganization. We also offer three hypotheses for investigating co-influence and change in cognition and material culture.

/pdf/on-tools-making-minds-an-archaeological-perspective-on-human-7ck2y8iten.pdf

On Tools Making Minds: an Archaeological Perspective on Human Cognitive Evolution

Certain ancient Near Eastern texts develop over time towards a reasonably stable state of transmission. However, the development towards a single ‘stabilised’ transmitted form that marks the biblical manuscripts between the second century B.C.E. and second century C.E. is often considered to permit the Hebrew bible a unique position in the ancient Near Eastern textual corpus. The degree to which the wider body of ancient Near Eastern texts actually support or undermine this position is the topic of this dissertation. The study begins by formulating a methodology for comparing the accuracy with which ancient texts of varying genres and languages were transmitted. Exemplars from the first millennium B.C.E. cuneiform evidence are selected for analysis on the basis of genre. Texts that are preserved in more than one ancient copy are compared to determine how much variation occurs between manuscripts of the same text. The study begins with representative texts from the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Late Babylonian periods that range in date from the late eighth century B.C.E. to the third century B.C.E. The study then turns to the Torah scrolls from the Dead Sea area that range in date from the third century B.C.E. to the second century C.E. The accuracy with which the cuneiform texts were transmitted is then compared with the biblical evidence. The study finds that the most stable texts surveyed are those containing ritual instructions. The mechanisms that may have led to the exact transmission of the Torah in the late Second Temple period are discussed in the conclusion.

/pdf/the-exact-transmission-of-texts-in-the-first-millennium-bce-27i01xe2j7.pdf

The exact transmission of texts in the first millennium BCE - an examination of the cuneiform evidence from Mesopotamia and the Torah scrolls from the western shore of the Dead Sea

Among texts dating from the reign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (705–681 BC) are descriptions of a courtyard built on the king's behalf for the temple of Assur in the city of Assur. The texts note the names and orientations of the courtyard's gates, and mention the mythical figures that were included in its decoration. In this paper I will argue that an overall theme governed the choice of names and influenced the selection of mythical figures. The theme, as we shall see, was chosen to provide the temple's god, enthroned in his chamber, with a cosmic setting proper to his dignity as chief Assyrian divinity, and to refer in particular to Assur's leadership in the assembly of the gods in springtime.

The gates and guardians in Sennacherib's addition to the temple of Assur *

DUMU-E2-DUB-BA-A: studies in honor of Åke W. Sjöberg

\"The Sumerian Dictionary\" is a publishing event of the first magnitude. Ake Sjoberg and his collaborators deserve the gratitude of humanists in general and Assyriologists in particular for inaugurating one of the most urgently needed tools in modern scholarship. It would be possible to dwell at length on all the important services rendered by the project. But what is needed at this stage is not lavish praise, however well deserved, but constructive criticism, applied in time before the patterns of presentation have become matters of irrevocable commitment. In beginning publication with volume 2 (\"B\"), the editors seem themselves to preserve the option for revisions and modifications for volume 1 and all subsequent volumes. The same impression is conveyed by the Foreword, which is brief and modest almost to a fault, leaving it to the reader to deduce most of the principles involved in organizing the present volume. It may be worth noting that, much as the Sumerian Dictionary owes to the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), it did not emulate the latter's very slow and deliberate approach to its inception. The first volume published by CAD was volume 6 (\"H\") in 1956, but its design had been under active discussion for years both within the confines of the Oriental Institute and beyond. Most importantly, a Standard Operating Procedure (\"SOP\") was prepared by I. J. Gelb in 1954 which not only laid out the basic rules of presentation to be followed, but also drafted a very extensive set of model articles based on the root STR which was mimeographed and widely distributed at the time, allowing for reactions from potential users of the CAD. No truly comparable procedure was, to the best of my knowledge, followed by the Sumerian dictionary. Thus in a sense the B-Volume must stand as the real counterpart to Gelb's SOP, and it is in this spirit that the following suggestions are offered for the sake of the future volumes.

The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (PSD): A Review Article@@@The Sumerian Dictionary of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, Volume 2: "B"

Economic texts from the third dynasty

1. U 21364 is a record of metal objects dated to the 10th month of Su-ilisu 5. Texts dating to the reign of Su-ililu in Ur are rare. See UET 1100, 213 and 2143; also UET 8 62. For the date formula, see F. Steele, BASOR 122 48. For urudu-zi-ir, see Limet, Metal 236 with reference to its occurrence in RTC 304 i 14 (an inventory list); see also Limet M6tal 268 for lexical references; also MSL 7 p. 224 (OB Forerunner to UHj IX, lines 166: urudu-

Old Babylonian Texts from Ur, 1

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DUMU-E2-DUB-BA-A: studies in honor of Åke W. Sjöberg

The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (PSD): A Review Article@@@The Sumerian Dictionary of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, Volume 2: "B"

Economic texts from the third dynasty

Old Babylonian Texts from Ur, 1