{"title":"Bergesgleich baute ich hoch: Untersuchungen zur Architektur, Funktion und Bedeutung neuassyrischer Befestigungsanlagen. By Alexander Sollee. Schriften zur vorderasiatischen Archäologie 17. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2020. Pp. xi + 286. €100.00 (cloth).","authors":"Janoscha Kreppner","doi":"10.1086/721348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721348","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43948572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Neo-Assyrian Empire in the Southwest. By Avraham Faust. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xii + 373. £90.00 (cloth).","authors":"Ariel M. Bagg","doi":"10.1086/721349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721349","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42252706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Présence et influence assyriennes dans le royaume de Hamat. By Adonice-Ackad Baaklin. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2021. Pp. xi + 371 + 246 figures + 30 tables. €58.00 (paper).","authors":"Michaël Fortin","doi":"10.1086/721345","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721345","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44172440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. By David Graeber and David Wengrow. New York: Macmillan Publishers, 2021. Pp. xii + 692 + 7 maps/figures. $35.00 (cloth).","authors":"Oren Siegel","doi":"10.1086/721380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721380","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42997287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name. By Daniel E. Fleming. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xviii + 320 + 15 figures. $99.99 (cloth).","authors":"Heath D. Dewrell","doi":"10.1086/721377","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721377","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44775439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In his topography of the city of Cairo, the historian al-Maqrīzī states that in the year 797 ah/1395 ad, the emir Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Ustādār (d. 799 /1397) constructed a school (madrasa) within which he added “a library unequalled in the lands of Egypt or Greater Syria. It remains to this day. No book is ever lent out to anyone unless the book remains in the madrasa. In this library there are all the books of Islam on every subject.”1 About a year after the founding of his school and library, Maḥmūd al-Ustādār ran afoul of the sultan Barqūq, who ordered his arrest and the confiscation of his possessions. Though Maḥmūd would die in prison in the year 799/ 1397, his library would remain an important fixture in the intellectual landscape of ninth/fifteenth century Cairo as evidenced by the frequency with which it was mentioned in the contemporaneous literary sources. From these traditional sources, a preliminary but admittedly incomplete picture of the history of the Maḥ mū dīyah Library can be constructed.2 For example, the
{"title":"Books, Corruption, and an Emir’s Downfall: The Founding of the Maḥmūdīyah Library in Mamluk Cairo","authors":"Kyle Wynter-Stoner","doi":"10.1086/721639","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721639","url":null,"abstract":"In his topography of the city of Cairo, the historian al-Maqrīzī states that in the year 797 ah/1395 ad, the emir Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Ustādār (d. 799 /1397) constructed a school (madrasa) within which he added “a library unequalled in the lands of Egypt or Greater Syria. It remains to this day. No book is ever lent out to anyone unless the book remains in the madrasa. In this library there are all the books of Islam on every subject.”1 About a year after the founding of his school and library, Maḥmūd al-Ustādār ran afoul of the sultan Barqūq, who ordered his arrest and the confiscation of his possessions. Though Maḥmūd would die in prison in the year 799/ 1397, his library would remain an important fixture in the intellectual landscape of ninth/fifteenth century Cairo as evidenced by the frequency with which it was mentioned in the contemporaneous literary sources. From these traditional sources, a preliminary but admittedly incomplete picture of the history of the Maḥ mū dīyah Library can be constructed.2 For example, the","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":"81 1","pages":"335 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42668313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Over the course of Late Antiquity, due to the con tingencies of imperial support and the gravitational pull of migrations and social networks, some Jewish and Christian communal boundaries formed roughly along imperial limites. Under the Sasanians, Chris tians adopted the appellation “Church of the East,” an endonym reflecting their position relative to the Byzantine West; they saw their geographic horizons as fundamentally eastern.1 The Church of the East was regularly sponsored by the Sasanian king, whom its members depicted as a new Constantine and dubbed a new Cyrus.2 Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis, while undoubtedly deeply intertwined socially and intellectu ally, nevertheless developed distinct practices and cus toms. They imagined themselves as subjects of Roman and Sasanian imperial rule, respectively, whose kings, administrators, and realia they thematized in their re spective texts. These communities competed with one
{"title":"Playing with Persecution: Parallel Jewish and Christian Memories of Late Antiquity in Early Islamic Iraq","authors":"Simcha Gross","doi":"10.1086/721350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721350","url":null,"abstract":"Over the course of Late Antiquity, due to the con tingencies of imperial support and the gravitational pull of migrations and social networks, some Jewish and Christian communal boundaries formed roughly along imperial limites. Under the Sasanians, Chris tians adopted the appellation “Church of the East,” an endonym reflecting their position relative to the Byzantine West; they saw their geographic horizons as fundamentally eastern.1 The Church of the East was regularly sponsored by the Sasanian king, whom its members depicted as a new Constantine and dubbed a new Cyrus.2 Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis, while undoubtedly deeply intertwined socially and intellectu ally, nevertheless developed distinct practices and cus toms. They imagined themselves as subjects of Roman and Sasanian imperial rule, respectively, whose kings, administrators, and realia they thematized in their re spective texts. These communities competed with one","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":"81 1","pages":"247 - 260"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45440608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The chiasmus is one of the most widespread rhetorical devices in world literature, and it appears in most languages. However, a completely different type of chiasmus is also possible: a chiasmus between different languages. Since multilingual compositions are less common, the bilingual chiasmus has not previously been researched in detail. The present paper analyzes this newly-discovered rhetorical device, exploring its applications in some Sumerian-Akkadian compositions and its relevance for the bilingual literature of the first millennium. Before we set out to analyze this further, I present a short overview of the unilingual chiasmus. The structure of the unilingual chiasmus is quite simple, consisting of the inversion of two pairs of words often arranged in two lines. Its etymology comes from the Ancient Greek χιάζω, “to shape like the letter χ”: in this way, two couples of words or word clusters are connected like a χ: AB // BA. The chiasmus applies to different grammatical entities: nouns and adjectives are the most common, but it also occurs with verbs and preposition.1 Some scholars, especially those outside of ancient Near Eastern studies, tend to distinguish between different types of chiasmi. The first, very simple type reverses two identical words pairs, as happens, for example, in Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Netherworld (lines 8–9) between an, “heaven,” and ki, “earth”:
{"title":"The Bilingual Chiasmus: A Unique Rhetorical Device for “Knotting” Words in Sumerian-Akkadian Literature","authors":"Beatrice Baragli","doi":"10.1086/721351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721351","url":null,"abstract":"The chiasmus is one of the most widespread rhetorical devices in world literature, and it appears in most languages. However, a completely different type of chiasmus is also possible: a chiasmus between different languages. Since multilingual compositions are less common, the bilingual chiasmus has not previously been researched in detail. The present paper analyzes this newly-discovered rhetorical device, exploring its applications in some Sumerian-Akkadian compositions and its relevance for the bilingual literature of the first millennium. Before we set out to analyze this further, I present a short overview of the unilingual chiasmus. The structure of the unilingual chiasmus is quite simple, consisting of the inversion of two pairs of words often arranged in two lines. Its etymology comes from the Ancient Greek χιάζω, “to shape like the letter χ”: in this way, two couples of words or word clusters are connected like a χ: AB // BA. The chiasmus applies to different grammatical entities: nouns and adjectives are the most common, but it also occurs with verbs and preposition.1 Some scholars, especially those outside of ancient Near Eastern studies, tend to distinguish between different types of chiasmi. The first, very simple type reverses two identical words pairs, as happens, for example, in Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Netherworld (lines 8–9) between an, “heaven,” and ki, “earth”:","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":"81 1","pages":"261 - 281"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43579289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Die Sabäischen Inschriften aus Mārib: Katalog, Übersetzung und Kommentar. By Anne Multhoff. Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel Band 9. Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf, 2021. Pp. 524. €69.80 (cloth).","authors":"G. Gragg","doi":"10.1086/721344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721344","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46419031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Painting the Mediterranean Phoenician: On Canaanite-Phoenician Trade-nets. By Dalit Regev. Sheffield: Equinox Publishers, 2021. Pp. xiii + 231 + 4 maps. £90.00/$125.00 (cloth).","authors":"Marion Bolder-Boos","doi":"10.1086/721346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721346","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45745,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48661010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}