Bøger udgivet af Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures

When we imagine ancient political life, we think of powerful rulers and awe-inspiring monuments, not grassroots movements. But if the cacophony of our modern political discourse can teach us anything, it is that negotiating power and legitimacy is an ongoing conversation, not a monologue. Pomp, Circumstance, and the Performance of Politics investigates moments and spaces in the premodern world where audiences had the opportunity to weigh in on the messages their leaders were sending. How did ordinary people experience and contribute to their political realities, and what strategies did rulers use to gain support? Bringing together scholars working in a wide variety of disciplines and time periods, from prehispanic Mesoamerica and Early Historic India to the Assyrian Empire and papal Rome, this book takes a bottom-up approach to evaluating the risks and rewards of acting "politically correct"--or incorrect--in the ancient world.

The History of the Armenian priest Lewond is an important source for the history of early Islamic rule and the only contemporary chronicle of second/eighth-century caliphal rule in Armenia. This volume presents a diplomatic edition and new English translation of Lewond's text, which describes events that took place during the century and a half following the Prophet Muḥammad's death in AH 11/632 CE. The authors address Lewond's account as a work of caliphal history, written in Armenian, from within the Caliphate. As such, this book provides a critical reading of the Caliphate from one of its most significant provinces. Reading notes clarify many aspects of the period covered to make the text understandable to students and specialists alike. Extensive commentary elucidates Lewond's narrative objectives and situates his History in a broader Near Eastern historiographical context by bringing the text into new conversations with a constellation of Arabic, Greek, and Syriac works that cover the same period. The book thus stresses the multiplicity of voices operating in the Caliphate in this pivotal period of Near Eastern history.

Journey back in time 3,800 years to Nippur, a city in ancient Babylonia, as a girl sets out on a quest to become a scribe. Inanaka learns how to make a tablet and write her name, solves the many puzzles of the cuneiform writing system, and prepares with her family for a festival, all with the help (some of the time, at least) of her dog, Tuni.

This volume-companion to the exhibition 'Back to School in Babylonia' of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago-explores education in the Old Babylonian period. The essays offer a history of House F at Nippur and the catalogue presents the 126 objects, mainly cuneiform tablets, included in the exhibition.

184 figs, 7 tbls, 3 maps, 10 plans & 107 pls.

This volume documents the results of the excavations of the Palatial Complex at the city on the Kerkenes Dag in the high plateau of central Turkey. It was a new Iron Age capital, very probably Pteria, founded in the later seventh century BC, put to the torch in the mid-sixth century and then abandoned.

How did Islam's sacred scripture, the Arabic Qur'an, emerge from western Arabia at a time when the region was religiously fragmented and lacked a clearly established tradition of writing to render the Arabic language? The studies in this volume address different aspects of this question.

This book presents a comprehensive corpus of beads and pendants found during excavations undertaken by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago between 1960 and 1968 at the Lower Nubian sites of Qustul, Adindan, Serra East, Dorginarti, Ballana, and Kalabsha and stored in the Oriental Institute Museum. This vast, illustrated catalog organizes the finds first chronologically according to the main periods of Nubian history and then by cultural units, beginning with the A-Group and ending with modern times. The present volume-the first of two-comprises beads from Early Nubian (A-Group, Post-A-Group), Middle Nubian (C-Group, Pan Grave, Kerma, Middle Kingdom), and New Kingdom sites. The discussion of each cultural unit begins with background information and develops into a fascinating story of the most characteristic types that form part of that group's identity, though types and materials often cross chronological and regional borders. The story is also one of jewelry fashions and the wealth and long-distance contacts of Lower Nubia, which lay at the crossroads of ancient routes in this part of the world. More specialized information on bead types, ordered by the materials from which the beads were made, is given in the second section of each cultural category. An outline of the preserved beadwork and an anthropological analysis of the remains of the beads' owners, together with references to parallels known from relevant literature and museum research, are also provided. The volume concludes with illustrated synoptic and concordance tables that allow the reader to switch easily between catalog, Oriental Institute Museum, and Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition find numbers.

The thirty-seven essays in this volume cover, among other topics relating to northwestern Semitic languages, new readings of inscriptions, studies of poetic structure and investigations of Late Bronze Age society.

The Epigraphic Survey returns to its series of publications dedicated to the reliefs and inscriptions of the Medinet Habu complex, with a sequence documenting the Eighteenth Dynasty temple of Amun and subsequent additions, beginning with this publication of the reliefs in the six innermost rooms of the temple.

The goal of the conference was to address a simple question: Just what role did non-Muslims play in the operations of the Umayyad state? The eight papers in this volume thus focus on that question.

The Paleolithic site of Barda Balka ("standing stone," "stone to lean upon" in local Kurdish) is situated about 3 kilometers northeast of Chemchemal in Kirkuk Province, Iraq. This volume is Howe's final report of the 1951 investigations at Barda Balka.

Human and animal figurines and other clay objects from the Oriental Institute's continuing work on Neolithic sites in Turkey and Iran.

The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CHD) is a comprehensive, bilingual Hittite-English dictionary. The CHD reflects and illustrates the ideas and material world of Hittite society through its lexicon, and is the only such project in the English-speaking world.

Looks at the spread of Islam throughout the medieval world and the process of conversion to this religion and adoption of its cultural life. The evidence is presented in a series of essay reports on archaeological approaches in current Islamic Archaeology.

Featured are thirty-seven illustrations that highlight the magnificence that was the great Islamic port of Ayla on the Gulf of Aqaba. The site is located in modern Aqaba, Jordan and has been excavated by the Oriental Institute under the directorship of Donald Whitcomb since 1986.

Scholars specialising in the Old and New World from Europe and the US came together to find new approaches in the study of households in complex societies. Presents case studies from the Near East, Egypt and Nubia, the Classical World, and Mesoamerica, including three comparative responses from the perspective of the different disciplines.

In the winter of 1978, an extensive archaeological campaign was launched in the Hamrin Basin area in the east-central part of Iraq to salvage many archaeological sites before their flooding, due to the construction of a large dam. This volume documents the excavations carried out in two of the sites-Tell Abada and Tell Rashid-dating back to the Ubaid period in the fifth millennium BC. The first site (Tell Abada) is of particular importance; it is an almost complete village with three occupational levels unearthed. Several residential houses and buildings with distinctive architectural features are exposed. Industrial workshops dedicated to the manufacture of pottery vessels are present. Of express interest was the first-time discovery of pottery-making equipment, notably the potter's wheel. An equally exciting discovery is the presence of many fire installations dedicated to pottery vessels' ?burning. The pottery products are enormous, varied, and richly decorated, reflecting aesthetic features and agility. The presence of the pottery in a very well stratified sequence enhances our understanding of Ubaid pottery, clarifies its chronological classifications, and establishes cultural links with other Ubaid sites in the region. Among other remarkable discoveries are many infant burial urns, granaries, water ducts, and proto-tablets. The varied aspects of the cultural material revealed throughout the excavations provides significant insight into daily life, settlement patterns, craft specialization, religious practices, and socioeconomic status, and sheds new light on the Ubaid period in general in Mesopotamia.

This two-volume account of archaeological investigations in central and eastern Luristan reflects work carried out over 50 years in the remote area of western Iran, north of the Zagros Mountains. Included are excavation reports on the Chalcolithic site of Kamtarlan and on an Iron Age shrine on the slopes og Surkh Dum-I-Luri mountain.