Early Metallurgy Between the Near East and Southeastern Europe in Social Context (c. 5000‐3500 BC)

Early Metallurgy Between the Near East and Southeastern Europe in Social Context (c. 5000‐3500 BC)

Karaucak, Mehmet

The earliest documented instances of extractive metallurgy date around 5000 BC in both Southwestern Asia and Southeastern Europe. Current evidence from Iran, Anatolia, as well as from the Western Black Sea Coast and across the Balkan Mountains, indicates that by this time metallurgical production was carried out only in a small number of settlement sites and that these centres were separated by long distances. Accordingly, these early adopters seem to have been extremely diverse in terms of their social organization and cultural values. In this study, I am particularly interested in examining the social context of metallurgy during its formative stage between 5000 BC and 3500 BC and taking into consideration how cultural attitudes and responses might have been influential factors in shaping the development of metallurgy. 

Motivating Violence in Ancient Judaism: Pre-Battle Speeches in Second Temple Literature

Motivating Violence in Ancient Judaism: Pre-Battle Speeches in Second Temple Literature

Joseph Scales 

Joseph Scales

 

Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism (TSAJ) 192 

The battle is about to begin. The commander takes their place in front of their troops and surveys the opposing horde. The odds seem stacked against them. Fear strikes the hearts of the soldiers. There is only one thing to be done: to fight by sheer force of will. This is the moment in which a rousing exhortation can secure victory. In the face of overwhelming odds, a heroic speaker calls upon their audience not to fear but to take courage.
In warfare, commanders incite combatants to violence by centring the oppositional identity of their enemies, the historic value of their fight, and the divine support for their cause. These incitements were often delivered in the immediate moments before combat - in other words, as a pre-battle speech. Joseph Scales collects and analyses every known pre-battle exhortation in Second Temple Jewish sources and earlier. These literary examples can shed light on aspects of identity creation for in-text audiences and their enemies. Their narrative arcs reveal and promote the deeply held convictions of the author channeled into a context of urgency and heightened emotion, making them all the more impactful. For this reason, these texts continue to provide a framework for self-understanding and perception of one's enemies, motivating violence throughout history.

Table of contents:

Chapter 1: »Fighting Talk« - Introduction
A. Pre-battle speeches between oration and narrative
B. Jewish sources as narratives
C. Criteria for selection in this study
D. Success criteria
E. Pre-battle speech corpus overview
F. Chapter layout
Chapter 2: »Listen to me« - Who gives a Jewish pre-battle speech?
A. Speeches in character
B. The principal speech-givers
C. Who gives a pre-battle speech?
Chapter 3: »Do not fear, but take courage« - Assuring the audience
A. Injunctions against fear
B. Injunctions towards courage
C. Fear amongst the enemies
D. The role of fear and courage in assuring the audience
Chapter 4: »For they are...« - Creating an enemy
A. Enemy characterisation
B. Creating an other
C. Out-group conceptions
D. Recollection and »memory« deployment
Chapter 5: »For we are...« - Binding an audience
A. Audience characterisation
B. Means of cohesion
C. In-group framing and conceptions
D. Us and them
Chapter 6: »If we fail... if we succeed« - Outlining consequences
A. Reasons for battle and results from violence
B. The consequences of failure
C. The rewards of success
D. Realisation
Chapter 7: Conclusions
A. Summary of the above findings
B. Points of contact and a varied development
C. Effects upon readers and hearers
D. Legitimate applications of violence
E. What is an ancient Jewish pre-battle speech?

 

Apocrypha, Magic, Liturgy: The Multiple Identities of Coptic Prayers in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt

Apocrypha, Magic, Liturgy: The Multiple Identities of Coptic Prayers in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt 

Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin  

 

Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity (STAC) 150

 Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin examines a group of Coptic prayer texts known in modern scholarship as »magical liturgies«, preserved in manuscripts, mostly from Egypt, dating from the 5th to 13th centuries. Drawing on the sociological concept of »multiple identities«, she explores how these prayers can, from an etic perspective, be described as »apocryphal«, »magical«, and »liturgical«. Her approach involves a rigorous comparative analysis and employs several scholarly categories as lenses for evaluating the sources. It sheds light on how these prayers might have been conceptualized and used by people in Late Antique and early Islamic Egypt, and on the roles they played in the formation of Christian identities. In addition, the book draws on concepts from Material Philology. It pays particular attention to the material and paratextual features of the manuscripts containing these prayers, and assesses what these features can tell us about the contexts in which the manuscripts were produced and used. By analyzing the textual, material, and paratextual aspects together, the study reveals that the »magical liturgies« were most probably composed in monastic and ecclesiastic contexts. The Coptic manuscripts transmitting them, too, were produced and used in such settings in Late Antique and early Islamic Egypt.

Table of contents:

Introduction: Some Thoughts on Categories and Boundaries
Establishing Categories: »Apocrypha«
Establishing Categories: »Magic«
Establishing Categories: »Liturgy«
At the Intersection of Apocrypha, Magic, and Liturgy - On Multiple Identities
Chapter 1 - The Prayer of Mary at Bartos
The Work - Origin and Developments
The Manuscripts - Material and Paratextual Features
The Texts - Structure and Variants
Chapter 2 - The Praise of the Archangel Michael
Introduction: The Work, its Manuscript Attestations, and its Title
The Texts - Structure and Variants
Drawings, Instructions, and the Contexts of Production and Use
Chapter 3 -The other »Magical Liturgies«
Rossi's Tractate
Cairo JdE 49547
Berlin P. 11347
The Baktiotha Prayer
The Magical Liturgies: Elaboration and Spheres of Influence
Chapter 4 - Liturgical Prayers and Magical Liturgies: Structures Compared
Liturgical Prayers, Anaphoras, and their Structure
Structures in Comparison
What is »Liturgical« in the »Magical Liturgies«?
Concluding Remarks - On Multiple Identities and Monastic Contexts

 

Temporal Dimensions of the Apocalypse: Ancient Christian Reception and Contemporary Hermeneutical Reflections

Temporal Dimensions of the Apocalypse: Ancient Christian Reception and Contemporary Hermeneutical Reflections

Bohdan Kuryliak 

 

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II) 671 

Bohdan Kuryliak examines the book of Revelation through four interpretive approaches: preterism, idealism, historicism, and futurism. Drawing on a synthesis of close biblical exegesis and early Christian reception history (second to seventh centuries), he analyzes key temporal markers and disputed passages, ranging from the vision of the seals to the millennium. The author challenges the tendency to confine the text's symbolic richness to a single framework, showing that early Christian interpreters often blended these perspectives by combining past, present, and future dimensions. By grounding this synthesis in the text itself, he proposes historicism as an integrative model that incorporates the temporal insights of the other three approaches. The author thus offers a renewed hermeneutical pathway for navigating Revelation's complex temporal landscape.

Table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. Interpretive Issues in the Book of Revelation: The Temporal Dimensions
2.1. Temporal Markers of the Apocalypse
2.2. Seven Seals (Revelation 6:1-8:1)
2.3. Seven Trumpets (Revelation 8:7-11:19)
2.4. Dragon and the Beasts (Revelation 12-13)
2.5. Babylon the Whore (Revelation 17)
2.6. Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20)
2.7. Conclusions
3. Temporal Dimensions in the Reception of the Book of Revelation (ca. 2nd-7th Centuries)
3.1. Early Revelation's Reception (ca. 2nd-3rd Centuries)
3.2. Later Revelation's Reception (ca. 4th-7th Centuries)
3.3. Conclusions
4. The Panorama of Hermeneutical Approaches
4.1. Temporal Markers of the Apocalypse
4.2. Preterist Approach
4.3. Idealist Approach
4.4. Historicist Approach
4.5. Futurist Approach
4.6. Conclusions
5. Conclusions

The Political Situation in Egypt during the XIII Dynasty

The Political Situation in Egypt during the XIII Dynasty

Eid, Ali Hassan

The importance of studying the political situation in Egypt during the 13th Dynasty stems from the fact that it remains an obscure period in ancient Egyptian history. The 13th Dynasty still raises debatable issues regarding its nature, including its formation, the location of its power centre, the mechanisms through which its rulers legitimized and maintained power, and its place within the conventional framework of ancient Egyptian history. The only available and indispensable source of information about the rulers of the 13th Dynasty is the Ramesside manuscript known as the Turin King-list. Unfortunately, the King-list suffers from numerous deficiencies and is largely inconsistent with the contemporary archaeological evidence of these rulers. Therefore, the main question of the current study deals with questions regarding the nature of the 13th Dynasty and examines the extent to which it formed a cohesive political regime in the literal sense of the dynastic system of ancient Egyptian history. 

Commentary, Contextualisation and Interpretation of the Bactrian Inscriptions of the Kušān Period

Commentary, Contextualisation and Interpretation of the Bactrian Inscriptions of the Kušān Period

Härtel, Stefan Wolfgang

The present work studies the historical contexts of the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān period and attempts to extract the historical information of this epigraphic corpus by contextualising it with related sources. Following an introduction on the historical backgrounds and the problem of Kušān chronology, four main topics are studied: (1) The linguistic and literary contextualisation of the texts, (2) the titulature of the Kušān emperors in the inscriptions, (3) the religious aspects of the inscriptions and their contexts and (4) the information on the expansion and administration of the Kušān Empire which are described here as the “Imperial Strategy”. (1) shows that Bactrian was reduced to writing in the early Kušān period to facilitate its use as an imperial means of communication. This process involved individuals who spoke Greek and probably identified themselves as such. This becomes apparent from various attempts to solve problems arising from writing Bactrian in Greek script, which is phonetically unsuited for this language. An epigraphical analysis of the corpus of inscriptions further shows that by the time of Huviška, the Kušān attempted to standardise and simplify Bactrian orthography at the cost of grammatical complexity. The inscriptions contain only little material for literary analysis, but a sense of style is apparent from several passages that can be related to the inscriptions of the Achaemenid, Arsakid and Sāsānian periods. This proves that the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān are part of the literary history of Iran. (2) shows that the Kušān had already established a canon of imperial titles under their founder Kujula Kadphises that was only subject to marginal change afterwards. The titles are largely taken from the Bactrian tradition and originate in the Hellenistic period. The Bactrian titles were mostly translated from Greek forms current in Bactria for several centuries. A few Kušān novelties in the repository of titles are probably attributable to Chinese and Roman influence. (3) adds a study of the deities appearing on Kušān coins to explain the religious information from the inscriptions. It becomes clear that the Kušān religion appearing in epigraphic, numismatic and archaeological sources is influenced by various religious ideas in the empire, but contrary to long-standing opinions by researchers, it did not intend to portray the religious diversity of the empire. Rather, the Kušān emperors Kaniška I and Huviška assembled various groups of deities for political ideas. The Rabatak Inscription shows that such groups were also the subject of collective cults. The only known parallel to this practice in the Iranian world is possibly the cult of the Commagenean king Antiochos I. This also includes the deification of the living emperor and his predecessors, for which the epigraphic and iconographic material provides indicators that can no longer be doubted. The present work cannot, however, trace the origins of this practice. (4) first examines the expansion of the Kušān Empire from the literary and archaeological sources. An excursus of sorts then examines the long-standing claim that Kušān expansion was primarily motivated by the interest of gaining control of long-distance trade routes. Further, the related idea of a Roman influence exerted mainly through trade on the foundations of the Kušān Empire is evaluated critically. The result is that these elements have been strongly overrated by researchers and the strategy of the Kušān does not display any sort of predominant commercial interests. Roman influence on the Kušān which is mostly observable in the material culture, also seems to have only been superficial. Following these investigations, the second part of (4) is concerned with the inner structure of the Kušān Empire and its administration. The main group of sources are administrative titles from Kušān inscriptions. Titles in Bactrian inscriptions and Iranian titles in Indian inscriptions show that, apart from the top layer of the imperial court, it is hard to argue for a centralised imperial administration of the empire. It would have been expected in such a case that Bactrian administrative titles would have been spread throughout the empire during its expansion. However, the Iranian titles in Indian inscription rather seem to be part of the Achaemenid legacy there, as they can best be etymologised as Old Persian. In place of a summary, a new narrative of Kušān history has been proposed. The dissertation also includes an appendix with a catalogue of the Bactrian inscriptions of the Kušān and a glossary of these inscriptions. 

Tall Dāmiya I, II, III: Archaeological research in the Central Jordan Valley between 2004 and 2019

Tall Dāmiya I, II, III: Archaeological research in the Central Jordan Valley between 2004 and 2019

Edited by Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan A. Kafafi

This monograph presents the results of nine seasons of archaeological excavations (2004–2019) at Tall Dāmiya, a key site in the Central Jordan Valley. Situated just south of the confluence of the Az-Zarqa and Jordan rivers, near one of the region’s few natural river fords, the settlement mound has long served a vital crossroads of cultures.

Founded in the Late Bronze Age, Tall Dāmiya developed into a prominent cultic centre in the Iron Age. In the second half of the first millennium BCE, it was repurposed as a storage site for mobile pastoralists, later serving as a graveyard in the Byzantine and Ottoman periods – before becoming a battleground in the twentieth century.

Presented in three volumes, this joint Jordanian–Dutch project explores how people lived in and moved through the arid Jordan Valley over time, offering a comprehensive reconstruction of Tall Dāmiya’s settlement history and shedding new light on its long and varied afterlives.

Paperback ISBN: 9789464264661 | Hardback ISBN: 9789464264678 | Imprint: Sidestone Press | Format: 210x280mm | 252 pp. | Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities 36 | Series: PALMA | Language: English | 350 illus. (bw) | 263 illus. (fc) | Keywords: settlement archaeology; Jordan; Iron Age; cult; Jordan Valley; ancient West Asia; ancient Near East | download cover | DOI: 10.59641/o7r3l4m5n6 | CC-license: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Contents Volume I:

Preface

PART I – INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

2. Jordanian-Dutch cooperation in the Central Jordan Valley
Zeidan Kafafi

3. Early records and history of study
Zeidan Kafafi and Lucas P. Petit

4. Modern habitation history of Tall Dāmiya
Zeidan Kafafi

PART II – REGIONAL STUDIES

5. Archaeological surface survey around Tall Dāmiya
Eva Kaptijn

6. The historiography of the Dāmiya bridges
Lucas P. Petit

PART III – THE UPPER MOUND: STRATIGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE

7. Iron Age occupation – Strata XVIII-IV
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

8. Persian and Hellenistic remains – Stratum III
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

9. The burials – Strata II-I
Jeroen Rensen

10. Contemporary occupation remains – Stratum 0
Lucas P. Petit

PART IV – THE LOWER MOUND: STRATIGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE

11. Area B
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi, with contribution by Jeroen Rensen

Contents Volume II:

PART V – FINDS AND SPECIALISED STUDIES

12. Pottery
12a. Pottery repertoire and statistics
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi
12b. Pottery catalogue
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

13. Finds catalogue
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

14. Seals, scarabs, and scaraboids
Alexander Ahrens

15. Figurines and anthropomorphic statues
Zeidan Kafafi and Lucas P. Petit

16. The inscriptions
Omar al-Ghul

17. Textile production
Jeanette Boertien

18. Archaeobotanical remains
18a. Archaeobotanical remains from the excavation seasons 2012, 2013, and 2014
Yotti Van Deun
18b. Archaeobotanical investigation of two storage rooms in Stratum VII
Bert Verleijsdonk, with a contribution by Corrie Bakels
18c. The botanical content of three Persian-Hellenistic pits
Corrie Bakels

19. Archaeozoological remains
19a. Faunal remains
Maaike Groot, Anna Hofmann, and Jana Eger
19b. Analyses and identification of serpent bones
Lucas P. Petit

20. Compositional analysis of soil, ceramics, and small finds at Tall Dāmiya using non-destructive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy
Dennis Braekmans

Contents Volume III:

PART VI – THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS, DISCUSSIONS, AND CONCLUSIONS

21. Worshippers, travellers, and trade: the Tall Dāmiya ‘sanctuary’ in its context
Diederik J.H. Halbertsma

22. A holistic view of cultic practices at Tall Dāmiya and a potential dual sanctuary
Michel de Vreeze

23. Conclusions
Lucas P. Petit and Zeidan Kafafi

References

Appendix A – Index of field loci
Appendix B – Index of bucket numbers
Appendix C – Profile drawings

Tall Dāmiya volume I  

Tall Dāmiya volume II 

Tall Dāmiya volume III