Envisioning the Past Through Memories: How Memory Shaped Ancient Near Eastern Societies

Description

Memory is a constructed system of references, in equilibrium, of feeling and rationality. Comparing ancient and contemporary mechanisms for the preservation of memories and the building of a common cultural, political and social memory, this volume aims to reveal the nature of memory, and explores the attitudes of ancient societies towards the creation of a memory to be handed down in words, pictures, and mental constructs. Since the multiple natures of memory involve every human activity, physical and intellectual, this volume promotes analyses and considerations about memory by focusing on various different cultural activities and productions of ancient Near Eastern societies, from artistic and visual documents to epigraphic evidence, and by considering archaeological data. The chapters of this volume analyse the value and function of memory within the ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian societies, combining archaeological, textual and iconographical evidence following a progression from the analysis of the creation and preservation of both single and multiple memories, to the material culture (things and objects) that shed light on the impact of memory on individuals and community. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents Series Preface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations List of Contributors Introduction 1. Preserving the Memory of the Mythical Origins: The King’s Role Between Tradition and Innovation 2. The Emergence of Writing and the Construction of Cultural Memory in Egypt 3. Community and Individuals: How Memory Affects Public and Private Life in the Ancient Near East 4. Embodying the Memory of the Royal Ancestors in Western Syria during the Third and Second Millennia BC: The Case of Ebla and Qatna 5. The Historical Memory of the Late Bronze Age in the Neo-Assyrian Palace Reliefs 6. Prioritized Presence: Rulers’ Images in the Neo-Assyrian Palace as Devices of Elite Ideological Memory 7. The Many Falls of Babylon and the Shape of Forgetting 8. War Remembrance Narrative: Negotiation of Memory and Oblivion in Mesopotamian Art 9. From Ancient Egypt to the Mississippi Delta: A Comparative Approach to Cultural Memory and Forgetting Index