August 2017
Vol. 5, No. 8
The Pharaoh’s Magic – Imagery and Diplomacy in the Late Bronze Age
By Flora Brooke Anthony
Today we imagine Egyptian magic through the lenses of the Bible and films. But what was the ‘actual’ role of ancient Egyptian magic in the royal palace when the king received foreign delegations? Imagine you are an upper class Hittite. In your own country you serve your king and live a comfortable life in a spacious estate surrounded by many exotic luxury goods.
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Sunlight and Shade in the First Cities – A Sensory Archaeology of Early Iraq
By Mary Shepperson
There are two periods of about five days each, one in the Spring and one in the Autumn, when the weather in southern Iraq is quite nice. Outside of those brief pleasant interludes, it’s either cold, windy and rainy, or roasting, windy and dusty.
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Were YHWH and Dionysus Once the Same God?
By Nissim Amzallag
If we look for a parallel deity to YHWH in ancient Greece, we think immediately of Zeus, the patron of the Greek pantheon whose representation was introduced in the Jerusalem temple in the Hellenistic period. The shared ancestry of the two has been well accepted from antiquity, for example by Josephus Flavius (Jewish Antiquities 12.22), to modern times.
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The Invention of Judaism. Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul
By John Collins
In the second century BCE, the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes issued a decree proscribing the ancestral laws of Judea. The Jerusalem temple was taken over and renamed for Zeus Olympios. People were forbidden to practice traditional Jewish customs such as circumcision on pain of death.
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Rescuing Syriac Manuscripts in Iraq
By Amir Harrak
The so-called Islamic State invaded Mosul and the Plain of Nineveh in the north of Iraq in August 2014, destroying people, especially minorities, centuries-old religious and civil buildings, and cultural heritages, including collections of manuscripts owned privately or by institutions.
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The Ancient Near East Today features contributions from diverse academics, a forum featuring debates of current developments from the field, and links to news and resources. The ANE Today covers the entire Near East, and each issue presents discussions ranging from the state of biblical archaeology to archaeology after the Arab Spring.
Take a look at the contents of this e-book!
- Rescuing Syriac Manuscripts in Iraq
- The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul
- Were YHWH and Dionysus Once the Same God?
- Sunlight and Shade in the First Cities: A Sensory Archaeology of Early Iraq
