Ancient Near East

The second of Carl Blegen's reports on the excavation of Troy for the American Journal of Archeology detailing a small residential area.

The third of Carl Blegen's reports on the excavation of Troy for the American Journal of Archeology concentrating on a large house continuously occupied in some capacity from Troy I – VII.

The fourth of Carl Blegen's reports on the excavation of Troy for the American Journal of Archeology concentrating on the Trojan acropolis.

The fifth of Carl Blegen's reports on the excavation of Troy for the American Journal of Archeology concentrating on detailed study of artifacts and finds on the citadel.

Paul Haupt argues for the existence of an e-vowel in Ugaritic, a vowel whose existence is difficult to prove in the consonant-free script of Semitic language.

Abel H. Huizinga was a noted scholar of Hebrew, and in this, his dissertation for John's Hopkins University, he discusses the mechanics of analogy in semitic languages with a focus on Hebrew.

This book explores the role of the biblical patriarch Abraham in the formation and use of authoritative texts in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. It reflects a conference session in 2009 focusing on Abraham as a figure of cultural memory in the literature of these periods. Cultural memory is the shared reproduction and recalling of what has been learned and retained. It also involves transformation and innovation. As a figure of memory, stories of Abraham served as guidelines for identity-formation and authoritative illustration of behaviour for the emerging Jewish communities.

Edwin Fay proposes that the Vedic god Agni has his origins in an Aryan lightening god.

Ancient Egyptian leaders sought to preserve the status quo by using not only their military might, but also enlisting magical rituals to help control any perceived threats to their way of life. Biblical leaders also sought to control their respective peoples by means of divine authority, brute force, and/or ritual actions. Examples of ritual actions by Moses and Jeremiah mimic those used by the ancient Egyptians in order to preserve or restore order to their given societies.

Bioarchaeology of the Near East (Volume 1, 2007) includes contributions by Theya Molleson, Douglas H. Ubelaker, and Joseph L. Rife, as well as short fieldwork reprots.

Bioarchaeology of the Near East (Volume 2, 2008) includes contributions by Nathan K. Harper, Sherry C. Fox, Mateusz Baca, and Martyna Molak, as well as short fieldwork reprots.

The volume contains 12 papers presented at the conference "Time and Astronomy in Past Cultures" (Toruń, Poland 2005). Five of them concern Near Eastern calendars and sky-watching, three are devoted to European archaeoastronomy (including a paper on Stonehenge), and two represent ethnoarchaeological research in the Baltic area.

Anton Baumstark presents the Arabic text and Latin translation of an Egyptian version of the Testamentum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi. Baumstark discusses the date of the text and compares the content of the liturgical prayers with various contemporary sources.

The imagery of thunder and lightning, fire and earthquake which attends YHWH's theophany in Old Testament poetic texts has most often been interpreted as a series of metaphors in biblical scholarship. This work applies insights from recent work in metaphor theory and myth theory to argue that this traditional interpretation of poetic theophanic imagery is mistaken, and that these texts make better exegetical sense when understood against the background of the ANE myth of the defeat of chaos.

The dating of some Archaic Biblical Hebrew poems to the late second millennium – early first millennium BCE on the basis of a handful of linguistic forms in common with second millennium Ugaritic and Amarna-Canaanite texts is brought into question. This critique highlights the problems with the arguments and hypotheses presented in the literature, and concludes that there is no compelling evidence to support the use of linguistic data for dating purposes.

With a written history of nearly five thousand years, the Semitic languages comprise one of the world’s earliest and longest attested families. This volume provides an overview of this important language family, including both ancient and modern languages. After a brief introduction to the history of the family and its internal classification, subsequent chapters cover topics in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. Each chapter describes features that are characteristic of the Semitic language family as a whole, as well as some of the more extraordinary developments that take place in the individual languages.

The article refutes many of the arguments Stephen Henry Langdon made in his article on the text “The Sumerian Epic of Paradise, Flood, and Fall of Man”. The essay concludes with the entire text laid out and a commentary.

Burgess attempts to prove the originality of the nakshatra system to the Hindus. He proves the early existence of this system and disproves the origin of the lunar zodiac system to the Chinese and the Arabs.

The Sumerian hymn K. 257 is in the Emne-sal dialect, which is the non-Semitic designation for a variation of Sumerian. The focus of the hymn is the goddess Belit. However, no conclusion was reached about her origin.

A significant portion of this article contains the original texts, translations, and comments of two Sanskrit inscriptions discovered in 1857. Both inscriptions list the names of the rulers of Chedi and the names of their consorts and kinsmen.

Jastrow addresses how the final codification of the laws of Hammurapi evolved and which process the Babylonians used to get there. The Code of Hammurapi was subject to constant adjustments, providing that conditions constantly changed and new situations arose.

Bhartrharinirveda of Harihara is a play that glorifies the Yoga philosophy, which teaches that the summum bonuzz is the discrimination and separation of soul from matter, thus leading through renunciation of the world to isolation of the ego.

The name Asur is difficult. In cuneiform, it is designated for the city, country, and deity. However, it appears that the deity was named after the city, which emerged first.

Tiamat was the Babylonian sea deity. The sea was affiliated with evil. Tiamat was therefore thought to be evil. As a result, the writers of Genesis 1 purposely omitted any wording relating to the word ‘sea’.

F. W. Hasluck was a British traveller and scholar of the early twentieth century. This two-volume collection of essays looks at Hasluck and his archaeological and anthropological studies in the Balkans and Anatolia.