Ancient Near Eastern Religions

Most scholars in the late 20th and early 21st century believed that cultic activity in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah was practiced in various temples that were scattered throughout the kingdoms. Still, a detailed study of the archaeological evidence on Israelite cult reveals that Israelite cultic buildings were extremely rare, both in absolute terms and when compared to other ancient Near Eastern societies, suggesting that cultic activity in temples was the exception rather than the norm and that typical Israelite cult was practiced in the household and in other, non-temple settings. Hence, the evidence suggests that rather than viewing temples, like the one in Arad, as exemplifying typical cultic activity, they should be viewed as exceptions that require a special explanation. The first part of the article develops and updates the suggestion, first raised about ten years ago, that Israelite temples were indeed extremely rare. Given the ancient Near Eastern context, however, such practices seems to be exceptional, and the second part of the article will therefore explain why was such a unique pattern not identified in the past, and will suggest a possible explanation as to how was such an outstanding practice developed and adopted.

This paper examines the demons Pazuzu and Lamaštu from a cognitive science perspective. As hybrid creatures, the iconography of these demons combines an array of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic properties, and is therefore marked by a high degree of conceptual complexity. In a technical sense, they are what cognitive researchers refer to as radically "counterintuitive " representations. However, highly complex religious concepts are difficult in terms of cognitive processing, memory, and transmission , and, as a result, are prone to being spontaneously simplified in structure. Accordingly, there is reason to expect that the material images of Pazuzu and Lamaštu differed from the corresponding mental images of these demons. Specifically, it is argued here that in ancient cognition and memory, the demons would have been represented in a more cognitively optimal manner. This hypothesis is further supported by a detailed consideration of the full repertoire of iconographic and textual sources.

In this study, I argue that the literary depictions and iconographic images of wings on various hybrid creatures are a means of depicting that creature’s association with wind and the cardinal directions, and that recognizing this correlation offers greater insight into the function and meaning of these creatures in the written and iconographic records generally. As such, I intend to add to our increasing awareness of the close relationship between textual and iconographic motifs in the ancient Near East. Furthermore, I contend that attention to the number of wings a creature possesses informs our understanding of the entity’s perceived cosmological abilities.

For about 150 years, scholars have attempted to identify the language of the world’s first alphabetic script, and to translate some of the inscriptions that use it. Until now, their attempts have accomplished little more than identifying most of the pictographic letters and translating a few of the Semitic words. With the publication of The World’s Oldest Alphabet, a new day has dawned. All of the disputed letters have been resolved, while the language has been identified conclusively as Hebrew, allowing for the translation of 16 inscriptions that date from 1842–1446 BC. These inscriptions expressly name 3 biblical figures and greatly illuminate the earliest Israelite history in a way that no other book has achieved, apart from the Bible.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/716031

Babylonian hermeneutics has been the subject of several studies in recent years that have showed that speculative thought exploited the potentiality of the cuneiform system through analogical reasoning in order to find and create new meanings according to phonetic, semantic and graphic similarities. Analogical hermeneutics was prompted by the polysemic and homophonic nature of cuneiform writing and was intended as an inquiry into the cuneiform system itself. Analogical reasoning is also well known in ancient Greece particularly in Heraclitus producing semantic proliferation and ambiguity. A comparison between Mesopotamian and Greek sources shows that Heraclitus’ fragments share with cuneiform scholarship a similar epistemic reasoning based on analogy. The present contribution aims at setting the Babylonian epistemological system in light of Heraclitus' philosophy.

A Safaitic inscription accompanied by seven dots (NE Jordan). Photo: A. Al-Jallad 86 Rock art depicting a Demogorgon-like figure (NE Jordan). Photo: A. Al-Jallad 86 bess19 1 102 Location of bess19 1 near the bend in the wadi 102 Team surveying the site of bess19 2 103 bess19 2a 104 bess19 2b 114 Overview of the nfs site looking southwest 115 View of the nfs site looking northeast 115 Enclosure South 116 Enclosure North 116 bess19 9-10 in context between the stone enclosures 117 bess19 3 118 bess19 4 119 bess19 5 120 bess19 6 120

A Critical Research Involving the form and Content of Hittite Treaties and its similarities as Archaeological Evidence for the Structures Found in Biblical Covenants throughout the Old Testament.  The Influence of Pagan Legality which influenced Hebrew Religious Culture as demonstrated in Old Testament Studies.

This thesis explores a specific form of representation from the Syrian Bronze Age: aniconic standing-stones, lacking inscriptions or decorations. These have been mainly studied from the point of view of texts which mention cult activity associated with them, but there has been heretofore no integrated analysis of archaeological finds, analysing architecture and associated material culture in comparison to texts. I will interpret litholatry (the cult of standing-stones) from the point of view of the influence of semi-nomadic pastoralists from the Syrian desert frontier on the culture of urban societies, and of the negotiation of urban/tribal identities of city kings through ritual.

The Hittite text KUB 17.35 i 17'-37' (CTH 525) is part of a tablet belonging to the genre of cult-inventories. 1 Cult inventories are among the numerous tablets regarding the cult, which were found mainly in Ùattu±a, as well as in a few other sites outside the capital. Most of the tablets were brought together by Laroche in the CTH under numbers 501-530. KUB 17.35 is one of the inventory texts from the time of TudÒaliya IV, dating to the end of the 13th century. The texts record materials for the cult (such as offerings, and cult objects) and temple personnel, and include descriptions of temple functions, especially festivals. The inventory texts therefore include important information about the cult and its institutions. The aim of this paper is to offer an interpretation of the rite described in the Hittite text KUB 17.35 i 17'-37' under the name EZEN 4 pula±. By relating it to other Hittite texts and by comparing it with the installation text of a priestess in Emar, to which it reveals striking correspondences, it may be interpreted as the rites surrounding the appointment and installation of a new priest. * This article is based on part of my PhD dissertation, being written under the guidance of Prof. Avigdor (Victor) Hurowitz of Ben Gurion University and Prof. Theo van den Hout of the University of Chicago.

On se propose ici de présenter un intéressant objet en plomb, inédit jusqu'à présent, qui a été trouvé au cours des années 80 dans les alentours de la ville d'Ibiza, parait-il, non pas loin du site de Puig d'en Valls, qui est aussi très connu dans la bibliographie phénicienne punique. La trouvaille a été faite lors de recherches, hors de contrôle officiel, à l'aide de détecteurs de métaux. Cette pièce, qui reste encore en mains privées, a pu tout de même être documentée et l'endroit de sa trouvaille, malgré sans d'autres précisions, située à peu de kilomètres au N de la ville d'Ibiza, dans des champs où on y pratiquait traditionnellement la culture.

Tra i grandi momenti storici che hanno conferito alla nostra civiltà la sua configurazione attuale, sono soprattutto da segnalare le due grandi fasi designate con il nome di "rivoluzione": la "rivoluzione neolitica" e la "rivoluzione urbana".

Das Pittei-Ritual KUB 44.4 + KBo 13.241 Rs. mit dem Titel o'wenn (eine Frau) mit einem Kind schwanger geht" (man ouut-an armaizzi) gehórt ohne Zweifel zl den sprachlich und inhaltlich interessantesten Texten der altanatolischen magischen Literaturr. Der Text, der auf der Rùckseite einer groBen, einkolumnigen Tafel steht und nach palàographischen und sprachlichen Kriterien ins 13. Jh. v. Chr. gehórt2, ist stark verderbt und von Luwismen durchsetzt3, die an mehreren Stellen sein Verstàndnis erschweren. Er besteht aus zwei Beschwórungen (Rs. 2-17 bzw. Rs. 22-34), die durch einen Paragraphenstrich getrennt sind. Im folgenden móchte ich nach einer ausfiihrlichen philologischen Analyse des Textes auf die Frage nach Struktur und Inhalt der zwei Beschwórungen eingehen, eine neue Deutung des Inhalts der ersten vorschlagen, und am Ende das Problem eines móglichen Verhàltnisses zwischen beiden Bestandteilen des Textes kurz besprechen. Von KUB 44.4 + KBo 13.241Rs. liegen bereits zwei ausgezeichnete Umschriften vora. Ich biete daher hier nur eine neue Ùbersetzungs und einen Kommentar, in dem ich besonders die Stellen erórtere, an denen meine Interpretation von jener G. Beckmans und anderer Forscher abweicht. Úbersetzung '[FolgendermaBen (spricht]) Pittei: Wenn (eine Frau) mit einem Kind schwanger geht -'zDer [Him]mel bekleidete sich. mit schwarzen (Kleidem), mit duwija'1(-KIeidem) bekleid(ete) er sich, und der Mond bekleid(ete sich) mit blutfarbigen (Kleiì Textbearbeitung: G. Beckman, StBoT 29 (Wiesbaden 1983) L76-I99;Transkription und ìnhaltliche Bemerkungen: F. Starke, StBoT 30 (Wiesbaden 1985) 208 ff.,233-236. '?Vgl. Beckman, StBoT 29, 180. 3 Der Text ist zwar hethitisch abgefafJt, enthàlt aber viele luwische Formen, so daB eine Herkunft aus dem Luwischen wahrscheinlich ist (vgl. Beckman, StBoT 29, 180). Deswegen hat F. Starke ihn in sein Corpus der keilschrift-luwischen Texte aufgenommen. a Beckman, StBoT 29, 176 ff.; Starke, StBoT 30, 233 ff. 5 Die vielen Textemendationen habe ich durch spitze Klammem gekennzeichnet. Orientalia -35

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh interacts with three goddesses: Ninsun, his mother and a goddess renowned for her wisdom, Ishtar, the goddess of love and sexuality, and Siduri, a minor goddess of wisdom. This article will investigate Gilgamesh's interactions and relations with these goddesses. How do these goddesses reveal or present themselves to Gilgamesh? How do the goddesses communicate with Gilgamesh, and how does he interact with them? The manner in which these interactions take place in the Standard Version of the Epic will be compared to the same episodes in the earlier Old Babylonian Version of the Epic and the Sumerian narratives in order to identify changes across time. Finally, how do these interactions differ from the way in which Gilgamesh interacts with male gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh? These various interactions will be compared and analysed to reveal not only similarities and differences in the way Gilgamesh communicates with the goddesses in the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also crucial differences in the manner in which male and female deities reveal themselves and communicate with Gilgamesh.

The Harappan seals contain several linguistic symbols which have not been properly understood so far.Through my works especially- Indus script decipherment breakthrough, PaNameTa-the troy tower weight  and measure system of Harappa, The Harappan Symbol Of 
Man+ Trident And Its Relation To Kausika Visvamitra  And The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower Weights), The Harappan Unicorn And The Kalinga Malla MeTas(Tower Weights) , The Harappan Symbol Of  Intersecting Circles And Its Relation  To Kausika Visvamitra And The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower  weights), The Harappan Contest Motif Of Nude Man With Six Locks Of Hair Fighting  Two Tigers And Its Relation To The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower Weights), The Harappan symbols of Roots, Nuts And Cocks And Their  Relation    To Kausika Visvamitra And The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower  weights), Identification Of KaNva In The Indus Script, Identification Of Troy In The Indus script,Identification Of Barley And Mustard In The Indus Script, Krishna’s Mathura And Dvaraka In The Indus Script, The Pinna In The Indus Script, The Identity Of Vedic Sarasvati And The Location Of Krishna’s Dvaraka, Identification Of Vedic Bharadvaja In The Indus  Script, Krishna’s Dvaraka  In The Indus Script, One Symbol  Of Indus Script Can Tell  A Lot About The Indus Valley Civilisation, The Identity Of Kasyapa In The Indus Valley And Sumeria, Kusa -The Son Of Rama-In Mesopotamia(Sumer),Indus -Sumer Trade, A Few “Copper” Names In The Indus Script, Janaka-King Of Mithila-In The Indus Script,The Vedic Asvins, Yama And Kartikeya In The Indus Script, The Goddess Sarasvati And The Origin Of Brahmi And Kharoshthi, The Origin Of The Roman Aes Grave From The Indus Valley Money, A Solution To The Mystery Of  The Gundestrup  Cauldron, The Eternal Soma Of The Vedas,              Vedic Roots Of Ancient Egyptian Religion, A Veiled Visvamitra Soma Sacrifice  In The New Testament , The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-1:The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-2,
The Punny Plough,The Bearded Kings Of The Ancient,
Bharata -The Language Of The Indus Valley Civilisation,
The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation -3,The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-4,Harappan Vedic Sacrificial Feasts In Mesopotamian Art And In The Bible,The Script of Indus valley Civilisation-6 :A Vrishni Silver Coin And Its Harappan Source,The Script of Indus valley Civilisation-7: The Conversion Of Makha(Sacrifice) To Tanka(Mint) In The Indus Script,Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-8:Vedic Root Of Gudea’s Akshayapatra,Three Men In A Boat Seal Evidence Of Indus –Dilmun Trade,The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-9: The Goodluck Symbols Of The Indus Script, The script of Indus valley civilisation-10:Identification Of The True Vedic Soma From Harappan Seals  Confirms The Indus Valley Civilisation As Vedic, The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-11:
Daksha (Soma) Yaaga-The Vedic Eucharist -In The Indus Script , The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-12:
Dāśarājñá And Dasaratha In The Indus Script, The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-13:The Silver Palm Seals Are Rosetta Stones Of The Indus Script , Vedic And Sumerian Linguistic Evidences For The Language Of Harappa, The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-14:The Difference Of Meluhha And Mlecca,
The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-15:The Shift Of The Capital Of The Vrishnis From Mathura( Kalibangan) To Dvaraka( Mohenjodaro), 6000 Year Old Mehrgarh Wheel Amulet Employs Vedic Script, The Script Of Indus Valley Civilisation-16:Vedic Sarasvati-Ganga Civilisation, The Identity Of The RigVedic Rivers, Mohenjo-daro-The City Of Krishna -

I have shown that several seals contain vedic metrological terms,names of vedic ornaments,names of people, places and gods etc. My perception is that only a comprehensive study of ancient vedic  metrology can decipher the script symbols satisfactorily. A significant find herein is the existence of the Kalinga malla mana system during Harappan times challenging  the common perception of its origin from the later  Kalinga kingdom(Orissa).The unicorn is identified as the pala/nishka/soma/agni.Signs of intersecting circles, fish , crab,bud,tower etc. also indicate pala.The six locks of hair indicate  the paNameTa weight of six barley grains.Roots  and nuts indicate viira bhadra/ Drupada/ varaha/pala.We have located Lord Krishna’s Mathura and Dvaraka in the Indus valley scripts.
We have confirmed Mohenjodaro as the first Dvaraka
on the basis of the inscription on the copperplate B7C2 from there and textual evidences from the Rgveda, Mahabharata etc.We have located PadmakuuTa,one of the
palaces of Krishna there.Also we have identified the Sindhu(Indus) as the Vedic Sarasvati river.We have gone through the symbols  identifying the Bharadvajas,the clan of composers of the earliest vedic texts.In Krishna’s Dvaraka we gathered more details from the script on Lord Krishna’s Dvaraka and Sindhu/Sarasvati. We have looked into the
indications of the Harappan jar symbol with three forks on each edge.We have located  the Kasyapas in Hastinapura
trading with Sumeria.We have decoded the Mari Standard,went deeper into the meanings of several Sumerian images and confirmed Meluhha as Vedic Harappa/Indus valley. We have located Janaka,the king of Mithila,father-in-law of Rama, in the Indus script.We have identified the names of copper in the Indus script and located  the Asvins,Yama and Skanda  in the Indus script.In A Model For Indus Script Decipherment
we have identified the deity in the seal M-1181 and built a model for complete decipherment of the Indus script.
We have seen how  Brahmi and Kharoshthi evolved from the Indus Script and how the Indus script was in use along with Brahmi/Kharoshthi even into the  first centuries CE.We have seen how the coins of the ancient world,including the Roman coins evolved from the Indus valley money.
We have looked for  and located a Rosetta Stone for the Indus script, in the varaha/gadyanaka coin form.
We have gone into the relation of the Druids to the Indus valley civilisation and the role of their  Gundestrup cauldron
in the evolution of Christianity.
We have explored the relation of the Anau seal to the Indus Valley Civilisation.
We have gone into the relationship of the Egyptian and Harappan deities.
We have looked into a beautiful story from the New Testament
invoving  the vedic soma sacrifice in A Veiled Visvamitra Soma Sacrifice In The New Testament.
We have studied  the indications of some of the Indus script symbols with particular reference to their use on ancient coins of India .
We have looked into symbolism of the overflowing vase on the Sumerian statue of Gudea and through it we identified the indications of several Indus symbols including the Harischandra vaajapeya sacrifice.
We have seen how the Harappan glyphs served as goodluck symbols .
The identification of the right vedic soma has two important
aspects:First, it ends the long quest for the mysterious soma. Second,it confirms the Indus valley civilisation as vedic ,beyond any doubt.
We have studied the vedic Daksha Yaaga  and its relation to the soma yaaga.Also we have located  Dāśarājñá and  Dasaratha in the Indus seals.
We have explored the application of the palm seals as further rosetta stones of the Indus script .
We have looked into the claim of mlecca as the language of the Indus valley civilation and concluded that Bharata,not mlecca, was the language of the Indus valley civilisation.
We have gone into the shift of the vedic Yadava clans from the Ghaggar-Hakra(Yamuna) to the Sarasvati(Sindhu) basin.
In another article we have confirmed the river Sindhu as the vedic river Sarasvati and Mohenjodaro as Krishna’s Dvaraka.
In this article we are going into a majestic bull seal.

The Harappan seals contain several linguistic symbols which have not been properly understood so far.Through my works especially- Indus script decipherment breakthrough, PaNameTa-the troy tower weight  and measure system of Harappa, The Harappan Symbol Of 
Man+ Trident And Its Relation To Kausika Visvamitra  And The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower Weights), The Harappan Unicorn And The Kalinga Malla MeTas(Tower Weights) , The Harappan Symbol Of  Intersecting Circles And Its Relation  To Kausika Visvamitra And The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower  weights), The Harappan Contest Motif Of Nude Man With Six Locks Of Hair Fighting  Two Tigers And Its Relation To The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower Weights), The Harappan symbols of Roots, Nuts And Cocks And Their  Relation    To Kausika Visvamitra And The Kalinga Malla MeTas( Tower  weights), Identification Of KaNva In The Indus Script, Identification Of Troy In The Indus script,Identification Of Barley And Mustard In The Indus Script, Krishna’s Mathura And Dvaraka In The Indus Script, The Pinna In The Indus Script, The Identity Of Vedic Sarasvati And The Location Of Krishna’s Dvaraka, Identification Of Vedic Bharadvaja In The Indus  Script, Krishna’s Dvaraka  In The Indus Script, One Symbol  Of Indus Script Can Tell  A Lot About The Indus Valley Civilisation, The Identity Of Kasyapa In The Indus Valley And Sumeria, Kusa -The Son Of Rama-In Mesopotamia(Sumer),Indus -Sumer Trade, A Few “Copper” Names In The Indus Script, Janaka-King Of Mithila-In The Indus Script,The Vedic Asvins, Yama And Kartikeya In The Indus Script, The Goddess Sarasvati And The Origin Of Brahmi And Kharoshthi, The Origin Of The Roman Aes Grave From The Indus Valley Money, A Solution To The Mystery Of  The Gundestrup  Cauldron, The Eternal Soma Of The Vedas,              Vedic Roots Of Ancient Egyptian Religion  -
I have shown that several seals contain vedic metrological terms,names of vedic ornaments,names of people, places and gods etc. My perception is that only a comprehensive study of ancient vedic  metrology can decipher the script symbols satisfactorily. A significant find herein is the existence of the Kalinga malla mana system during Harappan times challenging  the common perception of its origin from the later  Kalinga kingdom(Orissa).The unicorn is identified as the pala/nishka.Intersecting circles, fish , crab,bud,tower signs also have the same indications.The six locks of hair indicate  the paNameTa weight of six barley grains.Roots  and nuts indicate viira bhadra/ Drupada/ varaha/pala.We have located Lord Krishna’s Mathura and Dvaraka in the Indus valley scripts.
We have confirmed Mohenjodaro as the first Dvaraka
on the basis of the inscription on the copperplate B7C2 from there and textual evidences from the Rgveda, Mahabharata etc.We have located PadmakuuTa,one of the
palaces of Krishna there.Also we have identified the Sindhu(Indus) as the Vedic Sarasvati river.We have gone through the symbols  identifying the Bharadvajas,the clan of composers of the earliest vedic texts.In Krishna’s Dvaraka we gathered more details from the script on Lord Krishna’s Dvaraka and Sindhu/Sarasvati. We have looked into the
indications of the Harappan jar symbol with three forks on each edge.We have located  the Kasyapas in Hastinapura
trading with Sumeria.We have decoded the Mari Standard,went deeper into the meanings of several Sumerian images and confirmed Meluhha as Vedic Harappa/Indus valley. We have located Janaka,the king of Mithila,father-in-law of Rama, in the Indus script.We have identified the names of copper in the Indus script and located  the Asvins,Yama and Skanda  in the Indus script.In A Model For Indus Script Decipherment
we have identified the deity in the seal M-1181 and built a model for complete decipherment of the Indus script.
We have seen how  Brahmi and Kharoshthi evolved from the Indus Script and how the Indus script was in use along with Brahmi/Kharoshthi even into the  first centuries CE.We have seen how the coins of the ancient world,including the Roman coins evolved from the Indus valley money.
We have looked for  and located a Rosetta Stone for the Indus script, in the varaha/gadyanaka coin form.
We have gone into the relation of the Druids to the Indus valley civilisation and the role of their  Gundestrup cauldron
in the evolution of Christianity.
We have explored the relation of the Anau seal to the Indus Valley Civilisation.
We have studied  the vedic soma and its importance  in the life of the Harappans.
We have gone into the relationship of the Egyptian and Harappan deities.
In this article we are looking into a story from the New Testament which will help us understand the nature of the Indus symbols even better.

According to the  prevalent history of Bharata varsha as told by western scholars the Indus valley civilisation belonged to the
Dravida/Munda people and the vedic people(Aryans) reached India around 1900 BCE only . But in reality the Indus civilisation is vedic and the vedic people were in the Indus Valley at least from 6000BCE as seen from the excavations.
If an unknown script can explain the known myth and known history of a nation,what more proof is required to show that the script belongs to the same people.The script of Egypt explains
their myth and history.The script of Sumer,Akkad or Elam does the same.So it is natural for the Indus script to denote the myth
and history of the Hindu/Sindhu / Sarasvati/ vindu/vipra/sura/ bhuusura/bhudeva/bharata/kuru/pancala/Somaka  people.Hence we shall try to understand a bit of Indian history through the Indus script.We shall presently see  evidences pointing to the existence of the Aryans in the Indus Valley several millennia prior to the so called Aryan
arrival in the Indus valley.

In the last  articles we have looked into the writing of the Harappans in the early Ravi/Kot Diji phases and concluded that they are the same vedic people of the mature Harappan phase;we have  compared an inscribed  Ravi sherd showing  presence of the Pancalas/ Bharatas in the Indus valley before 3300BCE and a Taxila coin showing their presence in Taxila around 200 BCE confirming the continuity of the vedic civilisation in the Indus Valley from the early Harappan days;we have seen how an indus seal
portray the story of Ahalya described in later literature;
we have explored the universal idea of the mount of the dead Concept In The  Worship Of The Sun God .
One of the reasons for the hesitation of scholars  to accept
the Indus valley civilisation as vedic is that the Rg veda has
several passages referring to Asva-the horse and the veda
itself states that its horse has 34 ribs whereas modern horse
usually has 36 ribs.
In the last article we have gone into the issue of the vedic
horse and the number of its ribs. Interestingly many of the Harappan Inscriptions refer to the Asvamedha itself as we will see in the present article.There was no horse,but they are speaking of asvamedhas!

ABSTRACT: The following 83 questions follow the documentary (no.7), National Geographic, Quest for the Phoenicians (55 minutes). It is a good documentary detailing diverse aspects of the heritage and achievements of the Phoenicians: WEB LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBObLQZdeq8.  The question sheet aids in furnishing a summary of the documentary's coverage and sequence of specific topics. The documentary introduces the Phoenicians' Canaanite background, geographic dispersal and trading network, and legacy via mostly hostile and biased Greek and Roman accounts.  The film's focus includes and interweaves (1) R. Ballard's past-current maritime investigation of known and sought after Phoenician shipwrecks (e.g., SW coast of the southern Levant; the Malta-Carthage trade route), (2) two geneticists' --(i.e., Pierre Zalloua and Spencer Wells)-- study of modern DNA from residents in modern Carthage, Tyre, and elsewhere (in comparison to samples from a tooth from a Phoenician royal burial of King Tabnit), (3) Paco Giles' excavations of a Phoenician cultic deposit in Gorham's Cave at Gibraltar, (4) Claude Dumet Sirhal's five seasons of excavations of a Phoenician cemetery and other Canaanite remains at Sidon, and (5) a Lebanese ship builders's reconstruction and sailing of a replica Phoenician ship. The documentary incorporates various discussions by other specialists, Larry Stager, Glenn Markoe, and Ian Morris, plus coverage of the biblical traditions regarding the Phoenicians, Herodotus' references to Phoenician voyages, the sites of Carthage and the Temple of Eshmun, and other aspects about Phoenician ships, navigation, trade, and rivalries with Rome.

Amidst various methodologies for the comparative study of the Hebrew Bible, at times the opportunity arises to improve on a method recently introduced into the field. In YHWH is King, Flynn uses the anthropological method of cultural translation to study diachronic change in YHWH's kingship. Here, such change is compared to a similar Babylonian development to Marduk's kingship. Based on that comparison and informed by cultural translation, Flynn discovers that Judahite scribes suppressed the earlier YHWH warrior king and promoted a creator/universal king in order to combat the increasing threat of Neo-Assyrian imperialism. Flynn thus opens the possibility, that Judahite scribes engaged in a cultural translation of Marduk to YHWH, in order to respond to the mounting Neo-Assyrian presence.

The Hebrew Bible contains a variety of traditions concerning which meat cuts from animal sacrifices comprised the "priestly portion. " The variant textual traditions invite questions related to the historical situations that gave rise to these traditions and fostered their incorporation in the present form of the Pentateuch. This article identifies these traditions and explores questions of priority and provenance, first, from text-critical and source-critical perspectives, and, second, by considering the traditions in light of textual, iconographic, and zooarchaeo-logical data from the broader ancient Near Eastern world. Text-critical and source-critical approaches highlight the complexity of the issue and affirm two dominant systems: one assigning the hindlimb to the priests and another the forelimb, presumably from the right side of the animal in both cases. Ancient Near Eastern texts, iconography, and archaeology suggest that the origins of both traditions stretch deep into the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, the forelimb tradition perhaps the earlier of the two and rooted in southern regions, and the hindlimb tradition rooted in northern regions. A point of coalescence is identified geographically in the southern Levant and chronologically in the Iron Age II, con-comitant with the rise of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. In this light, any assumption that Priestly cultic literature is a unified, postexilic, Jerusalem-centered corpus may need to be reexamined. An important aspect of the Israelite sacrificial system, as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the provision of the "priestly portion. " As in other societies in which sacrifice was a fundamental aspect of the cult, this allowance-a portion of the meat, grain, or other offered substance-served to maintain the sacrificial JBL 138, no. 2 (2019): 263-284 doi: http://dx.

This entry focuses on the religions in the northern Hejaz and neighboring regions during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages and later (ca. 1500-300 BCE), the first time when there is firm archaeological and epigraphic evidence of local cultic practices.

The presented master’s thesis deals with the Epic of Zimrī-Lîm, a text from the ancient city of Mari from the beginning of the 18th century BC. The text of the epic is included in transliteration (based on the edition by Michaël Guichard from 2014) and in English translation. The epic has also been published online as the first entry of NERE (Near Eastern Royal Epics) project on ORACC (Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus). In addition to the text itself, the thesis includes a broader historical-cultural commentary. There, selected elements of the ancient text are portraited as well-set within the lived cultural-political environment of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to the time of Zimrī-Lîm. Most of the space is devoted to the religious aspect of the work, especially the role of the deities. Last but not least, the composition is discussed within the context of other royal epics of the ancient Near East.

This paper deals with the possibility of retracing the monumental setting of ancient contexts now lost and not documented directly by the study of indirect sources that describe them, literally or visually. The assumption is that monuments that did not come down to the present day can nonetheless be studied and contextualized thanks to what is echoed in literary or epigraphic sources and to their depiction in other media.
Here, the possibility that one or more now-lost statues representing the mušḫuššu, the serpo-dragon of Marduk, were erected at Babylon at least since the Late Babylonian period is discussed on the basis of both epigraphic and iconographic evidence.

The article approaches the mythical epic Inūma ilū awīlum with respect to its narrative structure and procedure. Within this framework, it investigates the ideas pertaining to the nature of violence that is communicated through the sequence of events within the poem. The mode chosen to inform the epic’s reader is understood as narrative exemplification, being an equivalent to the demonstration of general principles through representative examples that can often be found in other epistemic contexts in ancient Mesopotamia, e. g. in mathematics or divination. Thus, the paper not only reconstructs a specific concept of violence but also elaborates on the more general question of whether and how these intellectual means might represent some form of a Babylonian philosophy.

Much ink has been spilled on the examination of Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine in the past, and the topic has received renewed attention in the present. The following article offers yet another synthetic analysis of the Mesopotamian divine sphere, amassing in one place a vast array of data and the scholarly assessments of that data. More particularly, after examining what constitutes a god in ancient Mesopotamia and the essential and characteristic qualities of Mesopotamian deities, the article attempts to sort the divine sphere, focusing on the relationship between the various beings that populate the divine world and between a single deity and its various aspects. However, although synthetic, the present contribution offers several new insights. Most prominently, it posits the concept of divine constellations as a model for understanding Mesopotamian deities, in which the major Mesopotamian deities are presented as a constellation of aspects that may be treated as (semi-)independent beings or as a unity depending on the context.

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This conference seeks to explore and contextualize the configuration of the varied desert cultic practices from the southern Levant and northern Arabia during the Late Bronze/Iron Ages that may have contributed to the emergence of the Yahwistic cult. Recent archaeological excavations in the Negev, southern Transjordan and Hejaz and new interpretations of old epigraphic and iconographic evidence are rapidly changing the biblical-based paradigm of the interactions between the desert cults and the Iron Age Levantine religions.

The conference adopts an interdisciplinary approach, assessing textual, archaeological, as well as epigraphic data. The papers presented here contribute in a unique way to big historical questions of the LBA/IA desert religions: Was there something unique in the desert cults? How were the religious experiences shaped by the interactions between the local rituals and the sanctuary cults that penetrated from the agricultural lands? The conference also touches the much wider debate of the role played by trade–in copper, incense, pastoral products–and cultural interconnections in the diffusion of religious ideas. It particularly explores how these data relate to those religious practices attested in Judah and Israel of the later Iron Age and beyond, thereby providing new insights into the prehistory of the Yahweh cult.

This article examines the gender image of the Mesopotamian cult attendant known as gala (Sumerian) / kalû (Akkadian) against the background of the theory of hegemonic masculinity, putting an emphasis on visual representations as sources of information. The gala/kalû was a performer in funerals, and later a professional lamenter in the cult of Inanna/Ištar. His gender identity has long been considered to have possessed ambiguous elements: effeminate, homoerotic, and the like. A more nuanced approach is offered here, whereby the gala/kalû’s gender image is analyzed as a social construct of a non-hegemonic type of masculinity. To this end, visual representations are considered in addition to textual evidence.

Within a literary ontology, YHWH in the Hebrew Bible is technically also a fictional entity or object. In Hebrew Bible scholarship, a variety of philosophical issues surrounding fiction have received sustained and in-depth attention. However, the mainstream research on these matters tends to focus on the philosophical foundations of or backgrounds to a particular literary theory, rather than on metaphysical puzzles as encountered in the philosophy of fiction proper. To fill this gap, the present article seeks to provide a meta-theoretical overview of the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on the metaphysics of fictional objects. Three views (and their sub-currents) are discussed, namely possibilism, (neo-)Meinongianism and (literary) creationism. Each view’s theory is introduced and critically appropriated with reference to what is implied to be an answer to the question of what exactly the biblical character YHWH can meaningfully be said to be in the context of the metaphysics of fictional objects. In this way, the present study also goes beyond the traditional concern with the nature of God in Old Testament theology.

The Triple Moon Goddess of contemporary Pagan and New Age thought is generally assumed to be an invention ex nihilo of the 20th century, with no precursor in classical antiquity, created by the poetic imagination of Robert Graves (1895-1985), with possible inspiration from the classicist and anthropologist Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928). However this hypothesis is incorrect. The Triple Goddess was presented in the 20th century before Graves. In addition, this paper is the first to reveal some astrological and esoteric as well as scholarly writings of the 19th century which presented and discussed a triple moon goddess from the ancient world whose identity would have been familiar to most educated men (and a few women) of the time.

ABSTRACT: This documentary (no. 3) contains mainly a series of hypothetical and chronological reenactments, following a few (fictional) family lineages across centuries and millennia, from early hunter-gatherers ca. 12,000 BP (10,000 BCE) to early sedentary hunter-gatherer folks ca. 9,000 BP (7,000 BCE), tribal societies and chiefdoms (a bit later in the sequence), and early cities ca. 5,500+ BP (3,500 BCE in the documentary: Uruk phase in Mesopotamia). The question sheet aids in furnishing a summary of the documentary's coverage and sequence of specific topics. The reenactments are interwoven with narrative and accompanied by selected interviews with and commentaries by a number of specialists (e.g., Bar-Yosef; George Willcox; Jean Guilaine; Yves Coppens; Ian Hodder; Jean Denis Vigne; Philippe Andrieux; Jean Marie Durand), aiding in following a sequence of archaeological data, theories, and broader extrapolations (and sometimes less convincing scenarios) regarding the rise of agriculture and animal husbandry, the emergence of urban societies, and various other key innovations (e.g., metal working; writing).  The documentary is a fairly decent visualization, albeit a major condensation and simplification (with a few technical errors in the narration/film: e.g., chronological misplacement of a chariot scene [presumably drawing upon the much later Ur III wagon depictions, or maybe even 4th millennium BCE+ European carts and wagons]), of the complex mechanisms and processes of change from the Neolithic through rise of early urban societies in the Ancient Near East (Despite some reservations, I'm using it in an introductory, college level survey of the Ancient Near East).