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| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia Rivkah Harris, 2003 Rivkah Harris’s cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approach breaks new ground in assessing Mesopotamian attitudes toward youth and mature adulthood, aging and the elderly, generational conflict, gender differences in aging, relationships between men and women, women’s contributions to cultural activities, and the ideal woman. To uncover Mesopotamian perspectives, Harris combed through primary sources - including literature and myth, letters, economic and legal texts, and visual materials. Even such pivotal cultural influences as the Gilgamesh Epic and Enuma Elish are reinterpreted in an original manner. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Women's Writing of Ancient Mesopotamia Charles Halton, Saana Svärd, 2018 This anthology translates and discusses texts authored by women of ancient Mesopotamia. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies James Neill, 2011-10-17 This groundbreaking work draws on a vast range of research into human sexuality to demonstrate that homosexuality is not a phenomenon limited to a small minority of society, but is an aspect of a complex sexual harmony that the human race inherited from its animal ancestors. Through a survey of the patterns of sexual expression found among animals and among societies around the world, and an examination of the functional role homosexual behavior has played among animal species and human societies alike, the author arrives at some provocative conclusions: that a homosexual or bisexual phase is a normal part of sexual development, that same-sex relations play an important balancing role in regulating human reproduction, that many societies have institutionalized homosexual traditions in the past, and that the harsh condemnation of homosexuality in Western society is a relatively recent phenomenon, unique among world societies throughout history. This well researched and meticulously documented book is the first that integrates into a coherent picture the startling revelations about human sexuality coming from the recent work of sexual researchers, psychologists, anthropologists and historians. The view that emerges, of an ambisexual human species whose complex sexual harmony is being thwarted by the imposition of an artificial understanding of nature, represents a new way of thinking about sex. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Ancient Mesopotamia A. Leo Oppenheim, 2013-01-31 This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria.—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written.—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research.—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Women of Babylon Zainab Bahrani, 2013-03-07 Representations of sexual difference (whether visual or textual) have become an area of much theoretical concern and investigation in recent feminist scholarship. Yet although a wide range of relevant evidence survives from the ancient Near East, it has been exceptional for those studying women in the ancient world to stray outside the traditional bounds of Greece and Rome. Women of Babylon is a much-needed historical/art historical study that investigates the concepts of femininity which prevailed in Assyro-Babylonian society. Zainab Bahrani's detailed analysis of how the culture of ancient Mesopotamia defined sexuality and gender roles both in, and through, representation is enhanced by a rich selection of visual material extending from 6500 BC - 1891 AD. Professor Bahrani also investigates the ways in which women of the ancient Near East have been perceived in classical scholarship up to the nineteenth century. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Goddesses in Context Julia M. Asher-Greve, Joan Goodnick Westenholz, 2013 The authors examine from different perspectives some of the most challenging themes in Mesopotamian religion such as gender switch of deities and changes of the status, roles and functions of goddesses. Julia M. Asher-Greve and Goodnick Westenholz incorporate recent scholarship from various disciplines into their analysis of textual and visual sources, representations in diverse media, theological strategies, typologies, and the place of image in religion and cult over a span of three millennia. Different types of syncretism (fusion, fission, mutation) resulted in transformation and homogenization of goddesses' roles and functions. The processes of syncretism (a useful heuristic tool for studying the evolution of religions and the attendant political and social changes) and gender switch were facilitated by the fluidity of personality due to multiple or similar divine roles and functions. Few goddesses kept their identity throughout the millennia. Individuality is rare in the iconography of goddesses while visual emphasis is on repetition of generic divine figures (hieros typos) in order to retain recognizability of divinity, where femininity is of secondary significance. This richly illustrated book demonstrates that goddesses were never marginalized or extrinsic and that their continuous presence in texts, cult images, rituals, and worship throughout Mesopotamian history is testimony to their powerful numinous impact. This richly illustrated book is the first in-depth analysis of goddesses and the changes they underwent from the earliest visual and textual evidence around 3000 BCE to the end of ancient Mesopotamian civilization in the Seleucid period. Goddesses in Context is a compelling contribution to Mesopotamian religion and history as well as to history, art history, history of religion and gender studies. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Code of Hammurabi Hammurabi, Claude Hermann Walter Johns, 2024-11-24 The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1754 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a man-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man. Nearly one-half of the Code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity, and sexual behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A few provisions address issues related to military service. Hammurabi ruled for nearly 42 years, c. 1792 to 1750 BC according to the Middle chronology. In the preface to the law, he states, Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared Marduk, the patron god of Babylon (The Human Record, Andrea & Overfield 2005), to bring about the rule in the land. On the stone slab there are 44 columns and 28 paragraphs that contained 282 laws. The laws follow along the rules of 'an eye for an eye'. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East Brigitte Lion, Cécile Michel, 2016-09-12 Economic history is well documented in Assyriology, thanks to the preservation of dozens of thousands of clay tablets recording administrative operations, contracts and acts dealing with family law. Despite these voluminous sources, the topic of work and the contribution of women have rarely been addressed. This book examines occupations involving women over the course of three millennia of Near Eastern history. It presents the various aspects of women as economic agents inside and outside of the family structure. Inside the family, women were the main actors in the production of goods necessary for everyday life. In some instances, their activities exceeded the simple needs of the household and were integrated within the production of large organizations or commercial channels. The contributions presented in this volume are representative enough to address issues in various domains: social, economic, religious, etc., from varied points of view: archaeological, historical, sociological, anthropological, and with a gender perspective. This book will be a useful tool for historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and graduate students interested in the economy of the ancient Near East and in women and gender studies. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Social Change Christopher Chase-Dunn, Bruce Lerro, 2016-01-08 From the Stone Age to the Internet Age, this book tells the story of human sociocultural evolution. It describes the conditions under which hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, agricultural states, and industrial capitalist societies formed, flourished, and declined. Drawing evidence from archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, historical documents, statistics, and survey research, the authors trace the growth of human societies and their complexity, and they probe the conflicts in hierarchies both within and among societies. They also explain the macro-micro links that connect cultural evolution and history with the development of the individual self, thinking processes, and perceptions. Key features of the text Designed for undergraduate and graduate social science classes on social change and globalization topics in sociology, world history, cultural geography, anthropology, and international studies. Describes the evolution of the modern capitalist world-system since the fourteenth century BCE, with coverage of the rise and fall of system leaders: the Dutch in the seventeenth century, the British in the nineteenth century, and the United States in the twentieth century. Provides a framework for analyzing patterns of social change. Includes numerous tables, figures, and illustrations throughout the text. Supplemented by framing part introductions, suggested readings at the end of each chapter, an end of text glossary, and a comprehensive bibliography. Offers a web-based auxiliary chapter on Indigenous North American World-Systems and a companion website with excel data sets and additional web links for students. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Gender and methodology in the ancient Near East: Approaches from Assyriology and beyond Stephanie Lynn Budin, Megan Cifarelli, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Adelina Millet Albà, 2018-10-04 This collection of 23 essays, presented in three sections, aims to discuss women’s studies as well as methodological and theoretical approaches to gender within the broad framework of ancient Near Eastern studies. The first section, comprising most of the contributions, is devoted to Assyriology and ancient Near Eastern archaeology. The second and third sections are devoted to Egyptology and to ancient Israel and biblical studies respectively, neighbouring fields of research included in the volume to enrich the debate and facilitate academic exchange. Altogether these essays offer a variety of sources and perspectives, from the textual to the archaeological, from bodies and sexuality to onomastics, to name just a few, making this a useful resource for all those interested in the study of women and gender in the past. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Women and Religion in the Ancient Near East and Asia Nicole Maria Brisch, Fumi Karahashi, 2023-04-03 The recent years have seen an upswing in studies of women in the ancient Near East and related areas. This volume, which is the result of a Danish-Japanese collaboration, seeks to highlight women as actors within the sphere of the religious. In ancient Mesopotamia and other ancient civilizations, religious beliefs and practices permeated all aspects of society, and for this reason it is not possible to completely dissociate religion from politics, economy, or literature. Thus, the goal is to shift the perspective by highlighting the different ways in which the agency of women can be traced in the historical (and archaeological) record. This perspectival shift can be seen in studies of elite women, who actively contributed to (religious) gift-giving or participated in temple economies, or through showing the limits of elite women’s agency in relation to diplomatic marriages. Additionally, several contributions examine the roles of women as religious officials and the language, worship, or invocation of goddesses. This volume does not aim at completeness but seeks to highlight points for further research and new perspectives. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Listening to the Artifacts Theodore W. Burgh, 2006-05-24 Burgh examines the ways that music shaped the culture of ancient Israel/Palestine. > |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies Julia M. O'Brien, 2014 As the first major encyclopedia of its kind, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies (OEBGS) is the go-to source for scholars and students undertaking original research in the field. Extending the work of nineteenth and twentieth century feminist scholarship and more recent queer studies, the Encyclopedia seeks to advance the scholarly conversation by systematically exploring the ways in which gender is constructed in the diverse texts, cultures, and readers that constitute the world of the Bible. With contributions from leading scholars in gender and biblical studies as well as contemporary gender theorists, classicists, archaeologists, and ancient historians, this comprehensive reference work reflects the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of the field and traces both historical and modern conceptions of gender and sexuality in the Bible. The two-volume Encyclopedia contains more than 160 entries ranging in length from 1,000 to 10,000 words. Each entry includes bibliographic references and suggestions for further reading, as well as a topical outline and index to aid in research. The OEBGS builds upon the pioneering work of biblically focused gender theorists to help guide and encourage further gendered discussions of the Bible. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Revolution - Sex,Gender and Spirituality - Love Set Free Richard Bruvoll Jr., 2024-04-25 “Did you know that religion, whether you`re religious or not, is the single topic that has had the most profound impact on the species of human-beings?” (David Fontana). Reading this book, you will be reminded of the human madness and frequently evil attitudes and actions throughout recorded history. Much of it probably unknown to many of you. Our time`s narratives have become cultural “truths”, as so many times before in our history. I would recommend that you read about key conceptual explanations and models in Part I before embarking on the journey through this dramatic history of humanity. Disclamer: This book is not recommended for people with high blood-pressure, especially if you are an extreme left-wing Darwinist or an extreme right-wing Abrahamist. You`ve hereby been warned. Have a good read and learning-experience! Especially the NDE`s “Life-review stage”, or more precisely “The Life-relive stage”, as the psychologist and researcher Kenneth Ring puts it. This stage resembles both Dante`s inferno and the biblical purgatory, but with a very interesting twist to it. This stage is also the route to go in order to prevent aggressive behavior on all levels. The NDE Code (connecting the dots) Richard Bruvoll Jr Blokus Denmark July 2020. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Triumph of the Symbol Tallay Ornan, 2005 This book analyzes the history of Mesopotamian imagery form the mid-second to mid-first millennium BCE. It demonstrates that in spite of rich textual evidence, which grants the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses an anthropmorphic form, there was a clear abstention in various media from visualizing the gods in such a form. True, divine human-shaped cultic images existed in Mesopotamian temples. But as a rule, non-anthropomorphic visual agents such as inanimate objects, animals or fantastic hybrids replaced these figures when they were portrayed outside of their sacred enclosures. This tendency reached its peak in first-millennium Babylonia and Assyria. The removal of the Mesopotamian human-shaped deity from pictorial renderings resembles the Biblical agenda not only in its avoidance of displaying a divine image but also in the implied dual perception of the divine: according to the Bible and the Assyro-Babylonian concept the divine was conceived as having a human form; yet in both cases anthropomorphism was also concealed or rejected, though to a different degree. In the present book, this dual approach toward the divine image is considered as a reflection of two associated rather than contradictory religious worldviews. The plausible consolidation of the relevant Biblical accounts just before the Babylonian Exile, or more probably within the Exile - in both cases during a period of strong Assyrian and Babylonian hegemony - points to a direct correspondence between comparable religious phenomena. It is suggested that far from their homeland and in the absence of a temple for their god, the Judahite deportees adopted and intensified the Mesopotamian avoidance of anthropomorphic picorial portrayals of deities. While the Babylonian representations remained confined to temples, the exiles would have turned a cultic reality - i.e., the nonwritten Babylonian custom - into a written, articulated law that explicity forbade the pictorial representation of God. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat, 2002-12-01 A lively and engaging description of the everyday lives of ordinary people who lived in Ancient Mesopotamia. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture Karen Radner, Eleanor Robson, 2011-09-22 The cuneiform script, the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia, was witness to one of the world's oldest literate cultures. For over three millennia, it was the vehicle of communication from (at its greatest extent) Iran to the Mediterranean, Anatolia to Egypt. The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture examines the Ancient Middle East through the lens of cuneiform writing. The contributors, a mix of scholars from across the disciplines, explore, define, and to some extent look beyond the boundaries of the written word, using Mesopotamia's clay tablets and stone inscriptions not just as 'texts' but also as material artefacts that offer much additional information about their creators, readers, users and owners. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Homoeroticism in the Biblical World Martti Nissinen, 2004-02-01 Nissinen's award-winning book surveys attitudes in the ancient world toward homoeroticism, that is, erotic same-sex relations. Focusing on the Bible and its cultural environment-Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Israel-Nissinen concisely and readably introduces the relevant sources and their historical contexts in a readable way.Homoeroticism is examined as a part of gender identity, i.e., the interplay of sexual orientation, gender identification, gender roles, and sexual practice. In the patriarchal cultures of the biblical world, Nissinen shows, homoerotic practices were regarded as a role construction between the active and passive partners rather than as expressions of an orientation moderns call homosexuality. Nissinen shows how this applies to the limited acceptance of homoerotic relationships in Greek and Roman culture, as well as to Israel's and the early church's condemnation of any same-sex erotic activity.For readers interested in the ancient world or contemporary debates, Nissinen's fascinating study shows why the ancient texts - both biblical and nonbiblical - are not appropriate for use as sources of direct analogy or argument in today's discussion. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Greek Myths and Mesopotamia Charles Penglase, 2003-10-04 Examines the Mesopotamian influence on Greek mythology in literary works of the epic period, concentrating in particular on journey myths. A major contribution to the understanding of the colourful myths involved. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Relations of Power in Early Neo-Assyrian State Ideology Mattias Karlsson, 2016-03-07 This volume examines the state ideology of Assyria in the Early Neo-Assyrian period (934-745 BCE) focusing on how power relations between the Mesopotamian deities, the Assyrian king, and foreign lands are described and depicted. It undertakes a close reading of delimited royal inscriptions and iconography making use of postcolonial and gender theory, and addresses such topics as royal deification, “religious imperialism”, ethnicity and empire, and gendered imagery. The important contribution of this study lies especially in its identification of patterns of ideological continuity and variation within the reigns of individual rulers, between various localities, and between the different rulers of this period, and in its discussion of the place of Early Neo-Assyrian state ideology in the overall development of Assyrian propaganda. It includes several indexed appendices, which list all primary sources, present all divine and royal epithets, and provide all of the “royal visual representations,” and incorporates numerous illustrations, such as maps, plans, and royal iconography. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships Karen R. Keen, 2018-10-11 WHEN IT COMES TO SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS, this book by Karen Keen contains the most thoughtful, balanced, biblically grounded discussion you’re likely to encounter anywhere. With pastoral sensitivity and respect for biblical authority, Keen breaks through current stalemates in the debate surrounding faith and sexual identity. The fresh, evenhanded reevaluation of Scripture, Christian tradition, theology, and science in Keen’s Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships will appeal to both traditionalist and progressive church leaders and parishioners, students of ethics and biblical studies, and gay and lesbian people who often feel painfully torn between faith and sexuality. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Women of Babylon Zainab Bahrani, 2001 The author also outlines a framework for an entirely new methodology in the study of women and gender in Near Eastern antiquity.--BOOK JACKET. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Ancient Medicine Laura M. Zucconi, 2019-08-13 This book by Laura Zucconi is an accessible introductory text to the practice and theory of medicine in the ancient world. In contrast to other works that focus heavily on Greece and Rome, Zucconi’s Ancient Medicine covers a broader geographical and chronological range. The world of medicine in antiquity consisted of a lot more than Hippocrates and Galen. Zucconi applies historical and anthropological methods to examine the medical cultures of not only Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome but also the Levant, the Anatolian Peninsula, and the Iranian Plateau. Devoting special attention to the fundamental relationship between medicine and theology, Zucconi’s one-volume introduction brings the physicians, patients, procedures, medicines, and ideas of the past to light. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Living and Dying in Mesopotamia Alhena Gadotti, Alexandra Kleinerman, 2024-10-17 Exploring life, death, and the afterlife in Mesopotamia, Alhena Gadotti and Alexandra Kleinerman examine how life and death experiences continually developed over the course of nearly three millennia of Mesopotamian history. To achieve this, the book follows the life cycle of the people of the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys from 3000 BCE to 300 BCE, from birth, through death, and beyond. This book is the first to interrogate the relationships between living and dying through case studies and primary evidence. Including letters written by both women and men, the book allows readers to enter the minds of the ancients. First, the authors focus on life through topics such as the rituals surrounding birth, marriage, and religion. The authors then examine the common causes of death, the rituals associated with death, and the Mesopotamian views of the netherworld, its gods, and inhabitants. Concepts of gender fluidity, both in life and death, are considered alongside evidence from epigraphic data. Illustrating daily life as a multifaceted subject affected by time, space, location, socioeconomics, and gender, this book creates a window into the conditions and concerns of the Mesopotamian people. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Domesticity in Colonial India Judith E. Walsh, 2004 By the 1880s, Hindu domestic life and its most intimate relationships had become contested ground. For urban, middle-class Indians, the Hindu woman was at the center of a debate over colonial modernity and traditional home and family life. This book sets this debate within the context of a nineteenth-century world where bourgeois, European ideas on the home had become part of a transnational, hegemonic domestic discourse, a 'global domesticity.' But Walsh's interest is more in hybridity than hegemony as she explores what women themselves learned when men sought to teach them through the Indian advice literature of the time. As a younger generation of Indian nationalists and reformers attempted to undercut the authority of family elders and create a 'new patriarchy' of more nuclear and exclusive relations with their wives, elderly women in extended Hindu families learned that their authority in family life (however contingent) was coming to an end. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The World of Women in the Ancient and Classical Near East Beth Alpert Nakhai, 2008 The World of Women in the Ancient and Classical Near East, written by scholars working in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Israel, makes important contributions to our knowledge of the lives of ancient women. Its articles employ archaeology, biblical and other textual studies, ethnographic comparanda and more to investigate women in Egypt and western Asia from the Predynastic to the Byzantine Periods, as well as in England in the Victorian Era. They combat modern scholarshipâ (TM)s marginalization of women in antiquity, proving beyond all doubt that womenâ (TM)s roles in the home, in the workplace and in society at-large were essential for the survival of the family and the community. Locating women within the domestic sphere can no longer be seen to diminish appreciation of their extensive responsibilities and accomplishments. To the contrary, womenâ (TM)s domestic contributions are proven to be essential components of human survival, as are their contributions elsewhere throughout society, in elite royal, religious, and funerary contexts. The nine articles in this book highlight the fact that the traditional scholarly reliance upon dichotomization and compartmentalization must be resisted, and new paradigms developed and adopted. The World of Women in the Ancient and Classical Near East takes important steps in that direction. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Ishtar Louise M. Pryke, 2017-07-14 Ishtar is the first book dedicated to providing an accessible analysis of the mythology and image of this complex goddess. The polarity of her nature is reflected in her role as goddess of sexual love and war, and has made her difficult to characterise in modern scholarship. By exploring this complexity, Ishtar offers insight into Mesopotamian culture and thought, and elucidates a goddess who transcended the limits of gender, divinity and nature. It gives an accessible introduction to the Near Eastern pantheon, while also opening a pathway for comparison with the later Near Eastern and Mediterranean deities who followed her. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter Cynthia R. Chapman, 2018-07-17 Recognizing gendered metaphors as literary and ideological tools that biblical and Assyrian authors used in the representation of warfare and its aftermath, this study compares the gendered literary complexes that authors on both sides of the Israelite-Assyrian encounter developed in order to claim victory. The study begins by identifying and tracing historically the presentation of royal masculinity in Assyrian royal texts and reliefs dating from the 9th through 7th centuries bce. Central to this analysis is the Assyrian representation of warfare as a masculine contest in which the enemy male is discredited as a rival through feminization. The second part of the study focuses on the biblical authors' responses to the Assyrian incursion and demonstrates that the dominant metaphorical complex for recording and remembering Israel and Judah's military encounters with Assyria was that of Jerusalem as a woman. This section, therefore, traces the evolving canonical biography of Jerusalem-the-Woman as her life story is told and remembered in relationship to Assyria. In the final section of the book, the contest of royal masculinity described in royal Assyrian texts informs the reading of the redactional history of Judah's memory of Assyria, and the insights gained from the study of a feminized Jerusalem are applied to a rereading of the siege scenes of the Assyrian palace reliefs. Innovative in its use of gendered language as the basis for historical comparison of biblical and Assyrian texts, this book is the first to offer a comprehensive methodology for defining and assessing the impact of gendered language within texts of historically linked cultures. This book also advances the discussion of what has been called inner-biblical exegesis by offering gendered metaphors as a lens through which to trace the evolution of Judean social memory within the biblical text. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East Karen Sonik, Ulrike Steinert, 2022-08-30 This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world’s earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study. Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period (ca. 3300–539 BCE). The volume is divided into two parts: the first addressing theoretical and methodological issues through thematic analyses and the second encompassing corpus-based approaches to specific emotions. Part I addresses emotions and history, defining the terms, materialization and material remains, kings and the state, and engaging the gods. Part II explores happiness and joy; fear, terror, and awe; sadness, grief, and depression; contempt, disgust, and shame; anger and hate; envy and jealousy; love, affection, and admiration; and pity, empathy, and compassion. Numerous sub-themes threading through the volume explore such topics as emotional expression and suppression in relation to social status, gender, the body, and particular social and spatial conditions or material contexts. The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East is an invaluable and accessible resource for Near Eastern studies and adjacent fields, including Classical, Biblical, and medieval studies, and a must-read for scholars, students, and others interested in the history and cross-cultural study of emotions. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Reading the Body Alison E. Rautman, 2000 In this volume classical archaeologists and anthropologists discuss mutually beneficial perspectives in method and theory as these relate to issues of gender. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Ancient Legal Thought Larry May, 2019-07-31 This is a study of what constituted legality and the role of law in ancient societies. Investigating and comparing legal codes and legal thinking of the ancient societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and of the ancient Rabbis, this volume examines how people used law to create stable societies. Starting with Hammurabi's Code, this volume also analyzes the law of the pharaohs and the codes of the ancient rabbis and of the Roman Emperor Justinian. Focusing on the key concepts of justice equity and humaneness, the status of women and slaves, and the idea of criminality and of war and peace; no other book attempts to examine such diverse legal systems and legal thinking from the ancient world. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Essays on Babylonian and Biblical Literature and Religion I. Tzvi Abusch, 2020-08-31 In this volume, I. Tzvi Abusch presents studies written over a span of forty years prior to his retirement from Brandeis University in 2019. They reflect several themes that he has pursued in addition to his work on witchcraft literature and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Part 1 includes general articles on Mesopotamian magic, religion, and mythology, followed by a set of articles on Akkadian prayers, especially šuillas, focusing on exegetical and linguistic (synchronic) studies and on diachronic analyses. Part 2 contains a series of literary studies of Mesopotamian and biblical classics. Part 3 is devoted to comparative studies of terms and phenomena. Part 4 examines legal texts. The Harvard Semitic Studies series publishes volumes from the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Other series offered by Brill that publish volumes from the Museum include Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant and Harvard Semitic Monographs, https://hmane.harvard.edu/publications. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Beautiful Bodies Uroš Matić, 2022-02-24 This book explores the role of material culture in the formation of corporeal aesthetics and beauty ideals in different past societies and thus contributes to the cultural relativization of bodily aesthetics and related gender norms. The volume does not explore beauty for the sake of beauty, but extensively explores how it serves to form and keep gender norms in place. The concept of beauty has been a topic of interest for some time, yet it is only in recent times that archaeologists have begun to approach beauty as a culturally contingent and socially constructed phenomenon. Although archaeologists and ancient historians extensively dealt with gender, they dealt less with it in relation to beauty. The contributions in this volume deal with different intersections of gender and corporeal aesthetics by turning to rich archaeological, textual and iconographic data from ancient Sumer, Aegean Bronze Age, ancient Egypt, ancient Athens, Roman provinces, the Viking world and the Qajar Iran. Beauty thus moves away from a curiosity and surface of the body to an analytic concept for a better understanding of past and present societies. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: LGBT: Breaking Barriers JASON LAWRENCE, 2024-06-27 This comprehensive book delves into the diverse and complex landscape of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) identities, rights, and experiences across history, culture, and society. Beginning with a clear definition of LGBT and tracing its rich historical roots, the narrative explores the biological and psychological dimensions of sexual orientation and gender identity. Chapters dedicated to each specific identity—Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual—offer nuanced insights into their unique challenges, societal perceptions, and evolving cultural contexts. The book examines the historical progression of LGBT activism globally, highlighting significant milestones and ongoing struggles for equality and rights. Detailed discussions on the current state of LGBT rights in different regions—such as the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America—provide a comparative analysis of legislative frameworks, societal acceptance, and the impact of cultural diversity on LGBT rights advocacy. The intersection of LGBT rights with constitutional protections and international law underscores the global movement toward equality and inclusivity. Health-related chapters address critical issues including mental and physical health disparities, barriers to healthcare access, and strategies for promoting LGBT-friendly healthcare environments. The prevalence of substance abuse within the LGBT community is explored, alongside effective intervention strategies and support mechanisms. The book also covers intimate aspects of LGBT life, including romantic relationships, friendships, parenting, family planning, and the unique challenges faced by LGBT individuals as they age. Cultural contributions through art, literature, music, and film are celebrated, highlighting their role in shaping identity and fostering representation. Educational chapters focus on the importance of LGBT representation in media, the challenges faced by LGBT youth including bullying and the role of inclusive education in fostering acceptance and understanding. Discussions on the intersection of LGBT identities with faith and spirituality offer insights into navigating diverse religious landscapes and cultivating inclusive spiritual practices. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Death and Dying in the Neolithic Near East Karina Croucher, 2012-06-21 The Neolithic of the Near East is a period of human development which saw fundamental changes in the nature of human society. It is traditionally studied for its development of domestication, agriculture, and growing social complexity. In this book Karina Croucher takes a new approach, focusing on the human body and investigating mortuary practices - the treatment and burial of the dead - to discover what these can reveal about the people of the Neolithic Near East. The remarkable evidence relating to mortuary practices and ritual behaviour from the Near Eastern Neolithic provides some of the most breath-taking archaeological evidence excavated from Neolithic contexts. The most enigmatic mortuary practices of the period produced the striking 'plastered skulls', faces modelled onto the crania of the deceased. Archaeological sites also contain evidence for many intriguing mortuary treatments, including decapitated burials and the fragmentation, circulation, curation, and reburial of human and animal remains and material culture. Drawing on recent excavations and earlier archive and published fieldwork, Croucher provides an overview and introduction to the period, presenting new interpretations of the archaeological evidence and in-depth analyses of case studies. The book explores themes such as ancestors, human-animal relationships, food, consumption and cannibalism, personhood, and gender. Offering a unique insight into changing attitudes towards the human body - both in life and during death - this book reveals the identities and experiences of the people of the Neolithic Near East through their interactions with their dead, with animals, and their new material worlds. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Art/ifacts and ArtWorks in the Ancient World Karen Sonik, 2021-08-13 This volume assembles leading Near Eastern art historians, archaeologists, and philologists to examine and apply critical contemporary approaches to the arts and artifacts of the ancient Near East. The contributions in the volume, which include a comprehensive first chapter by the editor and twelve paired chapters (each of which explores a key theme of the volume through a specific case study), are divided into six sections: Representation, Context, Complexity, Materiality, Space, and Time | Afterlives. A number of sub-themes and questions also thread through the volume as a whole: how might art historical, archaeological, anthropological, and philological approaches to the Near East complement and inform each other? How do word and image relate? And how might the field of Near Eastern studies not only adapt and apply approaches developed in other fields but also contribute to critical contemporary discourses? The volume is unified both by the themes that thread through it and by the comprehensive first chapter in the volume, which explores the status of Near Eastern arts and artifacts as simultaneously non-Western and ancient and as neither of these, and which provides a larger theoretical framework for issues addressed in the volume as a whole. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World Marta Ameri, Sarah Kielt Costello, Gregg Jamison, Sarah Jarmer Scott, 2018-05-03 Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Rituals of War Zainab Bahrani, 2008-03-06 Rituals of war and images of violence in Mesopotamia ca. 3000-500 BCE examined as magical technologies of warfare. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Selves Engraved on Stone: Seals and Identity in the Ancient Near East, ca. 1415–1050 BCE Serdar Yalcin, 2022-10-04 Typically carved in stone, the cylinder seal is perhaps the most distinctive art form to emerge in ancient Mesopotamia. It spread across the Near East from ca. 3300 BCE onwards, and remained in use for millennia. What was the role of this intricate object in the making of a person's social identity? As the first comprehensive study dedicated to this question, Selves Engraved on Stone explores the ways in which different but often intersecting aspects of identity, such as religion, gender, community and profession, were constructed through the material, visual, and textual characteristics of seals from Mesopotamia and Syria. |
| mesopotamia gender roles and relationships: Gender-Competent Legal Education Dragica Vujadinović, Mareike Fröhlich, Thomas Giegerich, 2023-02-03 Male-dominated law and legal knowledge essentially characterized the whole of pre-modern history in that the patriarchy represented the axis of social relations in both the private and public spheres. Indeed, modern and even contemporary law still have embedded elements of patriarchal heritage, even in the secular modern legal systems of Western developed countries, either within the content of legislation or in terms of its implementation and interpretation. This is true to a greater or lesser extent across legal systems, although the secular modern legal systems of the Western developed countries have made great advances in terms of gender equality. The traditional understanding of law has always been self-evidently dominated by men, but modern law and its understanding have also been more or less “malestreamed.” Therefore, it has become necessary to overcome the given “maskulinity” of legal thought. In contemporary legal and political orders, gender mainstreaming of law has been of the utmost importance for overcoming deeply and persistently embedded power relations and gender-based, unequal social relations. At the same time and equally importantly, the gender mainstreaming of legal education – to which this book aims to contribute – can help to gradually eliminate this male dominance and accompanying power relations from legal education and higher education as a whole. This open access textbook provides an overview of gender issues in all areas of law, including sociological, historical and methodological issues. Written for students and teachers around the globe, it is intended to provide both a general overview and in-depth knowledge in the individual areas of law. Relevant court decisions and case studies are supplied throughout the book. |
Mesopotamia - Wikipedia
Mesopotamia [a] is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. …
History of Mesopotamia | Definition, Civilization, Summ…
May 11, 2025 · History of Mesopotamia, the region in southwestern Asia where the world’s earliest civilization developed. Centered between the …
Mesopotamia - World History Encyclopedia
Mar 14, 2018 · Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning 'between two rivers') was an ancient region located in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in …
Mesopotamia - Map, Gods & Meaning - HISTORY
Nov 30, 2017 · Mesopotamia is a region of southwest Asia in the Tigris and Euphrates river system that benefitted from the area’s climate and …
Complete Guide on Ancient Mesopotamia - Ancient Histo…
Mesopotamian was the world’s earliest civilization between the land of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It was bounded by the Zagros Mountains in …
Mesopotamia - Wikipedia
Mesopotamia [a] is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present …
History of Mesopotamia | Definition, Civilization, Summary, …
May 11, 2025 · History of Mesopotamia, the region in southwestern Asia where the world’s earliest civilization developed. Centered between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the region in …
Mesopotamia - World History Encyclopedia
Mar 14, 2018 · Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning 'between two rivers') was an ancient region located in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros …
Mesopotamia - Map, Gods & Meaning - HISTORY
Nov 30, 2017 · Mesopotamia is a region of southwest Asia in the Tigris and Euphrates river system that benefitted from the area’s climate and geography to host the beginnings of human …
Complete Guide on Ancient Mesopotamia - Ancient History Lists
Mesopotamian was the world’s earliest civilization between the land of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It was bounded by the Zagros Mountains in the northeast and Arabian Plateau in the …
Mesopotamia: Overview and Summary Of An Ancient Civilization
Mesopotamia is the region within the Tigris and Euphrates rivers located south of Anatolia and West of the Iranian plateau. It hosted the earliest large-scale civilizations, who bequeathed the …
Ancient Mesopotamia - an overview | Department of Archaeology
Ancient Mesopotamia, the land of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, now lies mostly in modern Iraq and northeastern Syria, together with southeastern Turkey and western Iran. More than five …
Ancient Mesopotamia 101 - Education
Oct 1, 2024 · Ancient Mesopotamia proved that fertile land and the knowledge to cultivate it was a fortuitous recipe for wealth and civilization. Learn how this "land between two rivers" became …
History of Mesopotamia - Wikipedia
Mesopotamia (Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία, romanized: Mesopotamíā; Classical Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, lit. 'Bēṯ Nahrēn') means "Between the Rivers". The oldest known occurrence of the name …
Ancient Mesopotamian Civilization | Britannica
During ancient times, lands that now constitute Iraq were known as Mesopotamia (“Land Between the Rivers”), a region whose extensive alluvial plains gave rise to some of the world’s earliest …
