Religion and Ideology in Assyria / Beate Pongratz-Leisten.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pongratz-Leisten, Beate, Author.

Series:

Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records (SANER)

Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records (SANER) ; 6

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ideology--Assyria.

Ideology.

Assyria--Religion.

Assyria.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (380 p.)

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Addressing the relationship between religion and ideology, and drawing on a range of literary, ritual, and visual sources, this book reconstructs the cultural discourse of Assyria from the third through the first millennium BCE. Ideology is delineated here as a subdiscourse of religion rather than as an independent category, anchoring it firmly within the religious world view. Tracing Assur's cultural interaction with the south on the one hand, and with the Syro-Anatolian horizon on the other, this volume articulates a "northern" cultural discourse that, even while interacting with southern Mesopotamian tradition, managed to maintain its own identity. It also follows the development of tropes and iconic images from the first city state of Uruk and their mouvance between myth, image, and royal inscription, historiography and myth, and myth and ritual, suggesting that, with the help of scholars, key royal figures were responsible for introducing new directions for the ideological discourse and for promoting new forms of historiography.

Contents:

Front matter

Acknowledgments

Contents

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. The Dynamics of Cultural Regions and Traditions in Mesopotamia and the Rise of Assyrian Cultural Discourse

3. The Origins of Assyrian Cultural Tradition

4. Empire as Cosmos, Cosmos as Empire

5. Narratives of Power and the Assyrian Notion of Kingship

6. Administrator, Hunter, Warrior: The Mythical Foundations of the King’s Role as Ninurta

7. The King’s Share in Divine Knowledge

8. Between the Fictive and the Imaginary

9. The Individual Ruler as a Model for Kingship: Rethinking Ancient Historiography

10. The Reinvention of Tradition: The Assyrian State Rituals

11. The Voice of the Scholar

Appendix

Bibliography

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

9781614519546

1614519544

9781614514268

1614514267

OCLC:

930488037