Why did ancient states collapse? : the dysfunctional state /
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Rooted in agriculture, sedentism and population growth, ancient states were fragile and prone to collapse. There is an ongoing debate about the importance, nature and even existence of state-wide collapse. This book investigates why ancient states collapsed and examines to what extent inequality contributed to their downfall.
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"Available in both print and Open Access"--Homepage. :
1 online resource (viii, 42 pages). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781789693034 (PDF ebook) :
Receptions of antiquity, constructions of gender in European art, 1300-1600 /
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Receptions of Antiquity, Constructions of Gender in European Art, 1300-1600 presents scholarship in classical reception at its nexus with art history and gender studies. It considers the ways that artists, patrons, collectors, and viewers in late medieval and early modern Europe used ancient Greek and Roman art, texts, myths, and history to interact with and shape notions of gender. The essays examine Giotto's Arena Chapel frescoes, Michelangelo's Medici Chapel personifications, Giulio Romano's decoration of the Palazzo del Te, and other famous and lesser-known sculptures, paintings, engravings, book illustrations, and domestic objects as well as displays of ancient art. Visual responses to antiquity in this era, the volume demonstrates, bore a complex and significant relationship to the construction of, and challenges to, contemporary gender norms.
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1 online resource (XV, 467 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004289697 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity: My Lots are in Thy Hands.
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Sortilege-the making of decisions by casting lots-was widely practiced in the Mediterranean world during the period known as late antiquity, between the third and eighth centuries CE. In My Lots are in Thy Hands: Sortilege and its Practitioners in Late Antiquity , AnneMarie Luijendijk and William Klingshirn have collected fourteen essays that examine late antique lot divination, especially but not exclusively through texts preserved in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac. Employing the overlapping perspectives of religious studies, classics, anthropology, economics, and history, contributors study a variety of topics, including the hermeneutics and operations of divinatory texts, the importance of diviners and their instruments, and the place of faith and doubt in the search for hidden order in a seemingly random world.
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1 online resource. :
9789004385030
The Construction of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization : Qudāma b. Ja'far and his Kitāb al Kharāj wa-sinā'at al-kitāba /
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This study examines the role of the state in the construction of knowledge in Islamic civilization in its early classical period (third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries). Different voices representing different social groups - savants, littérateurs, religious scholars, state officials - all brought their particular conception of knowledge to bear on the formation of the various branches of knowledge known to Islamic civilization. Reading the works of various branches of knowledge alongside the administrative encyclopedia of Qudāma b. Ja'far (d. 337/948), a state official in the employ of the Abbasid dynasty, has served to highlight the particular point of view of the state in the intellectual and cultural dialogue of the day. At the same time, this approach has shown Islamic civilization to be as much a dialogue of values between the different social groups of the day as a series of events or collection of ideas.
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Revision of thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2000. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047401230
9789004123403
Medieval rural settlements in the Syrian coastal region (12th and 13th centuries) /
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This text is the result of more than a dozen years of research in the field of the hitherto unstudied medieval settlement pattern of the Syrian coastal region in the 12th and 13th centuries.
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Previously issued in print: 2016. :
1 online resource : illustrations, maps. :
Specialized. :
9781784912055 (ebook) :
Composite artefacts in the Ancient Near East : exhibiting an imaginative materiality, showing a genealogical nature /
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This volume represents a first attempt to conceptualise the construction and use of composite artefacts in the Ancient Near East by looking at the complex relationships between environments, materials, societies and materiality.
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Previously issued in print: 2018. :
1 online resource (vi, 96 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
9781784918545 (ebook) :
The social context of technological change : Egypt and the Near East, 1650-1550 BC : proceedings of a conference held at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford 12-14 September 2000 /
: x, 273 pages, [4] pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm. : Includes bibliographical references. : 1842170503
Der Held auf dem Wagen : archäologische Belege zur technischen Entwicklung des Wagens /
: Bottom of paper carton has explanatory key to maps. : 2 volumes (xii, 414 pages) ; 71 pages of plates : 103 illustrations (partly color) ; 31 cm. : Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, pages 377-412). : 9783447069021
Individuals and society in Mycenaean Pylos /
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This book revises our understanding of Mycenaean society through a detailed analysis of individuals attested in the administrative texts from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos in southwestern Greece, circa 1200 BC. It argues that conventional models of Mycenaean society, which focus on administrative titles and terms, can be improved through the study of named individuals. A new, methodologically innovative prosopography demonstrates that many named individuals were not only important managers of palatial affairs but also high-ranking members of the community. This work significantly broadens the elite class and suggests that the palace was less of an agent in its own right than an institutional framework for interactions amongst individuals and social groups.
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1 online resource (xvii, 448 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004251465 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Intangible spirits and graven images : the iconography of deities in the pre-Islamic Iranian world /
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Winner of the the Roman and Tania Ghirshman Prize 2015 by the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. This prize was established in 1973 by the donation made by Roman Ghirshman, one of the prominent French archaeologists of Pre-Islamic Iran. It is awarded annually for a publication in the field of Pre-Islamic Iranian Studies. In Intangible Spirits and Graven Images , Michael Shenkar investigates the perception of ancient Iranian deities and their representation in the Iranian cults. This ground-breaking study traces the evolution of the images of these deities, analyses the origin of their iconography, and evaluates their significance. Shenkar also explores the perception of anthropomorphism and aniconism in ancient Iranian religious imagery, with reference to the material evidence and the written sources, and reassesses the value of the Avestan and Middle Persian texts that are traditionally employed to illuminate Iranian religious imagery. In doing so, this book provides important new insights into the religion and culture of ancient Iran prior to the Islamic conquest.
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Revision of the author's thesis--Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2013. :
1 online resource (xxii, 392 pages) : illustrations (some color) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004281493 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Priests, tongues, and rites : the London-Leiden magical manuscripts and translation in Egyptian ritual (100-300 CE) /
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This book is an investigation into the sphere of production and use of two related bilingual magical handbooks found as part of a larger collection of magical and alchemical manuscripts around 1828 in the hills surrounding Luxor, Egypt. Both handbooks, dating to the Roman period, contain an assortment of recipes for magical rites in the Demotic and Greek language. The library which comprises these two handbooks is nowadays better known as the Theban Magical Library. The book traces the social and cultural milieu of the composers, compilers and users of the extant spells through a combination of philology, sociolinguistics and cultural analysis. To anybody working on Greco-Roman Egypt, ancient magic, and bilingualism this study is of significant importance.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Leiden University, 2003). :
1 online resource (xiv, 342 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-328) and indexes. :
9789047406747 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.