Perspectives on materiality in ancient Egypt : agency, cultural reproduction and change /
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Growing out of a colloquium organised in Sao Paulo in March 2016, here nine papers approach the potential of materiality in Ancient Egypt based on several case studies covering a wide range of topics such as Egyptian art, recent perspectives on sex and gender, hierarchies, and the materiality of textual sources and images.
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Previously issued in print: 2018. :
1 online resource (iv, 110 pages) : illustrations (colour) :
Specialized. :
9781784919344 (ebook) :
The human brain in ancient Egypt : a medical and historical re-evaluation of its function and importance /
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This text provides a medical and historical re-evaluation of the function and importance of the human brain in ancient Egypt. The study evaluates whether treatment of the brain during anthropogenic mummification was linked to medical concepts of the brain.
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Also issued in print: 2023. :
1 online resource (86 pages) : illustrations (colour). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781803274782 (PDF ebook) :
The Materiality of Texts from Ancient Egypt, New Approaches to the Study of Textual Material from the Early Pharaonic to the Late Antique Period.
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The volume The Materiality of Texts from Ancient Egypt contains nine contributions from well-known papyrologists, Egyptologists, archaeologists and technical specialists. They discuss the materiality of ancient writing and writing supports in various ways through methodological considerations and through practical case studies from the early Pharaonic to the Late Antique periods in Egypt, including Greek and Egyptian papyri and ostraca, inscriptions and graffiti. The articles in this volume present new approaches to the study of textual material and scribal practice, especially in the light of the ongoing development of digital techniques that uncover new information from ancient writing materials. The aim of the book is to encourage researchers of ancient texts to consider the benefits of using these new methods and technological resources.
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1 online resource. :
9789004375277
The Tekenu and ancient Egyptian funerary ritual /
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Attested from the Fifth Dynasty until, and including, the Saite Period, the Tekenu is a puzzling icon depicted within funerary scenes in the tombs of some ancient Egyptian nobles. In this work four distinct types of Tekenu are identified and classified and then a Corpus Catalogue is formed.
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Also issued in print: 2019. :
1 online resource (300 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781789691832 (ebook) :
Prepared for eternity : a study of human embalming techniques in ancient Egypt using computerised tomography scans of mummies /
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Robert Loynes presents analyses of 60 CT scans of ancient Egyptian human mummies, collected from museums throughout the UK and continental Europe. The effect is that of performing 'virtual autopsies', allowing techniques of mummification to be examined. The historical age of the mummies ranges from the Middle Kingdom to the Roman period. Several observations are made regarding the preparation of mummies and confirmation of previously described themes is tempered by the observation of variations probably indicating individual workshop practices.
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1 online resource : illustrations (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781784911119 (PDF ebook) :
'Blood is thicker than water' : non-royal consanguineous marriage in ancient Egypt : an exploration of economic and biological outcomes /
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This volume presents evidence for non-royal consanguineous marriage in ancient Egypt. The evidence was collated from select sources from the Middle Kingdom to the Roman Period, and it has been used to investigate the potential economic and biological outcomes, particularly beyond the level of sibling and half-sibling unions.
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Also issued in print: 2020. :
1 online resource (246 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781789695441 (ebook) :
Brill's companion to insurgency and terrorism in the ancient Mediterranean /
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In Brill's Companion to Insurgency and Terrorism in the Ancient Mediterranean , Tim Howe and Lee Brice challenge the view that these forms of conflict are specifically modern phenomena by offering an historical perspective that exposes readers to the ways insurgency movements and terror tactics were common elements of conflict in antiquity. Assembling original research on insurgency and terrorism in various regions including, the Ancient Near East, Greece, Central Asia, Persia, Egypt, Judea, and the Roman Empire, they provide a deep historical context for understanding these terms, demonstrate the usefulness of insurgency and terrorism as concepts for analysing ancient Mediterranean behavior, and point the way toward future research.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004284739 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mantikê : studies in ancient divination /
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This book thoroughly revisits divination as a central phenomenon in the lives of ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. It collects studies from many periods in Graeco-Roman history, from the Archaic period to the late Roman, and touches on many different areas of this rich topic, including treatments of dice oracles, sortition in both pagan and Christian contexts, the overlap between divination and other interpretive practices in antiquity, the fortunes of independent diviners, the activity of Delphi in ordering relations with the dead, the role of Egyptian cult centers in divinatory practices, and the surreptitious survival of recipes for divination by corpses. It also reflects a ranges of methodologies, drawn from anthropology, history of religions, intellectual history, literary studies, and archaeology, epigraphy, and paleography. It will be of particular interest to scholars and student of ancient Mediterranean religions.
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1 online resource (322 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047407966 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Brill's Companion to Sieges in the Ancient Mediterranean /
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"Brill's Companion to Sieges in the Ancient Mediterranean is a wide-ranging exploration of sieges and siege warfare as practiced and experienced by the cultures which lived around the ancient Mediterranean basin. From Pharaonic Egypt to Renaissance Italy, and from the Neo-Assyrian Empire to Hellenistic Greece and Roman Gaul, case studies by leading experts probe areas of both synergy and divergence within this distinctive form of warfare amongst the cultures in this broadly shared environment".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004413740
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
Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period /
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In Israel in Egypt scholars in different fields explore what can be known of the experiences of the many and varied Jewish communities in Egypt, from biblical sources to the medieval world. For generations of Jews from antiquity to the medieval period, the land of Egypt represented both a place of danger to their communal religious identity and also a haven with opportunities for prosperity and growth. A volume of collected essays from scholars in fields ranging from biblical studies and classics to papyrology and archaeology, Israel in Egypt explores what can be known of the experiences of the many and varied Jewish communities in Egypt, from biblical sources to the medieval world.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004435407
9789004435391
Jewish ethnic identity and relations in Hellenistic Egypt : with walls of iron? /
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In Jewish Ethnic Identity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt , Stewart Moore investigates the foundations of common assumptions about ethnicity. To maintain one's identity in a strange land, was it always necessary to band tightly together with one's coethnics? Sociologists and anthropologists who study ethnicity have given us a much wider view of the possible strategies of ethnic maintenance and interaction. The most important facet of Jewish ethnicity in Egypt which emerges from this study is the interaction over the Jewish-Egyptian boundary. Previous scholarship has assumed that this border was a Siegfried Line marked by mutual contempt. Yet Jews, Egyptians and also Greeks interacted in complicated ways in Ptolemaic Egypt, with positive relationships being at least as numerous as negative ones.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004303089 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Historical and archaeological aspects of Egyptian funerary culture : religious ideas and ritual practice in Middle Kingdom elite cemeteries /
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Historical and Archaeological Aspects of Egyptian Funerary Culture , a thoroughly reworked translation of Les textes des sarcophages et la démocratie published in 2008, challenges the widespread idea that the "royal" Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom after a process of "democratisation" became, in the Middle Kingdom, accessible even to the average Egyptian in the form of the Coffin Texts. Rather they remained an element of elite funerary culture, and particularly so in the Upper Egyptian nomes. The author traces the emergence here of the so-called "nomarchs" and their survival in the Middle Kingdom. The site of Dayr al-Barshā, currently under excavation, shows how nomarch cemeteries could even develop into large-scale processional landscapes intended for the cult of the local ruler. This book also provides an updated list of the hundreds of (mostly unpublished) Middle Kingdom coffins and proposes a new reference system for these.
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1 online resource (pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004274990 :
1566-2055 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The politics of trad e Egypt and lower Nubia in the 4th millennium BC /
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Until recently much of the discussion regarding the A-Group has emphasised the influence of Egypt in the region. Egyptian material found in A-Group contexts has pointed to some type of exchange system between the two regions but the lack of A-Group manufactured objects in Egyptian contexts has led to the argument that the relationship was somewhat one-sided. Yet was it and how different were Egyptians and Lower Nubians during the 4th millennium BC? Re-examining the material evidence from three major archaeological salvage campaigns, and using anthropological and economic theories this book takes a fresh look at exchange patterns between Egypt and Lower Nubia. The changes and developments in these relationships potentially impacted the development towards the Egyptian state and the fate of the A-Group.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-350) and index. :
9789004196117 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Fragile hierarchies : the urban elites of third century Roman Egypt /
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Fragile Hierarchies deals with the world of the urban elites of third century Roman Egypt. It discusses economic, social and demographic aspects of the position of the elites of the small towns that dotted the Nile. The work combines analysis of Greek papyri with modelling techniques used in ancient history. The first part of the book analyses patterns of urbanisation, property relations and their consequences for elite formation. The second part discusses demographic aspects, patterns of inheritance and their consequences for continuity and discontinuity. The central argument of the book is that a strong social and economic hierarchy occurred side by side with a dynamic pattern of elite renewal.
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1 online resource (353 pages) : map. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 327-338) and index. :
9789047417590 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in the Aramaic legal papyri from Elephantine /
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Long recognized as a brilliant cross-cultural study, Yochanan Muffs' work analyzes the legal formulary of the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine, at the first cataract of the Nile, where a Persian garrison comprised of Jewish soldiers and their families lived throughout most of the 5th century B.C.E. These documents are of exceptional importance for the study of ancient Near Eastern law, and Muffs has investigated their formative background through extensive references to cuneiform law, by a method he calls "the Assyriological approach". Virtually every aspect of law-sale of land, marriage and family law, loans and credit, the taking of oaths, and the granting of bequests is studied in great depth and with unusual clarity. Muffs' work has enjoyed renewed interest in the light of more recent discoveries of Aramaic legal documents from later periods, as in the Judean Desert.
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1 online resource (xliv, 311 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004294233 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Alexandrian riots of 38 C.E. and the persecution of the Jews : a historical reconstruction /
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Scholars have read the Alexandrian riots of 38 CE according to intertwined dichotomies. The Alexandrian Jews fought to keep their citizenship - or to acquire it; they evaded the payment of the poll-tax - or prevented any attempts to impose it on them; they safeguarded their identity against the Greeks - or against the Egyptians. Avoiding that pattern and building on the historical reconstruction of the experience of the Alexandrian Jewish community under the Ptolemies, this work submits that the riots were the legal and political consequence of an imperial adjudication against the Jews. Most of the Jews lost their residence never to recover it again. The Roman emperor, the Roman prefect of Egypt and the Alexandrian citizenry - all shared responsibilities according to their respective and expected roles.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [293]-314) and indexes. :
9789047441915 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Rituals of triumph in the Mediterranean world /
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Societies, both ancient and modern, have frequently celebrated and proclaimed their military victories through overt public demonstrations. In the ancient world, however, the most famous examples of this come from a single culture and period - Rome in the final years of the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire - while those from other cultures - such as Egypt, Greece, Neo-Assyria, and indeed other periods of Roman history - are generally unexplored. The aim of this volume is to present a more complete study of this phenomenon and offer a series of cultural reactions to successful military actions by various peoples of the ancient Mediterranean world, illustrating points of similarity and diversity, and demonstrating the complex and multifaceted nature of this trans-cultural practice. \'The book nevertheless represents a valuable collection of papers on a not so widely researched topic and is clearly a stepping stone for further research as indeed the editors intended it to be.\' Uros Matic, Universitaet Muenster
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1 online resource (v, 157 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004251175 :
1566-2055 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jewish and Christian communal identities in the Roman world /
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Jews and Christians under the Roman Empire shared a unique sense of community. Set apart from their civic and cultic surroundings, both groups resisted complete assimilation into the dominant political and social structures. However, Jewish communities differed from their Christian counterparts in their overall patterns of response to the surrounding challenges. They exhibit diverse levels of integration into the civic fabric of the cities of the Empire and display contrary attitudes towards the creation of trans-local communal networks. The variety of local case studies examined in this volume offers an integrated image of the multiple factors, both internal and external, which determined the role of communal identity in creating a sense of belonging among Jews and Christians under Imperial constraints.
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"This volume presents revised versions of lectures given in October 2013 at a Jerusalem symposium on Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in Antiquity. The Hebrew University's Scholion Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities and Jewish Studies together with the editorial board of Brill's Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity series kindly co-sponsored the symposium in memory of our colleague Friedrich Avemarie."--Preface. :
1 online resource (xi, 286 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004321694 :
1871-6636 ; :
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.