The Amorite dynasty of Ugarit : historical implications of linguistic and archaeological parallels /
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"In The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit Mary Buck takes a new approach to the field of Amorite studies by considering whether the site of Ugarit shares close parallels with other sites and cultures known from the Bronze Age Levant. When viewed in conjunction, the archaeological and linguistic material uncovered in this study serves to enhance our understanding of the historical complexity and diversity of the Middle Bronze Age period of international relations at the site of Ugarit. With a deft hand, Dr. Buck pursues a nuanced view of populations in the Bronze Age Levant, with the objective of understanding the ancient polity of Ugarit as a kin-based culture that shares close ties with the Amorite populations of the Levant. .
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004415119
Architecture and asceticism : cultural interaction between Syria and Georgia in late antiquity /
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In Architecture and Asceticism Loosley Leeming presents the first interdisciplinary exploration of Late Antique Syrian-Georgian relations available in English. The author takes an inter-disciplinary approach and examines the question from archaeological, art historical, historical, literary and theological viewpoints to try and explore the relationship as thoroughly as possible. Taking the Georgian belief that 'Thirteen Syrian Fathers' introduced monasticism to the country in the sixth century as a starting point, this volume explores the evidence for trade, cultural and religious relations between Syria and the Kingdom of Kartli (what is now eastern Georgia) between the fourth and seventh centuries CE. It considers whether there is any evidence to support the medieval texts and tries to place this posited relationship within a wider regional context.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004375314 :
2213-0039 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The city gate in ancient Israel and her neighbors : the form, function, and symbolism of the civic forum in the southern Levant /
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"In The City Gate in Ancient Israel and Her Neighbors, Daniel A. Frese provides a wide-ranging portrayal of one of the most prominent social institutions in the kingdoms of the southern Levant during the Iron II period: the use of the city gate as a hub for numerous and diverse civic functions. The book provides an up-to-date description of the architecture of gate complexes based on archaeological evidence, and a systematic description of the many functions of the gate seen in hundreds of texts from the Hebrew Bible and the broader ancient Near East. The final chapters of the book discuss the conceptual significance of gates in Israelite culture, based on idiomatic and symbolic gate terminology in the Hebrew Bible".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004416673
Le pouvoir impérial dans les provinces syrienne s représentations et célébrations d'Auguste à Constantin (31 av. J.-C.-337 ap. J.-C.) /
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This book focuses on the role of the emperor and the image of the Roman Empire as a whole during the time period from Augustus to Constantine. It analyses this image by taking into account the epigraphic, literary, numismatic and archaeological sources from Phoenicia to Osrhoene and from Commagene to Arabia. While discussing Graeco-Roman cities and rural settlements among desert areas, it addresses celebrations as well as the organization and promotion of the imperial cult in the Near East. This includes the imperial cult's forms of expression of symbolic, political, and various other social or religious functions. This approach, therefore, explores the real and imaginary relationships that existed between the Roman Empire and the populations of the Syrian provinces.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-250) and indexes. :
9789004203624 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The third millennium : studies in early Mesopotamia and Syria in honor of Walter Sommerfeld and Manfred Krebernik /
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"The Festschrift containing 36 contributions celebrates the scholarly achievements of the two outstanding Assyriologists, Walter Sommerfeld (University of Marburg) and Manfred Krebernik (University of Jena). The primary focus of the volume corresponds to the main topics of interests of Professors Sommerfeld and Krebernik - Pre-Sargonic and Sargonic Mesopotamia and third millennium Syria. The volume also features a few contributions dealing with Sumerian language, Mesopotamian literature and the early history of Akkadian and its Semitic background".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004418080
The architecture and liturgy of the bema in fourth- to-sixth-century Syrian churches /
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First published in 2003 this is a new edition of a work that remains the only study of the nave platform known as the Syrian Bema to utilise an interdisciplinary approach. By combining archaeological and architectural research with a study of the Syriac Liturgy to explore how worship evolved on the Syrian Limestone Massif in Late Antiquity, this volume proposes a solution to the long debated question of why only approximately 50 of these bemata have been discovered amongst many thousands of late antique churches in Syria. It charts the evolution of the early liturgy in Syria and seeks to explain how the location of the Limestone Massif in the hinterland of Antioch may have affected the development of worship in the region.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 2001.
Previously published: Kaslik, Liban : Parole de l'Orient, 2003. :
1 online resource (xviii, 287 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-281) and index. :
9789004231849 :
2213-0039 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islamic piety in medieval Syria : mosques, cemeteries and sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146-1260) /
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A study of religious thought and practice across a broad social spectrum, but within a well-defined historical context, this book is an interdisciplinary endeavor that incorporates the tools of philology, social-history and historical-anthropology. Focusing on the mosques, public assemblies, cemeteries and shrines of Syrian Muslims in the period of the crusades and the anti-Frankish jihad, the book describes and deciphers religious rites and experiences, liturgical calendars, spiritual leadership, and perceptions of impiety and dissent. Working from a perspective that breaks down the dichotomization of religion into 'official' and 'popular,' it exposes the negotiation, construction and dissemination of hybrid forms of religious life. The result is an intimate and complex presentation of the texture of medieval Islamic piety.
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Extensively revised and expanded edition of the author's Hebrew Ph. D. thesis entitled: Dat ṿe-ḥevrah be-Suryah mi-Nur Aldin ṿe-ʻad la-kibush ha-Mongoli (1154-1260). :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-286) and index. :
9789047422846 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Isaak von Ninive und seine Kephalaia Gnostika : die Pneumatologie und ihr Kontext /
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Isaac of Nineveh (7th century AD), or Isaac the Syrian, was, among all the Syriac writers, the one to exert the greatest influence outside the Syriac-speaking world, becoming a highly venerated Father of Byzantine Orthodox spirituality and theology. In Isaak von Nineve und seine Kephalaia Gnostika , Nestor Kavvadas first draws out the frictions between East Syrian episcopacy and the anchorite mystical movement as represented by Isaac, in search of the historical context of Isaac's teaching on the working of the Holy Spirit on the monk. Then, he draws out of Isaac's writings, and especially the Kephalaia Gnostika , the underlying structure of Isaac's thought on the working of the Holy Spirit, with the tension here between the here and now and the 'New World' that can be momentarily anticipated in the present world. Isaak von Ninive (7. Jh. n.Chr.), oder Isaak der Syrer, war unter allen Syrischen Autoren derjenige, der den größten Einfluss außerhalb der syrischsprachigen Welt ausübte, indem er ein besonders verehrter Vater der byzantinischen orthodoxen Spiritualität und Theologie wurde. In Isaak von Ninive und seine Kephalaia Gnostika zeichnet Nestor Kavvadas zuerst die Reibungen zwischen dem ostsyrischen Episkopat und der volumea. durch Isaak vertretenen, anachoretischen mystischen Strömung nach, auf der Suche nach dem historischen Kontext der Lehre Isaaks vom Wirken des Heiligen Geistes auf den Mönch. Dann rekonstruiert er aus den Schriften Isaaks, insbesondere aus den Kephalaia Gnostika , die Isaaks Denken vom Wirken des Heiligen Geistes zugrundeliegende Struktur; leitend ist hier die Spannung zwischen dem "hier und jetzt" und der "Neuen Welt", die in dieser Welt augenblicklich antizipiert werden kann.
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1 online resource (xvi, 189 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004284838 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Bodies of knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia : the diviners of late Bronze Age Emar and their table collection /
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In Bodies of Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia Matthew Rutz explores the relationship between ancient collections of texts, commonly deemed libraries and archives, and the modern interpretation of titles like 'diviner'. By looking at cuneiform tablets as artifacts with archaeological contexts, this work probes the modern analytical categories used to study ancient diviners and investigates the transmission of Babylonian/Assyrian scholarship in Syria. During the Late Bronze Age diviners acted as high-ranking scribes and cultic functionaries in Emar, a town on the Syrian Euphrates (ca. 1375-1175 BCE). This book's centerpiece is an extensive analytical catalogue of the excavated tablet collection of one family of diviners. Over seventy-five fragments are identified for the first time, along with many proposed joins between fragments.
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1 online resource (xxi, 682 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004245686 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Heralds of That Good Realm : Syro-Mesopotamian Gnosis and Jewish Traditions /
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This volume examines the transmission of biblical pseudepigraphic literature and motifs from their largely Jewish cultural contexts in Palestine to developing gnostic milieux of Syria and Mesopotamia, particularly that one lying behind the birth and growth of Manichaeism. It surveys biblical pseudepigraphic literary activity in the late antique Near East, devoting special attention to revelatory works attributed to the five biblical forefathers who are cited in the Cologne Mani Codex : Adam, Seth, Enosh, Shem, and Enoch. The author provides a philological, literary, and religio-historical analysis of each of the five pseudepigraphic citations contained in the Codex , and offers hypotheses regarding the original provenance of each citation and the means by which these traditions have been adapted to their present context. This study is an important contribution to the scholarly reassessment of the roles played by Second Temple Judaism, Jewish Christian sectarianism, and classical gnosis in the formulation and development of Syro-Mesopotamian religious currents.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004439702
9789004104594
Notes on the Sanctuary of St. Symeon Stylites at Qalʻat Simʻān
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This book is the first full-length work concerning the restoration and excavations carried out at Qal'at Sem'an in Syria in the twentieth century. It was written by the notable architect and archaeologist Georges Tchalenko based on his notes, plans, photographs and sketches as he undertook the work in the years before and during the Second World War. Left unpublished at the time of his death during the Lebanese Civil War, it is published here for the first time in the original French with an English translation. The text is richly illustrated throughout and accompanied by a biographical essay by John Tchalenko and an introduction to the historiography of Qal'at Sem'an and Symeon Stylites by Emma Loosley Leeming.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004388451 :
2213-0039 ;
The Ugaritic Baal cycle.
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The Ugaritic Baal Cycle offers a translation and the first commentary on the Ugaritic Baal Cycle. The longest and most important religious text from ancient Ugarit, the Baal Cycle witnesses to both the religious worldview of Ugarit and the larger background to many of the formative religious concepts and images in the Bible. The volume treats introductory matters such as date, order and continuity of the tablets, the history of interpretation, and finally a new proposal for the interpretation of text drawing on the insights of previous views as well as newer evidence. The commentary proper provides bibliography, text, textual notes, literary structure and detailed commentary for each column in the first two tablets.
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1 online resource : illustrations. :
9789004275799 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Book in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (1250-1517), Scribes, Libraries and Market.
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This book is the first to date to be dedicated to the circulation of the book as a commodity in the Mamluk sultanate. It discusses the impact of princely patronage on the production of books, the formation and management of libraries in religious institutions, their size and their physical setting. It documents the significance of private collections and their interaction with institutional libraries and the role of charitable endowments ( waqf ) in the life of libraries. The market as a venue of intellectual and commercial exchanges and a production centre is explored with references to prices and fees. The social and professional background of scribes and calligraphers occupies a major place in this study, which also documents the chain of master-calligraphers over the entire Mamluk period. For her study the author relies on biographical dictionaries, chronicles, waqf documents and manuscripts.
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1 online resource. :
9789004387058
Letters of a Sufi scholar : the correspondence of ʻAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1641-1731) /
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As a leading Muslim thinker, 'Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī of Damascus creatively engaged with the social, religious, and intellectual challenges that emerged during the early modern period in which he lived. Yet, at a time of high anti-mystical fervour, his Sufi-inspired views faced strong local antipathy. Through extensive correspondence, presented here for the first time, 'Abd al-Ghanī projected his ideas and teachings beyond the parochial boundaries of Damascus, and was thus able to assert his authority at a wider regional level. The letters he himself selected, compiled, and titled shed fresh lights on the religious and intellectual exchanges among scholars in the eastern Ottoman provinces, revealing a dynamic and rigorous image of Islam, one that is profoundly inspired by humility, tolerance, and love. http://tntypography.com/brill.html
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047424338 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850-1890 : Intercultural Engagements with Architecture and Craft in the Age of Travel and Reform /
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"The commodification of Islamic antiques intensified in the late Ottoman Empire, an age of domestic reform and increased European interference following the Tanzimat (reorganisation) of 1839. Mercedes Volait examines the social life of typical objects moving from Cairo and Damascus to Paris, London, and beyond, uncovers the range of agencies and subjectivities involved in the trade of architectural salvage and historic handicraft, and traces impacts on private interiors, through creative reuse and Revival design, in Egypt, Europe and America. By devoting attention to both local and global engagements with Middle Eastern tangible heritage, the present volume invites to look anew at Orientalism in art and interior design, the canon of Islamic architecture and the translocation of historic works of art"--
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004449886
9789004449879
Entre mémoire et pouvoir l'espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbassides (v. 72-193/692-809) /
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Cet ouvrage entend démontrer qu'une solide culture de l'écriture de l'histoire existait dans la Syrie du 2e/8e siècle, et propose de nouvelles approches méthodologiques afin d'offrir un accès vers cette historiographie perdue, tiraillée entre mémoire et oubli. En étudiant la fabrique des héros omeyyades ou des mythes d'origines abbassides, cette étude s'efforce de mettre au jour les significations successives données à l'histoire syrienne, et d'identifier les différentes strates d'écritures et de réécritures de l'histoire au cours des premiers siècles de l'islam. L'ensemble de ces éléments conduit à proposer une histoire du sens de l'espace syrien, articulée autour de la thématique du pouvoir, qui donne une profonde cohérence à la période, par-delà la césure dynastique de 132/750. This book intends to demonstrate that a robust culture of historical writing existed in 2nd/8th century Syria, and to offer new methodological approaches to access this now lost history, torn between memory and oblivion. By studying the making of Umayyad heroes or Abbasid origins-myths, this study aims to reveal the successive meanings granted to Syrian history, and to identify the various layers of historical writing and rewriting during the first centuries of Islam. Taken together, these elements make possible a history of the meaning of the very space of Syria, articulated around power and its expression, which grants a clear coherence to the period, extending well beyond the dynastic caesura of 132/750.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [475]-526) and index. :
9789004190979 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Scottish enlightenment abroad : the Russells of Braidshaw in Aleppo and on the coast of Coromandel /
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In The Scottish Enlightenment Abroad , Janet Starkey examines the lives and works of Scots working in the mid eighteenth century with the Levant Company in Aleppo, then within the Ottoman Empire; and those working with the East India Company in India, especially in the fields of natural history, medicine, ethnography and the collection of Arabic and Persian manuscripts. The focus is on brothers from Edinburgh: Alexander Russell MD FRS, Patrick Russell MD FRS, Claud Russell and William Russell FRS. By examining a wide range of modern interpretations, Starkey argues that the Scottish Enlightenment was not just a philosophical discourse but a multi-faceted cultural revolution that owed its vibrancy to ties of kinship, and to strong commercial and intellectual links with Europe and further abroad.
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1 online resource (xvi, 467 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004362130 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die Eroberung von Damaskus : Quellenkritische Untersuchung zur Historiographie in klassisch-islamischer Zeit /
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The conquest of Damascus is one of the main events of the Islamic conquests in bilād al-Shām. Consequently, it appears with approximately 1000 narratives in the Islamic literature. This book shows the dependencies of these narratives. It therefore exemplifies the historiography from 700-1300 CE using one single event. Using the method of isnād-cum-matn-analysis the oldest forms of Islamic historiography are reconstructed. Among them are not only the version by Ibn Ishāq, but also the narratives in the futūh-work ascribed to al-Waqidī and in al-Azdī's Futūh al-Sham. Finally, the course of the events is described on the basis of the oldest reconstructed versions. Die Eroberung von Damaskus gehört zu den bedeutendsten Ereignissen der futūh im historischen Syrien. Folglich ist sie mit circa 1000 Einzelüberlieferungen ein häufig vorkommendes Element in der islamischen Literatur. Die Zusammenhänge und Abhängigkeiten der Überlieferungen zu analysieren, ist das Hauptanliegen dieser Studie. So können Aussagen über die Historiography von 700-1300 n. Chr. an Hand eines historischen Beispiels getroffen werden. Mit Hilfe der isnād-cum-matn-Analyse gelingt es zudem die frühesten Formen muslimischer Geschichtsschreibung zu rekonstruieren. Zu diesen gehören neben der Version Ibn Ishāqs auch die Erzählungen, die sich in dem Futūḥ-Werk, das al-Waqidī zugeschrieben wird, und dem Futūḥ al-Šhām al-Azdīs finden. Auf Grundlage dieser ältesten rekonstruierten Fassungen zeichnet diese Untersuchung abschließend die Eroberung von Damaskus nach.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047430285 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die Rifa'iya aus Damaskus : Eine Privatbibliothek im Osmanischen Syrien und ihr kulturelles Umfeld /
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In Die Rifāʽīya spürt Boris Liebrenz der Buchkultur des Osmanischen Syrien (16. - 19. Jahrhundert) durch den Fokus der einzig überlebenden Privatbibliothek der Epoche nach. Er fragt nach der Produktion und Transmission von Wissen sowie dem sozialen Hintergrund der Leserschaft im Zeitalter der Handschrift. Studien der arabischen Bibliotheksgeschichte haben oft nur das Mittelalter in den Blick genommen und basierten fast ausschließlich auf literarischen Quellen. Dies ist die erste Monographie, die eine einzige Region während der Osmanischen Periode in den Fokus nimmt und deren auf uns gekommene Handschriften und Notizen ihrer Leser und Besitzer systematisch als dokumentarische Quelle benutzt. So erhellt sie die materiellen, rechtlichen und sozialen Voraussetzungen von Buchbesitz und Lesepraxis. In Die Rifāʽīya Boris Liebrenz explores the book culture of Ottoman Syria (16th to 19th century), using the only surviving Damascene private library of the time as a vantage point. He asks about the production and transmission of knowledge as well as the social background of the reading audience in a manuscript age. Scholarship on Arabic libraries has often focussed on the medieval period and relied nearly exclusively on literary accounts. This is the first book-length study that focuses on a single region in the Ottoman period and systematically uses the vast number of surviving manuscripts as a documentary source by means of the notes left by their readers and possessors. Thus, it sheds light on the material, juridical, and social basis of book-ownership and reading.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004314894 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.