There are few studies that deal with an overall treatment of the Hittite administrative system, and various other works on its offices and officials have tended to be limited in scope, focusing only on certain groups or certain time periods. This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the administrative organization of the Hittite state throughout its history (ca. 1650-1180 BCE) with particular emphasis on the state offices and their officials. Bringing together previous works and updating with data recovered in recent years, the study presents a detailed survey of the high offices of the state, a prosopographical study of about 140 high officials, and a theoretical analysis of the Hittite administration in respect to factors such as hierarchy, kinship, and diachronical changes.

A pioneering interdisciplinary study of the art, production and social functions of Late Antique ritual artefacts. Utilising case studies from the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri and the Heidelberg archive it establishes new approaches, provides a holistic understanding of the multi-sensory aspects of ritual practice, and explores the transmission of knowledge traditions across faiths.

The first and only comprehensive biographical dictionary devoted to mythological women. Divinities, humans, female monsters and animals, hermaphrodites, and transsexuals are all here. Women of Classical Mythology offers unprecedented access to information on women largely neglected in reference works on Greek and Roman myth and gives a fresh look at the better-known figures. Each of the 2,600 entries places its subject both in the overall context of classical myth, and in the frame of reference of her better-known counterparts. For each figure there is a description of her particular contribution to folklore, and a list of the various poems, tragedies, epics, and other types of stories in which she plays a central role. In addition, the handy special index, "The Men in Their Lives," allows readers to locate a particular woman known primarily through her relations. The female characters in classical mythology often provide clues to genealogical, chronological, and historical puzzles. This book will be welcomed by classical scholars for the insights and relationships it reveals. Over 2,500 A-Z entries detail the woman's contribution and places her in context with male associates Includes a special index titled "The Men in Their Lives" which makes it simple to locate a figure through her relations such as Theseus' mother or Achilles' wife Cross references and end-of-entry citations allow readers to go from most entries directly to the classical sources

The present volume is the result of a team research which gathered biblical scholars, philologists, and historians of religions, on the issue of the multiple «Interpretations of Moses inherited from the ancient mediterranean cultures. The concrete outcome of this comparative inquiry is the common translation and commentary of the fragments from the works of the mysterious Artapanus. The comparative perspective suggested here is not so much methodological, or thematic. It is first of all an invitation to cross disciplinary boundaries and to take account of the contributions of diverse cultures to the formation of a single mythology, in the case, a Moses mythology. With respect to Judea, Greece, Egypt or Rome, and further more an emerging christianity and its «gnostic counterpart, the figure of Moses is at the heart of a cross-cultural dialogue the pieces of which, if they can be seperated for the confort of their specific study, mostly gain by being put together.

This book examines magic's generally maleficent effect on humans from ancient Egypt through the Middle Ages, including tales from classical mythology, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures. It shows that certain magical motifs lived on from age to age, but that it took until the Italian Renaissance for magic tales to become fairy tales.

In Religious Practices and Christianization of the Late Antique City, historians, archaeologists and historians of religion provide studies of the phenomenon of the Christianization of the Roman Empire within the context of the transformations and eventual decline of the Greco-Roman city. The eleven papers brought together here aim to describe the possible links between religious, but also political, economic and social mutations engendered by Christianity and the evolution of the antique city. Combining a multiplicity of sources and analytical approaches, this book seeks to measure the impact on the city of the progressive abandonment of traditional cults to the advantage of new Christian religious practices.

This phenomenologically oriented ethnography focuses on experiential aspects of Yanomami shamanism, including shamanistic activities in the context of cultural change. The author interweaves ethnographic material with theoretical components of a holographic principle, or the idea that the "part is equal to the whole," which is embedded in the nature of the Yanomami macrocosm, human dwelling, multiple-soul components, and shamans' relationships with embodied spirit-helpers. This book fills an important gap in the regional study of Yanomami people, and, on a broader scale, enriches understanding of this ancient phenomenon by focusing on the consciousness involved in shamanism through firsthand experiential involvement.

In contrast to other traditions, cultic laments in Mesopotamia were not performed in response to a tragic event, such as a death or a disaster, but instead as a preemptive ritual to avert possible catastrophes. Mesopotamian laments provide a unique insight into the relationship between humankind and the gods, and their study sheds light on the nature of collective rituals within a crosscultural context. Cultic laments were performed in Mesopotamia for nearly 3000 years. This book provides a comprehensive overview of this important ritual practice in the early 2nd millennium BCE, the period during which Sumerian laments were first put in writing. It also includes a new translation and critical edition of Uruamairabi ('That city, which has been plundered'), one of the most widely performed compositions of its genre.

Sources of Evil: Studies in Mesopotamian Exorcistic Lore is a collection of thirteen essays on the body of knowledge employed by ancient Near Eastern healing experts, most prominently the 'exorcist' and the 'physician', to help patients who were suffering from misfortunes caused by divine anger, transgressions of taboos, demons, witches, or other sources of evil. The volume provides new insights into the two most important catalogues of Mesopotamian therapeutic lore, the Exorcist's Manual and the Assur Medical Catalogue, and contains discussions of agents of evil and causes of illness, ways of repelling evil and treating patients, the interpretation of natural phenomena in the context of exorcistic lore, and a description of the symbolic cosmos with its divine and demonic inhabitants. "This volume in the series on Ancient Divination and Magic published by Brill is a welcome addition to the growing literature on ancient magic ..." -Ann Jeffers, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43.5 (2019) "Since the focus of the conference from which the essays derive was narrow, most of the essays hang together well and even complement each other. Several offer state-of-the-art treatments of topics and texts that make the volume especially useful. Readers will find much in this volume that contributes to our understanding of Mesopotamian exorcists, magic, medicine, and conceptions of evil." -Scott Noegel, University of Washington, Journal of the American Oriental Society 140.1 (2020)

Gorgeous Collector's Edition. From such texts as the Shah Nameh (the Persian Book of Kings), Masnavi-e Ma'navi, the Anvar-i Suhayli fables and works by the great poet Nizami, come ancient tales of a civilization that once stretched across the known world. Find here the wonderful stories of the magical bird the Simurgh, the Seven Labours of Rustem, the evil demon onager-giant Akwan Diw and the tragic romance of Laili and Majnun. Persian literature is amongst the most beautiful and inventive of all cultures, offering a joyful read of creation, love and conquest. Flame Tree Collector's Editions present the foundations of speculative fiction, authors, myths and tales without which the imaginative literature of the twentieth century would not exist, bringing the best, most influential and most fascinating works into a striking and collectable library. Each book features a new introduction and a Glossary of Terms.

The Politics of Identity in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy offers the first sustained analysis of the relationship between collective identity and politics in the Greek West during the period c. 600-200 BCE. Greeks defined their communities in multiple and varied ways, including a separate polis identity for each city-state; sub-Hellenic ethnicities such as Dorian and Ionian; regional identities; and an overarching sense of Greekness. Mark Thatcher skillfully untangles the many overlapping strands of these plural identities and carefully analyzes how they relate to each other, presenting a compelling new account of the role of identity in Greek politics. Identity was often created through conflict and was reshaped as political conditions changed. It created legitimacy for kings and tyrants, and it contributed to the decision-making processes of poleis. A series of detailed case studies explore these points by drawing on a wide variety of source material, including historiography, epinician poetry, coinage, inscriptions, religious practices, and material culture. The wide-ranging analysis covers both Sicily and southern Italy, encompassing cities such as Syracuse, Camarina, Croton, and Metapontion; ethnic groups such as the Dorians and Achaeans; and tyrants and politicians from the Deinomenids and Hermocrates to Pyrrhus and Hieron II. Spanning the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, this study is an essential contribution to the history, societies, cultures, and identities of Greek Sicily and southern Italy.

This is the first of a two-volume collection of studies in inconsistencies in Greek and Roman religion. Their common aim is to argue for the historical relevance of various types of ambiguity and dissonance. The first volume focuses on the central paradoxes in ancient henotheism. The term 'henotheism' -- a modern formation after the stereotyped acclamation: #EIS O QEOS# ("one is the god"), common to early Christianity and contemporaneous paganism -- denotes the specific devotion to one particular god without denying the existence of, or even cultic attention to, other gods. After its prime in the twenties and thirties of this century the term fell into disuse. Nonetheless, the notion of henotheism represents one of the most remarkable and significant shifts in Graeco-Roman religion and hence deserves fresh reconsideration.

This monograph begins with a puzzle: a Babylonian text from late 5th century BCE Uruk associating various diseases with bodily organs, which has evaded interpretation. The correct answer may reside in Babylonian astrology, since the development of the zodiac in the late 5th century BCE offered innovative approaches to the healing arts. The zodiac-a means of predicting the movements of heavenly bodies-transformed older divination (such as hemerologies listing lucky and unlucky days) and introduced more favorable magical techniques and medical prescriptions, which are comparable to those found in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and non-Hippocratic Greek medicine. Babylonian melothesia (i.e., the science of charting how zodiacal signs affect the human body) offers the most likely solution explaining the Uruk tablet.