Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in the Ancient
World offers linked essays on uses of the past in prominent and
diverse cultures in ancient civilizations across the world. The
contributors are leading experts in Ancient Near Eastern Studies,
Sinology, Biblical Studies, Classics, and Maya Studies. This volume
addresses crucial questions in current scholarship on historical
consciousness and historiography. These questions include the
formation of different traditions and the manifold uses of the past
in particular socio-political contexts or circumstances; the ways
in which these traditions and these types of cultural memory
informed or contributed to the rise of more formal modes of
historiography; interactions between formal modes of historiography
and other traditions of historical consciousness during their
transmission; and the implications of such interactions for
cultural heritage, collective memory, and later understandings of
history. The chapters discuss many questions relating to the
volume's theme: theoretical and methodological approaches to
ancient material; intellectual, didactic, and social circumstances
and institutions; ideological motivations behind, and social
functions of, interactions; conceptual, narratological, and
literary processes and mechanisms such as synchronism, sequencing
of events, periodization, mythological prologues, aetiological
motifs, genealogical and chronological schemes, geographical and
ethnographical features, temporal and stylistic devices;
interchanges between different temporal frameworks such as
mythical, legendary, ritual, chronological; the extent and variety
of interactions such as manifestations in visual arts, monuments,
cultic activities, music and dramatic performance; physical or
textual channels for dissemination and transmission; stages and
periods of interaction in different cultures, authors, and texts;
convention and innovation; differences and relationships between
scholarly and popular conceptions of history; and exchanges between
local traditions and ones with a global perspective. By taking an
interdisciplinary approach, this volume situates the rise of formal
modes of historiography within a larger context of the development
of historical consciousness and a wider web of intercommunicating
discourses. It also uncovers intellectual processes, literary
mechanisms, and social institutions involved in the construction of
history. During its construction, while many local traditions
persisted, some ancients gradually went beyond the temporal and
spatial limitations of their local traditions, arriving at a more
extended and unified timespan, a wider geographical region, and a
common origin.
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