Finding Identities

Gojko Barjamovic

 

Arguably, the Neo-Assyrian Empire offers the earliest example of a state ideology grounded in universal claims for direct territorial and political control of a vast trans-national empire. As opposed to earlier formations of permeable and transitory networks of indirect hegemony, the Assyrians ventured to establish permanent political control over subjugated populations through the systematic co-option and integration of local elites, inventing a specific imperial identity grounded on eclecticism in religion, art and ideology. Through systematic deportations, the construction of monumental architecture on a hitherto unseen scale, a centralized control of substantial workforces, resources and production, and innovations in design and the use of written and pictorial media, the Assyrian Empire left tangible sources of its emerging ‘imperial identity'.

My work at CIF aims at identifying and analyzing the construction and development of this Assyrian imperial identity, utilizing both written and material evidence in a series of topical studies. Among the subjects covered are the rising ideology of the empire, the invention and dissemination of a distinctive court culture in art and literature, and the propagation of an imperial identity through the manipulation of history.

 

Tradition and Innovation in Mesopotamian Heroic Literature

Laura Feldt

 

My project revolves around the deity Ninurta and the heroic narratives related to him. The heroic narratives related to this deity were both central and seminal in the Mesopotamian literary tradition and played an important role in Mesopotamian cultural memory, serving as a repository for, and inventory of, cultural identity formation, maintenance, and change. Overall, I am here trying to approach a characterisation of Ninurta as hero-god and how conceptions, or "canons", of heroism change from the Old Babylonian Sumerian literary corpus to the Akkadian corpus. I work primarily from a narrative or narratological angle but I draw on the broader cultural studies / literary field along the way. In this project, I will try to throw light on tradition and innovation in the heroic Ninurta literature by investigating my material in three, separate studies:

Ambiguity, Marginality, and Transience in the Myths of Ninurta
Here, I will build upon my previous work on the monsters of the Sumerian Ninurta narratives (Feldt 2010 forthcoming, 2009 forthcoming and 2006c) and focus on how Ninurta is portrayed in these stories at different narratological levels (fabula, story, text). My thesis is that the literary-narrative contexts influence conceptions of Ninurta as a hero. I think Ninurta is, at least in the Sumerian material, portrayed in a relatively ambiguous way and that especially his encounters with monsters highlight the problematic nature of his heroic identity. I will examine the Old Babylonian narratives up against the Old Babylonian and Late Babylonian Akkadian epic of Anzû (Bin shar dadme), and so this study will contribute to understanding tradition and innovation in "canons" of heroism and Ninurta as a hero-god.

Wilderness and Heroic Identity in the Myths of Ninurta
In this study, I plan to investigate the hero's connection to specific places in specific ways. I will investigate the narrative construal of the wilderness, the mountains, the steppe as special places to which the hero is connected, and how he interacts with these places. Further, the kur/kalam (mountains vs. the civilised land) divide is an especially interesting object of study as it seems to be of central importance for Ninurta as a hero as he seems to move across the boundary between the two. In this study, I intend to draw inspiration from cultural geography and theories of travel and nature writing.

Knowledge and Sovereignty in the Myths of Ninurta
In this study, I plan to investigate the conceptions of the hero in the Sumerian and the Akkadian Ninurta narratives and how they are related to ideas of knowledge or wisdom. Important ideas in the Mesopotamian intellectual tradition about knowledge and wisdom, and about how power can be exercised through knowledge and attained through the use of cunning, are expressed in these heroic narratives by means of the hero's control - or lack thereof - of a certain physical object, often a tablet, and in the idea of the hero's power of naming and the power of his names. My thesis is that narrative analyses of the hero's relation to knowledge/wisdom will throw light on ideals of heroism in Mesopotamian religious literature - how can wisdom or knowledge be harnessed, how can power be exercised through knowledge - which interests do these myths reflect and which functions do they serve? Interestingly, cunning intelligence is, in these myths, not always invested in the sovereign or hero, but in ambiguous figures which may be instrumental in challenging the sovereign and his order. These stories tend to emphasise sovereignty not as the permanent possession of the hero or of the ruler, but to rather insist on the ambiguity of the hero, the impermanence of power, and the importance of knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom.

 

Mythological Manuals: Mythology and Ritual Hermeneutics in Ancient Egypt

Jens Blach Jørgensen

 

My project will focus on the mythological manuals from Late Period Egypt (app. 650 BCE - 200 CE). These manuals are part of a larger corpus of priestly manuals, used by the Egyptian priests for education and as works of reference.

In the Book of the Temple, currently being edited by Professor Joachim Quack of Heidelberg University, a section deals with the education of the higher ranking priests. In the field of mythology, Egyptian priests were required to learn about both the mythology of the entire land, and, in particular, about the specific district to which they belonged.

Both types of mythological knowledge, i.e. the broad knowledge of the mythologies of the different districts, and the detailed knowledge of the local tradition, can be found in the preserved mythological manuals.

My work will focus on how mythological knowledge is structured and interpreted in these manuals, with special attention given to mythological interpretation of materia sacra: places, relics and rituals belonging to the cult of the gods, and second order mythological interpretation, where mythology is interpreted in light of paradigmatic myths, especially the myth of Osiris.

By studying the mythological manuals, the priests learned to actively use mythological language as tool, and so prepared themselves for the eventual use of this knowledge in rituals, where the manuals then came to serve as books of reference.

As part of the research of the centre Canon and Identity Formation, my project will contribute to our understanding of how priests in the Late Period were educated, and how the category of sacral knowledge was formed in the individual priest, not only as a store of traditional knowledge, but also as an instrument of the ritual power that came with being a bearer of this knowledge.

 

Foreign and Abracadabra: The use of non-native and unintelligible language in ritual and magical texts

Joanna Kyffin

This project focuses on the use of non-native and unintelligible language in magical and ritual texts from Egypt and the wider Eastern Mediterranean in antiquity. The practice of including sections of text in other languages (real or nonsensical) is found as far back as the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, and is widespread across the Ancient Near East, from at least the Old Babylonian Period onwards. Taking a socially contextualized approach, whereby the reception of the texts in performance is prioritized, this project has two main aims. The first is to investigate the use of this practice as a ritualisation strategy, and the significance of this in terms of looking at magic and ritual as embedded social practice. The project will also seek to determine whether the use of non-native and unintelligible language provides evidence of the transmission of magical texts between contemporaneous cultures, or whether it is indicative that magical and ritual practices share key elements across different cultures.

 

Conservation of papyri from ancient Egypt

Ulrike Lau-Lamb

A project to conserve the papyrus collection belonging to the University of Copenhagen and train local staff in relevant conservation techniques.

 

āšipūtu in the neo-assyrian period: a vehicle of power and knowledge

Bjarne Lodahl

This project will focus on fundamental aspects of one of the important genres in neo-assyrian literature, āšipūtu (“the art of conjuration/magic/exorcism”), a concept not easy definable in modern terms. The exorcistic ritual had as its purpose the protection against or the expelling of a specific “evil”, be it a demon, ilness, ill-portending omen or the like. It contained different prescriptions of actions (agenda) as well as words (dicenda) to be performed by a professional, āšipu (“exorcist”).
 Though the corpus of texts is of a considerable size, there have been but few attempts to explain the inner “logic” of an exorcistic ritual, the publications being most text editions. This project will try to compare “standard” exorcistic rituals from different neo-assyrian āšipūtu texts (e.g. utukku lemnūtu, šurpu, maqlû, namburbû rituals etc) and at the same time applying non-ritualistic literature as support, thereby both attaching importance to a phenomenological as well as a mesopotamian intertextual approach.
 As part of the research at CIF I will try to contribute to the understanding of how power and knowledge expressed  itself in the āšipūtu literature, the former showing in different manifestations and identifications of the “numinous” in ritual context, the latter in the narrative connection to ritual, sometimes implicit, but also explicit in the form of myths lending a certain kind of scholarly legitimation to the process.

 

Akkadian as a lingua franca: Language Use and Linguistic Identity in the Ancient Near East.

Seraina Nett

The 2nd millennium B.C. is a period where a marked increase in organised trade relations and international contact over a wide area can be observed in the archaeological and philological record of the Ancient Near East. The language used to facilitate communication in this internationalised environment is an Akkadian dialect, in use from Cyprus to Anatolia, Egypt and Syria.
 The project focuses on the questions of how, when and why Babylonian became the main lingua franca of the Ancient Near East and how this process affected the local language communities and their linguistic identity and self-perception.
 The data comprises documents written in cuneiform script unearthed in archives throughout the Near East, mainly in Egypt, Anatolia and along the Levantine coast. Two main foci will be relevant for the analysis of the data: on the one hand the archaeological material and the context in which the texts were written, and on the other hand the linguistic features of the texts in question, especially with regard to bilingualism, dialectal forms and source language interference.

 

Textual criticism and meta-text in ancient Egyptian compilations

Rune Nyord

 

The project examines ancient Egyptian scribal traditions as reflected in technical texts based on meta-textual references within the texts. Such texts often occur in compilations giving the impression of having been collected on the basis of several different sources or having been copied from such compilations.

In addition, the texts contain a number of features of use in elucidating the scribe's view of the different textual elements, their areas of application and mutual relationship. This is particularly true of the sections of the texts broadly characterizable as meta-textual, i.e. headings, instructions and glosses. In common for all these types of commentaries is the fact that they are often written in red (rubra), but at the same time, they are characterized by a number of formal features making their identification possible even when they are not given special emphasis in the manuscript. Headings usually give a brief characterization of the function and applicability of the spell or receipt, while instructions elaborate on the application and provide practical guidance for the use of the text. Glosses are remarks or explanations of particular expressions in the text, either original or added to the original in later copies. These meta-textual elements share the fact that they make reference to the main text and hence indirectly give indications of the scribe's attitude towards the body of texts being copied.

Analyses of metatext are used to elucidate the scribes' presuppositions about the world in which the texts are intended to work and the role played by the texts on this background. Thus, from even very short headings such as "Driving out worms" or "Becoming a swallow", a number of ontological assumptions are built into the linguistic constructions, and by combining a large number of such meta-textual references, including some which are much more detailed, patterns of conceptualization become apparent, providing insight into the setting of the texts as viewed by the ancient scribe.

 

Elements for the Study of Old Kingdom Society in Egypt

Hratch Papazian

The study of society in the formative phases of the Egyptian civilization (ca. 3000-2200 B.C.) has, until only recently, been neglected. The scarcity of the evidence has often been cited as a primary reason for this deficit in scholarship. However, a fairly varied set of sources allows us the opportunity to examine the socio-economic features of this pivotal period more closely. I am in the process, therefore, of analysing aspects of the early periods through different methods, incorporating both textual and archaeological sources. The first consists of finalising my manuscript entitled Domain of Pharaoh: The Structure and Components of the Economy of Old Kingdom Egypt, which will appear later this year. Secondly, I will be collaborating with the University of Chicago at the Tell Edfu Project in Egypt regarding the preliminary survey of the vicinity of the non-funerary Old Kingdom pyramid at that site. This archaeological project holds great potential for studying the importance of such structures with respect to socio-economic aspects, but also in terms of expressions of piety and the worship of the living king.

The Greek Papyri in the Tebtunis Temple Library

Marco Perale

Several of the Egyptian texts belonging to the Tebtunis Temple Library were written on the back of discarded Greek papyrus manuscripts. These Greek texts have never been systematically studied, but shed important light on issues of dating, administration and social history. This project will study and provide relevant information about the texts, and selected documents will will be singled out for publication.

 

The Tebtunis Temple Library

Kim Ryholt

 

The Tebtunis temple library is the only preserved institutional library from ancient Egypt and provides a unique insight into what such an establishment might contain. Although much of the material has not yet been edited, it is now clear that the scope and nature of the library is larger than anyone expected. It contained close to 400 texts, about half of which relate to the cult and priesthood, while the other half is scientific or narrative in nature. The strong representation of narrative material is especially noteworthy. The oldest manuscripts can be dated to the 1st century BC, while the bulk of the material may be assigned to the second half of the 1st century and the 2nd century AD; the latest dated papyrus belongs to the early 3rd century AD and it may be assumed that the library was abandoned not too long after.

The preservation of the material is very poor, but this does not diminish its fundamental importance. The collection of manuscripts offers an unparalleled insight into a whole range of aspects concerning the scope and operation of an actual temple library; what type of material did it include? what was its size? how was material collected, copied, collated, edited, and distributed? what was the life-span of a manuscript? was there a systematic maintenance? how many scribes were involved in the operation of the library? were they specialized? Such insights may, in turn, help to provide a frame for the interpretation of much other extant material lacking a larger context and at the same time place the ancient Egyptian history of institutional libraries in a broader context.

Most of the extant material from the temple library now belongs to the University of Copenhagen (the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection), and over the past two decades, we have collaborated with various other collections and an international network of scholars in the effort to reconstruct and publish the extensive material. For further details of the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection and the publications, cf. pcarlsberg.ku.dk.

Identity and Cultural Self-reflection in Ancient Egyptian Literature

Rana Salim

 

The purpose of the dissertation is to explore how the ancient Egyptian culture is reflected in narratives and how this picture changes through time. It seeks to elucidate the cultural context of the material and present a general overview of a number of societal issues communicated in the texts. Within these issues, the project primarily focuses on identity formation, ideology, norms, as well as social and literary decorum.

At present, most of the studies on ancient Egyptian literature have focused on selected topics and limited historical periods. Contrary to this approach, the present project seeks to present the first comprehensive study of the historical process - la longue durée- and above all, to incorporate the extensive, but rarely studied material from the last thousand years of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

The theoretical framework of the project is mainly inspired by to researchers.

1) The Egyptologist and religious historian Jan Assmann. He identifies Middle Egyptian literature (ca. 2000 B.C.) as "cultural texts" having an "identity function" that expressed the society´s self-perception. The texts thus functioned as part of a normative and formative cultural program that promoted the cultural identity and passed it on from one generation to the other.

2) The American literary critic and founder of New Historicism Stephen Greenblatt. His main interests are the British renaissance and Shakespeare. He focuses on mentality and cultural history and argues that literature does not simply create a fictitious world but constitutes an active part of its contemporary culture. He is against the idea that renaissance literature reflects a coherent world view of the entire population of its time (historicism) and stresses the importance of focusing on how the material was connected to the contemporary network of institutions, practice, and religious views that constituted the renaissance culture in its entirety.

The project will include published narratives and benefit from a significant number of yet unpublished material. In this respect, I am in a favorable situation since the University of Copenhagen owns the majority of the material from the only surviving ancient Egyptian temple library. This material includes a great amount of literature in the process of being published through an international research corporation (Center of Canon and Identity Formation). Lesser parts of the material is housed, among other places in, Berlin, London and Florence.

The material amounts to c. 15 well preserved texts and around 50 significant fragments. The texts are authored in Middle and Late Egyptian, and Demotic (language systems). They are written in the monumental hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic (writing systems). My training in these languages and writing systems will contribute to analyzing and interpreting relevant concepts and passages in the texts. In addition to the Egyptian material, an additional number of texts have survived in Greek, Latin and Aramaic translations and replicas.

The research will focus on a number of aspects that reflect various forms of cultural self-reflection. Among these are:

Motifs: what were the dominating topics in the respective historical periods and to what extent, and in which manner did they change.

Protagonists: here they historical, anonymous, or fictitious and how were they used as tools of identity formation?

Cultural encounters: how did the Egyptians describe their own and other cultures? This aspect includes descriptions of social decorum.

Literary decorum: To which extent were various forms of censorship/self-censorship exercised?

The archeological contexts of the material will, where it is possible, be included. This will contribute to understanding where, when, and how were the texts used in their respective periods. For example, which texts were canonical, which belonged to local traditions, and which were perceived as national historical sources?

 

Barbarians in their Midst: The Intellectualization of Ethnicity by Babylonian Political Institutions during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age

Jonathan Tenney

This project examines the evolution and intellectualization of ethnic and geographic labels given to non-native populations—Aramaeans, Chaldeans, Kassites, etc.—as they integrated into the established Babylonian substratum over the course of multiple historical periods (Kassite to Neo-Babylonian Periods), focusing on three specific questions: what was the Babylonian institutional understanding of ethnicity (perhaps different from the general population’s understanding of ethnicity), whether government institutions co-opted ethnic terms as administrative categories, and whether some ethnic labels (gentilics) expressed geographic origin rather than cultural or familial affinities.