This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world’s earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study.
Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period (ca. 3300–539 BCE). The volume is divided into two parts: the first addressing theoretical and methodological issues through thematic analyses and the second encompassing corpus-based approaches to specific emotions. Part I addresses emotions and history, defining the terms, materialization and material remains, kings and the state, and engaging the gods. Part II explores happiness and joy; fear, terror, and awe; sadness, grief, and depression; contempt, disgust, and shame; anger and hate; envy and jealousy; love, affection, and admiration; and pity, empathy, and compassion. Numerous sub-themes threading through the volume explore such topics as emotional expression and suppression in relation to social status, gender, the body, and particular social and spatial conditions or material contexts.
The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East is an invaluable and accessible resource for Near Eastern studies and adjacent fields, including Classical, Biblical, and medieval studies, and a must-read for scholars, students, and others interested in the history and cross-cultural study of emotions.
Author(s): Karen Sonik, Ulrike Steinert
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 816
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Editors’ Note
Transliteration Conventions for Ancient Texts
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Emotions in the Ancient Near East: Foundations for a Developing Field of Study
PART I Theoretical and Thematic Approaches and Methods
I. Emotions and History
1 The Emotions of Dead Civilizations: “Come, Tell Me How You Lived”
2 Emotion and the Body: Embodiment, Conceptual Metaphor, and Linguistic Encoding of Emotions in Akkadian
3 Digital Approaches to Analyzing and Translating Emotion: What Is Love?
II. Defining the Terms
4 Sumerian Emotion Terms
5 Akkadian Emotion Terms
6 Hittite Emotion Terms
7 Ugaritic Emotion Terms
III. Materialization and Material Remains
8 Emotions and Archaeology in Ancient Mesopotamia
9 Emotions and Musical Performance
10 Emotions and Body Language: The Expression of Emotions in Visual Art
IV. Kings and the State
11 Emotions and Assyrian Kingship
12 Emotions and Hittite Kingship: Feeling Like a King
13 Emotions and the Brotherhood of Kings: Affection in the Amarna Letters
V. Engaging the Gods
14 Emotions and Emesal Laments: Motivations, Performance, and Management
15 Emotions and Ritual Laments: The Affective Function of Beer in Mesopotamia
16 Emotions and Religion: Ritual Performance in Mesopotamia
17 Emotions and Hittite Prayers
PART II Corpus-Based Approaches
I. Happiness and Joy
18 Joy and Happiness in Mesopotamian Royal Inscriptions
19 Joy and Happiness in Hittite Texts
II. Fear, Terror, and Awe
20 Awe as Entangled Emotion: Prosociality, Collective Action, and Aesthetics in the Sumerian Gilgamesh Narratives
21 Fear and Terror in Assyrian Palace Reliefs
III. Sadness, Grief, and Depression
22 Grief and Sadness in the Sumerian Gilgamesh Narratives
23 Sadness and Grief in Akkadian Texts
24 Grief and Sadness in Ugaritic Texts
IV. Contempt, Disgust, and Shame
25 Contempt and Related Emotions in Hittite and Akkadian Literary Texts
26 Shaming the Enemy in Assyrian Palace Reliefs and Royal Inscriptions
V. Anger and Hate
27 Anger and Hatred in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Royal Inscriptions
28 Anger and Hatred in Hittite Te
VI. Envy and Jealousy
29 Envy and Jealousy in Magico-Medical Texts
VII. Love, Affection, and Admiration
30 Love and Desire in Sumerian Texts
31 Love and Kindness in the Assyrian State
32 Love and Affection in Hittite Texts
VIII. Pity, Empathy, and Compassion
33 Compassion, Pity, and Empathy in Sumerian Sources
34 Pity and Suffering in Old Babylonian Akkadian Sources
Index
