The nature of divine speech in Antiquity in the Mediterranean Basin has often been the object of ... more The nature of divine speech in Antiquity in the Mediterranean Basin has often been the object of scholarly analysis, especially regarding its divinatory context and questions of genre and rhetoric. The present volume not only provokes a dialogue with this past research, but seeks to respond to a problem that has received little consideration until now: the articulation of divine speech with the various forms of its representation (linguistic, literary, and material). The aim is to analyze the nature of divine speech through its materiality and the impact of the latter on the former’s definition and evolution.
La recherche s’est souvent intéressée à la nature du discours divin dans l’Antiquité, par exemple, les contextes divinatoires ou encore les questions de forme et de rhétorique. Si le présent volume n’exclut pas que ces questions soient à nouveau abordées, il vise cependant à répondre plus précisément à une question qui n’a pas encore été traitée, à savoir l’articulation du discours divin avec ses différentes formes de représentations (linguistiques, littéraires et matérielles). Le but est d’étudier ces différentes représentations et de montrer comment elles participent de la définition même et du statut du discours en question.
100 years ago, Emmanuel Laroche was born. As a scholar who was fascinated both by Indo-European L... more 100 years ago, Emmanuel Laroche was born. As a scholar who was fascinated both by Indo-European Linguistics and Ancient Near Eastern and Classical Studies, he had a durable impact on Hittitology through his numerous contributions. His publications dealt with History of Near Eastern Religions, Cuneiform Philology, and Hittite, Luwian, and Hurrian grammar, among many other topics. This conference was organized in honor of his 100th birthday. Its aim was to discuss the recent developments in Hittitology, the ones to whom Emmanuel Laroche contributed and the ones which occurred after his time. The following themes are dealt with in this volume: Anatolian Linguistics, Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic Philology and Epigraphy, Religions of Bronze and Early Iron Age Anatolia, History and Historical Geography of Asia Minor, but also Near Eastern Archaeology, as Emmanuel Laroche was also very close to this discipline. Let us add to those fields Historiography which illustrates, among other things, the impact of Emmanuel Laroche’s work on today’s Hittitology.
Il y a 100 ans, Emmanuel Laroche voyait le jour. Savant à la fois passionné de linguistique indo-européenne et d’Antiquité, il marqua durablement l’hittitologie par ses nombreuses contributions dans des domaines aussi variés que l’histoire des religions proche-orientales, la philologie cunéiforme ou encore la grammaire du hittite, du louvite et du hourrite. Ce colloque organisé en l’honneur de son centenaire a été l’occasion de faire le point sur les avancées de l’hittitologie actuelle, avancées auxquelles il participa tout au long de sa vie et qui se poursuivent après lui. Les axes thématiques qui sont abordés dans ce volume sont ceux qu’Emmanuel Laroche développa de son vivant, à savoir la linguistique des langues anatoliennes, la philologie et l’épigraphie cunéiforme et hiéroglyphique, les religions de l’Anatolie hittite et néo-hittite, l’histoire et la géographie historique, mais aussi l’archéologie proche-orientale, domaine qu’Emmanuel Laroche côtoya de près. Ajoutons à ces domaines celui de l’historiographie qui illustre, entre autres choses, l’impact des travaux d’Emmanuel Laroche dans l’hittitologie d’aujourd’hui.
Parmi les quelque 30 000 fragments de tablettes cunéiformes mis au jour dans la capitale hittite ... more Parmi les quelque 30 000 fragments de tablettes cunéiformes mis au jour dans la capitale hittite Hattuša/Boğazköy, les textes religieux sont majoritaires. Parmi eux, les rituels, les mythes et les prières occupent une place importante, reflétant aussi bien les croyances et les pratiques religieuses du Pays de Hatti que la littérature hittite. Cet ouvrage offre pour la première fois une anthologie en langue française de ces textes accompagnés de leur translittération en regard.
Biological and social life of human beings is punctuated by rites of passage. Although some of th... more Biological and social life of human beings is punctuated by rites of passage. Although some of them are documented in detail, rites of passage in ancient Near Eastern cultures have not previously been presented comprehensively and parallel to each other. A thorough study is achieved in this volume by combining various approaches and disciplines. The basic rites of passage are examined: birth, adolescence, changes of social status, and death.
The present volume consists of twenty-one contributions by specialists of ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and neighbouring cultures. It is structured around three main axes: “Becoming someone: The social dimension of rites of passage”, where the interface between the religious sphere and the socio-political structure is examined; “Real life, symbolic life: Ritualized life and death in rites of passage”, or how each threshold crossed by an individual is perceived as a new beginning; and “Liminality and impurity: The dangers of transformation”, which defines the complex relation between notions of purity and impurity and rites of passage.
The contributors of this volume are (in alphabetical order): M.-L. Arnette (Egyptology), J. Bidmead (Assyriology), S. Boehringer (Ancient Greek), Cl. Calame (Ancient Greek), V. Dasen (Classics), S. Donnat (Egyptology), Chr. Eyre (Egyptology), A. Gilan (Hittitology), J.-J. Glassner (Assyriology), S. Görke (Hittitology), Chr. Greco (Egyptology), R. Hawley (Ugaritology), F. Huber Vuillet (Assyriology), D. Katz (Sumerology), S. Laribi-Glaudel (Assyriology), D. Lefèvre-Novaro (Greek Archaeology), M. Gr. Masetti-Rouault (Assyriology), Gr. Mobley (Biblical studies), J. C. Moreno García (Egyptology), A. Mouton (Hittitology), J. Patrier (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. Roche (Assyriology), I. Rutherford (Ancient Greek), I. Sachet (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. van den Hoven (Egyptology) and N. Yoffee (Assyriology).
published in: J.-M. Carbon and G. Ekroth (eds), From Snout to Tail. Exploring the Greek Sacrificial Animal from the Literary, Epigraphical, Iconographical, Archaeological and Zooarchaeological Evidence, Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae, Series in 4°, 60, Sevenska institutet i Athen, Stock...
published in: Kathryn Morgan (ed.), Pomp, Circumstance, and the Performance of Politics: Acting Politically Correct in the Ancient World, ISAC Seminars 16, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago, Chicago, 2024, pp. 179-192
published in: Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Ilaria Calini, Robert Hawley and Lorenzo d'Alfonso (eds), Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration (1200–900 BCE). Proceedings of the NYU-PSL International Colloquium, Paris Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, April 16–17...
published in: Esma Reyhan, Leyla Murat Karakurt and Tülin Cengiz (eds), Şapinuva’ya adanmış hayatlar: Aygül Süel ve Mustafa Süel armağan kitabı, Bilgin Kültür Sanat Yayınları, Ankara, 2024, pp. 259-271
published in: N. Heessel and E. Zomer (eds), Legitimising Magic. Strategies and Practices in Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Magic and Divination 21, Brill, 2023, pp. 16-36
The nature of divine speech in Antiquity in the Mediterranean Basin has often been the object of ... more The nature of divine speech in Antiquity in the Mediterranean Basin has often been the object of scholarly analysis, especially regarding its divinatory context and questions of genre and rhetoric. The present volume not only provokes a dialogue with this past research, but seeks to respond to a problem that has received little consideration until now: the articulation of divine speech with the various forms of its representation (linguistic, literary, and material). The aim is to analyze the nature of divine speech through its materiality and the impact of the latter on the former’s definition and evolution.
La recherche s’est souvent intéressée à la nature du discours divin dans l’Antiquité, par exemple, les contextes divinatoires ou encore les questions de forme et de rhétorique. Si le présent volume n’exclut pas que ces questions soient à nouveau abordées, il vise cependant à répondre plus précisément à une question qui n’a pas encore été traitée, à savoir l’articulation du discours divin avec ses différentes formes de représentations (linguistiques, littéraires et matérielles). Le but est d’étudier ces différentes représentations et de montrer comment elles participent de la définition même et du statut du discours en question.
100 years ago, Emmanuel Laroche was born. As a scholar who was fascinated both by Indo-European L... more 100 years ago, Emmanuel Laroche was born. As a scholar who was fascinated both by Indo-European Linguistics and Ancient Near Eastern and Classical Studies, he had a durable impact on Hittitology through his numerous contributions. His publications dealt with History of Near Eastern Religions, Cuneiform Philology, and Hittite, Luwian, and Hurrian grammar, among many other topics. This conference was organized in honor of his 100th birthday. Its aim was to discuss the recent developments in Hittitology, the ones to whom Emmanuel Laroche contributed and the ones which occurred after his time. The following themes are dealt with in this volume: Anatolian Linguistics, Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic Philology and Epigraphy, Religions of Bronze and Early Iron Age Anatolia, History and Historical Geography of Asia Minor, but also Near Eastern Archaeology, as Emmanuel Laroche was also very close to this discipline. Let us add to those fields Historiography which illustrates, among other things, the impact of Emmanuel Laroche’s work on today’s Hittitology.
Il y a 100 ans, Emmanuel Laroche voyait le jour. Savant à la fois passionné de linguistique indo-européenne et d’Antiquité, il marqua durablement l’hittitologie par ses nombreuses contributions dans des domaines aussi variés que l’histoire des religions proche-orientales, la philologie cunéiforme ou encore la grammaire du hittite, du louvite et du hourrite. Ce colloque organisé en l’honneur de son centenaire a été l’occasion de faire le point sur les avancées de l’hittitologie actuelle, avancées auxquelles il participa tout au long de sa vie et qui se poursuivent après lui. Les axes thématiques qui sont abordés dans ce volume sont ceux qu’Emmanuel Laroche développa de son vivant, à savoir la linguistique des langues anatoliennes, la philologie et l’épigraphie cunéiforme et hiéroglyphique, les religions de l’Anatolie hittite et néo-hittite, l’histoire et la géographie historique, mais aussi l’archéologie proche-orientale, domaine qu’Emmanuel Laroche côtoya de près. Ajoutons à ces domaines celui de l’historiographie qui illustre, entre autres choses, l’impact des travaux d’Emmanuel Laroche dans l’hittitologie d’aujourd’hui.
Parmi les quelque 30 000 fragments de tablettes cunéiformes mis au jour dans la capitale hittite ... more Parmi les quelque 30 000 fragments de tablettes cunéiformes mis au jour dans la capitale hittite Hattuša/Boğazköy, les textes religieux sont majoritaires. Parmi eux, les rituels, les mythes et les prières occupent une place importante, reflétant aussi bien les croyances et les pratiques religieuses du Pays de Hatti que la littérature hittite. Cet ouvrage offre pour la première fois une anthologie en langue française de ces textes accompagnés de leur translittération en regard.
Biological and social life of human beings is punctuated by rites of passage. Although some of th... more Biological and social life of human beings is punctuated by rites of passage. Although some of them are documented in detail, rites of passage in ancient Near Eastern cultures have not previously been presented comprehensively and parallel to each other. A thorough study is achieved in this volume by combining various approaches and disciplines. The basic rites of passage are examined: birth, adolescence, changes of social status, and death.
The present volume consists of twenty-one contributions by specialists of ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and neighbouring cultures. It is structured around three main axes: “Becoming someone: The social dimension of rites of passage”, where the interface between the religious sphere and the socio-political structure is examined; “Real life, symbolic life: Ritualized life and death in rites of passage”, or how each threshold crossed by an individual is perceived as a new beginning; and “Liminality and impurity: The dangers of transformation”, which defines the complex relation between notions of purity and impurity and rites of passage.
The contributors of this volume are (in alphabetical order): M.-L. Arnette (Egyptology), J. Bidmead (Assyriology), S. Boehringer (Ancient Greek), Cl. Calame (Ancient Greek), V. Dasen (Classics), S. Donnat (Egyptology), Chr. Eyre (Egyptology), A. Gilan (Hittitology), J.-J. Glassner (Assyriology), S. Görke (Hittitology), Chr. Greco (Egyptology), R. Hawley (Ugaritology), F. Huber Vuillet (Assyriology), D. Katz (Sumerology), S. Laribi-Glaudel (Assyriology), D. Lefèvre-Novaro (Greek Archaeology), M. Gr. Masetti-Rouault (Assyriology), Gr. Mobley (Biblical studies), J. C. Moreno García (Egyptology), A. Mouton (Hittitology), J. Patrier (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. Roche (Assyriology), I. Rutherford (Ancient Greek), I. Sachet (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. van den Hoven (Egyptology) and N. Yoffee (Assyriology).
published in: J.-M. Carbon and G. Ekroth (eds), From Snout to Tail. Exploring the Greek Sacrificial Animal from the Literary, Epigraphical, Iconographical, Archaeological and Zooarchaeological Evidence, Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae, Series in 4°, 60, Sevenska institutet i Athen, Stock...
published in: Kathryn Morgan (ed.), Pomp, Circumstance, and the Performance of Politics: Acting Politically Correct in the Ancient World, ISAC Seminars 16, Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the University of Chicago, Chicago, 2024, pp. 179-192
published in: Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Ilaria Calini, Robert Hawley and Lorenzo d'Alfonso (eds), Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration (1200–900 BCE). Proceedings of the NYU-PSL International Colloquium, Paris Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, April 16–17...
published in: Esma Reyhan, Leyla Murat Karakurt and Tülin Cengiz (eds), Şapinuva’ya adanmış hayatlar: Aygül Süel ve Mustafa Süel armağan kitabı, Bilgin Kültür Sanat Yayınları, Ankara, 2024, pp. 259-271
published in: N. Heessel and E. Zomer (eds), Legitimising Magic. Strategies and Practices in Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Magic and Divination 21, Brill, 2023, pp. 16-36
published in: L. Warbinek and F. Giusfredi (eds), Theonyms, Panthea and Syncretisms in Hittite Anatolia and Northern Syria, Studia Asiana 14, 2023
Through the contextual analysis of the occurrences of solar deities in the Kuwattalla ritual text... more Through the contextual analysis of the occurrences of solar deities in the Kuwattalla ritual texts, we will try to sketch a portrait of these deities, focusing on their functions in the ritual process. Special attention will be paid to the combination of ritual gestures with Luwian incantations, since the latter might help to define the specificities of each member of this divine group.
published in: R. Da Riva, A. Arroyo and C. Debourse (eds), Ceremonies, Feasts and Festivities in Ancient Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean World. Performance and Participation, Melammu Workshops and Monographs 7, Münster: Zaphon, 2022, pp. 227-240
published in: COULON, Jean-Charles et DOSOO, Korshi (dir.), Magikon Zōon. Animal et magie dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge, Bibliothèque d’Histoire des Textes 2, Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, Paris-Orléans, pp. 71-84, 2022
published in: R. Müller, H. Neumann and S. Salo (eds), Rituale und Magie in Ugarit. Praxis, Kontexte und Bedeutung, Tübingen, Mohr Siebek, pp. 283-290, 2022
Through the combined study of the Hittite cuneiform texts and the archaeological data, we try to ... more Through the combined study of the Hittite cuneiform texts and the archaeological data, we try to draw a map of the Hūlaya river land, a Luwian-speaking area of the Hittite kingdom. e philological inquiry focuses on two diplomatic treaties that were established by the Great King of Hatti and the king of Tarhuntašša, whose territory was closely connected to the Hūlaya river land. e archaeological inquiry summarizes several survey campaigns performed in the region, including the surveys that we performed in the vicinity of Fasıllar (province of Beyşehir) between 2012 and 2015. Our methodology is based on reconstructing the ancient roads of the region, in order to restitute the urban network of the Hittite period.
The purpose of this paper is to assess complications in Luwian dialectal geography in the second ... more The purpose of this paper is to assess complications in Luwian dialectal geography in the second millennium BCE, which became apparent in the course of the ongoing work on the edition of Luwian cuneiform texts. On the one hand, a number of Luwian incantations embedded into the ritual traditions of Puriyanni and Kuwattalla (CTH 758-763) and traditionally assigned to the dialect of Kizzuwadna in the southwest of Asia Minor can now be linked to the Lower Land in the central and central-western part of Asia Minor. The increasing Kizzuwadna features of the Kuwattalla tradition, including the Hurrian loanwords in the respective texts, likely reflect its secondary evolution at the court of Hattusa. On the other hand, a large group of Luwian conjurations that is booked under CTH 764-766 can now be linked to the town of Taurisa situated to the northeast of Hattusa. Their language shows dialectal peculiarities, while their formulaic repertoire finds non-trivial parallels in Hattic and Palaic texts. The concluding part of the paper addresses the relevance of these new empirical findings for the dialectal classification of the Luwian language.
published in: L. Recht and C. Tsouparopoulou (eds), Fierce lions, angry mice and fat-tailed sheep: Animal encounters in the ancient Near East, 2021, pp. 79-94, https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/328721
This conference will bring together specialists in Luwian and experts in the adjacent languages a... more This conference will bring together specialists in Luwian and experts in the adjacent languages and cultures and comparative religion. Using the Luwili team’s preliminary translations of Luwian religious texts as their logical starting points whenever relevant, the conference participants will explore the modalities of religious language among various subgroups of Hittite-Luwian compositions and other languages of the area. A particular emphasis will be placed on the exchange of opinions among the team members on how their findings contribute to deciphering of Luwian incantations and the improved understanding of the ritual practices they allude to.
Fatness and thinness has been a much underexploited topic in the study of classical Antiquity. In... more Fatness and thinness has been a much underexploited topic in the study of classical Antiquity. In this presentation, I will carefully analyse the Greek and Roman vocabulary to denote the matter. After this, I will catalogue information on concrete instances of persons who were considered to have suffered from overweight, or emaciation. On a second level, I will deal with popular mentality regarding overweight or thinness. Thirdly, medical and/or philosophical theory regarding weight problems will be studied. In this, the moral discourse linking obesity with gluttony or weakness and avarice with underweight will be examined. I will also ask whether changed Christian attitudes towards the body and bodily functions lead to new concepts regarding the matter. For these different levels of questions, I will take into account concepts of disability history, asking whether the obviously impairing factors of excess weight or the opposite of it lead to social disfunctionality, hindering people from important social functions and subjecting them to social stigma.
The Ugaritian poets' stereotyped use of body-based metaphors for conveying the experience of inte... more The Ugaritian poets' stereotyped use of body-based metaphors for conveying the experience of intense emotions such as delight, fear or grief has long been recognized. Several " stock " phrases and passages appear repeatedly in a number of different lyric and epic songs, all of which were probably set down in writing (in the local vernacular and by means of the alphabetic cuneiform script then in use) in the mid-to late 13th century BC. This presentation will give a brief survey of the body-based vocabulary used in these stock phrases, along with an overview of the history of their interpretation, and of the (lexicographic) problems which remain unresolved. A sketch of where (that is, in which internal organ or organs) the Ugaritian poets believed the individual emotions to manifest themselves will then be attempted, and some synchronic and diachronic comparisons with other ancient literatures made.
Amuletic devices of various material and shapes were ubiquitous in ancient daily life as personal... more Amuletic devices of various material and shapes were ubiquitous in ancient daily life as personal protections, especially in the lives of women and children. For long, scholars have regarded this material as anecdotical and marginal, like magic as a whole. These objects may appear difficult to date and contextualize because their shapes and material belong indeed to very ancient traditions, such as the lunula or the shell, going back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, but in a continuing process of transmission and adaption to new religious and social contexts. The example of Omphale and Heracles' club and knot in the Roman period shows how these devices can deliver an unexpected discourse on the body, gender and sexuality. The use of amuletic protections is traditionally interpreted as a response to vulnerability, but amulets can also be interpreted as evidence of the mastery that Roman women aimed to have – or were assumed to have – of their own body.
The ancient Greek civilisation is well known for its art characterized by the enhancement of the ... more The ancient Greek civilisation is well known for its art characterized by the enhancement of the beauty of the body. The texts themselves, since Homer, tend to emphasize the beauty of youth and the perfectio n of the body's integrity without flaws or missing parts. The mutilation of the body was viewed among the ancient Greeks as a mark of 'barbaric' (i.e. non-Greek) culture or as a symbol of punishment and enslavement. In this paper, I will call 'mutilation' any kind of permanent body alteration, following the French anthropologist Claude Chippaux. I will present the main results of my research, dwelling on some paradigmatic cases. First, I will show how ancient Greek literature and culture emphasized the beauty of the complete body and rejected all kinds of body modification. Secondly, I will focus on the Greek vocabulary of body mutilation; despite the absence of a single word to express it, a large range of compound verbs and substantives exist. I will also present a few passages illustrating Greek mutilation practices. These will show that, despite their disdain for altering the body, Greeks themselves thought they had practiced mutilation in their distant past; they were still tempted to do so in historical times.
Ancient Greek bronze mirrors provided women essential knowledge about the body throughout the fem... more Ancient Greek bronze mirrors provided women essential knowledge about the body throughout the female life-cycle. Mirrors were vital for navigating the bodily transformations of marriage, childbirth, and death, and facilitated important social connections with a woman's natal family, with other women, and with the divine. Although mirrors are often interpreted as simple toilet articles, or as straightforward symbols of beauty or vanity, they functioned as complex tools for the social construction of the female body in ancient Greece.
Like other aspects of human behaviour, gestures and bodily habitus are partly innate and partly d... more Like other aspects of human behaviour, gestures and bodily habitus are partly innate and partly determined by culture. Bodily habitus is thus at least to some extent learnt and politically determined. In this paper, I shall attempt to compare and contrast aspects of the gestural repertoire of ancient Greece with its Near Eastern Neighbours. There are many striking similarities, e.g. raising the hands in prayer, striking the thigh in anger or fear. It seems to be possible for bodily habitus to travel, as in the case of the Greek practice of reclining at the symposium which almost certainly comes from Assyria. On the other hand, in ancient Greek mentality there were significant differences between their own bodily habitus and those of other peoples: Greeks did not engage in " proskynesis " before monarchs, for example. A desideratum, if evidence allows, would be to map the distribution of a given bodily habitus in different ancient cultures. One case where this may be possible is the practice of holding on to another person's knees in supplication, which is well attested in Greek and Hittite sources, but apparently not well represented in other parts of the Ancient Near East.
In the so-called priestly texts within the Hebrew Bible, which might constitute one of the earlie... more In the so-called priestly texts within the Hebrew Bible, which might constitute one of the earliest continuous textual levels of the Torah, purity rules play an essential role. In their literary context, they are closely connected to a utopian constitution of a people who, at the likely time of the utopia's origin (after the conquest of Judah and Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE), lacked a cultic center as well as a political center of power. These purity rules imply ideas of the human body that might have parallels in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures and are only partly transfigured by their literary context. They have either been understood as an expression of an understanding of the human body predating the literature that makes use of them or as a pure literary device. I assume that both approaches have shortcomings. Utopian concepts (including underlying body concepts) have roots in a reality behind the text. This lecture will try to understand body concepts underlying the priestly purity rules in this multidimensional context.
Contrary to the Platonic and Cartesian traditions of a dichotomy between body and spirit, both Su... more Contrary to the Platonic and Cartesian traditions of a dichotomy between body and spirit, both Sumerians and Akkadians understood the person as the assemblage of its parts. In biblical studies, this approach has permitted to give back to the physical person all its importance. This conception of the unity of the person, widespread in the ancient Near East, also applies to the divine world: the gods are also their objects, their places and their attributes. I would like to pursue a reflection that has long been engaged about the divine face in biblical texts and its representation. Among all the bodily parts, the face represents the interface between the interior and the exterior of the person. But it also stands for the statue of the deity. My aim is to examine the various references to the face in the prophetic book of Isaiah, and to show how they not only confirm the essential function of the face in religious communication, but also enable us to seize major diachronic evolutions and understand the historical assets of representing or not the deity in its temple.
In the urbanized States of the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, free men and women never had to be ta... more In the urbanized States of the Ancient Mediterranean Basin, free men and women never had to be tattooed. In surrounding areas, however, tattooing was deeply rooted and institutionnalised among quite a significant number of human groups or tribes. In this regard, a remarkable case study is provided by Ancient Nubia and Egypt, two contrasted but intertwined neighbouring cultures that offer a vivid picture recently enhanced by new discoveries. Even now, specialists do not agree on the interpretation of the various archaeological and anthropological remains related to tattoo practices. I propose to clarify the issue in identifying two major types: a first one, customary tattooing, which tends to cover the skin surface with replicated geometrical patterns, and a second one, sub-cultural tattooing, characterized by more isolated pictographic designs. Through the study of these two tattooing practices, it will be shown that, in ancient States of the Mediterranean Basin, the legal authorities never considered human skin to be a suitable material for registering positive rights and privileges.
This paper will present alternative interpretations of the plastered skulls from the Neolithic of... more This paper will present alternative interpretations of the plastered skulls from the Neolithic of Southwest Asia (the Near East). Some individuals were buried beneath the floors of households and their skulls or crania later retrieved. A face was then constructed on to some of the skulls, using mud, lime or gypsum plaster. The plastered skulls are traditionally viewed as evidence of ancestor veneration, elite status, or as tools for social cohesions. This paper takes a new perspective, asking whether theories of grief and bereavement can aid our interpretations, inspired by recent research between archaeology and end-of-life care.
This paper will discuss the ways in which the king's body, his experiences, his knowledge and fee... more This paper will discuss the ways in which the king's body, his experiences, his knowledge and feelings were exploited as powerful tools to build up the reality in which ancient Mesopotamian culture could be integrated. Considering the pivotal importance of the royal body, it is interesting to realize that, in Mesopotamian culture and religion, notwithstanding some limited experiments, it never acquired a divine status. During the Neo-Assyrian period, ritual texts and letters, as well as iconography, show the importance attributed to the integrity and the purity of the king's body. By the end of the Empire, the king's body, identified as the passive object of cures, rituals and ceremonials, reveals also the limits of the king's power.
This talk outlines the concepts associated with the female body in gynaecological texts from 2 nd... more This talk outlines the concepts associated with the female body in gynaecological texts from 2 nd and 1 st millennium BCE Mesopotamia, concentrating on ideas about anatomy and the physiology of sexual reproductio n marked by conception, gestation and birth. I will show that the Mesopotamian texts employ a systematic set of interrelated metaphors, some of which are very common cross-culturally and are grounded in basic conceptual metaphors. The survey shows that the female body is represented as a productive body and that reproduction is seen in analogy to craft production and to processes in agriculture and animal husbandry (including water management and irrigation). Thus, in Mesopotamian medicine, the female body, its fertility and physiology are interpreted and regulated according to the experiences and practices of human-environment interaction, employing a model of the body which can be termed " the body technologic ".
Through the in-depth study of three religious texts from Hittite Anatolia, I intend to highlight ... more Through the in-depth study of three religious texts from Hittite Anatolia, I intend to highlight the functions of a person's body during religious ceremonies. The body of the ritual patron often constitutes both a central point of focus in the ritual discourse and a natural instrument of non-verbal communication. The body of the ritual expert, as well as that of the divine participants are also involved in various degrees. These observations are also valid for cultic festivals, although the nature of the bodily actions might differ.
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The ways men seek divine words in Antiquity through their prayers and rituals have often been stu... more The ways men seek divine words in Antiquity through their prayers and rituals have often been studied, whether they look for words of encouragement or need to acquire some knowledge about a decision to take or an event to come. However, the ways divine words are articulated and mediated have seldom been studied in a comparative approach. In other words, the literary form each divine speech takes (narratives, letters, annals), the medium through which it is conveyed (dreams, oracles, prophecies or any other divinatory form), as well as the material object upon which it is inscribed (tablets, leather rolls or papyri, monumental inscriptions) deserve further attention. Literary and divinatory forms should be of special interest, as much as the documents and material objects that are used to convey them. For instance, divine speech has sometimes been found on material supports that were deemed to be destroyed or recycled. Furthermore, it seems that the status of divine speech changed over time in different areas of the Ancient Mediterranean Basin. Its orality became worth preserving. Consequently, the material support acquired a status on its own, as much as divine speech itself. The aim of this symposium is to bring together experts from various fields, namely History, History of Religion, Archaeology, Epigraphy, Palaeography, Linguistics, etc., in order to examine the diversity of divine speech as it is articulated and mediated. The contexts in which divine speech occurs will be examined, as well as its literary and material forms.
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Books by Alice Mouton
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/ddo/artikel/85426/978-3-447-11995-5_Kostenloser%20Open%20Access-Download%20-%20Band%202.pdf#pagemode=thumbs
La recherche s’est souvent intéressée à la nature du discours divin dans l’Antiquité, par exemple, les contextes divinatoires ou encore les questions de forme et de rhétorique. Si le présent volume n’exclut pas que ces questions soient à nouveau abordées, il vise cependant à répondre plus précisément à une question qui n’a pas encore été traitée, à savoir l’articulation du discours divin avec ses différentes formes de représentations (linguistiques, littéraires et matérielles). Le but est d’étudier ces différentes représentations et de montrer comment elles participent de la définition même et du statut du discours en question.
Il y a 100 ans, Emmanuel Laroche voyait le jour. Savant à la fois passionné de linguistique indo-européenne et d’Antiquité, il marqua durablement l’hittitologie par ses nombreuses contributions dans des domaines aussi variés que l’histoire des religions proche-orientales, la philologie cunéiforme ou encore la grammaire du hittite, du louvite et du hourrite. Ce colloque organisé en l’honneur de son centenaire a été l’occasion de faire le point sur les avancées de l’hittitologie actuelle, avancées auxquelles il participa tout au long de sa vie et qui se poursuivent après lui. Les axes thématiques qui sont abordés dans ce volume sont ceux qu’Emmanuel Laroche développa de son vivant, à savoir la linguistique des langues anatoliennes, la philologie et l’épigraphie cunéiforme et hiéroglyphique, les religions de l’Anatolie hittite et néo-hittite, l’histoire et la géographie historique, mais aussi l’archéologie proche-orientale, domaine qu’Emmanuel Laroche côtoya de près. Ajoutons à ces domaines celui de l’historiographie qui illustre, entre autres choses, l’impact des travaux d’Emmanuel Laroche dans l’hittitologie d’aujourd’hui.
The present volume consists of twenty-one contributions by specialists of ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and neighbouring cultures. It is structured around three main axes: “Becoming someone: The social dimension of rites of passage”, where the interface between the religious sphere and the socio-political structure is examined; “Real life, symbolic life: Ritualized life and death in rites of passage”, or how each threshold crossed by an individual is perceived as a new beginning; and “Liminality and impurity: The dangers of transformation”, which defines the complex relation between notions of purity and impurity and rites of passage.
The contributors of this volume are (in alphabetical order): M.-L. Arnette (Egyptology), J. Bidmead (Assyriology), S. Boehringer (Ancient Greek), Cl. Calame (Ancient Greek), V. Dasen (Classics), S. Donnat (Egyptology), Chr. Eyre (Egyptology), A. Gilan (Hittitology), J.-J. Glassner (Assyriology), S. Görke (Hittitology), Chr. Greco (Egyptology), R. Hawley (Ugaritology), F. Huber Vuillet (Assyriology), D. Katz (Sumerology), S. Laribi-Glaudel (Assyriology), D. Lefèvre-Novaro (Greek Archaeology), M. Gr. Masetti-Rouault (Assyriology), Gr. Mobley (Biblical studies), J. C. Moreno García (Egyptology), A. Mouton (Hittitology), J. Patrier (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. Roche (Assyriology), I. Rutherford (Ancient Greek), I. Sachet (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. van den Hoven (Egyptology) and N. Yoffee (Assyriology).
Papers by Alice Mouton
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/ddo/artikel/85426/978-3-447-11995-5_Kostenloser%20Open%20Access-Download%20-%20Band%202.pdf#pagemode=thumbs
La recherche s’est souvent intéressée à la nature du discours divin dans l’Antiquité, par exemple, les contextes divinatoires ou encore les questions de forme et de rhétorique. Si le présent volume n’exclut pas que ces questions soient à nouveau abordées, il vise cependant à répondre plus précisément à une question qui n’a pas encore été traitée, à savoir l’articulation du discours divin avec ses différentes formes de représentations (linguistiques, littéraires et matérielles). Le but est d’étudier ces différentes représentations et de montrer comment elles participent de la définition même et du statut du discours en question.
Il y a 100 ans, Emmanuel Laroche voyait le jour. Savant à la fois passionné de linguistique indo-européenne et d’Antiquité, il marqua durablement l’hittitologie par ses nombreuses contributions dans des domaines aussi variés que l’histoire des religions proche-orientales, la philologie cunéiforme ou encore la grammaire du hittite, du louvite et du hourrite. Ce colloque organisé en l’honneur de son centenaire a été l’occasion de faire le point sur les avancées de l’hittitologie actuelle, avancées auxquelles il participa tout au long de sa vie et qui se poursuivent après lui. Les axes thématiques qui sont abordés dans ce volume sont ceux qu’Emmanuel Laroche développa de son vivant, à savoir la linguistique des langues anatoliennes, la philologie et l’épigraphie cunéiforme et hiéroglyphique, les religions de l’Anatolie hittite et néo-hittite, l’histoire et la géographie historique, mais aussi l’archéologie proche-orientale, domaine qu’Emmanuel Laroche côtoya de près. Ajoutons à ces domaines celui de l’historiographie qui illustre, entre autres choses, l’impact des travaux d’Emmanuel Laroche dans l’hittitologie d’aujourd’hui.
The present volume consists of twenty-one contributions by specialists of ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and neighbouring cultures. It is structured around three main axes: “Becoming someone: The social dimension of rites of passage”, where the interface between the religious sphere and the socio-political structure is examined; “Real life, symbolic life: Ritualized life and death in rites of passage”, or how each threshold crossed by an individual is perceived as a new beginning; and “Liminality and impurity: The dangers of transformation”, which defines the complex relation between notions of purity and impurity and rites of passage.
The contributors of this volume are (in alphabetical order): M.-L. Arnette (Egyptology), J. Bidmead (Assyriology), S. Boehringer (Ancient Greek), Cl. Calame (Ancient Greek), V. Dasen (Classics), S. Donnat (Egyptology), Chr. Eyre (Egyptology), A. Gilan (Hittitology), J.-J. Glassner (Assyriology), S. Görke (Hittitology), Chr. Greco (Egyptology), R. Hawley (Ugaritology), F. Huber Vuillet (Assyriology), D. Katz (Sumerology), S. Laribi-Glaudel (Assyriology), D. Lefèvre-Novaro (Greek Archaeology), M. Gr. Masetti-Rouault (Assyriology), Gr. Mobley (Biblical studies), J. C. Moreno García (Egyptology), A. Mouton (Hittitology), J. Patrier (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. Roche (Assyriology), I. Rutherford (Ancient Greek), I. Sachet (Near Eastern Archaeology), C. van den Hoven (Egyptology) and N. Yoffee (Assyriology).
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Literary and divinatory forms should be of special interest, as much as the documents and material objects that are used to convey them. For instance, divine speech has sometimes been found on material supports that were deemed to be destroyed or recycled. Furthermore, it seems that the status of divine speech changed over time in different areas of the Ancient Mediterranean Basin. Its orality became worth preserving. Consequently, the material support acquired a status on its own, as much as divine speech itself.
The aim of this symposium is to bring together experts from various fields, namely History, History of Religion, Archaeology, Epigraphy, Palaeography, Linguistics, etc., in order to examine the diversity of divine speech as it is articulated and mediated. The contexts in which divine speech occurs will be examined, as well as its literary and material forms.