Search

Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Machine Learning for Ancient Languages (ML4AL 2024), Bangkok, Thailand, August 2024.

Preface of the volume

Proceedings of the third edition of the LT4HALA workshop

This dissertation presents a theoretical analysis of the interaction between the clauses in correlative constructions in Hittite at the syntactic, semantic, and discourse level. I argue that the relative clause is not connected with the main clause in the syntax, only at the discourse level. I defend this claim by examining the syntactic and semantic relationships that the correlative has with the main clause and the resumptive correlate.I argue that the correlate is a discourse anaphor coreferent with the correlative, not a variable bound by it. This is the simplest explanation of the fact that the distribution of NP types as correlates is completely explained by Hittite-wide principles governing the distribution of NPs as discourse anaphors. There are no special requirements attributable to the correlative construction itself. Moreover, numerous correlatives are linked indirectly to the main clause and not resumed by a coreferent correlate — a fact incompatible with variable binding but ordinary for discourse anaphora.I argue that the correlative’s position cannot be derived by movement from within the main clause. Moreover, the correlative is not syntactically integrated into the main clause, despite being semantically dependent on it. The correlative is a clausal hanging topic and is external to the main clause, linked to it only in the discourse. This accounts for a variety of complexmulti-clausal correlative constructions that pose difficulties for integrative approaches.I propose a model of correlative semantics framed in Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (Asher and Lascarides 2003), a dynamic framework that models the rhetorical relationships between segments of discourse. I posit a function REF that makes the correlative into a referential expression and a rhetorical relation HT that predicates the main clause conditionson the correlative’s referent(s). I demonstrate how this model encodes the characteristic maximal interpretation of correlatives in

This project investigates the theory of melothesia, which refers to the assignment of the 12 Zodiac signs to different body parts or bodily regions. We explore the development of astrological melothesia in the 1st century CE and its subsequent influence on Roman and Sanskrit astral sciences through an examination of the interplay between astrology, religion, and medicine in ancient Rome and India.Chapter 1, "nulla ars sine religione: Vedic and Roman Religious Metaphysics and Astrology," examines the semiotics and complex systems of meaning present in sacrificial rituals in Vedic India and Rome. Zodiacal astrology was a Babylonian science that established itself in both Mediterranean and Indian cultures, and I suggest here that the same sacrificial semiotic systems which enabled communication between the realms of the gods and men were further developed with mathematical precision by astrologers who used the positions of the planets and stars to create a highly detailed predictive science. Here we examine how the adoption of a science like horoscopic astrology, considered foreign by both the Romans and Indians, relied on earlier semiotic systems to establish itself and flourish in each cultural context. Secondly, we outline a theoretical framework for “religious metaphysics,” which served as the mechanism facilitating the semiotics system that connected different mundane, cosmic, and divine substances on the divine, celestial, and terrestrial planes. I argue that the system of associations established by religious metaphysics provided the groundwork for astrology’s rich network of cosmic connectivities. To do this, I first outline the Vedic religious metaphysical system, which is more generously explained by the Sanskritic textual tradition, and highlight similar patterns in the Roman material. My comparative approach presents, for the first time, a discussion of Mediterranean religious metaphysics originating from sacrificial and divinatory practices. Although relig

Proceedings of the Ancient Language Processing Workshop

I investigate how verbal aspect was expressed in multiple Sanskrit and Middle Indic language varieties andwhat changes in aspectual semantics accompanied the radical changes in verbal morphology that occurred over the many centuries separating Vedic Sanskrit from late Middle Indic. My discussion is based on data extracted from text samples representing each variety covered. I collected from each sample all verbal predicates with past reference (or encoding states caused by past events) and identified the viewpoint aspect of each form wherever possible. This enabled me to describe the morphological expression of aspect in each linguistic stratum under consideration. Furthermore, I discuss and suggest theoretically informed explanations for the diachronic changes observed. The major predicate categories observed in Sanskrit are the imperfect, perfect, aorist, past participle and past-referring present. The imperfect and perfect (earlier distinct) were both aspectually neutral at the Vedic prose stage and so remained. The aorist encoded anterior aspect in Vedic prose, becoming compatible with perfective and imperfective readings in post-Vedic Sanskrit (so merging semantically with the imperfect and perfect). In Middle Indic the merger was both semantic and morphological, since only a single aspectually neutral finite past, itself lost in later varieties, is attested. I suggest that the aspectual merger of the finite past tenses in post-Vedic Sanskrit may be due to Middle Indic influence. The past participle, like the aorist, was an anterior category in Vedic prose and later underwent semantic generalisation, since it has perfective readings in all later Sanskrit and Middle Indic corpora; however, generalisation never proceeded to a point where the participle became compatible with imperfective readings. I argue that the past-referring present, originally aspectually neutral and still neutral in Vedic prose and at least one early Middle Indic variety, later became assoc

The Boy whom Hector called Scamandrius: The Natural World and Cosmic Time in the Iliad of HomerBy Julio Cesar VegaThis dissertation presents a new analysis of the natural world in Homer’s Iliad. Focusing on descriptions of landscape, trees, and rivers, within similes and in the main narrative, the thesis has three main arguments: first, representations of Gaia in the Iliad can productively be read through and against representations of Gaia in the wider epic tradition, as in Hesiod’s Theogony (and to a lesser extent the Cypria). It is only through a more expansive intertextual analysis that we can see how, for Homer, the destruction of the natural world has cosmic significance. Second, descriptions of the natural world are not just part of the realism of the poem; rather they are motivated, ideological, and play a significant role in differentiating Achaeans from Trojans. These differentiations afford a richer and more complicated dimension to violence and death than has previously been recognized. Third, the representation of the natural world is an inextricable part of Homer’s creation of temporality: the epic’s reflections on the past, present, and its visions of the future offer insight into the question of human interaction with the environment and the implications of that changing relationship. The dissertation aims to make a contribution to our understanding of Homer’s epic, but also to how ancient texts can reveal, and reflect upon, today’s most urgent political issue: the destruction of the environment and what this will mean for humans and for the earth. Chapter 1 analyzes the representation of Gaia in Hesiod’s Theogony, the Cypria, and finally in Homer’s Iliad to suggest that when the poet of the Iliad uses the simile of Typhoeus at Il. 2.780-85 s/he evokes the narrative of cosmic war and progress as detailed in the Theogony, thus projecting the Hesiodic narrative onto the Homeric. As a result, the Gaia we see in the Iliad is constantly between su

I investigate how verbal aspect was expressed in multiple Sanskrit and Middle Indic language varieties andwhat changes in aspectual semantics accompanied the radical changes in verbal morphology that occurred over the many centuries separating Vedic Sanskrit from late Middle Indic. My discussion is based on data extracted from text samples representing each variety covered. I collected from each sample all verbal predicates with past reference (or encoding states caused by past events) and identified the viewpoint aspect of each form wherever possible. This enabled me to describe the morphological expression of aspect in each linguistic stratum under consideration. Furthermore, I discuss and suggest theoretically informed explanations for the diachronic changes observed. The major predicate categories observed in Sanskrit are the imperfect, perfect, aorist, past participle and past-referring present. The imperfect and perfect (earlier distinct) were both aspectually neutral at the Vedic prose stage and so remained. The aorist encoded anterior aspect in Vedic prose, becoming compatible with perfective and imperfective readings in post-Vedic Sanskrit (so merging semantically with the imperfect and perfect). In Middle Indic the merger was both semantic and morphological, since only a single aspectually neutral finite past, itself lost in later varieties, is attested. I suggest that the aspectual merger of the finite past tenses in post-Vedic Sanskrit may be due to Middle Indic influence. The past participle, like the aorist, was an anterior category in Vedic prose and later underwent semantic generalisation, since it has perfective readings in all later Sanskrit and Middle Indic corpora; however, generalisation never proceeded to a point where the participle became compatible with imperfective readings. I argue that the past-referring present, originally aspectually neutral and still neutral in Vedic prose and at least one early Middle Indic variety, later became assoc

The Boy whom Hector called Scamandrius: The Natural World and Cosmic Time in the Iliad of HomerBy Julio Cesar VegaThis dissertation presents a new analysis of the natural world in Homer’s Iliad. Focusing on descriptions of landscape, trees, and rivers, within similes and in the main narrative, the thesis has three main arguments: first, representations of Gaia in the Iliad can productively be read through and against representations of Gaia in the wider epic tradition, as in Hesiod’s Theogony (and to a lesser extent the Cypria). It is only through a more expansive intertextual analysis that we can see how, for Homer, the destruction of the natural world has cosmic significance. Second, descriptions of the natural world are not just part of the realism of the poem; rather they are motivated, ideological, and play a significant role in differentiating Achaeans from Trojans. These differentiations afford a richer and more complicated dimension to violence and death than has previously been recognized. Third, the representation of the natural world is an inextricable part of Homer’s creation of temporality: the epic’s reflections on the past, present, and its visions of the future offer insight into the question of human interaction with the environment and the implications of that changing relationship. The dissertation aims to make a contribution to our understanding of Homer’s epic, but also to how ancient texts can reveal, and reflect upon, today’s most urgent political issue: the destruction of the environment and what this will mean for humans and for the earth. Chapter 1 analyzes the representation of Gaia in Hesiod’s Theogony, the Cypria, and finally in Homer’s Iliad to suggest that when the poet of the Iliad uses the simile of Typhoeus at Il. 2.780-85 s/he evokes the narrative of cosmic war and progress as detailed in the Theogony, thus projecting the Hesiodic narrative onto the Homeric. As a result, the Gaia we see in the Iliad is constantly between su

During the Third Intermediate and Late Periods, wealthy Egyptians were sent to theirafterlives in dazzlingly decorated and inscribed coffins nested like Russian dolls. Current understanding of these vessels for rebirth comes almost exclusively from analyses of Theban coffins, which focuses on dating the coffins primarily through changes in decorative layout. Local traditions outside of Thebes have been almost completely neglected and were assumed to be merely derivative of the Theban tradition. Thus, the work of non-Theban artists and scribes has typically been dismissed as "naive" or "provincial"--even though, in reality, very little is known about non-Theban coffin workshops, or about the training of the artists and scribes who worked in them.A large number of coffins datable to post-New Kingdom pharaonic Egypt are thought tocome from the city of Akhmim, which lies two hundred kilometers north of Thebes. These Akhmim coffins present an excellent opportunity to characterize and evaluate a regional tradition. Sadly, the cemeteries of Akhmim were thoroughly plundered in the late 19th century, and the pillaged pieces were sold on the contemporary art market. Hence, until now, the Akhmim coffins have only been datable by means of stylistic comparisons to the Theban pieces. This dissertation builds a new typology for coffins from Akhmim, centered around the idea of workshops. It re-evaluates the Akhmim corpus, exploring the key questions of whether the artists were theologically trained and to what degree the scribes were literate. Part One provides the background framework required to understand the next two parts. It reviews the current literature and focuses attention on gaps in our understanding that this dissertation is designed to fill.Part Two is a catalogue forming the core of this work that consists of an in-depthanalysis of the artistic and scribal hands on twenty-one coffins sets that can be tied to Akhmim by the owner's titles or by museum records of their a

In this project, I use textual analysis in combination with theoretical frameworks drawn from anthropology, animal studies, and food studies to analyze the poetic significance of meat and cannibalism in Homer, Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymns. Each chapter examines a different combination of consumer and food in order to challenge the neat opposition between divine self-sufficiency and human hunger proposed by Vernant. In the first two chapters, I investigate the gods’ relationship to animal meat. The first is a reading of the sacrifice at Mecone in Hesiod’s Theogony. On the basis of verbal echoes of Hesiod’s account of the castration of Ouranos, I argue that Prometheus’ deception of Zeus functions as a quasi-castration, and that impotence, rather than self-sufficiency, is the implied result of the contest. It leaves the gods unable to consume meat, but does not preclude their craving it. Then, in the second chapter, I explore divine hunger for meat in a post-Mecone world in the Homeric Hymns to Apollo and Hermes. In their quests to gain full acceptance as Olympian gods, both gods commit bewildering acts of violence, always seeming disappointed with the results; these actions make more sense, however, when we read them as frustrated attempts to satisfy their longings for both meat and rebellion against a paternal authority figure—longings that are impossible to satisfy under Zeus’ rule. In the third and fourth chapters, I explore the Odyssey’s Cattle of Helios episode as a case study of human hunger for meat, applying two different heuristics. The third chapter reads the episode from an animal studies perspective: when Odysseus’ crew eat the cattle of Helios, it is because their understanding of the hierarchy of animals, humans, and gods has undergone a gradual dissolution. Their unsettling experiences in the otherworld lead to a disastrous abandonment of alimentary codes with cosmic consequences. Then, in the fourth chapter, I reread the episode in terms of power rela

Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Language Technologies for Historical and Ancient Languages. Marseille, France. 25th June 2022.

The aim of my dissertation is to trace an intellectual and theoretical trend in classical Greek literature and philosophy that ironizes and theorizes dramatic mimesis as transformative. The texts I will examine in my dissertation are loci classici for thinking about ancient literary criticism (e.g. Aristophanes’ Frogs) as well as mimesis (Plato’s Republic), and the originality of my project lies in bringing these texts together in order to think through a cluster of related concepts: mimesis, the body, and being and becoming. I will show show that the literary texts of Aristophanes and Euripides, in particular, shed light on dramatists’ views of mimesis, and I argue that they offer an alternative to the view of mimesis in Republic Book 10 as an image impoverished of being and knowledge. In Aristophanes and Euripides putting on a costume can change one’s bodily comportment and ultimately one’s character and behavior. By sketching a history of mimesis that precedes the work of Plato and Aristotle, my project brings out an alternative view of mimesis. I read the language surrounding mimesis in Aristophanes, Euripides, and Plato closely in order to show how mimesis is put into conversation with important thematic binaries such as being/becoming and seeming/being. Mimesis is often depicted not merely as a disguise or copy, but as a transformational force that affecting poets, actors, and audiences. By unpacking the depth and diversity of the discourses surrounding mimesis, we can see that it is connected to other topics in the intellectual revolution of the 5th c. BCE, such as nomos and physis and the development and profusion of rhetoric. In the dissertation I use the term “mimetic metamorphosis” to convey this notion of mimesis as metamorphosis. “Mimetic metamorphosis” is a helpful term because it covers both the scenes that depict poets or characters becoming or representing different people (such as Dicaeopolis becoming Telephus in Aristophanes’ Acharnians) and the t

The aim of my dissertation is to trace an intellectual and theoretical trend in classical Greek literature and philosophy that ironizes and theorizes dramatic mimesis as transformative. The texts I will examine in my dissertation are loci classici for thinking about ancient literary criticism (e.g. Aristophanes’ Frogs) as well as mimesis (Plato’s Republic), and the originality of my project lies in bringing these texts together in order to think through a cluster of related concepts: mimesis, the body, and being and becoming. I will show show that the literary texts of Aristophanes and Euripides, in particular, shed light on dramatists’ views of mimesis, and I argue that they offer an alternative to the view of mimesis in Republic Book 10 as an image impoverished of being and knowledge. In Aristophanes and Euripides putting on a costume can change one’s bodily comportment and ultimately one’s character and behavior. By sketching a history of mimesis that precedes the work of Plato and Aristotle, my project brings out an alternative view of mimesis. I read the language surrounding mimesis in Aristophanes, Euripides, and Plato closely in order to show how mimesis is put into conversation with important thematic binaries such as being/becoming and seeming/being. Mimesis is often depicted not merely as a disguise or copy, but as a transformational force that affecting poets, actors, and audiences. By unpacking the depth and diversity of the discourses surrounding mimesis, we can see that it is connected to other topics in the intellectual revolution of the 5th c. BCE, such as nomos and physis and the development and profusion of rhetoric. In the dissertation I use the term “mimetic metamorphosis” to convey this notion of mimesis as metamorphosis. “Mimetic metamorphosis” is a helpful term because it covers both the scenes that depict poets or characters becoming or representing different people (such as Dicaeopolis becoming Telephus in Aristophanes’ Acharnians) and the t

Introduction. Improving the theory and practice of modern school dictates the need to take into account the historical and pedagogical heritage. There is a request for an in-depth and unbiased review of the history of Russian education and training. The search for effective pedagogical solutions actualises the appeal to the historical experience of Russian pedagogy, to the ideas and practices of classical education, which undeservedly remain outside the field of vision of Russian scholars and reformers of the modern Russian school. Aim and main research questions. The aim of the present research is to study the genesis of the Russian classical gymnasium in the first quarter of the 19th century. The study is an attempt at a dialogue with the past of Russian education, prompted by the intention to look into its future. This research work involves the analysis of the issues related to social and pedagogical factors, events in the process of the foundation and development of the Russian gymnasium as a new type of educational institution, and the comparison of its genesis with similar educational institutions in the West, taking into account the current problems of Russian school and education. The hypothesis of the research consists in scientific argumentation of the assessments of the foundation of the Russian classical gymnasium in the first quarter of the 19th century as a qualitatively new and important phenomenon of Russian education, which significantly influenced the further development of the Russian school. Methodology and research methods. The object of the study is the education system in Russia in the first quarter of the 19th century, and its subject is the classical gymnasium education of the indicated period. The foundation of a classical gymnasium is studied on the basis of the methodology of history of pedagogy and comparative pedagogy. The main methodological principles of historical and pedagogical science were taken into account – objectivity, histor, Введение. Совершенствование теории и практики современной школы диктует необходимость учета историко-педагогического наследия. Существует запрос на углубленное и непредвзятое рассмотрение отечественной истории воспитания и обучения. Поиск эффективных педагогических решений актуализирует обращение к историческому опыту российской педагогики, идеям и практикам классического образования, которые незаслуженно остаются вне поля зрения российских ученых и реформаторов современной отечественной школы. Цель и основные вопросы исследования. Цель представленного исследования – изучение генезиса российской классической гимназии в первой четверти XIX в. Это попытка диалога с прошлым российского образования, вызванная намерением заглянуть в его будущее. Исследовательская работа включала анализ вопросов, касающихся социальных и педагогических факторов, событий периода зарождения и развития российской гимназии как нового типа учебного заведения, сопоставление особенностей возникновения российской гимназии и аналогичных учебных заведений на Западе с учетом современных проблем отечественной школы и педагогики. Гипотеза исследования состоит в научной аргументации оценок процесса зарождении российской классической гимназии в первой четверти XIX в. как качественно нового и важного феномена российского образования, существенно повлиявшего на дальнейшее развитие отечественной школы. Методология, методы и методики исследования. Объектом исследования служила система образования в России первой четверти XIX в., предметом – классическое гимназическое образование указанного периода. Становление классической гимназии изучено с опорой на методологию истории педагогики и сравнительной педагогики. Были учтены основные методологические принципы историко-педагогической науки – объективности, историзма, всесторонности и системности. В соответствии с методологией объективного позитивизма авторы стремились к научному осмыслению и обобщению обнаруженных фактов и феноменов. Формулировка научных представ

The Palladion and National IdentitybyMorgan Elizabeth HunterDoctor of Philosophy in ClassicsUniversity of California, BerkeleyProfessor Mark Griffith, ChairThis dissertation takes its start from the observation that people of Sixth and Fifth Century Athens, the Hellenistic Troad and Pergamon, and Republican Rome with its Latin Colonies all made use of stories and symbols taken from the Trojan War in the process of creating an acceptable national identity for their states. The Homeric Cycle of epics and their derived tragedies at Athens, the Iliad’s Mount Ida and Temple of Athena Ilias in Pergamon’s Ilion, the legends of Aeneas at Rome all became central to the way people in Athens, the Troad, and Roman Italy came to see their community. These elements of an imagined Trojan past became part of the complex of activities and formal behaviors that being a member of a socio-political community entails, and especially the symbolic associations of these activities to that community, what Abraham Lincoln called the “mystic chords of memory.”My particular focus is on three very odd stories about women that I show lie at the beginning of this process in each case: the story that a tall woman, dressed like Athena and riding in a chariot with Peisistratos, tricked the Athenians into making him tyrant; the story that for a thousand years a small city in Greece annually sent two aristocratic maidens to Troy to be tortured and work as slaves for the rest of their lives; and the story that the Roman Senate ordered two sacred Vestal Virgins to be ritually executed after Hannibal won the battle of Cannae.I identify a specific sacred component from the heroic past that lay at the heart of all three stories: the Palladion, the cult statue of Athena from ancient Troy itself. I demonstrate, by a close examination of all available evidence from literature, art, and archaeology, that this cult statue was a significant symbolic element in the identity of each community. It provided

Our modern attempts to understand the aristocratic values of the Roman Republic have long held that military achievement was the most important sources of political prestige. Based largely upon middle-republican evidence, surveys of the aristocratic ethos often focus upon military activity at every stage of the senatorial career: aristocrats were expected to serve for long periods in the army as youths and then, upon obtaining political office, distinguish themselves as commanders. In discussions of aristocratic values, therefore, non-martial pursuits are frequently relegated to secondary importance. This model, however, reconciles poorly with the evidence we have from the Republic’s best-attested period, the Late Republic. In the Republic’s final generation we see clearly a number of sure signs that the aristocracy was increasingly spurning military activity in favor of non-martial political action. To name a few prominent examples: youthful military service was in decline, praetors and consul rejected traditionally-coveted command positions, and the frequency of triumphs fell precipitously.These changes are part of a larger cultural renegotiation of the importance of military achievement that was taking place during the last decades of the Republic, and this dissertation aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the extent of this shift in aristocratic values and the implications it had for the period. The middle-republican evidence does seem to suggest an elite preoccupation with military service, but the influence of this evidence has clouded our view of the ideological changes of the first century BCE. Rather than a monolithic system of aristocratic values, what we see in the Late Republic is competition between different views on what kind of actions should form the basis of aristocratic legitimacy, and disagreement often centered upon the role of military achievement. This project approaches the topic in three different ways: Chapter 1 examines how comm

Our modern attempts to understand the aristocratic values of the Roman Republic have long held that military achievement was the most important sources of political prestige. Based largely upon middle-republican evidence, surveys of the aristocratic ethos often focus upon military activity at every stage of the senatorial career: aristocrats were expected to serve for long periods in the army as youths and then, upon obtaining political office, distinguish themselves as commanders. In discussions of aristocratic values, therefore, non-martial pursuits are frequently relegated to secondary importance. This model, however, reconciles poorly with the evidence we have from the Republic’s best-attested period, the Late Republic. In the Republic’s final generation we see clearly a number of sure signs that the aristocracy was increasingly spurning military activity in favor of non-martial political action. To name a few prominent examples: youthful military service was in decline, praetors and consul rejected traditionally-coveted command positions, and the frequency of triumphs fell precipitously.These changes are part of a larger cultural renegotiation of the importance of military achievement that was taking place during the last decades of the Republic, and this dissertation aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the extent of this shift in aristocratic values and the implications it had for the period. The middle-republican evidence does seem to suggest an elite preoccupation with military service, but the influence of this evidence has clouded our view of the ideological changes of the first century BCE. Rather than a monolithic system of aristocratic values, what we see in the Late Republic is competition between different views on what kind of actions should form the basis of aristocratic legitimacy, and disagreement often centered upon the role of military achievement. This project approaches the topic in three different ways: Chapter 1 examines how comm

The Palladion and National IdentitybyMorgan Elizabeth HunterDoctor of Philosophy in ClassicsUniversity of California, BerkeleyProfessor Mark Griffith, ChairThis dissertation takes its start from the observation that people of Sixth and Fifth Century Athens, the Hellenistic Troad and Pergamon, and Republican Rome with its Latin Colonies all made use of stories and symbols taken from the Trojan War in the process of creating an acceptable national identity for their states. The Homeric Cycle of epics and their derived tragedies at Athens, the Iliad’s Mount Ida and Temple of Athena Ilias in Pergamon’s Ilion, the legends of Aeneas at Rome all became central to the way people in Athens, the Troad, and Roman Italy came to see their community. These elements of an imagined Trojan past became part of the complex of activities and formal behaviors that being a member of a socio-political community entails, and especially the symbolic associations of these activities to that community, what Abraham Lincoln called the “mystic chords of memory.”My particular focus is on three very odd stories about women that I show lie at the beginning of this process in each case: the story that a tall woman, dressed like Athena and riding in a chariot with Peisistratos, tricked the Athenians into making him tyrant; the story that for a thousand years a small city in Greece annually sent two aristocratic maidens to Troy to be tortured and work as slaves for the rest of their lives; and the story that the Roman Senate ordered two sacred Vestal Virgins to be ritually executed after Hannibal won the battle of Cannae.I identify a specific sacred component from the heroic past that lay at the heart of all three stories: the Palladion, the cult statue of Athena from ancient Troy itself. I demonstrate, by a close examination of all available evidence from literature, art, and archaeology, that this cult statue was a significant symbolic element in the identity of each community. It provided

This dissertation examines the social functions of funerary papyri in Egypt in the 21st Dynasty (c. 1070-945 BCE), focusing on the construction and maintenance of the social identity of the Theban priesthood. The aim of this dissertation is to study funerary papyri not just as religious and ritual texts but as objects of use, display, competition, and ownership. These documents can be read as a reflection of the social self, with the identity of the deceased embedded in the illustrated content of each papyrus. To that end, there are four main research perspectives of this study that, while self-contained, are entangled and build upon one another in increasingly complexity to represent the deceased. The four research lenses are gender, temple titles, family relationships, and reuse. The first perspective – gender – analyses the usage of papyri among women associated with the Theban priesthood. Due to the political and economic crisis of the 21st Dynasty, burials became singular and discrete, allowing women equal access to funerary materiality as compared to their male counterparts for the first time in Egyptian history. With women’s papyri being a comparable dataset to men, this perspective explores the specific choices that women made regarding their funerary assemblages. Temple titles are the focus of the second research perspective. With the individuals owning the papyri all belonging to the Theban priestly class, the content of papyri is also a direct reflection of priestly status and rank. The exclusivity of certain texts and vignettes coupled with the specific titles for each person can illustrate their position and relative importance in society. Third, family relationships inform our knowledge of papyri production, acquisition, and usage. With references to family members preserved on many of the papyri, similarities and differences in the construction and composition of the documents reflect kin groups and close associations to other family members. These re

This dissertation examines the social functions of funerary papyri in Egypt in the 21st Dynasty (c. 1070-945 BCE), focusing on the construction and maintenance of the social identity of the Theban priesthood. The aim of this dissertation is to study funerary papyri not just as religious and ritual texts but as objects of use, display, competition, and ownership. These documents can be read as a reflection of the social self, with the identity of the deceased embedded in the illustrated content of each papyrus. To that end, there are four main research perspectives of this study that, while self-contained, are entangled and build upon one another in increasingly complexity to represent the deceased. The four research lenses are gender, temple titles, family relationships, and reuse. The first perspective – gender – analyses the usage of papyri among women associated with the Theban priesthood. Due to the political and economic crisis of the 21st Dynasty, burials became singular and discrete, allowing women equal access to funerary materiality as compared to their male counterparts for the first time in Egyptian history. With women’s papyri being a comparable dataset to men, this perspective explores the specific choices that women made regarding their funerary assemblages. Temple titles are the focus of the second research perspective. With the individuals owning the papyri all belonging to the Theban priestly class, the content of papyri is also a direct reflection of priestly status and rank. The exclusivity of certain texts and vignettes coupled with the specific titles for each person can illustrate their position and relative importance in society. Third, family relationships inform our knowledge of papyri production, acquisition, and usage. With references to family members preserved on many of the papyri, similarities and differences in the construction and composition of the documents reflect kin groups and close associations to other family members. These re

The patriarchal narratives in the book of Genesis feature unique language addressing the deity, comprised of invoking the “God of the Fathers” and related rhetoric. Beginning with Albrecht Alt in 1929, scholars have attempted to identify the “God of the Fathers” given the canonically enigmatic ways this invocation is expressed in the patriarchal narratives. This study reframes the question by asking why such language might be used to articulate one’s connection to the divine.Biblical scholarship has primarily employed comparative data from Northwest Semitic texts and inscriptions (to include the rather large corpus of texts from Ugarit) as a means of contextualizing the world of ancient Israel presented in the Hebrew Bible. However, the bulk of this data in conversation with the “God of the Fathers” in the Hebrew Bible is colored by contact with the Neo-Hittite Anatolian speaking communities dwelling in the same region. This Syro-Anatolian legacy comprises an under-researched approach to the Hebrew Bible. This study fortifies the use of comparative Northwest Semitic data by addressing the Anatolian (i.e., Hittite and Luwian) language traditions as dialogue partners with the distinctive features found in Northwest Semitic traditions.This investigation takes a two-pronged approach to reevaluating the topic of the “God of the Fathers” in the Hebrew Bible, by undertaking: 1) an examination of the biblical narrative in light of social memory, and 2) an assessment of the topic in light of cultural contact and convergence. Further approaches within the fields of biblical studies, Near Eastern archaeology, and Near Eastern religion are employed in this study to explore the topic to a greater degree today than in recent years. Additionally, the present investigation looks at the common language associated with the paternal relationship to the divine as a way of addressing the ensuing difficulties in translating such rhetoric means for dialoguing with the concept of the “God

Starting in the mid-fifth century BCE, the Achaemenid Persian empire entered into a series of treaties with various Greek city-states. While treaties had often been used across the Ancient Near East prior to the Persian conquests, they did not play a role in the Achaemenids' imperial strategy; indeed, the Achaemenids did not sign any treaties with any non-Greek state. By examining Greco-Persian treaties, that is, by investigating what the Persians of old might have hoped to gain from treaties with Athens, Sparta, or any other Greek state, the present dissertation seeks to gain unique insight into the Achaemenid imperial strategy.I demonstrate that the Achaemenid conception of imperial rule may have been partially inherited from their Elamite and Neo-Assyrian forebears. I establish the continuities between Achaemenid rule and that of their Near Eastern predecessors, as well as what constitutes uniquely Achaemenid innovations. I give special attention to the Achaemenid endeavor to exert control over various subjects in their empire by dialoguing with, and even reproducing, indigenous manifestations of law and governance. However, scholarly models describing the use of local practices by the Achaemenids have been hitherto restricted to regions under direct Achaemenid rule. I argue, however, that the Greco-Persian treaties were most likely resulting from the Achaemenid desire to extend a proven strategy of governance, which aimed at engaging local traditions and practices, beyond their imperial borders. The exploitation of traditional Greek treaty customs allowed the Achaemenids to achieve the stability necessary for the achievement of imperial goals in the region, and befitted their overall political strategy.

In this dissertation, I investigated the usage of subordinators in Ancient Greek dialectal inscriptions and their interactions with supradialectal formulas, i.e., relatively fixed expressions shared across dialectal borders. Subordinators are grammatical elements and therefore are expected to behave in a systematic manner; supradialectal formulas are expected to provide a “test tube”, revealing how different dialects express the same notion. As the first step, I compiled an up-to-date collection of known attestations of subordinators in the dialects of Mainland Greece. Using this collection, I investigated the interactions of local dialects and the standard language in the contexts of fixed expressions and creative composition. In some cases, the confinement of a subordinator into a fixed expression suggests its inactive status in the dialect, and in contrast, the active status of a subordinator is illustrated by its appearances in supradialectal formulas replacing non-local subordinators. Uses of non-local subordinators often result from the predominance of the standard language, but sometimes from the borrowing of phraseological units as a whole rather than the borrowing of the subordinator alone.

Starting in the mid-fifth century BCE, the Achaemenid Persian empire entered into a series of treaties with various Greek city-states. While treaties had often been used across the Ancient Near East prior to the Persian conquests, they did not play a role in the Achaemenids' imperial strategy; indeed, the Achaemenids did not sign any treaties with any non-Greek state. By examining Greco-Persian treaties, that is, by investigating what the Persians of old might have hoped to gain from treaties with Athens, Sparta, or any other Greek state, the present dissertation seeks to gain unique insight into the Achaemenid imperial strategy.I demonstrate that the Achaemenid conception of imperial rule may have been partially inherited from their Elamite and Neo-Assyrian forebears. I establish the continuities between Achaemenid rule and that of their Near Eastern predecessors, as well as what constitutes uniquely Achaemenid innovations. I give special attention to the Achaemenid endeavor to exert control over various subjects in their empire by dialoguing with, and even reproducing, indigenous manifestations of law and governance. However, scholarly models describing the use of local practices by the Achaemenids have been hitherto restricted to regions under direct Achaemenid rule. I argue, however, that the Greco-Persian treaties were most likely resulting from the Achaemenid desire to extend a proven strategy of governance, which aimed at engaging local traditions and practices, beyond their imperial borders. The exploitation of traditional Greek treaty customs allowed the Achaemenids to achieve the stability necessary for the achievement of imperial goals in the region, and befitted their overall political strategy.

In this dissertation, I investigated the usage of subordinators in Ancient Greek dialectal inscriptions and their interactions with supradialectal formulas, i.e., relatively fixed expressions shared across dialectal borders. Subordinators are grammatical elements and therefore are expected to behave in a systematic manner; supradialectal formulas are expected to provide a “test tube”, revealing how different dialects express the same notion. As the first step, I compiled an up-to-date collection of known attestations of subordinators in the dialects of Mainland Greece. Using this collection, I investigated the interactions of local dialects and the standard language in the contexts of fixed expressions and creative composition. In some cases, the confinement of a subordinator into a fixed expression suggests its inactive status in the dialect, and in contrast, the active status of a subordinator is illustrated by its appearances in supradialectal formulas replacing non-local subordinators. Uses of non-local subordinators often result from the predominance of the standard language, but sometimes from the borrowing of phraseological units as a whole rather than the borrowing of the subordinator alone.

The patriarchal narratives in the book of Genesis feature unique language addressing the deity, comprised of invoking the “God of the Fathers” and related rhetoric. Beginning with Albrecht Alt in 1929, scholars have attempted to identify the “God of the Fathers” given the canonically enigmatic ways this invocation is expressed in the patriarchal narratives. This study reframes the question by asking why such language might be used to articulate one’s connection to the divine.Biblical scholarship has primarily employed comparative data from Northwest Semitic texts and inscriptions (to include the rather large corpus of texts from Ugarit) as a means of contextualizing the world of ancient Israel presented in the Hebrew Bible. However, the bulk of this data in conversation with the “God of the Fathers” in the Hebrew Bible is colored by contact with the Neo-Hittite Anatolian speaking communities dwelling in the same region. This Syro-Anatolian legacy comprises an under-researched approach to the Hebrew Bible. This study fortifies the use of comparative Northwest Semitic data by addressing the Anatolian (i.e., Hittite and Luwian) language traditions as dialogue partners with the distinctive features found in Northwest Semitic traditions.This investigation takes a two-pronged approach to reevaluating the topic of the “God of the Fathers” in the Hebrew Bible, by undertaking: 1) an examination of the biblical narrative in light of social memory, and 2) an assessment of the topic in light of cultural contact and convergence. Further approaches within the fields of biblical studies, Near Eastern archaeology, and Near Eastern religion are employed in this study to explore the topic to a greater degree today than in recent years. Additionally, the present investigation looks at the common language associated with the paternal relationship to the divine as a way of addressing the ensuing difficulties in translating such rhetoric means for dialoguing with the concept of the “God

Representations of Hades, the Underworld, and the afterlife in ancient Greek literature have traditionally been studied from a religious or mythological perspective. Scholars have often tried to extrapolate historical practices and eschatological beliefs about life after death from accounts of rituals and myths surrounding funerary practices, cult beliefs, necromantic encounters, and descents by heroes to the Underworld. As a result of this focus, scholars have generally overlooked the narrative function of Underworld scenes. In this project, I examine ancient Underworld scenes from Homer to Plato as a type of literary device containing unique rhetorical features and functions. I argue that Underworld scenes are embedded authorial commentaries, which allow communication between author and audience in an exercise of narrative self-reflection. Underworld scenes condense the actions and themes of the main story into an abbreviated space while also situating their parent narratives within a dynamic historical and literary tradition. Through these scenes, authors and artists create networks of texts by including allusions and story patterns, which can activate similar tales of ghostly encounter (nekuia), underworld journeys (katabaseis), punishment for sinners, and rewards for the “blessed.” Underworld scenes “open up” dialogues between texts and characters across time and space so they could engage with each other and their tradition. Thus, Homer could imagine Odysseus talking to the ghosts of Achilles and Agamemnon in the Odyssey as a contemplation of heroism, and Plato could imagine Socrates anticipating afterlife conversations about justice with Homer, Ajax and Orpheus in the Apology.Chapter 1 presents the parameters of Underworld scenes and the methodologies that will be used in analyzing these scenes. Chapter 2 examines the structure of Underworld scenes in early Archaic poetry as well as the distinct language and image set which allowed communication between autho

Representations of Hades, the Underworld, and the afterlife in ancient Greek literature have traditionally been studied from a religious or mythological perspective. Scholars have often tried to extrapolate historical practices and eschatological beliefs about life after death from accounts of rituals and myths surrounding funerary practices, cult beliefs, necromantic encounters, and descents by heroes to the Underworld. As a result of this focus, scholars have generally overlooked the narrative function of Underworld scenes. In this project, I examine ancient Underworld scenes from Homer to Plato as a type of literary device containing unique rhetorical features and functions. I argue that Underworld scenes are embedded authorial commentaries, which allow communication between author and audience in an exercise of narrative self-reflection. Underworld scenes condense the actions and themes of the main story into an abbreviated space while also situating their parent narratives within a dynamic historical and literary tradition. Through these scenes, authors and artists create networks of texts by including allusions and story patterns, which can activate similar tales of ghostly encounter (nekuia), underworld journeys (katabaseis), punishment for sinners, and rewards for the “blessed.” Underworld scenes “open up” dialogues between texts and characters across time and space so they could engage with each other and their tradition. Thus, Homer could imagine Odysseus talking to the ghosts of Achilles and Agamemnon in the Odyssey as a contemplation of heroism, and Plato could imagine Socrates anticipating afterlife conversations about justice with Homer, Ajax and Orpheus in the Apology.Chapter 1 presents the parameters of Underworld scenes and the methodologies that will be used in analyzing these scenes. Chapter 2 examines the structure of Underworld scenes in early Archaic poetry as well as the distinct language and image set which allowed communication between autho

The composition of Deut 27-28 is shaped by its ritual and performative function and by the narrative device of a script within a speech: the oral and ritual performance of the covenant ceremony by the Levites is framed within the speech-command of Moses. Studies of Deut 28 have largely focused on the textual tradition of this chapter and on its parallels with ancient near eastern treaties, and with the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon in particular. Many studies view Deut 28 as a collection of isolated units of curse lines disconnected from the ceremonial performance of the covenant ratification ceremony detailed in Deut 27. This is due in part to the commonly held view that chapter 27 is an interpolation and a later addition to the literary unit of 12-26 and 28. However, a re-examination of comparative ancient near eastern evidence and a fresh literary analysis of 27 suggests that chapters 27-28 form a unified whole. A text-centric approach to Deut 28 has left largely unexamined the oral and ritual performance described in Deut 27. Ratification of oaths and treaties in the ancient near east was performative and entailed speaking words of power and performing ritual acts such as the slaughter of an animal or the ceremonial breaking of weapons. Deut 27 also furnishes instructions for the erection of an altar, ritual sacrifices, and an oral recitation of “all the words of this torah” including the blessings and curses in chapter 28. This concept of oaths and treaties as scripts is explored using the Aramaic Sefire treaty as a test case. An analysis of the curse segment of the Sefire treaty shows syntactical features typical of spoken language, suggesting that the curse portion of the written treaty was shaped by oral recitation and/or an oral tradition of formulaic curse language. The text-centric approach to studies of Deut 28 has also hindered examination of parallels between treaties and ritual and performative texts, and especially incantations. A study of contigui

The present dissertation investigates the root zu "to know" in the Sumerian texts of early Mesopotamia, ca. 2800-1600 B.C., with the aim of identifying its grammatical, syntactic and semantic characteristics. The root is treated across the Sumerian sources, but ultimately considered within the bilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian) situation of southern Mesopotamia. The adjectival and nominal forms of the root are also discussed, as well as their Akkadian counterparts. The analysis of the lexemes over a period stretching from ca. 2600-1600 BC offers interesting results in several categories (grammatical, literary, semantic), and contributes to discussions of the epistemological and practical implications associated with the concept of "knowing" in the Mesopotamian texts. While research into systems and categories of knowledge has been carried out in the field, no systematic lexical discussion of the verbal root meaning "to know" exists. This dissertation seeks to fill that lacuna. The methods employed in the dissertation lie within the well-established principles of philological and lexicographical investigation. Chapter 1 introduces the subject and reviews previous studies. Chapter 2 treats the Sumerian root zu, elucidating its formal and literary (idiomatic) characteristics. Appendices A and B document the corpus of examples consulted. Chapter 3 then discusses the derived adjectives from the root zu, likewise noting formal and literary (idiomatic) characteristics. Appendices C, D, E and F document their respective examples. Chapter 4 turns to the Akkadian root idû "to know" in bilingual and monolingual texts, in order to investigate (idiomatic) Semitic influence. It further takes up the Akkadian adjectives corresponding to those in Sumerian discussed in the third chapter. Chapter 5 enumerates personal names in Sumerian and Akkadian that employ the root "to know." A concluding chapter sums up the evidence for the individual roots and lexemes and discusses their evolution, u

This study examines a well-established idea in normative Egyptological discourse, that there exists in the inventory of Egyptian symbolism a distinct and unique symbol called sed-em-ra (‘tail-in-mouthʼ) in Egyptian, though usually referred to today by the Greek term ouroboros (‘tail-devouringʼ), being the image of a serpent arranged in a circle with the tip of its tail in its mouth, and expressive of specific meanings such as “endless time” and “eternity,” among others. However, a close examination of relevant iconographic and textual sources reveals that this Egyptological ouroboros is largely an illusion, and one that distorts understanding of Egyptian material by importing into it ideas that properly belong to the history of the post-pharaonic reception of the ouroboros icon, such as the idea that the ouroboros was primarily a symbol of the recurrent solar year, which had its origin with Latin authors, or the idea that the ouroboros symbolizes time and eternity, which is a tradition no older than the Italian Renaissance. Yet it is this latter ouroboros of the Renaissance iconographers and emblem books, an unquestioned part of the intellectual environment in which the discipline of Egyptology historically emerged, that induced nineteenth and twentieth century Egyptologists to unhesitatingly single out the ouroboros for special notice as the “serpent of eternity,” an interpretation not supported by Egyptian sources. A fresh hermeneutical approach requires the abandonment of such preconceptions, starting with rejection of the idea that the Egyptian ouroboros is a distinct symbol with specific meanings attached. Once the term ‘ouroborosʼ is used only in a limited and purely descriptive sense, it becomes possible to understand what the icon may be intended to express within the larger conceptual and iconographic context in which occurrences are embedded. This approach makes it clear that the icon was never a discrete symbol in Egypt, but rather a possible variant amon

This dissertation examines the social functions of translation in Egypt from the Middle Kingdom through the Roman Period (ca. 2000 BCE-200 CE), focusing on the practice of translating texts from earlier into later phases of the Egyptian language. There are two main objectives for this study. First, I determine how translation developed, and second, I investigate how the practice of translation in Egyptian society changed over time. I accomplish this by situating the translations, which form the basis of my textual analysis, within their social contexts. This research establishes that translation was a part of a tradition of Egyptian interpretive processes, offers evidence for the continued social prestige of translation as an intellectual ability from the Pharaonic to Roman Periods, and contributes to the discussion of how broader linguistic developments affected the social use of language in Egypt.In order to prove that there was a progression from interpretation to translation, I begin by analyzing the earliest attestations of Egyptian textual commentary from the Middle Kingdom. Then I compare those techniques to the ones found in translated texts of the Third Intermediate Period and later. I illustrate how the increased specialization of the traditional Middle Egyptian language after the New Kingdom led to the adoption of translation as a means of textual interpretation.From the repeated attestations of interpreting in the biographies of high-ranking officials from Pharaonic Egypt, I conclude that Egyptians were interested in highlighting their intellectual aptitude as part of their elite identity. Educated scribes who were invested in transmitting and explaining complex texts thus valued translation as an scholarly pursuit, as it guaranteed that important ritual texts remained understandable to the general population over time. Following the spread of Greek-Egyptian multilingualism from the Late Period onward, I contend that translation became an important featu

This dissertation of limited scope, part of a Course-work Master’s in Ancient Languages and Cultures, consists of five chapters which deal with issues relating to the perception and literary treatment of non-human animals in African and Classical traditional stories involving animal characters. The focus of the research was placed upon arguing that: human characteristics were attributed to animal creatures in the myths/traditional stories from both cultures; both cultures made attempts to explain how certain animals became domesticated and how others remained wild; mythical thinking is not a preserve of one culture, it is rather part of human nature; mythical monsters are present in both cultures and that they have always to be destroyed by man, though not easily; myths served several functions for both cultures, ranging from educational entertainment to socializing purposes, to making attempts to explain ancient man’s environment and its happenings. The study was undertaken in the hope of enabling certain recommendations to be formulated, on the basis of the findings, to effect a better and more informed strategy for teaching Classical Mythology and Classics, in general, in the Mawian/African context.

The composition of Deut 27-28 is shaped by its ritual and performative function and by the narrative device of a script within a speech: the oral and ritual performance of the covenant ceremony by the Levites is framed within the speech-command of Moses. Studies of Deut 28 have largely focused on the textual tradition of this chapter and on its parallels with ancient near eastern treaties, and with the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon in particular. Many studies view Deut 28 as a collection of isolated units of curse lines disconnected from the ceremonial performance of the covenant ratification ceremony detailed in Deut 27. This is due in part to the commonly held view that chapter 27 is an interpolation and a later addition to the literary unit of 12-26 and 28. However, a re-examination of comparative ancient near eastern evidence and a fresh literary analysis of 27 suggests that chapters 27-28 form a unified whole. A text-centric approach to Deut 28 has left largely unexamined the oral and ritual performance described in Deut 27. Ratification of oaths and treaties in the ancient near east was performative and entailed speaking words of power and performing ritual acts such as the slaughter of an animal or the ceremonial breaking of weapons. Deut 27 also furnishes instructions for the erection of an altar, ritual sacrifices, and an oral recitation of “all the words of this torah” including the blessings and curses in chapter 28. This concept of oaths and treaties as scripts is explored using the Aramaic Sefire treaty as a test case. An analysis of the curse segment of the Sefire treaty shows syntactical features typical of spoken language, suggesting that the curse portion of the written treaty was shaped by oral recitation and/or an oral tradition of formulaic curse language. The text-centric approach to studies of Deut 28 has also hindered examination of parallels between treaties and ritual and performative texts, and especially incantations. A study of contigui

The present dissertation investigates the root zu "to know" in the Sumerian texts of early Mesopotamia, ca. 2800-1600 B.C., with the aim of identifying its grammatical, syntactic and semantic characteristics. The root is treated across the Sumerian sources, but ultimately considered within the bilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian) situation of southern Mesopotamia. The adjectival and nominal forms of the root are also discussed, as well as their Akkadian counterparts. The analysis of the lexemes over a period stretching from ca. 2600-1600 BC offers interesting results in several categories (grammatical, literary, semantic), and contributes to discussions of the epistemological and practical implications associated with the concept of "knowing" in the Mesopotamian texts. While research into systems and categories of knowledge has been carried out in the field, no systematic lexical discussion of the verbal root meaning "to know" exists. This dissertation seeks to fill that lacuna. The methods employed in the dissertation lie within the well-established principles of philological and lexicographical investigation. Chapter 1 introduces the subject and reviews previous studies. Chapter 2 treats the Sumerian root zu, elucidating its formal and literary (idiomatic) characteristics. Appendices A and B document the corpus of examples consulted. Chapter 3 then discusses the derived adjectives from the root zu, likewise noting formal and literary (idiomatic) characteristics. Appendices C, D, E and F document their respective examples. Chapter 4 turns to the Akkadian root idû "to know" in bilingual and monolingual texts, in order to investigate (idiomatic) Semitic influence. It further takes up the Akkadian adjectives corresponding to those in Sumerian discussed in the third chapter. Chapter 5 enumerates personal names in Sumerian and Akkadian that employ the root "to know." A concluding chapter sums up the evidence for the individual roots and lexemes and discusses their evolution, u

This study examines a well-established idea in normative Egyptological discourse, that there exists in the inventory of Egyptian symbolism a distinct and unique symbol called sed-em-ra (‘tail-in-mouthʼ) in Egyptian, though usually referred to today by the Greek term ouroboros (‘tail-devouringʼ), being the image of a serpent arranged in a circle with the tip of its tail in its mouth, and expressive of specific meanings such as “endless time” and “eternity,” among others. However, a close examination of relevant iconographic and textual sources reveals that this Egyptological ouroboros is largely an illusion, and one that distorts understanding of Egyptian material by importing into it ideas that properly belong to the history of the post-pharaonic reception of the ouroboros icon, such as the idea that the ouroboros was primarily a symbol of the recurrent solar year, which had its origin with Latin authors, or the idea that the ouroboros symbolizes time and eternity, which is a tradition no older than the Italian Renaissance. Yet it is this latter ouroboros of the Renaissance iconographers and emblem books, an unquestioned part of the intellectual environment in which the discipline of Egyptology historically emerged, that induced nineteenth and twentieth century Egyptologists to unhesitatingly single out the ouroboros for special notice as the “serpent of eternity,” an interpretation not supported by Egyptian sources. A fresh hermeneutical approach requires the abandonment of such preconceptions, starting with rejection of the idea that the Egyptian ouroboros is a distinct symbol with specific meanings attached. Once the term ‘ouroborosʼ is used only in a limited and purely descriptive sense, it becomes possible to understand what the icon may be intended to express within the larger conceptual and iconographic context in which occurrences are embedded. This approach makes it clear that the icon was never a discrete symbol in Egypt, but rather a possible variant amon

This dissertation examines the social functions of translation in Egypt from the Middle Kingdom through the Roman Period (ca. 2000 BCE-200 CE), focusing on the practice of translating texts from earlier into later phases of the Egyptian language. There are two main objectives for this study. First, I determine how translation developed, and second, I investigate how the practice of translation in Egyptian society changed over time. I accomplish this by situating the translations, which form the basis of my textual analysis, within their social contexts. This research establishes that translation was a part of a tradition of Egyptian interpretive processes, offers evidence for the continued social prestige of translation as an intellectual ability from the Pharaonic to Roman Periods, and contributes to the discussion of how broader linguistic developments affected the social use of language in Egypt.In order to prove that there was a progression from interpretation to translation, I begin by analyzing the earliest attestations of Egyptian textual commentary from the Middle Kingdom. Then I compare those techniques to the ones found in translated texts of the Third Intermediate Period and later. I illustrate how the increased specialization of the traditional Middle Egyptian language after the New Kingdom led to the adoption of translation as a means of textual interpretation.From the repeated attestations of interpreting in the biographies of high-ranking officials from Pharaonic Egypt, I conclude that Egyptians were interested in highlighting their intellectual aptitude as part of their elite identity. Educated scribes who were invested in transmitting and explaining complex texts thus valued translation as an scholarly pursuit, as it guaranteed that important ritual texts remained understandable to the general population over time. Following the spread of Greek-Egyptian multilingualism from the Late Period onward, I contend that translation became an important featu

This dissertation of limited scope, part of a Course-work Master’s in Ancient Languages and Cultures, consists of five chapters which deal with issues relating to the perception and literary treatment of non-human animals in African and Classical traditional stories involving animal characters. The focus of the research was placed upon arguing that: human characteristics were attributed to animal creatures in the myths/traditional stories from both cultures; both cultures made attempts to explain how certain animals became domesticated and how others remained wild; mythical thinking is not a preserve of one culture, it is rather part of human nature; mythical monsters are present in both cultures and that they have always to be destroyed by man, though not easily; myths served several functions for both cultures, ranging from educational entertainment to socializing purposes, to making attempts to explain ancient man’s environment and its happenings. The study was undertaken in the hope of enabling certain recommendations to be formulated, on the basis of the findings, to effect a better and more informed strategy for teaching Classical Mythology and Classics, in general, in the Mawian/African context.

The paper addresses the issue of the requirement for studying a new information technology in philological education. The article is focused on the urgent problems related to a using of computer visualization in the lectures on ancient languages, В статье рассматриваются вопросы необходимости использования новых информационных технологий в филологическом образовании. Статья посвящена актуальной проблеме, связанной с использованием компьютерной визуализации на лекциях по древним языкам

Building upon the traditional methods of philological analysis, this dissertation incorporates emerging technologies in text-mining and social network analysis as a new approach for analyzing large blocks of cuneiform text corpora. Working within the Classical period of the Old Akkadian dynasty, the height of Empire's reach and influence, these digital tools are deployed to ascertain the level of administrative similarity or difference between the major urban centers. The cities of the Diyala are used as a baseline specifically because of their peaceful relationship with the Akkadian Empire. These parameters explore whether the political relationship (peaceful or rebellious) affected the degree or extent of the Empire's administrative presence in its various territories. Overall, the results indicate that the Akkadian kings practiced similar policies throughout Mesopotamia. The imperial administration was only minimally involved with the daily administration of these cities; they sought mainly refined or finished goods and left the local government to manage the means of production.

Poems of sheer nothingness is an original song cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble that sets the poetic introductions of five early troubadours in their original Occitan. Written between the 12th and 15th centuries in southern France, these five introductions originally served as preambles (themselves sung) to a much longer song. In Poems of sheer nothingness the subsequent love songs are done away with, leaving their introductions in isolation to provide commentary on poetry, songwriting, and the relationship between words and music.The textual introduction describes some of the compositional techniques found within the song cycle, tracing their origins in the phenomenological philosophy of Franz Brantano, Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidegger. These include the concepts of sonic phenomena, sonic objects, eidetic variation, and the auditory scene. Text setting and the composer's original translation and transliteration of the five Occitan texts are also discussed. Musical examples accompany the text throughout, which is followed by a complete score of the five songs.