Physical Descriptions, Biometrics, and Eikonographia in Graeco-Roman Papyri from Egypt PDF Download

Author: Ella Karev
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004713123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
In modern life, an identity document bearing a photograph is an indispensable feature. Yet this connection between physical appearance and legal identity is not as modern as it may seem. In Graeco-Roman Egypt, Greek texts also bore “lexical photographs”: standardised, detailed physical descriptions (eikones) of individuals including height, skin colour, hair texture, the shape of the nose and face, and other identifiers like body modifications and disabilities. For the first time, this book collects the nearly 4000 extant eikones and their role in society, bringing the images of real individuals to life within the everyday biometric system in which they acted, worked, and relied upon for identification.

Author: Jan Dušek
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900418385X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This book presents a paleographic analysis of the Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and their historical background within the historical and political context of Palestine in the Hellenistic period.

Author: Edward Dolnick
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501198939
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The surprising and compelling story of two rival geniuses in an all-out race to decode one of the world's most famous documents--the Rosetta Stone--and their twenty-year-long battle to solve the mystery of ancient Egypt's hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the world, attracting millions of visitors to the British museum ever year, and yet most people don't really know what it is. Discovered in a pile of rubble in 1799, this slab of stone proved to be the key to unlocking a lost language that baffled scholars for centuries. Carved in ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone carried the same message in different languages--in Greek using Greek letters, and in Egyptian using picture-writing called hieroglyphs. Until its discovery, no one in the world knew how to read the hieroglyphs that covered every temple and text and statue in Egypt. Dominating the world for thirty centuries, ancient Egypt was the mightiest empire the world had ever known, yet everything about it--the pyramids, mummies, the Sphinx--was shrouded in mystery. Whoever was able to decipher the Rosetta Stone, and learn how to read hieroglyphs, would solve that mystery and fling open a door that had been locked for two thousand years. Two brilliant rivals set out to win that prize. One was English, the other French, at a time when England and France were enemies and the world's two great superpowers. The Writing of the Gods chronicles this high-stakes intellectual race in which the winner would win glory for both himself and his nation. A riveting portrait of empires both ancient and modern, this is an unparalleled look at the culture and history of ancient Egypt and a fascinating, fast-paced story of human folly and discovery unlike any other.

Author: James D. Moore
Publisher: Studies on Elephantine
ISBN: 9789004505575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
"The famous German excavations between 1906 and 1908 of Elephantine Island in Egypt produced some of the most important Aramaic sources for understanding the history of Judeans and Arameans living in 5th century BCE Egypt under Persian occupation. Unknown to the world, many papyri fragments from those excavations remained uncatalogued in the Berlin Museum. In New Aramaic Papyri from Elephantine in Berlin James D. Moore edits the remaining legible Aramaic fragments, which belong to letters, contracts, and administrative texts"--

Author: Mahri Leonard-Fleckman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004511539
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
A “Community of Peoples” draws together a diverse community of scholars to honor the career of Daniel E. Fleming. Through a diversity of methods and disciplines, each contributor attempts to touch a sliver of ancient Middle Eastern history.

Author: Alessandra Ceretto
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 136509796X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004508821
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This volume contains a new and up-to date selection of case studies which offer new insights on various topics in Indo-European linguistics, with a focus on contact, variation, and reconstruction, and with methods that straddle the divide between Linguistics and Philology.

Author: Irene Vallejo
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0593318900
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
A rich exploration of the importance of books and libraries in the ancient world that highlights how humanity’s obsession with the printed word has echoed throughout the ages • “Accessible and entertaining.” —The Wall Street Journal Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and Pharaohs were so determined to possess them that they dispatched emissaries to the edges of earth to bring them back. When Mark Antony wanted to impress Cleopatra, he knew that gold and priceless jewels would mean nothing to her. So, what did her give her? Books for her library—two hundred thousand, in fact. The long and eventful history of the written word shows that books have always been and will always be a precious—and precarious—vehicle for civilization. Papyrus is the story of the book’s journey from oral tradition to scrolls to codices, and how that transition laid the very foundation of Western culture. Award-winning author Irene Vallejo evokes the great mosaic of literature in the ancient world from Greece’s itinerant bards to Rome’s multimillionaire philosophers, from opportunistic forgers to cruel teachers, erudite librarians to defiant women, all the while illuminating how ancient ideas about education, censorship, authority, and identity still resonate today. Crucially, Vallejo also draws connections to our own time, from the library in war-torn Sarajevo to Oxford’s underground labyrinth, underscoring how words have persisted as our most valuable creations. Through nimble interpretations of the classics, playful and moving anecdotes about her own encounters with the written word, and fascinating stories from history, Vallejo weaves a marvelous tapestry of Western culture’s foundations and identifies the humanist values that helped make us who we are today. At its heart a spirited love letter to language itself, Papyrus takes readers on a journey across the centuries to discover how a simple reed grown along the banks of the Nile would give birth to a rich and cherished culture.

Author: Alejandro Jiménez-Serrano
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004442820
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Book Description
The chapters of Middle Kingdom Palace Culture and Its Echoes in the Provinces discuss the degree of influence that provincial developments played in reshaping the Egyptian state and culture during the Middle Kingdom. Contributors to the volume are Egyptologists from around the world who have developed their research following a conference held at the University of Jaén in Spain.

Author: Julia Hsieh
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004472320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
In Ancient Egyptian Letters to the Dead: The Realm of the Dead through the Voice of the Living Julia Hsieh investigates the beliefs and practices of communicating with the dead in ancient Egypt as evidenced through extant Letters and provides detailed textual analysis.