Political Memory in and After the Persian Empire PDF Download

Author: Jason M. Silverman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780884140900
Category : Iran
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Various disciplines that deal with Achaemenid rule offer starkly different assessments of Persian kingship. While Assyriologists treat Cyrus's heirs as legitimate successors of the Babylonian kings, biblical scholars often speak of a "kingless era" in which the priesthood took over the function of the Davidic monarch. Egyptologists see their land as uniquely independently minded despite conquests, while Hellenistic scholarship tends to evaluate the interface between Hellenism and native traditions without reference to the previous two centuries of Persian rule. This volume brings together in dialogue a broad array of scholars with the goal of seeking a broader context for assessing Persian kingship through the anthropological concept of political memory.

Author: Mehrdad Kia
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 784

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Book Description
This well-balanced reference on ancient Persia demonstrates the region's contributions to the growth and development of human civilization from the 7th century BCE through the fall of the Persian Sasanian Empire in 651CE. Knowledge of ancient Persia is often gleaned from the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans—two civilizations that viewed the Persians as enemies. This one-of-a-kind reference provides unbiased coverage of the cultural history of the Persian Empire, examining the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, Kushan, and Sasanian dynasties and tracing the development and maturation of Iranian societies during a period of nearly 1,500 years. As one of the most comprehensive studies on the topic, this historical overview explores the region's rich past while providing insight into the cultures and civilizations the Persians came to rule and influence. Using primary sources written and inscribed by the ancient Persians themselves, the encyclopedia studies the pre-Islamic civilizations of Iran in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Incorporating contributions from scholars who discuss the rise and fall of various Persian dynasties, the work offers some 180 entries that cover such topics as religion, royal nobility, the caste system, and political assassinations. The content offers perspectives from a variety of disciplines—from anthropology to archaeology, geography, and art history, among other areas.

Author: Lisbeth Fried
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1575065509
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Lisbeth S. Fried’s insightful study investigates the impact of Achaemenid rule on the political power of local priesthoods during the 6th–4th centuries B.C.E. Scholars typically assume that, as long as tribute was sent to Susa, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, subject peoples remained autonomous. Fried’s work challenges this assumption. She examines the inscriptions, coins, temple archives, and literary texts from Babylon, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Judah and concludes that there was no local autonomy. The only people with power in the Empire were Persians and their appointees. This was true for Judah as well. The High Priest had no real power; there was no theocracy. The wars that periodically engulfed the Levant in the fourth century temporarily pulled the ruling governors and satraps away from Judah, and during these times, the Judean priesthood may have capitalized on the brief absence of Persian officials to mint coins, but they achieved their longed-for independence only much later, under the Maccabees. Liz added this explanatory note in an e-mail to the Biblical Studies e-mail list on December 2, 2005: “There’s a confusion in reader’s minds about my methodology, which I’d like to set straight if I may. “The book is a rewrite of my dissertation. My dissertation was entitled The Rise to Power of the Judean Priesthood: The Impact of the Achaemenid Empire. I assumed at the outset that because the Achaemenid Empire was non-directive, and cared only that tribute would be sent regularly, the priesthood was able to fill the resulting power vacuum and achieve secular power. My goal was to chronicle the process. In addition I thought to look at Eisenstadt’s model which predicted the opposite result—that local elites, like priests, could not rise to power in an imperial system. Since there was no real data from Judah, I looked at temple-palace relations in Babylon, Egypt, and Asia Minor as well as Judah. “It was only during my research that I came to the conclusion that local priesthoods did not achieve secular power anywhere in the Achaemenid Empire and certainly not in Judah. In fact their power diminished during those 200 years. I also concluded, not that Eisenstadt was correct, but only that my data were insufficient to reject his model. However, my data were sufficient to reject the model of an Achaemenid Empire that was non-directive as well as the model of Persian authorization of local norms (Frei and Koch).”

Author: Kathleen Abraham
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Book Description
An analysis of the interplay between private entrepreneurship and government fiscal policies and procedures under Darius I of Persia, as exemplified by a member of the wealthy and prestigious Egibi family in Babylon, which had close business connections with government officials. Topics discussed include taxation, tolls, prebends, tax-farming, the international slave trade, market transportation systems, waterway usage, agricultural production, and other private and public economic processes. In addition, 143 pertinent texts are translated and commented upon. Autographed copies of previously unpublished texts are included.

Author: Henry P. Colburn
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474452388
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
A study of the material culture of Egypt during the period of Achaemenid Persian rule, c. 526-404 BCEProvides a clear overview of the archaeological evidence for Achaemenid Egypt, including temples, tombs, irrigation works, statues, stelae, seals and coinsDemonstrates how different types of evidence, both textual and archaeological - including material of uncertain provenance - can be used to address a single historical questionOffers critical discussion of the dating criteria used by archaeologists for Egyptian Late Period materialElucidates strategies used by the Persians to establish and maintain control of EgyptExamines how these strategies may have affected the lives of people living in Egypt during the 27th DynastyCreates a new explanatory model for the introduction of coinage to ancient EgyptPrevious studies have characterised Achaemenid rule of Egypt either as ephemeral and weak or oppressive and harsh. These characterisations, however, are based on the perceived lack of evidence for this period, filtered through ancient and modern preconceptions about the Persians.Henry Colburn challenges these views by assembling and analyzing the archaeological remains from this period, including temples, tombs, irrigation works, statues, stelae, sealings, drinking vessels and coins. By looking at the decisions made about material culture - by Egyptians, Persians and others - it becomes possible to see both how the Persians integrated Egypt into their empire and the full range of experiences people had as a result.

Author: A. T. Olmstead
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826333
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 671

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Book Description
Out of a lifetime of study of the ancient Near East, Professor Olmstead has gathered previously unknown material into the story of the life, times, and thought of the Persians, told for the first time from the Persian rather than the traditional Greek point of view. "The fullest and most reliable presentation of the history of the Persian Empire in existence."—M. Rostovtzeff

Author: Matt Waters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107652723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The Achaemenid Persian Empire, at its greatest territorial extent under Darius I (r.522–486 BCE), held sway over territory stretching from the Indus River Valley to southeastern Europe and from the western Himalayas to northeast Africa. In this book, Matt Waters gives a detailed historical overview of the Achaemenid period while considering the manifold interpretive problems historians face in constructing and understanding its history. This book offers a Persian perspective even when relying on Greek textual sources and archaeological evidence. Waters situates the story of the Achaemenid Persians in the context of their predecessors in the mid-first millennium BCE and through their successors after the Macedonian conquest, constructing a compelling narrative of how the empire retained its vitality for more than two hundred years (c.550–330 BCE) and left a massive imprint on Middle Eastern as well as Greek and European history.

Author: Marion Kruse
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812251628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
What did it mean to be Roman after the fall of the western Roman empire in 476, and what were the implications of new formulations of Roman identity for the inhabitants of both east and west? How could an empire be Roman when it was, in fact, at war with Rome? How did these issues motivate and shape historical constructions of Constantinople as the New Rome? And how did the idea that a Roman empire could fall influence political rhetoric in Constantinople? In The Politics of Roman Memory, Marion Kruse visits and revisits these questions to explore the process by which the emperors, historians, jurists, antiquarians, and poets of the eastern Roman empire employed both history and mythologized versions of the same to reimagine themselves not merely as Romans but as the only Romans worthy of the name. The Politics of Roman Memory challenges conventional narratives of the transformation of the classical world, the supremacy of Christian identity in late antiquity, and the low literary merit of writers in this period. Kruse reconstructs a coherent intellectual movement in Constantinople that redefined Romanness in a Constantinopolitan idiom through the manipulation of Roman historical memory. Debates over the historical parameters of Romanness drew the attention of figures as diverse as Zosimos—long dismissed as a cranky pagan outlier, but here rehabilitated—and the emperor Justinian, as well as the major authors of Justinian's reign, such as Prokopios, Ioannes Lydos, and Jordanes. Finally, by examining the narratives embedded in Justinian's laws, Kruse demonstrates the importance of historical memory to the construction of imperial authority.

Author: Jason M. Silverman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567688542
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Jason Silverman presents a timely and necessary study, advancing the understanding of Achaemenid ideology and Persian Period Judaism. While the Achaemenid Persian Empire (c. 550–330 BCE) dwarfed all previous empires of the Ancient Near East in both size and longevity, the royal system that forged and preserved this civilisation remains only rudimentarily understood, as is the imperial and religious legacy bequeathed to future generations. In response to this deficit, Silverman provides a critically sophisticated and interdisciplinary model for comparative studies. While the Achaemenids rebuilt the Jerusalem temple, Judaean literature of the period reflects tensions over its Persian re-establishment, demonstrating colliding religious perspectives. Although both First Zechariah (1–8) and Second Isaiah (40–55) are controversial, the greater imperial context is rarely dealt with in depth; both books deal directly with the temple's legitimacy, and this ties them intimately to kings' engagements with cults. Silverman explores how the Achaemenid kings portrayed their rule to subject minorities, the ways in which minority elites reshaped this ideology, and how long this impact lasted, as revealed through the Judaean reactions to the restoration of the Jerusalem temple.

Author: David Janzen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567675491
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
David Janzen argues that the Book of Chronicles is a document with a political message as well as a theological one and moreover, that the book's politics explain its theology. The author of Chronicles was part of a 4th century B.C.E. group within the post-exilic Judean community that hoped to see the Davidides restored to power, and he or she composed this work to promote a restoration of this house to the position of a client monarchy within the Persian Empire. Once this is understood as the political motivation for the work's composition, the reasons behind the Chronicler's particular alterations to source material and emphasis of certain issues becomes clear. The doctrine of immediate retribution, the role of 'all Israel' at important junctures in Judah's past, the promotion of Levitical status and authority, the virtual joint reign of David and Solomon, and the decision to begin the narrative with Saul's death can all be explained as ways in which the Chronicler tries to assure the 4th century assembly that a change in local government to Davidic client rule would benefit them. It is not necessary to argue that Chronicles is either pro-Davidic or pro-Levitical; it is both, and the attention Chronicles pays to the Levites is done in the service of winning over a group within the temple personnel to the pro-Davidic cause, just as many of its other features were designed to appeal to other interest groups within the assembly.