Registers and Modes of Communication in the Ancient Near East

Kyle H. Keimer is Lecturer in the Archaeology and History of Ancient Israel and the Near East at Macquarie University, Australia. Gillan Davis is Director, Program for Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Macquarie University, Australia.

Encompassing a wide spectrum of civilizations and periods, from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman imperial period, and ranging in its coverage from Mesopotamia to Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, this volume provides many penetrating insights into the ways Near Eastern people communicated with one another, on personal, state, and international levels. Through its multi-disciplinary approach and use of modern research methods which enhance our understanding of both verbal and written interactions between the ancient Near Eastern peoples, it will be of great benefit to students and scholars engaged in any field of Near Eastern studies, from the Bronze Age through the biblical and Classical eras. - Professor Trevor Bryce, University of Queensland, Australia

• FiguresTablesContributorsAbbreviationsGeneral IntroductionGillan Davis and Kyle H. Keimer, Communicating in the Past; Connecting with the PastPart I. Imperial and Court CommunicationsIntroduction to Part IChapter 1Noel Weeks, The Disappearance of Cuneiform from the West and Elites in the Ancient Near EastChapter 2Samuel Jackson, Contrasting Representations and the Egypto-Hittite TreatyChapter 3Luis R. Siddall, Text and Context: The Question of Audience for Sennacherib's 'Public' InscriptionsChapter 4Wayne Horowitz, Communication and Miscommunication in the Southern Sky: The Case of Scorpio and the Southern Cross in Cuneiform Chapter 5Samuel N. C. Lieu, Imperialism and Language: Observations on Bilingual Inscriptions from PalmyraPart II. Community CommunicationsIntroduction to Part IIChapter 6Gareth Wearne, ‘Guard it on Your Tongue!’: The Second Rubric in the Deir ʿAlla Plaster Texts as an Instruction for the Oral Performance of the NarrativeChapter 7Rachelle Gilmour, Juxtaposition and Narrative Evaluation in Joshua 1-2Chapter 8Ian Young, Literature as Flexible Communication: Variety in Hebrew Biblical TextsChapter 9Rachel Mansfield, Benjamin Overcash and Stephen Llewelyn, The Use of Paleo-Hebraic Script on Jewish Revolt Coins: A Semiotic FocusPart III. Communications Between Families and IndividualsIntroduction to Part IIIChapter 10Peter Zilberg, From Dragomans to Babel: The Role of Interpreters in the Ancient Near East in the 1st Millennium B.C.E.Chapter 11Louise M. Pryke, Sex, Lies and Beautiful Eyes: Divine Communication and Premarital Relations in Sumerian PoetryChapter 12Alanna Nobbs, Communication within a Dysfunctional Family in Late Antique Egypt