Billie Jean Collins – författare

The papers in this collection are the product of the conference "Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Ancient Anatolia: An International Conference on Cross-Cultural Interaction," hosted by Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. They cover an impressive range of issues relating to the complex cultural interactions that took place on Anatolian soil over the course of two millennia, in the process highlighting the difficulties inherent in studying societies that are multi-cultural in their make-up and outlook, as well as the role that cultural identity played in shaping those interactions. Topics include possible sources of tension along the Mycenaean-Anatolian interface; the transmission of mythological and religious elements between cultures; the change across time and space in literary motifs as they are adapted to new milieus and new audiences; the ways in which linguistic data can refine our understanding of the interrelations between the various peoples who lived in Anatolia; and the role that the Anatolian kingdoms of the first millennium played as cultural filters and conduits through which North Syrian or Near Eastern ideas or materials were transmitted to the Greeks.

Includes 56 b/w illustrations. This collection of essays honours the life and work of Gary Beckman, Professor of Hittite and Mesopotamian Studies at the University of Michigan. The essays traverse ancient Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and beyond. Beckman’s interest in the reception and adaptation of Syro-Mesopotamian culture by the Hittites in particular inspired this offering.

This volume brings together scholars in religion, archaeology, philology and history to explore case studies and theoretical models of converging religions. The twenty-four essays offered in this volume, which derive from Hittite, Cilician, Lydian, Phoenician, Greek and Roman cultural settings, focus on encounters at the boundaries of cultures, landscapes, chronologies, social class and status, the imaginary, and the materially operative. Broad patterns ultimately emerge that reach across these boundaries, and suggest the state of the question on the study of convergence, and the potential fruitfulness for comparative and interdisciplinary studies as models continue to evolve.