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This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world’s earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study.

Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period (ca. 3300–539 BCE). The volume is divided into two parts: the first addressing theoretical and methodological issues through thematic analyses and the second encompassing corpus-based approaches to specific emotions. Part I addresses emotions and history, defining the terms, materialization and material remains, kings and the state, and engaging the gods. Part II explores happiness and joy; fear, terror, and awe; sadness, grief, and depression; contempt, disgust, and shame; anger and hate; envy and jealousy; love, affection, and admiration; and pity, empathy, and compassion. Numerous sub-themes threading through the volume explore such topics as emotional expression and suppression in relation to social status, gender, the body, and particular social and spatial conditions or material contexts.

The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East is an invaluable and accessible resource for Near Eastern studies and adjacent fields, including Classical, Biblical, and medieval studies, and a must-read for scholars, students, and others interested in the history and cross-cultural study of emotions.

This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world’s earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study.

Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period (ca. 3300–539 BCE). The volume is divided into two parts: the first addressing theoretical and methodological issues through thematic analyses and the second encompassing corpus-based approaches to specific emotions. Part I addresses emotions and history, defining the terms, materialization and material remains, kings and the state, and engaging the gods. Part II explores happiness and joy; fear, terror, and awe; sadness, grief, and depression; contempt, disgust, and shame; anger and hate; envy and jealousy; love, affection, and admiration; and pity, empathy, and compassion. Numerous sub-themes threading through the volume explore such topics as emotional expression and suppression in relation to social status, gender, the body, and particular social and spatial conditions or material contexts.

The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East is an invaluable and accessible resource for Near Eastern studies and adjacent fields, including Classical, Biblical, and medieval studies, and a must-read for scholars, students, and others interested in the history and cross-cultural study of emotions.

Two topics of current critical interest, agency and materiality, are here explored in the context of their intersection with the divine. Specific case studies, emphasizing the ancient Near East but including treatments also of the European Middle Ages and ancient Greece, elucidate the nature and implications of this intersection: What is the relationship between the divine and the particular matter or physical form in which it is materially represented or mentally visualized? How do sacral or divine "things" act, and what is the source and nature of their agency? How might we productively define and think about anthropomorphism in relation to the divine? What is the relationship between the mental and the material image, and between the categories of object and image, image and likeness, and likeness and representation? Drawing on a broad range of written and pictorial sources, this volume is a novel contribution to the contemporary discourse on the functioning and communicative potential of the material and materialized divine as it is developing in the fields of anthropology, art history, and the history and cognitive science of religion.

Two topics of current critical interest, agency and materiality, are here explored in the context of their intersection with the divine. Specific case studies, emphasizing the ancient Near East but including treatments also of the European Middle Ages and ancient Greece, elucidate the nature and implications of this intersection: What is the relationship between the divine and the particular matter or physical form in which it is materially represented or mentally visualized? How do sacral or divine "things" act, and what is the source and nature of their agency? How might we productively define and think about anthropomorphism in relation to the divine? What is the relationship between the mental and the material image, and between the categories of object and image, image and likeness, and likeness and representation? Drawing on a broad range of written and pictorial sources, this volume is a novel contribution to the contemporary discourse on the functioning and communicative potential of the material and materialized divine as it is developing in the fields of anthropology, art history, and the history and cognitive science of religion.