The Iranian TalmudThe book also has a website here.
Reading the Bavli in Its Sasanian Context
Shai Secunda
272 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Nov 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4570-7 | $55.00s | £36.00 | Add to cart
Ebook Nov 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0904-4 | $55.00s | £36.00 | About | Add to cart
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series
View table of contents and excerpt
"Shai Secunda not only persuades his readers of the need for contextual study of the Bavli but also facilitates such study by educating them about the religious and ethnic communities of the Sasanian empire, the forms of literary and nonliterary evidence available, and appropriate methodological and theoretical approaches to the comparative study of Talmudic and Middle Persian literature. The Iranian Talmud will be the first sustained attempt both to demystify the project of Irano-Talmudic research and to provide a basic orientation to it."—Christine Hayes, Yale University
Although the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, has been a text central and vital to the Jewish canon since the Middle Ages, the context in which it was produced has been poorly understood. Delving deep into Sasanian material culture and literary remains, Shai Secunda pieces together the dynamic world of late antique Iran, providing an unprecedented and accessible overview of the world that shaped the Bavli.
Secunda unites the fields of Talmudic scholarship with Old Iranian studies to enable a fresh look at the heterogeneous religious and ethnic communities of pre-Islamic Iran. He analyzes the intercultural dynamics between the Jews and their Persian Zoroastrian neighbors, exploring the complex processes and modes of discourse through which these groups came into contact and considering the ways in which rabbis and Zoroastrian priests perceived one another. Placing the Bavli and examples of Middle Persian literature side by side, the Zoroastrian traces in the former and the discursive and Talmudic qualities of the latter become evident. The Iranian Talmud introduces a substantial and essential shift in the field, setting the stage for further Irano-Talmudic research.
Shai Secunda is a scholar at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and coeditor of Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman (with Steven Fine).
Secunda, The Iranian Talmud
REGINA (Casas de Reina)
Programma Open Monumentendag online
Op zondag 8 september wordt voor de 25ste keer Open Monumentendag (OMD) gevierd in heel Vlaanderen. Deze feesteditie plaatst het beste van de voorbije Open Monumentendagen in de schijnwerpers. In 200 Vlaamse steden en gemeenten kan je – soms onbekende – pareltjes bezoeken en deelnemen aan talloze activiteiten. Vanaf nu vind je het volledige OMD-programma op www.openmonumenten.be. Bekijk je het programma liever op papier? Dan kan je de Monumentenkrant afhalen in de toeristische kantoren, cultuurdiensten, openbare bibliotheken en Standaard Boekhandels. Op zaterdag 7 september zit de Monumentenkrant ook bij De Standaard.
Very cool. downloading-new-emotion: My coworker saw my...
Very cool.
My coworker saw my cuneiform keychain and said, “cool chicken nugget."
Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues | “Arguments for and Against Buying Uncleaned Roman Coins”
Logeion 2 (2012), 2013
The second issue of the journal has been published.
The post Logeion 2 (2012), 2013 appeared first on Αρχαιολογία Online.
Dorothy King’s PhDiva | Sarah Bond: Who Is a Bandit?: Revisiting Legitimated Violence in the Roman Empire and America
Following Hadrian | Cuirassed statue of Hadrian wearing the Corona Civica, from the North Nymphaeum at Perga, Antalya Museum
Cuirassed statue of Hadrian wearing the Corona Civica, from the North Nymphaeum at Perga, Antalya Museum
- via FOLLOWING HADRIAN.
Powered By Osteons | Archaeology and GitHub
The Second Achilles | The Wars of the Successors: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The Ancient World Online |Rome in Egypt: Roman Temples for Egyptian Gods
Laudator Temporis Acti | Every One That Thirsteth, Come Ye to the Waters
N.S. Gill | The Romans Also Linked Safety and Health
Laudator Temporis Acti | Receipt to Make a Great Critick
Past Horizons | The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination
Plutarch, Cicero 24.6
περὶ δὲ τῶν Δημοσθένους λόγων ἐρωτηθείς, τίνα δοκοίη κάλλιστον εἶναι, τὸν μέγιστον εἶπε.
When he was asked which of Demosthenes’ speeches he thought the best, he said, ‘The longest one.’
Filed under: Plutarch
Mycenean Rock-cut Tombs from Bodrum
Interesting item from Hurriyet:
Rock tombs dating back to 3,500 years ago have been uncovered in Bodrum’s Ortakent district, which form part of the necropolis area.
Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum manager Emel Özkan and archeologists Banu Mete Özler and Ece Benli Bağcı are leading the excavations. The experts are still not sure if there was a settlement or not.
The tombs are believed to belong to the early “Mycenaean Greece III A” era, which was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. The tombs also revealed human and animal bones, bronze containers and many different kinds of pieces. The necropolis area has been taken under protection. The findings of the excavation may belong to the bronze age and also to the Akha Hellenistic era.
The tombs also reveal the culture and the lifestyle of the early Mycenaean Greek era, as well as the period’s artistic approach, according to experts.
- via: Early Greek rock tombs in Bodrum (Hurriyet)
Hurriyet has another version at Mycenaean artifacts found in Bodrum which has a different photo … there’s also some added detail from the Today’s Zaman coverage (inter alia):
[...] Speaking to the press, Professor Yusuf Boysal, the supervisor of the excavations, said his team so far has found the remains of several tombs, a canteen, a three-handled cup, a jug, a bronze razor, animals’ bones, many pieces of glass and beads with different shapes.
Boysal added: “Along with these new discoveries, now we will have more information regarding this ancient era. These tombs and other historical ruins are very important and they will give us information about the culture of the people who lived in that era.” [...]
- 3,500-year-old ancient tombs unearthed in Bodrum (Today’s Zaman)
Pretty Sure This Was Intentional
A number of Doctor Who fans noticed that Peter Capaldi, when he first came on stage after the announcement that he would be the next Doctor, did the lapel grab that William Hartnell sometimes did. It was almost certainly intentional.
As we reach what would, if the time lords’ limit on regenerations were enforced, be the Doctor’s final life, and as we have a return to the role being played by an actor who is the age of the original actor when he first played the role, this echo of a classic Hartnell mannerism is fitting.
Cambyses’ Lost Army Redux
One of the most popular posts at rogueclassicism has to do with a claim a few years about Cambyses’ Lost Army (Cambyses’ Lost Army Found? Don’t Eat That Elmer … … see also a followup that doesn’t seem to have actually come to fruition: Cambyses Lost Army? The Plot Thickens …). Thankfully, the claims in that post seem to have not had as much impact as its claimants would have liked, but we should make note of a recent Scientific American story which deals with the science behind a sandstorm doing things according to Herodotus’ tale. Here’s the incipit:
Over the weekend Jen-Luc Piquant found herself pondering the works of Herodotus, specifically the tale of the Lost Army of Cambyses. Sometime around 524 BC, priests at the oracle of the Temple of Amun decided they didn’t much care for their new ruler, Cambyses II, son of Cyrus the Great. Cambyses decided that he didn’t much care for their insubordination. And he had soldiers — 50,000 of them, sent marching through the Sahara from Thebes to put those rebellious priests in their place.
But they never reached their destination (the Oasis of Siwa, where the mutinous temple was located). Seven days into their march, a massive sandstorm broke out and buried Cambyses’ entire army, never to be seen again. Per Herodotus: “A wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear.”
It’s most likely myth, according to leading Egyptologists. But it inspired a cautionary mention of Cambyses in the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, when the Pardoner is advocating moderation in drinking alcohol (he seemed to think Cambyses dispatched his army in a drunken rage). And it also inspired various archaeological expeditions over the past 100 or so years to try and locate whatever evidence might remain of the lost army of the Egyptian ruler.
At least one such claim, in 1977, turned out to be a hoax. Most recently, in 2009, two Italian archaeologists claimed to have found remnants of the lost army, in the form of bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones. But this claim, too, seems suspect: let’s just say they didn’t have the blessing of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities for their 13-year quest, and they presented their evidence not in an academic journal, but in a documentary film screened at the archaeological film festival of Rovereto.
Jen-Luc does not make Herodotus a regular part of her weekend reading, but a new paper in Physical Review Letters described the results from computer simulations of midair collisions between grains of sand during a sandstorm, and reminded her of the doomed desert army. And it turns out those collisions may play a pivotal role in determining the strength of a sandstorm — known as the flux — increasing that strength the more they collide.
Physicists love to study granular media like sand, and sandstorms offer a rich trove of fascinating physics, notably in how these meteorological phenomena can transport huge amounts of sand from one place to another in a fairly short period of time. The grains are especially loose in dry, arid conditions, so when strong winds blow over the dunes of the Sahara, for example, they first start to vibrate, and then to pop up in the air, striking the ground after they fall and often breaking into a splash of even smaller particles of dust (called “leapers”) — all part of a process called “saltation.” [...]
- via: Cambyses’ Lost Army and the Physics of Sandstorms (Scientific American)
Obviously, the physics doesn’t prove the legend one way or another, but it’s a useful bit of science to tack on to retellings of the tale …
ex oriente
ex oriente e.V. is a scientific society founded in 1994 by researchers of the Institutes of Near Eastern Archaeology and Ancient Oriental Studies at the Free University of Berlin. We are an independent organization encouraging interdisciplinary and transnational cooperation on the study of environmental history, ancient technologies, and the means of production and subsistence in the Near and Middle East.
In contrast to traditional research interests of the discipline in Germany, we focus on the lifeway of the people in early societies. The natural environment of the Near East provided conditions that allowed for substantial advances in human cultural development, including:This trajectory was characterized by a continuing emergence of new technologies and subsistence economies. This often involved the adoption of adaptive strategies to compensate for excessive exploitation of natural resources that changed or destroyed environmental conditions. The early examples of enduring human impacts on their surroundings have clear modern analogies in terms of environmental and developmental politics. Thus, the aim of ex oriente is also to make a clear connection between prehistoric and early historical times with present-day environmental and social developments. Research on prehistoric territorial behavior and environmental destruction, conditions under which stratified societies and early patterns of conflict arose, can offer insights into modern developmental problems.
- sedentarization
- domestication of plants and animals
- irrigation and pastoralism
- urbanization
- emergence of states.