CLA196

These are lists of the names of people, places, cultures, and gods that you should know for the tests. NOTE that these are subject to minor revisions. Come midterm time I will give a final list (which will include Egyptian names which from Nick). In the meantime, these lists will still be very useful. If you run into a name in Mieroop, Pritchard ANET, or Jacobsen, Harps, check if it’s on the list, and write down the essential information about each. Also note that the online powerpoints contain most of the essential information for each.

Midterm study guide (subject to minor revisions)

Midterm Map IDs: Southern Babylonia (= Sumer and Akkad)

Midterm format. The midterm could contain any combination of the following:

1) Match list of historical figures to the most important deed of each. They will be broken down into smaller groups by period, just as on the midterm study guide.

2) Match god / temple names to what each is god of, or whose temple it is. See midterm study guide.

3) Identify city names on partially blank map of southern Babylonia. See midterm study map above.

4) Short list of key cities. Tell me what each is important for.

5) Choice of essay question, including at least:

5A) Sources for ANE History: what genres they are, how they change over time, what they tell us, what their limitations are, the relative prominence of myth vs history, etc. One could also discuss Greek/biblical accounts here.

5B) Ideology of Kingship: could discuss relation of king and goddess; Sacred Marriage; king as Dumuzi; divine kingship (when introduced, by whom, how long it lasts); royal hymns; transition from priest-king / temple state to more secular power and control of temple / palace by one figure.

5C) Sketch the historical / political sequence of ANE history down to the Age of Hammurabi. What are the major period? What are the major social and political characteristics / developments of each, from the Uruk period to the Age of Amorites?

ANE PRINT RESOURCES IN BAILEY-HOWE REFERENCE

ONLINE READINGS

Section of Life of Aesop which derives from the figure of the Aramaic sage Ahiqar.

E-texts for Friday 1/20. These readings are to give you an idea of what the Greeks knew, or thought they knew, about Assyria, Babylonia, and more ancient Near Eastern history:

I. Fragment 4 of Phocylides. Mid-sixth BC, so within living memory of the fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE:

This too says Phocylides: a city in good order, though small

and built on a distant crag, is mightier than foolish Ninos

II. Herodotus’ description of Babylon, from book 1 of The Histories (mid-fifth century BCE)

III. Diodorus Siculus 2:1-28 legendary account of Assyrian and earlier history through Greek eyes, though probably incorporating legends current in the Hellenistic Near East (i.e. four-five centuries after the events). This is part of the a larger work called The Historical Library (Bibliotheca historica), belonging to the Greek genre of ‘universal history’, i.e. an account of ‘world history’, but incorporating mythological material for the earliest times.

Additional readings for 3/21:

Kingship in Heaven and Song of Ullikummi)

Hesiod Theogony lines 116-206 (compare with Kingship in Heaven)