Buch, Englisch, 530 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 1043 g
Volume III: Arsāma's World
Buch, Englisch, 530 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 1043 g
ISBN: 978-0-19-886071-6
Verlag: Oxford University Press
During the Second World War the Bodleian Library in Oxford acquired a set of Aramaic letters, eight sealings, and the two leather bags in which the sealed letters were once stored. The letters concern the affairs of Aršama, satrap of Egypt in the later fifth century. Taken with other material associated with him (mostly in Aramaic, Demotic Egyptian, and Akkadian), they illuminate the Achaemenid world of which Aršama was a privileged member and evoke a wide range of social, economic, cultural, organizational, and political perspectives, from multi-lingual communication, storage and disbursement of resources, and satrapal remuneration, to cross-regional ethnic movement, long-distance travel, religious practice, and iconographic projection of ideological messages.
Particular highlights include a travel authorization (the only example of something implicit in numerous Persepolis documents), texts about the religious life of the Judaean garrison at Elephantine, Aršama's magnificent seal (a masterpiece of Achaemenid glyptic, inherited from a son of Darius I), and echoes of temporary disturbances to Persian management of Egypt. But what is also impressive is the underlying sense of systematic coherence founded on and expressed in the use of formal, even formalized, written communication as a means of control. The Aršama dossier is not alone in evoking that sense, but its size, variety, and focus upon a single individual give it a unique quality.
Though this material has not been hidden from view, it has been insufficiently explored: it is the purpose of the three volumes of Aršama and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context to provide the fullest presentation and historical contextualization of this extraordinary cache yet attempted. Volume I presents and translates the letters alongside a detailed line-by-line commentary, while Volume II reconstructs the two seals that made the clay bullae that sealed the letters, with special attention to Aršama's magnificent heirloom seal. Volume III comprises a series of thematic essays which further explore the administrative, economic, military, ideological, religious, and artistic environment to which Aršama and the letters belonged.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1: Christopher J. Tuplin: Aršama: Prince and Satrap
- 2. Letters and Administration
- 2.1: Jan Tavernier: Persian in Official Documents and the Processes of Multilingual Administration
- 2.2: Jennifer Hilder: Masterful Missives: Form and Authority in Aršama's Letters
- 2.3: Michael Jursa: The Aršama Corpus through the Lens of Babylonian Epistolography
- 3. Control and Connectivity
- 3.1: Amélie Kuhrt: The Persian Empire
- 3.2: Arthur P. Keaveney: Frustrated Frondeurs or Loyal Kings Mena Nobles at the Achaemenid Court
- 3.3: Eran Almagor: The Royal Road from Herodotus to Xenophon (via Ctesias)
- 4. Economics
- 4.1: John Ma: Aršama the Vampire
- 4.2: Alain Bresson: Silverization, Prices, and Tribute in the Achaemenid Empire
- 4.3: John O. Hyland: Aršama, Egyptian Trade, and the Peloponnesian War
- 5. Egyptian Perspectives
- 5.1: Günter Vittmann: The Multi-Ethnic World of Achaemenid Egypt
- 5.2: Lisbeth S. Fried: Aramaic Texts and the Achaemenid Administration of Egypt
- 5.3: Christopher J. Tuplin: The Military Environment of Achaemenid Egypt
- 5.4: Gard Granerød: The Passover and the Temple of YHW: On the Interaction between the Authorities and the Judaean Community at Elephantine as Reflected in the Yedanyah Archive
- 5.5: Christopher J. Tuplin: The Fall and Rise of the Elephantine Temple
- 5.6: Dorothy J. Thompson: After Aršama: Persian Echoes in Early Ptolemaic Egypt
