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Losing One's Head in the Ancient Near East

Rita Dolce
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A01=Rita Dolce
Amorrite Mari
Anatolian art
Anatolian history research
Anatolian iconography
ancient anatolia
ancient mesopotamia
ancient Near Eastern rituals
ancient near eastern warfare
ancient syria
ancient syrian art
ancient syrian iconography
ancient warfare
art from ebla
art from mari
Ashurnasirpal II
Assurnasirpal II
Author_Rita Dolce
Balawat gate
capital punishment in the ancient near east
capital punishment in the ancient world
Category=AGA
Category=NHC
Category=NHWA
Category=NKD
Central Palace
Conferring
Coveted Object
Cylinder Seal Impression
decapitation in the ancient near east
decapitation practices in ancient warfare
Early Dynastic
Early Dynastic Mesopotamia
Eighteenth Century Bc
Eighth Century Bc
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
gardens of Niniveh
Held
Mesopotamian archaeology
mesopotamian art
mesopotamian iconography
Mid-third Millennium Bc
Millennium Bc
Neo-Assyrian art
Neo-Assyrian iconography
Neo-Assyrian Period
Neo-Assyrian Reliefs
Ninth Century Bc
North
North Palace
North West Palace
Oversized Heads
palace of Assurbanipal
PPNB
pre-classical Near East
Proto-Historical Period
ritualised mutilation
Royal Archives of ebla
Salmanasar III
Scribes
South West Palace
statue of the ensi Enmetena
stele of Dadusha
stele of Eannatum of Lagash
symbolic violence studies
Thirteenth Century Bc
Tiglathpileser I
Til Barsip
war iconography
war in ancient anatolia
war in ancient mesopotamia
war in ancient syria
war in the ancient near east

Product details

  • ISBN 9781138067486
  • Weight: 317g
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 19 Dec 2017
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
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Description

In the Ancient Near East, cutting off someone’s head was a unique act, not comparable to other types of mutilation, and therefore charged with a special symbolic and communicative significance. This book examines representations of decapitation in both images and texts, particularly in the context of war, from a trans-chronological perspective that aims to shed light on some of the conditions, relationships and meanings of this specific act. The severed head is a “coveted object” for the many individuals who interact with it and determine its fate, and the act itself appears to take on the hallmarks of a ritual. Drawing mainly on the evidence from Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia between the third and first millennia BC, and with reference to examples from prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian Period, this fascinating study will be of interest not only to art historians, but to anyone interested in the dynamics of war in the ancient world.
About Rita Dolce
Rita Dolce is Associate Professor of Archaeology and History of Near Eastern Cultures and Fine Arts at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy, and a member of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Syria, where she has excavated for 40 years at the site of Tell Mardikh-Ebla. Her research interests lie mainly in the figurative art, urban topography and architecture of the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia and Syria. She has written numerous books and articles focusing particularly on visual communication as the language of power and a means of dissemination in the societies of the Ancient Near East, and on the urban origins of Ebla, its palatial culture and the structure and significance of cult places in this important Early Syrian kingdom.

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