Canonisation is fundamental to the sustainability of cultures. This volume is meant as a (theoretical) exploration of the process, taking Eurasian societies from roughly the first millennium BCE (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Jewish and Roman) as case studies. It focuses on canonisation as a form of cultural formation, asking why and how canonisation works in this particular way and explaining the importance of the first millennium BCE for these question and vice versa. As a result of this focus, notions like anchoring, cultural memory, embedding and innovation play an important role throughout the book.
Miguel John Versluys, Ph.D. (2001), Leiden University, is Professor of Classical & Mediterranean Archaeology at that university. He has published widely on the cultural dynamics of Afro-Eurasia in Antiquity, including Visual Style and Constructing Identity in the Hellenistic World. Nemrud DaÄ and Commagene under Antiochos I (CUP 2017)
3 âThe Tablets I Spoke about Are Good to Preserve until Far-off Daysâ: An Overview on the Creation and Evolution of Canons in Babylonia and Assyria from the Middle Babylonian Period until the End of Cuneiform Sources
âMarie Young
4 Inserting or Ruminating: How Demotic Became Canonic
âDamien Agut-Labordère
10 Coming Home: Varroâs Antiquitates rerum divinarum and the Canonisation of Roman Religion
âAlessandra Rolle
Part 3: Conclusion
11 What Becomes of the Uncanonical?
âGreg Woolf
Index
This book will appeal to specialists in Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Jewish and Roman cultures but even more to those interested in the interactions between these societies as they can be investigated through processes of canonisation, anchoring, cultural memory, embedding and innovation.