Of Priests and Kings: the Babylonian New Year Festival in the Last Age of Cuneiform Culture: The Babylonian New Year Festival in the Last Age of Cuneiform Culture

Editing and examining source-critically for the first time the Late Babylonian ritual texts dealing with the New Year Festival, this book proposes an incisive re-interpretation of the most frequently discussed of all Mesopotamian rituals.ISBN : 9789004512955 ‎Contents ‎Acknowledgments ‎Figures and Tables ‎Abbreviations ‎Chapter 1. Introduction ‎1.1. Definitions and Conventions ‎1.2. Contents of the Book ‎Chapter 2. Status Quaestionis ‎2.1. History of Scholarship ‎2.2. History of the Babylonian New Year Festival ‎2.3. The Reconstructed Twelve Days ‎2.4. Function and Meaning ‎2.5. If There Are Altars, There Must Be Gods: Problems and Questions ‎Chapter 3. Textual Sources for the Babylonian New Year Festival During the First Millennium BCE ‎3.1. The Neo-Assyrian Period ‎3.1.1. Neo-Assyrian Kings and the Babylonian NYF ‎3.1.2. The Assyrian Akītu ‎3.1.3. The Return of Marduk ‎3.1.4. Summary ‎3.2. The Neo-Babylonian and Early Persian Period ‎3.2.1. Royal Inscriptions ‎3.2.2. Akītu in the Temple Administrations ‎3.2.3. Chronicles and the Akītu-Festival ‎3.2.4. Historical-Literary Texts ‎3.2.5. Cult and Liturgy ‎3.2.6. Summary ‎3.3. Hellenistic Babylon ‎3.3.1. Contemporary Sources ‎3.3.2. Historical Chronicles ‎3.3.3. Ritual Texts and Commentaries ‎3.3.4. Summary ‎3.4. Summary and Outlook ‎Chapter 4. The New Year Festival Texts ‎4.1. NYF1: DT 15 ‎4.2. NYF2: DT 114 ‎4.3. NYF3: BM 32485+DT 109 ‎4.4. NYF4: MNB 1848 ‎4.5. NYF5: BM 41577 ‎4.6. NYF6: BM 32655//BM 32374 ‎Chapter 5. Analyses ‎5.1. Philological Analysis ‎5.1.1. Paleography ‎5.1.2. Orthography and Morphology ‎5.1.3. Phonology ‎5.1.4. Syntax ‎5.1.5. Lexicon ‎5.1.6. Sumerian ‎5.1.7. Summary ‎5.2. Analysis of the Paratextual Notes and Material Aspects ‎5.2.1. Material Aspects ‎5.2.2. Notes on the Upper Edge ‎5.2.3. Intra-Textual Subscripts ‎5.2.4. Colophons ‎5.2.5. Summary ‎5.3. Analysis of the Ritual Instructions ‎5.3.1. Waking Up Bēl ‎5.3.2. Fashioning Two Figurines ‎5.3.3. Reciting Enūma Elîš ‎5.3.4. Preparations in Ezida ‎5.3.5. Offerings and Nabû’s Arrival ‎5.3.6. The Humiliation and Negative Confession of the King ‎5.3.7. White Bull, Divine Bull ‎5.3.8. Summary ‎5.4. Analysis of the Prayers ‎5.4.1. Intertextuality ‎5.4.2. The Gods ‎5.4.3. The Beneficiaries ‎5.4.4. Summary ‎5.5. Conclusion ‎5.5.1. Kings and Priests ‎5.5.2. Babylon and Marduk ‎5.5.3. Antiquarianism and Innovation ‎Chapter 6. The Historical and Textual Framework of the NYF Texts ‎6.1. A Concise History of the Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Periods (484BCE–80CE) ‎6.1.1. 484–311BCE: Break and Recovery ‎6.1.2. 311–189BCE: Euergetism and Revival ‎6.1.3. 189BCE–80CE: Turbulence and Decay ‎6.2. Temple Ritual Texts ‎6.2.1. Single Copies, Late Manuscripts ‎6.2.2. The Absence of the King and the Role of the Priest ‎6.2.3. Focus on Babylon ‎6.2.4. Ancient Titles and Names ‎6.2.5. Between Invention and Tradition ‎6.3. Astronomical Diaries ‎6.3.1. Priests as Recorders of Important Events ‎6.3.2. Representation of the King ‎6.3.3. Babylon and Esagil ‎6.3.4. NYF and the Diaries ‎6.4. Chronicles ‎6.4.1. Contemporary Chronicles ‎6.4.2. Historical Chronicles ‎6.5. Historical-Literary Texts ‎6.5.1. Corpus ‎6.5.2. Themes ‎6.5.3. Berossus’s Babyloniaca ‎6.6. Summary ‎6.6.1. Late Babylonian Priestly Literature from Babylon ‎6.6.2. Uruk ‎6.6.3. ANE Priestly Communities in the Hellenistic Empires ‎Chapter 7. Conclusion ‎Appendix 1. Correlation NYF2–3//NYF4 ‎Appendix 2. Glossary of Akkadian Words in the NYF texts ‎Bibliography ‎Referenced Sources ‎By collection number ‎By edition/conventional title ‎General Index ‎Geographical Locations ‎Temples and Temple Features ‎Deities and Divine Beings ‎Stars, Planets and Constellations ‎Persons ‎Akkadian and Sumerian Terms "Editing and examining source-critically for the first time the Late Babylonian ritual texts dealing with the New Year Festival, this book proposes an incisive re-interpretation of the most frequently discussed of all Mesopotamian rituals. The festival's twelve-day paradigm is dissolved in favor of a more historically dynamic model, with the ritual texts being firmly anchored in the Hellenistic period. As part of a larger group of texts constituting what can be called Late Babylonian Priestly Literature, they reflect the Babylonian priesthoods' fears and aspirations of that time much more than an actual ritual reality"-- Provided by publisher