Divided into three sections - bibliography, texts, and glossary - the work contains the published Aramaic inscriptions from ancient Palmyra (Tadmor) in Syria, as well as Palmyrene inscriptions from elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Most of the individual texts are accompanied by an indication of provenance, present location, genre, relations to other texts in the same group, and bibliographic references. Other features include: related Greek or Latin texts for multilingual inscriptions; an English-Aramaic index to the glossary; and a number of concordances of text references, including museum numbers, to facilitate the relation of this edition to earlier works in the field.
Divided into three sections - bibliography, texts, and glossary - the work contains the published Aramaic inscriptions from ancient Palmyra (Tadmor) in Syria, as well as Palmyrene inscriptions from elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Most of the individual texts are accompanied by an indication of provenance, present location, genre, relations to other texts in the same group, and bibliographic references. Other features include: related Greek or Latin texts for multilingual inscriptions; an English-Aramaic index to the glossary; and a number of concordances of text references, including museum numbers, to facilitate the relation of this edition to earlier works in the field.
"A Journey to Palmyra" originates from the desire to remember Delbert R. Hillers, who greatly contributed with his work to Palmyrene studies. However, it is not meant just as a memorial volume, but as a research tool. It contains thirteen papers by scholars in the field of Palmyrene studies and Semitics focusing on different aspects of Palmyrene history, social history, art, archaeology and philology, with publication of newly discovered inscriptions. It offers a state-of-the-art discussion on several issues pertaining to the field of Palmyrene studies, and illustrates methodologies to be employed in order to increase our knowledge of the complex and multifaceted culture of ancient Palmyra and of neighbouring areas.
The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran have attracted increasing interest in recent years. These texts predate the “sectarian” Dead Sea scrolls, and they are contemporary with the youngest parts of the Hebrew Bible. They offer a unique glimpse into the situation before the biblical canons were closed. Their highly creative Jewish authors reshaped and rewrote biblical traditions to cope with the concerns of their own time. The essays in this volume examine this fascinating ancient literature from a variety of different perspectives. The book grew out of an international symposium held at the University of Copenhagen in August 2017.
In this volume—the first complete history of Aramaic from its origins to the present day—Holger Gzella provides an accessible overview of the language perhaps most well known for being spoken by Jesus of Nazareth. Gzella, one of the world’s foremost Aramaicists, begins with the earliest evidence of Aramaic in inscriptions from the beginning of the first millennium BCE, then traces its emergence as the first world language when it became the administrative tongue of the great ancient Near Eastern empires. He also pays due diligence to the sacred role of Aramaic within Judaism, its place in the Islamic world, and its contact with other regional languages, before concluding with a glimpse into modern uses of Aramaic. Although Aramaic never had a unified political or cultural context in which to gain traction, it nevertheless flourished in the Middle East for an extensive period, allowing for widespread cultural exchange between diverse groups of people. In tracing the historical thread of the Aramaic language, readers can also gain a stronger understanding of the rise and fall of civilizations, religions, and cultures in that region over the course of three millennia. Aramaic: A History of the First World Language is visually supplemented by maps, charts, and other images for an immersive reading experience, providing scholars and casual readers alike with an engaging overview of one of the most consequential world languages in history.
With contributions from thirty archaeologists, epigraphists, historians, and philologists, this book covers Palmyra's archaeological remains and history from its earliest phases in the pre-Roman era to the destruction of many of its monuments during the Syrian Civil War and subsequent looting. The authors give comprehensive overviews of already published evidence, as well as significant new findings and analyses from fieldwork, and cover a broad range of themes, which not only relate to the archaeology and history of the site, but also to its relationship with the rest of the ancient world as a major trade hub during the Roman period.
A representative sample of 80 inscriptions and documents in various local Aramaic dialects, dating from the first centuries BC, when the Near East was under Roman rule. Detailed commentaries on the texts, chapters on history and culture and on epigraphy and language, and English translations are also provided.
Graffiti are an often neglected but crucial witness to everyday life of ancient civilizations. The Aramaic graffiti from Hatra (North Iraq) can make an invaluable contribution in this sense, distributed as they were in various buildings throughout this city which flourished between the 1st and the 3rd century AD. Thanks to an effective interaction between epigraphy and archaeology, Marco Moriggi and Ilaria Bucci offer a thorough analysis of the Aramaic graffiti from Hatra as documented by the Archive of the Missione Archeologica Italiana (Turin). In addition to the edition of 48 published and 37 unpublished graffiti, this study further includes the concordances of numbers of all Hatran texts published so far and full archaeological information about the graffiti.
In the first centuries AD, although much of the Near East was ruled by Rome, the main local language was Aramaic, and the people who lived inside or on the fringes of the area controlled by the Romans frequently wrote their inscriptions and legal documents in their own local dialects of this language. This book introduces these fascinating early texts to a wider audience, by presenting a representative sample, comprising eighty inscriptions and documents in the following dialects: Nabataean, Jewish, Palmyrene, Syriac, and Hatran. Detailed commentaries on the texts are preceded by chapters on history and culture and on epigraphy and language. The linguistic commentaries will help readers who have a knowledge of Hebrew or Arabic or one of the Aramaic dialects to understand the difficulties involved in interpreting such materials. The translations and more general comments will be of great interest to classicists and ancient historians.
