https://sah.hcommons.org/members/mprosser/activity/groups/ Public group activity feed of which Miller Prosser is a member. Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:32:02 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 d3fd02fd2d13370238516d1687ff58d5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895886/ Sat, 10 Aug 2024 03:00:29 -0400 Robert Blust has recently established that – globally – dragons evolved from rainbow serpents, which in turn represent a prehistoric understanding of rainbows. The present paper explores the “dragon-scape” of ancient Egypt in search of traits that may have survived from these earlier stages. The cryptic pD.tyw Sw and Iaau of Coffin Text 698 mig…[Read more]

]]> 0 3e44d51780b62d0af606152f25f6eb38 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895880/ Sat, 10 Aug 2024 03:00:03 -0400 In ancient Egyptian medicine, the most common disease-causing demon is called nsy or nsyt. These names are phonetically close to those of a leading disease-causing demonic agent in medieval and early modern Europe, called nessia in Latin and nežit in Slavic languages. The demons of both regions were believed to invade the patient’s body to ca…[Read more]

]]> 0 051f6a5f48dfdee7015e3e1a3fb13d23 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1889910/ Sun, 23 Jun 2024 03:00:03 -0400 Ancient Egyptian barque oracles had a recent counterpart in the phenomenon of “table-turning”, an occult process experienced in Nineteenth-Century Spiritualist séances. The séance table’s small-scale successor, the Talking Board, ensured that oracular locomotion persisted throughout the Twentieth Century; its best-known embodiment – the Ouija boa…[Read more]

]]> 0 ed4f16743bd7fb46df8bcbb96e65a138 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1889850/ Sat, 22 Jun 2024 03:01:31 -0400 The evidence for collapse of human civilizations at the start of the recently defined Meghalayan Age is equivocal

]]> 0 ba1ff800d008d5bcdf581f2f13f88270 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1889847/ Sat, 22 Jun 2024 03:00:58 -0400 How we interpret the period preceding a collapse is important both in the desire to achieve historical accuracy and in that it affects the way we understand the collapse itself1. Intuition tells us that there must have been problems of some kind, crises or decline, prior to any collapse – enemies at the gate, structural issues in the functioning o…[Read more]

]]> 0 cde97abcd3e43ed2170a418e7b07a482 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1889844/ Sat, 22 Jun 2024 03:00:23 -0400 Despite many years of intensive research into burial and funeral practices in Late Bronze Age (LBA) Greece, emotion remains largely absent from the discussion. Yet death and the emotions it provoked would have been familiar aspects of daily life in Mycenaean Greece. The dead had to be dealt with and moved on through various rites until they became…[Read more]

]]> 0 ac50be2b004e6b0026767bd6ed101a70 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1885670/ Thu, 09 May 2024 03:00:47 -0400 This study challenges the 19th-century nationalist assumptions that have informed modern views of Aramean peoplehood in the first half of the first millennium BCE. I revisit the cuneiform sources, which offer the bulk of the existing evidence on the earliest Arameans, and demonstrate that they conceive of Arameans not as a single coherent people,…[Read more]

]]> 0 510c2adc6a4aa36f74ee0c1786ab2804 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1885668/ Thu, 09 May 2024 03:00:09 -0400 Very brief overview of the parameters of demand and supply for cuneiform knowledge production.

]]> 0 2df3dded593ac319aa7a6a6942b12716 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1881300/ Fri, 29 Mar 2024 03:01:05 -0400 Mounted seals have frequently been uncovered in Middle Bronze Age archaeological contexts in the Levant and Egypt. However, direct evidence for the deployment of such seals to mark objects does not appear to have been systematically studied to date. This article presents an initial typology of impressions made using mounted seals found in the…[Read more]

]]> 0 32abf9fc3265ecb163eb5c27664acc55 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1881297/ Fri, 29 Mar 2024 03:00:14 -0400 Mounted seals have frequently been uncovered in Middle Bronze Age archaeological contexts in the Levant and Egypt. However, direct evidence for the deployment of such seals to mark objects does not appear to have been systematically studied to date. This article presents an initial typology of impressions made using mounted seals found in the…[Read more]

]]> 0 86307bc78457a362d2451c6697736a2e https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1870452/ Wed, 10 Jan 2024 03:00:08 -0500 The Tribe of Dan has always appeared to biblical scholars and archaeologists as something of an enigma. For decades, certain scholars, beginning with Yigael Yadin, have proposed a connection between the Denyen/Danaoi Sea People and the Danites of Ancient Israel, arguing that the former became the latter and were adopted into Israel at a later date…[Read more]

]]> 0 46933545c8a2de6cc88cc7e404f5c5c4 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1870290/ Tue, 09 Jan 2024 03:00:57 -0500 A summary and review of a creative and neutral approach to teaching the Documentary Hypothesis to undergraduate students.

]]> 0 9d1501043a51d5a8c60ac7db8f2fbbd5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1868887/ Fri, 22 Dec 2023 03:00:03 -0500 This paper surveys potential counterparts of the ancient Egyptian concept of mAat (maat) from other cultures and summarises such cross-cultural studies as have already been completed. Its scope ranges from antiquity to the present day and across Europe, Africa, the Near East, India, China, Australia and the Americas. Paradigms that appear to…[Read more]

]]> 0 49632aefffe8f19447e62da864a8577b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1861718/ Sun, 15 Oct 2023 03:00:30 -0400 Does “authorship” still have a place in the study of the Hebrew Bible? Historical criticism has long sought to uncover the human authors behind the biblical texts. But how might the “death of the author,” so forcefully declared by Roland Barthes over fifty years ago, change the contours of this search? This volume brings together leading experts…[Read more]

]]> 0 8f6ef381ad66748eb4e65d77bc0d9bed https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1861715/ Sun, 15 Oct 2023 03:00:06 -0400 This work provides new insights into the relationship between the Holiness legislation in Leviticus 17–26 and processes of cultic centralization in the Persian period. The author departs from the classical theory that Leviticus 17–26 merely presume, with minor modifications, a concept of centralization articulated in Deuteronomy. She shows how Lev…[Read more]

]]> 0 d33756d4e50a9b2c967807910f827e35 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1861160/ Mon, 09 Oct 2023 03:00:52 -0400 Early Jewish writings are replete with narratives of warfare and collective violence. Yet relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to how these accounts of violence affected the way Jews structured their festal calendar. This essay examines the festivals described in 1 and 2 Maccabees that serve to commemorate the most impressive m…[Read more]

]]> 0 27649d54e4be373873f901ebaa061922 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1861157/ Mon, 09 Oct 2023 03:00:28 -0400 This Open Access volume reveals how violent pasts were constructed by ancient Mediterranean societies, the ideologies they served, and the socio-political processes and institutions they facilitated. Combining case studies from Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, Israel/Judah, and Rome, it moves beyond essentialist dichotomies such as “victors” and “va…[Read more]

]]> 0 734009e90bacae9f45d34c23e8a3a8f7 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1860451/ Tue, 03 Oct 2023 03:01:05 -0400 Research into emotions is a developing field within Assyriology, and NLP tools for Akkadian texts offers new perspectives on the data. We use PMI-based word embeddings to explore the relationship between parts of the body and emotions. Using data downloaded from Oracc, we ask which parts of the body were semantically linked to emotions. We do this…[Read more]

]]> 0 13b0e7ed0899151addd38ef88c20bc46 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1859983/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 03:18:19 -0400 Beards were part of a visual matrix of expressing masculinity during the NeoAssyrian period (ca. 934–612 BCE). But masculinity does not exist in isolation and interacts with other aspects of identity. I will examine the beard as an indicator of masculine status during the Neo-Assyrian period. This will be done through investigating the visual a…[Read more]

]]> 0 1907d2ecca4f3ecfece909e254c9989a https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1859978/ Thu, 28 Sep 2023 03:17:19 -0400 During the Neo-Assyrian period (approximately 934-612 BCE, based in modern Iraq) the annals and royal inscriptions of several kings mention women with a curious title: ‘Queen of the Arabs’. These women have been included in previous discussions regarding Assyrian interaction with the ‘Arabs’, but a full investigation into their roles as rulers…[Read more]

]]> 0 845c871204d879ad676e58ace4dbb3bd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1859628/ Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:03:51 -0400 This paper compares psychostasia and/or kerostasia concepts from Indo-European, Semitic and adjacent cultures, and relates them to Cognitive Metaphor Theory. In the context of metaphysical weighing, the religions of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome all associated lightness with goodness and/or a favourable outcome; Hinduism does likewise. The…[Read more]

]]> 0 21281004a88351551612725749662ddd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1859594/ Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:00:19 -0400 The emergence of Judaism and Samaritanism in antiquity is closely linked to the process by which the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) became defined as the Torah of Moses.

]]> 0 4d104d417f2c1c7b201317ea741e91aa https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1859398/ Sat, 23 Sep 2023 10:46:24 -0400 CALL FOR PAPERS: The sixth Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East (GeMANE 6) will take place as a hybrid event in Malta 8–11 April, 2024. Check the website (https://www.um.edu.mt/events/gemane6workshop2024/callforpapers/) for more information and the full call for papers text. Deadline for abstracts (300-500 words) is 15th October.

]]> 0 f77f5a983f9e98940d7c420da1af8511 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1854163/ Tue, 08 Aug 2023 01:16:26 -0400 This essay examines three cases in which pentateuchal ritual law is employed in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles: the Sukkôt celebration in Neh 8:13–18, Hezekiah’s Passover in 2 Chr 30, and Josiah’s Passover, in 2 Chr 35:1–19. These case studies reveal that the scribes responsible for Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles considered the ritual texts of the P…[Read more]

]]> 0 ef545af5def7e2c6323fe1122e38784f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1852924/ Thu, 27 Jul 2023 02:24:08 -0400 This article explores how the priestly wilderness shrine functions as a monumental space in the sanctuary construction account of Exod 25–31, 35–40. It draws on spatial theory and studies of monumental architecture to identify five features of the tent of meeting that infuse it with monumentality: first, its significance in negotiating the pat…[Read more]

]]> 0 970ea8c75c0984d5e4766b1c7201f60f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1847836/ Thu, 01 Jun 2023 02:25:01 -0400 The early history of the study of Parthian art may be profitably divided into three overlapping phases. The first phase, ‘Ordering’, begins with Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s dismissive assessment of Parthian art, at this point known mainly from coins, as derivative and barbaric. The second phase, ‘Exploration’, begins in the mid-ninet…[Read more]

]]> 0 429a78e7528b3fa2a628d4b9a6b5dd0d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1843879/ Mon, 08 May 2023 02:24:28 -0400 Tags made of mudstone are predominantly found in ancient Egyptian Predynastic cemetery contexts. This study examines the symbolism and significance of mudstone tags that are crescent-shaped and/or feature the recurved horns of hartebeests. The use of syncretic imagery on these tags provides evidence for the fluidity of artistic perceptions in…[Read more]

]]> 0 919fc708f8534d66474a9c2ada6cd4bd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1843876/ Mon, 08 May 2023 02:23:39 -0400 Tags made of mudstone are predominantly found in ancient Egyptian Predynastic cemetery contexts. This study examines the symbolism and significance of mudstone tags that are crescent-shaped and/or feature the recurved horns of hartebeests. The use of syncretic imagery on these tags provides evidence for the fluidity of artistic perceptions in…[Read more]

]]> 0 69ef18bb4886e689be9e22ce3f8ad673 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1841554/ Sat, 15 Apr 2023 02:25:00 -0400 Angels, as mythical beings, appear and disappear suddenly throughout Biblical Texts, without any clear explanation of their origins or metaphysical ranks. Whether they are considered circumstantial theophanies or entities with granted self-existence and specific divine functions; such metaphysical entities have a vital presence in the religious…[Read more]

]]> 0 4d15c41d44167ecda31a957a4e3e04a0 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1837809/ Sat, 18 Mar 2023 02:24:25 -0400 The Late Bronze Age was a period of heightened international diplomacy throughout the eastern Mediterranean littoral and the Near East. A direct result of this supra-regional interconnectivity is argued to have been the formation of an independent hybrid visual style, the ‘International Style’, an iconographic idiom which occurs sparingly on art…[Read more]

]]> 0 8ba8fba3ba7defecf5b6157158ad56a7 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1837807/ Sat, 18 Mar 2023 02:23:41 -0400 The Late Bronze Age was a period of heightened international diplomacy throughout the eastern Mediterranean littoral and the Near East. A direct result of this supra-regional interconnectivity is argued to have been the formation of an independent hybrid visual style, the ‘International Style’, an iconographic idiom which occurs sparingly on art…[Read more]

]]> 0 c9fc20e1a00fbdf6f3baa0afaf4d77ae https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1832413/ Fri, 03 Feb 2023 02:23:56 -0500 Assyrian imperialism is closely associated with the practice of mass deportation. This practice has been explained by recourse to many different motivations. But can we hope to pinpoint the logic informing deportation rather than merely identifying its advantages? This paper surveys the evidence of deportation in the Levant in the period 745–620 B…[Read more]

]]> 0 43364660d82525d5c1b2d2a9400d5add https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1823284/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 02:24:24 -0500 The text signs on this comb are Minoan Linear A and not the Proto-Canaanite of Serabit el-Khadim as claimed in its 2022 archaeology report. Like most pre-classical linear texts found by archaeology, the language of this text is Akkadian which was the language of the Neolithic farming culture which spread into Europe from the Near-East starting…[Read more]

]]> 0 cfc3d8802f8fcde12bd9aa14fe58210d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1817624/ Sat, 15 Oct 2022 02:23:46 -0400 This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day. It argues that the accounts of the origins of these two festivals in 1 and 2 Maccabees reinforce the close c…[Read more]

]]> 0 9cf243236f11a6c378cdc02f2d5beb3c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1815242/ Sat, 24 Sep 2022 08:00:00 -0400 Several documents from Egypt and Ḫatti (especially the Amarna letters and the Egyptian-Hittite correspondence) mention envoys and messengers in charge of diplomatic contacts between the two countries. Cuneiform and hieroglyphic transcriptions of Egyptian names at Ugarit hint at an actual presence (in Ugarit and Karkemish) of officials coming f…[Read more]

]]> 0 c30707d8d3cf55c7ef0ba728aa1ec5ec https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789910/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 02:24:55 -0400 What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

]]> 0 e318c099528614fb53fcb1d92e233865 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789907/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 02:24:33 -0400 What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

]]> 0 72408478f2ad6486d7d038b18c5f6554 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789906/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 02:24:32 -0400 Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

]]> 0 b453403da194113e6da4da05a285277d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789903/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 02:24:03 -0400 Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

]]> 0 1714eee9f63dd4f0f4351d92404cd67b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1782596/ Thu, 26 May 2022 02:28:24 -0400 This essay examines select Priestly texts that describe the roles of leaders from the northern and southern tribes in the wilderness cult: the texts of Exod 25–31, 35–40 that concern the sanctuary artisans Bezalel (from the tribe of Judah) and Oholiab (from the tribe of Dan), chosen to lead the construction of the wilderness shrine; the des…[Read more]

]]> 0 5522af7e7924841fa4b79850d272d6a9 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1775059/ Fri, 18 Mar 2022 02:24:22 -0400 This article examines the instruction regarding the wood offering and the festival of new oil in fragment 23 of 4QReworked Pentateuch C (4Q365), and in particular its setting at a future temple (‫בית‬) in the land. It argues that while 4Q365 23 represents a departure from earlier versions of Leviticus, it should be considered nonetheless as part o…[Read more]

]]> 0 6136f1916f4d8415dbd175674311df35 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1774507/ Sat, 12 Mar 2022 02:23:44 -0500 This article examines the innovative focus on sabbath observance that characterizes the Holiness legislation (“H”). By comparing H’s conception of the sabbath with what is known about this sacred time from other biblical and extrabiblical sources, the article demonstrates that H creatively blends two aspects of the sabbath that were not alway…[Read more]

]]> 0 abc766c1e5730e15ba16fb1f044bef5c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1773288/ Sun, 27 Feb 2022 02:23:45 -0500 This article reviews the textual transmission of the ban on local butchery in Leviticus 17:3–4. It explores the importance of the manuscripts from the Dead Sea, in particular 4QLevd and 11Q19, for interpreting the plus at verse 4, attested in the Septuagint and in the Samaritan Pentateuch, as well as the change in address in v. 3, which is found i…[Read more]

]]> 0 39f01d13a1aec28897a933cc0da895b3 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1772057/ Wed, 16 Feb 2022 02:24:43 -0500 The Persian King Darius I (reigned 522-486 BCE) constructed a canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea – an ancient precursor to the Suez Canal that made it possible to sail from Egypt to Persia, and to places in between.

]]> 0 13e1040d0964fce4070321a48365c8b5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1771603/ Sun, 13 Feb 2022 02:23:43 -0500 This paper examines how the description of Aaron’s vestments in Exod 28 encodes a distinct concept of high priestly leadership. This chapter of Exodus has garnered relatively little attention in biblical scholarship, even among recent and comprehensive treatments of the high priest in the biblical and post-biblical traditions. This general n…[Read more]

]]> 0 52c28a9f8b6aa4a58a77928bb8d0f21b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1764049/ Thu, 30 Dec 2021 02:23:41 -0500 This essay explores Maimonides’ explanation of the Bible’s rationale behind the ritual sacrifices, namely to help wean the Jews away from idolatrous rites. After clearly elucidating Maimonides’ stance on the topic, this essay examines his view from different angles with various possible precedents in earlier rabbinic literature for such an under…[Read more]

]]> 0 175a545f681b4771879d37fcbe60d76b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1763787/ Sat, 25 Dec 2021 03:46:06 -0500 This book collects papers by many eminent scholars and young researchers on the topic of confrontation and historical, cultural, and economic relationships between East and West, particularly focusing on how the Orient was experienced and interpreted by Western travellers, historians, and scholars (of past and present times) in the light of E.…[Read more]

]]> 0 fa5a5c7672f6a854e01da9d3fde85b1a https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1763726/ Fri, 24 Dec 2021 02:31:03 -0500 In this paper I employ social scientific theories that conceptualize space as existing in physical, mental and symbolic fields simultaneously, and combine them with memory studies, in order to offer a new reading of how the authors of Leviticus construed Israel’s cultic origins and what aims they were pursuing with this composition.

]]> 0 75d76e028529a6a23165c224e0c86297 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1760427/ Fri, 03 Dec 2021 02:23:38 -0500 This paper aims to disambiguate the proper name “Seth” and its cognates or homonyms – perfect or imperfect – in texts from ancient Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterranean. It considers: (1) the Suteans, West Semitic Amorite/Aramean nomads who feature negatively in Mesopotamian records; (2) S(h)eth in the Hebrew bible, in which a dispara…[Read more]

]]> 0 c33bfe13f0a1bd2089357fa8065c8874 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1754500/ Sat, 09 Oct 2021 02:24:29 -0400 This paper publishes a ceramic bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicting a Parthian shot. Although it lacks archaeological provenance, the bowl can be dated to the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, and probably comes from northwestern Iran. It is, therefore, one of the few possible instances of a Parthian shot from the Arsacid Empire.

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