Sixth BCE Research Articles

How Might Lamentations Be Read in the Light of Applying Winnicott’s Notion of a ‘Holding Environment’ to Reconcile the Internal Conflict of the Absent Comforter?

This paper attempts to investigate how Lamentations, chapters 1 and 2, conveys the notion of the absent comforter in proximity to Zion, asserting that the Temple of Jerusalem served Zion as her transitional object by emitting the presence of YHWH, thereby hypothesising that Zion’s tragedy during the Babylonian occupation of Jerusalem in the sixth century BCE was due to the destruction of the Temple. This event prevented Zion from accessing her transitional object and it consequently prohibited interplay, which according to Donald Winnicott provides the essential activity for liberating and creating a sense of self. Thus, this paper proposes that the author of Lamentations expresses grief in the form of emotional catharsis in order to resolve the internal conflict of losing the presence of YHWH. By examining the text of Lamentations in the light of Winnicottian discourse, one might discover a methodology to resolve the internal conflict of the absent comforter. This can be achieved by applying a dynamic that resembles a holding environment to circumvent anxiety, as the function of a holding environment provides a setting that perpetuates the presence of a primary caregiver. Dialogue is demonstrated between Hebrew Scripture and Winnicottian analysis, as both of these worlds of discourse demonstrate value of attempting to access the presence of a caregiver by expressing emotional catharsis.

Front Matter

Introduction François Guesnet (bio) and Antony Polonsky (bio) O ḥevruta o metuta (Without community, there is death) Babylonian Talmud, Ta'anit 23a Since their exile in Babylon in the sixth century bce, Jews have sought to create institutions to organize community life and the practice of Judaism in the diaspora. This volume investigates the nature and functioning of the system of Jewish self-government created in the medieval Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It then examines how this system was partially abolished and transformed under Stanisław August (r. 1764–95), the last king of Poland–Lithuania, and subsequently by the governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia which partitioned Poland at the end of the eighteenth century. Under the influence of the principles of the Enlightenment, all these rulers sought to drastically limit the operation of Jewish self-government, which was held to prevent the desired transformation of the Jews from an autonomous community into citizens or, where the concept of citizenship did not exist, into useful subjects of their respective rulers. The volume reflects on the successes and failures of Jewish communities to safeguard religious, charitable, and other institutions from state interference in the nineteenth century and their participation in organs of municipal self-government which developed first in the partitioning powers and then in independent Poland. Finally, it explores how, with the emergence at the end of the nineteenth century of new political ideas of Jewish autonomy, attempts were made to create a modernized system of self-government. While useful attempts have been made to understand forms of Jewish local organization under conditions of extreme duress, persecution, and mass murder during the German occupation of Poland and eastern Europe in the Second World War and the Holocaust, this volume does not look beyond the fateful year of 1939.1 ________ Few other features have shaped the trajectory of east European Jewish history as much as the extent and continuity of Jewish self-government. Among its most important features is the role it played in implementing the constantly changing interpretation of Jewish legal traditions and how its institutions reflected the embeddedness of the Jewish community in the administrative, political, and economic fabric of early modern states, most notably Poland–Lithuania. The differentiated and complex structure of responsibilities in the individual community—most prominently in the form of the board of governors or kahal—and the sophistication this showed in [End Page 1] shaping relations with the Crown, nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Jews' neighbours, had a long-lasting impact on Jewish political culture. So too did the supracommunity structures of regional councils and the two most prominent national councils, the Council of Lithuania and the Council of Four Lands. The existence of institutions allowing the Jews to govern themselves in western Christendom was partly the result of the fact that medieval and early modern states lacked the resources to administer all aspects of society. Furthermore, Jews were both a pariah group, tolerated in an inferior position, and a corporation with the legal right to govern themselves as did all medieval corporations, whether those of an estate, like the nobility, or of a specific group, like the burghers of a particular town. In this context it should be stressed that freedom in the Middle Ages had a 'local rather than a universal character'.2 The words 'liberty' and 'freedom' generally appeared in the plural form as in the 'rights and liberties' of a town, province, or estate which were granted by the sovereign and carefully recorded in charters. The rights and obligations of an individual were derived from participation in a given community—the abstract idea of 'human rights' was alien to medieval thinking and only emerged in the eighteenth century. The Jews could thus be seen, despite their pariah status, as being in the same position as other groups in society, possessing rights which were guaranteed by charters, whether general or limited to a specific region or town or to the institutions through which Jewish self-government was exercised. In this respect, the Jews clearly emulated the 'institutional and legal patterns developed by the non...

Path dependence and transitions from tyranny to democracy: evidence from ancient Greece

For empirical research on the effects of institutions, an important question is whether a given institutional type will generate different outcomes depending on the circumstances that give rise to that institution. In this paper, we examine a unique historical episode in which a specific type of institution—rule by a tyrant—arose in similar states yet differed in terms of whether the impetus came from local support or external influences. Over the course of the sixth century BCE, a substantial subset of Greek poleis (city–states) experienced a period of tyranny. In some cases, the tyrant came to power with the support of local elites, yet in other cases, the tyrant was imposed by a conquering power, Persia. Although it is likely that the tyrants’ proponents—whether local elites or Persian rulers—sought to increase stability and maintain policies necessary for wealth creation, the long run effects of tyranny differed: In poleis where the rise of a tyrant would have depended on local support, a record of tyranny predicts a greater propensity for subsequent development of democracy. By contrast, in poleis where the rise of a tyrant would have depended on Persian support, a record of tyranny has a weak (and perhaps negative) association with subsequent development of democracy. These findings illustrate both the long-run importance of institutional paths and the difficulty in transplanting institutions.

The influence of water on the strength of Neapolitan Yellow Tuff, the most widely used building stone in Naples (Italy)

Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (NYT) has been used in construction in Naples (Italy) since the Greeks founded the city—then called Neapolis—in the sixth century BCE. We investigate here whether this popular building stone is weaker when saturated with water, an issue important for assessments of weathering damage and monument preservation. To this end, we performed 28 uniaxial compressive strength measurements on dry and water-saturated samples cored from a block of the lithified Upper Member of the NYT. Our experiments show that the strength of the zeolite-rich NYT is systematically reduced when saturated with water (the ratio of wet to dry strength is 0.63). Complementary experiments show that two other common Neapolitan building stones—Piperno Tuff and the grey Campanian Ignimbrite (both facies of the Campanian Ignimbrite deposit devoid of zeolites)—do not weaken when wet. From these data, and previously published data for tuffs around the globe, we conclude that the water-weakening in NYT is a consequence of the presence of abundant zeolites (the block tested herein contains 46 wt.% of zeolites). These data may help explain weathering damage in NYT building stones (due to rainfall, rising damp, and proximity to the sea or water table) and the observed link between rainfall and landslides, rock falls, and sinkhole formation in Naples, and the weathering of other buildings built from zeolite-rich tuffs worldwide.

“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone:” Rejoinder to Aaron Wachhaus’s Article, “Platform Governance”

Thinking about Aaron Wachhaus’s article and what to say in response, it dawned on me that certain key assumptions people held as recently as the 1980s and 1990s (let alone in the sixth century BCE....

Neutron Activation Analysis of Late Sixth Century bce Pottery from the Pointe Lequin 1A Shipwreck and Massalia, and Comparison with the Cala Sant Vicenç Shipwreck and Emporion

This paper presents the results of neutron activation analyses of pottery samples from four late sixth century bce sites in the Western Mediterranean: the Pointe Lequin 1A shipwreck, the Bourse site in Marseilles, the Greek colony of Emporion and the Cala Sant Vicenç shipwreck, with the goal of locating the production of a commonly found cup type, the so‐called ‘Ionian’ cup, type B2. The NAA results show three distinct compositional groups, although the location of production could not be determined with certainty. The results also show that submarine diagenesis of pottery samples does not necessarily render them incomparable with samples from terrestrial sites.

Samson and Heracles Revisited

ABSTRACTIn the past scholars have suspected that Greek legends about Heracles and other Greek narratives may have influenced the emergence of the Samson narratives in Judges 13-16. Usually Philistine mediation of these Heracles legends to the Israelites in the pre-monarchic era was suggested. However, the author suggests that the Heracles legends arose in the sixth century BCE and later, so the biblical author could have encountered Greek stories only in the Persian or Hellenistic eras. The Samson narratives then would be a late redaction into the Deuteronomistic History. The author believes that the large number of similarities indicates not simply familiarity with general folkloristic motifs, but rather that the author of the Samson narratives was familiar with the Heracles legends.

Paradoxes of the Idea of Progress and Cultural Memory in Ancient Egypt: an answer to Vladimir Emelianov © https://vostokoriens.jes.su/s086919080002863-6-1-en

The article discusses a postulate of the leading Russian Sumerologist Vladimir Emelianov (Voprosy filosofii 2011, No. 8). He states that only the modern scholarship since the eighteenth century has developed the method of “archaeological penetration” into the ancient history that allowed seeing in its epochs the reflections of here-and-now. Its background was the feeling of historical process. The division of history into big epochs was totally absent, according to Emelianov, in early antiquity and in Ancient Egypt. Here he strongly opposes the idea of Jan Assmann that each new epoch of Egyptian history addressed the “cultural memory” of the past to position itself as a return to it. However, the analysis shows that the Egyptian sources, i.e. the Royal Canon of Turin and the work by Manetho, as well as the reception of Egyptian historiography by Classical authors reveal conceptualized division of the past into big periods. Addressing ancient archives, researching and restoring ancient monuments was an important practice for Ancient Egyptians. This idea is expressed in the Papyrus Westcar, the first cycle of Setne Khamwas, the Famine Stela, the activities of the historical Prince Khaemweset etc. The ideological concept of return to the great past is exemplified best of all in the Renaissance of the Saite time (the seventh and the sixth centuries BCE). However, earlier epochs of Egyptian history also give similar examples, for example, the aspiration of kings in the late First Intermediate Period and the early Middle Kingdom to return capital to Memphis, i.e. in a sense, to return to the Old Kingdom. Thus, Emelianov’s postulate reveals an impressive ignorance of real evidence.

Mesopotamian Double-Jar Burials and Incantation Bowls


 
 
 The corpus of late antique Babylonian incantation bowls comprises a class of double-bowl sets, consisting of two bowls facing each other, fastened together with bitumen. Occasionally, such bowl sets have been found to contain inscribed egg shells or human bones. The double-bowl configuration is highly reminiscent of the double-jar burial practice attested in Mesopotamia from the second millennium to the sixth century BCE. The double-jar (or double-pot) burial involved placing the deceased between two wide-mouthed jars, occasionally joining them with bitumen at the rims. This article explores the double-bowl configuration and suggests a connection between double-jar burials and the later ritual artifacts of the Sasanian period. The double-bowl sets attached with bitumen may have originated on analogy to the ancient burial practice, intending symbolically to bury evil entities or human adversaries.
 
 

The Casuistic Priestly Law in Ancient Mediterranean Context: The History of the Genre and itsSitz im Leben

AbstractWhile numerous scholars have compared the Priestly regulations in the Pentateuch to ancient Near Eastern “ritual texts,” the Priestly legal material more generally corresponds in form and style to ancient Near Eastern casuistic law collections than to descriptive or prescriptive “ritual texts.” At the same time, ancient Near Eastern law collections do not contain any ritual or religious ordinances, relating instead primarily to civil and financial affairs or social law and order. This paper examines the formal, substantive, and generic affinities between the Priestly laws and the casuistic Greek “Sacred Laws” inscribed on stone and other materials throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin from the sixth century BCE onwards. Analysis of related Northwest-Semitic and Punic texts, as well as potential precedents from the Hittite world, further contributes to our understanding of theSitz im Lebenof the casuistic Priestly law.

Athens, Thebes and Plataia and the end of the sixth century BCE

AbstractOne of the key events in the relations between the Athenians and Thebans was the Plataian decision to align themselves with the Athenians at the end of the sixth century BCE. This decision shook up the contemporary political landscape and proved to be a source of hostility between the two neighbouring polities throughout the fifth and fourth centuries. The orthodox view holds that the original alignment took place in 519 during the Peisistratid tyranny, based on the date given by Thucydides 3.68.5. This date, in the mind of some scholars, seems contradictory with the story of the Plataian alignment as given by Herodotus (6.108.1–6). This inconsistency resulted in a search for alternatives that fit the Herodotean narrative better. To accommodate this change, they relied on emendating the Thucydidean text, but there is no sign of corruption in this part. Emendation of a text is best avoided, although the controversy merits attention. Therefore, in this article it will be argued that the two narratives – the Thucydidean and the Herodotean – need to be separated. What follows is a renewed chronology of Plataian-Athenian relations. The orthodox date (519) was the date of an original Peisistratid-Plataian alliance that did not lead to hostilities with Thebes. Instead, it is in the context of the foundation of the Athenian democracy and the subsequent clashes with Thebes after 507/6 that the Herodotean narrative should be placed.

Glaze composition of the Iron Age glazed ceramics from Nimrud, Hasanlu and Borsippa preserved at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Eighteen glazed objects from Nimrud, Hasanlu and Borsippa dated to a period from the ninth to sixth century BCE were analysed by micro X-ray fluorescence (μ-XRF), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and micro-Raman spectroscopy (μ-Raman). While calcium antimonate (CaSb2O6) and lead pyroantimonate (Pb2Sb2O7) were the main white and yellow opacifiers of the glazes, respectively, white sodium antimonate (NaSbO3) was also sporadically observed in the Nimrud glazes. Copper sulphide associated with cassiterite (SnO2) was used as colouring agent – or probably as opacifier – in a green glaze from Hasanlu. Cassiterite associated with the slag of Cu-Sn copper alloys was also observed in a green glaze from Nimrud suggesting a close tie between metallurgy and glaze-making. Pyromorphite (Pb5(PO4)3Cl) and arsenian pyromorphite were observed in spherical forms embedded in the yellow glazes of Nimrud and Borsippa.

Forestry and the Politics of Sustainability in Early China

AbstractBetween the sixth and second centuries bce, Chinese states developed offices to oversee the sustainable use of forest resources. This era, often cited as a period of rampant environmental d...

Judean Merchants in Babylonia and Their Participation in Long-Distance Trade

Summary This article focuses on Judean merchants in Babylonia, their social networks, and their business activities in the sixth century BCE. I argue that these people were integrated into the commercial sphere of Babylonian society and that they had native Babylonian merchants as well as traders of foreign origin among their acquaintances. Judeans participated in Babylonian long-distance trade, and documented evidence shows that some of them travelled as far as Iran for the purpose of trading. Furthermore, because travelling and the transportation of goods are an integral part of commercial activity, merchants provide an example of people who could have maintained connections between Judeans living in Judah and Babylonia.

Buddhism, Social Justice and Caste: Reflections on Buddhist Engagement with Caste in India and Sri Lanka

Even though Buddhism probably had some emancipatory potential for the downtrodden from its inception in the sixth century BCE, this potential gradually declined in its establishment as an ideology of the ruling dynasties largely upheld by the religious practices of the masses in ancient and medieval Ceylon. The nineteenth century Buddhist revival in Ceylon under the leadership of Anagarika Dharmapala did contain some anti-colonial tendencies, but this new form of Sinhala Buddhism subsequently became an ideology of the Sinhala ruling classes in independent Sri Lanka. Against this background, the Navayana Buddhism invented by Dr Ambedkar built on the emancipatory potential of Buddhism by converting it into a moral foundation for the Dalit struggle against untouchability and inherited social disadvantages. This article explores the ambivalent and contradictory dynamics in the hegemonic and transformative tendencies in Buddhism within the larger South Asian context.

Contested Space at the Entrance of the Athenian Acropolis

Public spaces of protest in ancient cities, whether deliberately crafted or organically formed, can prove elusive, but the existence, appearance, and function of such spaces should not be ignored because of their relative invisibility. In Contested Space at the Entrance of the Athenian Acropolis, Jessica Paga looks to ancient Athens to demonstrate how such spaces were built and used, as well as their potential role in propagating the success of the world's first democracy. Concentrating on the archaeological record and the historical context surrounding the use and transformation of public spaces in Athens, Paga posits the entrance area to the Athenian Acropolis as a consciously elaborated site of dissent and unity for the burgeoning democratic polis in the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE.

A Question of Life and Death: The Aesopic Animal Fables on Why Not to Kill

This article deals with Greek animal fables, traditionally attributed to a former slave, Aesop, who lived during the sixth century BCE. As a genre, the Aesopic fables, or the Aesopica, has had a significant impact on the Western fable tradition and modern Western children’s literature. The Aesopica owes much to the Mesopotamian fables and has parallels in other Near Eastern cultures. Modern research has concentrated on tracing the oriental roots of the fable tradition and the dating of the different parts of the Aesopica, as well as defining the fable as a genre. The traditional reading of fables has, however, excluded animals qua animals, supposing that fables are mainly allegories of the human condition. The moral of the story (included in the epimythia or promythia) certainly guides one to read the stories anthropocentrically, but the original fables did not necessarily include this positioning element. Many fables address the situation when a prey animal, like a lamb, negotiates with a predator animal, like a wolf, by giving reasons why she should not be killed. In this article, I will concentrate on these fables and analyse them from the point of view of their structure and content. Comparing these fables with some animal similes in Homer’s Iliad, I suggest that these fables deal not only with the ethical problem of ‘might makes right’ as a human condition, but also the broader philosophical question of killing other living creatures and the problem of cruelty.

Cypriote Antiquities in Reading: The Ure Museum at the University of Reading and the Reading Museum (Reading Borough Council)

Cypriote Antiquities in Reading: The Ure Museum at the University of Reading and the Reading Museum (Reading Borough Council)

The Concept of Exile in Late Second Temple Judaism: A Review of Recent Scholarship

Before Wright published the first two volumes of his Christian Origins and the Question of God series (1992; 1996) the discussion concerning late Second Temple Jewish concepts of exile was a quiet one. Since then, however, more and more scholars have begun to weigh in. Champions of the theory contend that Second Temple texts convey a matrix of concerns that together demonstrate a Jewish consciousness of being in a state of ongoing exile, notwithstanding the residency in the land of a significant population and a functioning temple. Dissenters argue that these scholars are illegitimately privileging one motif within a highly complex ancient religion, and assigning it a metanarrative role it never truly had. Others contend that ‘ongoing’ exile is too narrow of a description to account for the diversity of attitudes across several sects. Only recently, though, have major works been produced that thoroughly examine the primary texts in question. In the process, a growing chorus of voices is supporting, with various levels of enthusiasm, the thesis that a significant number of late Second Temple Jewish groups indeed understood themselves to be languishing in some form of exile: ongoing exile since the sixth century bce, in the throes of recurring cycles of exile, or a set of historic realities characterized with exilic metaphors.

Driven by Fear: Epidemics and Isolation in San Francisco's House of Pestilence by Guenter B. Risse

Reviewed by: Driven by Fear: Epidemics and Isolation in San Francisco's House of Pestilence by Guenter B. Risse Philip Alcabes Guenter B. Risse. Driven by Fear: Epidemics and Isolation in San Francisco's House of Pestilence. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016. xiii + 298 pp. 1ll. $30.00 ( 978-0-252-08138-5). What's behind the impulse to isolate? An urge to commit murder against offenders isn't hard to understand (evidence that humans have been doing such mayhem for at least ten thousand and perhaps forty thousand years corroborates that sense1). The urge to keep certain members of society alive but at bay is harder [End Page 452] to place. By the time the book of Leviticus was compiled, between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE, the practice of exiling those whose skin showed the scaly patches (tsara'at) indicative of uncleanness was evidently already established. That such practices persist, institutionalized in the form of asylums, almshouses, workhouses, prisons, and—significantly for Guenter Risse—leprosaria and pesthouses, attests to the continuing power of this strange urge to both control and care for. Risse's scrupulously researched book paints a fine-grained picture of the pest- houses in the city of San Francisco and their history as institutions of control and sources of social conflict. The connections to public health policing today are abundantly clear and emphasized in both the last chapter, "Modern Isolation: Humanizing Castaways," and a thoughtful epilogue. The book explores the many social forces in modern American culture that make isolation, control, and custody both desired and contentious. "Suspicion and apprehension linger, notably in an American culture that is proud of its organizational prowess and 'can do' resolve, obsessed with safety, and willing to marshal ample resources for quick solutions," Risse points out (p. 209). His incontestable premise is that the impetus for creating and maintaining pesthouses has always been fear. In recounting the history of San Francisco's pesthouses, the book is especially interested in misgivings about Chinese immigrants—which were frequently extended indiscriminately to those of any East Asian ancestry. But this detailed account also takes up the roles played by business interests, concern for property values, rivalries between local and federal authorities, and the increasing valorization of risk avoidance in American society. In Risse's telling, the story of the city's pesthouses offers valuable insights into the American form of public health: our zealotry when it comes to identifying carriers, our costly protective measures when the affluent seem to be in danger (vaccinating college students against flu), our sometimes-easy access to laissez-faire circumspection when it's the poor who are in trouble (Zika in Puerto Rico). San Francisco built its first pesthouse, a temporary structure, in 1850, Risse recounts, but refitted the Clarendon Hotel on Stockton Street to serve as an isolation facility during a smallpox outbreak two years later (p. 79). Over the ensuing half-century, the location, relocation, outfitting, and staffing of isolation facilities, and most prominently the judgments about who should be interned there, came to represent a shifting resultant of an unstable set of vectors. These involved the demand to reduce disease risk through sequestration of the suspect, expanding medical knowledge about communicable illnesses, a desire for community-based care for the sick and vulnerable (sometimes honored more in the breach than the observance), economic booms and hard times, concerns for property values (a nineteenth-century forerunner of today's "Not in My Backyard" syndrome), and above all the suspicion and sometimes dread of foreigners. San Franciscans, Risse explains, could see Chinatown residents as an embodiment of the stereotypical uncivilized immigrant (p. 25). The pesthouse expressed a modern ambivalence, the rubberneckers' dilemma: there is death in life, sentences levied by disease from which there is no return. We must look, even though we can't stomach the sight. As these complex underpinnings play themselves out in a new city in a country newly investing personal industriousness and productivity with moral probity, the [End Page 453] drama around the presence of lepers and sufferers from plague and syphilis in San Francisco, compounded by the occurrence of repeated outbreaks of plague, is described by Risse. Here...