The Birth of History
From the Third Millennium to Herodotos
By (author) R.T. Ridley
This book is a bold attempt to survey narratives from the beginning of written records in Egypt and Mesopotamia through the major pre-classical cultures. The fascinating pre-classical cultures, usually neglected by classicists, were certainly interested in the past and recording the present, but never asked questions about them. The narrative was already fixed, governed overwhelmingly by divine control and designed usually to glorify the ruler in question. An entirely new world is revealed by Herodotos, who never stopped asking questions. History was born.
One of the not frequently mentioned characteristics of us as humans is both an interest in the past and a desire to leave records of our own time, place or selves. This is not necessarily, however, the same thing as ‘history’, which has a very clear meaning, namely ‘enquiry’. The very essence of history is the asking of questions and the search for answers to them. These questions concern especially causation (why?), or responsibility (who?). This book is a bold attempt to survey narratives from the beginning of written records in Egypt and Mesopotamia through the major pre-classical cultures down to Herodotos, whom Cicero named ‘The Father of History’, to test the accuracy of that epithet, against a current fashion of denigration of the Greek’s achievement. The fascinating pre-classical cultures, usually neglected by classicists, were certainly interested in the past and recording the present, but never asked questions about them. The narrative was already fixed, governed overwhelmingly by divine control and designed usually to glorify the ruler in question. An entirely new world is revealed by Herodotos, who never stopped asking questions. History was born.
- By (author) R.T. Ridley
Other Titles in this Series
Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion
A Regional Study of Religious Transformation (298-642 CE)
Volume 173
Yusuf al-Shirbini’s Kitab Hazz al-Quhuf bi-Sharh Qasid Abi Shaduf (‘Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded’)
Volume I: Arabic Text
Volume 141
Les complexes de la Demeure du Sistre et du Trône de Rê
Théologie et décoration dans le temple d'Hathor à Dendera
Volume 106
About Tell Tweini (Syria): Artefacts, Ecofacts and Landscape
Research Results of the Belgian Mission
Volume 281
Nubian Archaeology in the XXIst Century
Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Neuchâtel, 1st-6th September 2014
Volume 273
Ancient Egyptian Demonology
Studies on the Boundaries between the Demonic and the Divine in Egyptian Magic
Volume 175
Der Gott Chepri
Untersuchungen zu Schriftzeugnissen und ikonographischen Quellen vom Alten Reich bis in griechisch-römische Zeit
Volume 154
Kitab al-Ma’arif by Abu Sa’id Maymun b. Qasim al-Tabarani
Critical Edition with an Introduction
Volume 209
‘Abbasid Studies
Occasional Papers of the School of 'Abbasid Studies, Cambridge, 6-10 July 2002
Volume 135
The Language of Qohelet in Its Context
Essays in Honour of Prof. A. Schoors on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday
Volume 164
Des cahiers à l’histoire de la culture à Byzance
Hommage à Paul Canart, codicologue (1927-2017)
Volume 306, 27
From Gnostics to Monastics
Studies in Coptic and Early Christianity in Honor of Bentley Layton
Volume 263
Egypt at its Origins 2
Proceedings of the International Conference 'Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt', Toulouse (France), 5th-8th September 2005
Volume 172
Redefining Christian Identity
Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam
Volume 134
Studies in Arabic and Islam
Proceedings of the 19th Congress, Union Europeenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Halle 1998
Volume 108
Inscriptions nabatéennes datées de la fin du IIe siècle avant notre ère au milieu du IVe siècle
Volume 279
Koptische liturgische Melodien
Die Relation zwischen Text und Musik in der koptischen Psalmodia
Volume 197
Honi soit qui mal y pense
Studien zum pharaonischen, griechisch-römischen und spätantiken Ägypten zu Ehren von Heinz-Josef Thissen
Volume 194
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