Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in the Ancient World

Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in the Ancient World offers linked essays on uses of the past in prominent and diverse cultures in ancient civilizations across the world. The contributors are leading experts in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Sinology, Biblical Studies, Classics, and Maya Studies. This volume addresses crucial questions in current scholarship on historical consciousness and historiography. These questions include the formation of different traditions and the manifold uses of the past in particular socio-political contexts or circumstances; the ways in which these traditions and these types of cultural memory informed or contributed to the rise of more formal modes of historiography; interactions between formal modes of historiography and other traditions of historical consciousness during their transmission; and the implications of such interactions for cultural heritage, collective memory, and later understandings of history. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume situates the rise of formal modes of historiography within a larger context of developments in historical consciousness and a wider web of intercommunicating discourses. It also uncovers intellectual processes, literary mechanisms, and social institutions involved in the construction of history. During the construction of ancient historiographies, while many local traditions persisted, some ancients gradually went beyond the temporal and spatial limitations of their local traditions, arriving at a more extended and unified timespan, a wider geographical region, and a common origin.

Preface Introduction: Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in a Material World John Baines, Henriette van der Blom, Yi Samuel Chen, Tim Rood I: Mesopotamian and Hittite Traditions 1. Ancient Near Eastern and Hittite Traditions: Introduction Paul Collins, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford 2. The Domestication of Stranger Kings: Making History by List in Ancient Mesopotamia Piotr Michalowski, University of Michigan 3. 'He who saw the Deep': History as Ritual in the Material World of Mesopotamia Paul Collins 4. 'I swear that these are no lies, it is indeed true!' On the Role of the Individual in Early Mesopotamian Historiography Gebhard Selz, University of Vienna 5. The Hittites and their Past: Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia Amir Gilan, Tel Aviv University II: Egyptian and Maya Traditions 6. Egyptian and Maya Traditions: Introduction John Baines 7. Meaningful Pasts: On Social Logics and Conceptions of the Past in Ancient Egypt Marcelo Campagno, University of Buenos Aires 8. History and Historiography in the Material World: Ancient Egyptian Perspectives John Baines 9. Telling Time: Historical Thinking and the Ancient Maya Simon Martin, University of Pennsylvania Museum III: Chinese Traditions 10. Chinese Traditions: Introduction Glen Dudbridge , University of Oxford 11. Reflections and Uses of the Distant Past in the Chinese Bronze Inscriptions from the 10th to 5th Centuries BC Maria Khayutina, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich 12. The Scene of Inquiry in Early Chinese Historiography David Schaberg, University of California, Los Angeles 13. Three Moments of Definition in Chinese Historiography Glen Dudbridge IV: Biblical Traditions 14. Biblical Traditions: Introduction Laura Feldt, University of Southern Denmark 15. Periodization in Biblical Historiography Peter Machinist, Harvard University 16. Using the Past in the Hebrew Bible: The Fantastic, Memory Techniques and History in the Exodus Narrative Laura Feldt V: Classical Traditions 17. Classical Traditions: Introduction Henriette van der Blom and Tim Rood 18. Waiting for Herodotus: The Mindsets of 425 BC Christopher Pelling, University of Oxford 19. Historical Consciousness and the 'Aitiology' in Greece Rosalind Thomas, University of Oxford 20. Myth and History Entwined: Female Influence and Male Usurpation in Herodotus' Histories Emily Baragwanath, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 21. 'Stories embroidered beyond truth': Reading Herodotus and Thucydides in Light of Pindar's Olympian 1 Jonas Grethlein, University of Heidelberg 22. Thucydides and Myth Tim Rood 23. Fabula and History in Livy's Narrative of the Capture of Veii Christina Kraus, Yale University 24. Roman Republican History in Imperial Rhetorical Exercises Henriette van der Blom

John Baines is Professor of Egyptology Emeritus at the University of Oxford. Henriette van der Blom is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Birmingham. Yi Samuel Chen is Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Tim Rood is Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Oxford, where he is the Dorothea Gray Fellow and Tutor in Classics at St Hugh’s College.

• Edited by John Baines
• Edited by Tim Rood
• Edited by Yi Samuel Chen
• Edited by Henriette van der Blom