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
East and West in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean II
Antioch from the Byzantine Reconquest until the End of the Crusader Principality. Acta of the Congress Held at Hernen Castle (the Netherlands) in May 2006
Volume 199
Moving Across Borders
Foreign Relations, Religion and Cultural Interactions in the Ancient Mediterranean
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Gregorio di Nazianzo, Sulla malattia (carm. II,1,50)
Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento
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Episcopal Networks and Authority in Late Antique Egypt
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Hawara in the Graeco-Roman Period
Life and Death in a Fayum Village. With an Appendix on the Pottery from Hawara by Sylvie Marchand
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Philosophie et sciences a Byzance de 1204 a 1453
Les textes, les doctrines et leur transmission. Actes de la Table Ronde organisee au XXe Congres International d'Etudes Byzantines (Paris, 2001)
Volume 146
Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen Band IV
Bearbeitet von Dagmar Budde, Peter Dils, Lothar Goldbrunner, Christian Leitz und Daniela Mendel unter Mitarbeit von Frank Förster, Daniel von Recklinghausen und Bettina Ventker
Volume 113
Material Culture of Mesopotamia and Beyond 1
People and their Environment in First Millennium BCE Babylonia
Volume 319
Vienna 2 – Ancient Egyptian Ceramics in the 21st Century
Proceedings of the International Conference held at the University of Vienna, 14th-18th of May, 2012
Volume 245
Byzantine Holy Images – Transcendence and Immanence
The Theological Background of the Iconography and Aesthetics of the Chora Church
Volume 176
Byzantino-Normannica
The Norman Capture of Italy (to A.D. 1081) and the First Two Norman Invasions in Byzantium (A.D. 1081-1085 and 1107-1108)
Volume 165
Kindgötter im Ägypten der griechisch-römischen Zeit
Zeugnisse aus Stadt und Tempel als Spiegel des interkulturellen Kontakts
Volume 128
Company of Images: Modelling the Imaginary World of Middle Kingdom Egypt (2000-1500 BC)
Proceedings of the International Conference of the EPOCHS Project held 18th-20th September 2014 at UCL, London
Volume 262
Yusuf al-Shirbini’s Kitab Hazz al-Quhuf bi-Sharh Qasid Abi Shaduf (“Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded”)
Volume III: A Lexicon of 17th-century Egyptian Arabic
Volume 225
Philomathestatos
Studies in Greek Patristic and Byzantine Texts Presented to Jacques Noret for his Sixty-Fifth Birthday
Volume 137
The Sabaite Heritage in the Orthodox Church from the Fifth Century to the Present
Monastic Life, Liturgy, Theology, Literature, Art, Archaeology
Volume 98
Zachariae Calliergis (1470 ca-1524) Erotemata
Editio princeps. Con un'Introduzione sulla vita e attività dell'Autore
Volume 321, 32
Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IX
Proceedings of the 23rd and 24th International Colloquium Organized at the University of Leuven in May 2015 and 2016
Volume 278
Jean Pédiasimos, Essai sur des douze travaux d’Héraclès
Édition critique, traduction et introduction
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