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
Mythologie et Religion des Sémites Occidentaux
Vol. I: Ebla, Mari. Vol. II: Émar, Ougarit, Israël, Phénicie, Aram, Arabie
Volume 162
Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV
Proceedings of the 9th and 10th International Colloquium organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 2000 and May 2001
Volume 140
Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen Band I
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 110
Die Variation der Tradition
Modalitäten der Ritualadaption im Alten Ägypten. Akten des Internationalen Symposions vom 25.-28. November 2012 in Heidelberg
Volume 240
Intercultural Contacts in the Ancient Mediterranean
Proceedings of the International Conference at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo, 25th to 29th October 2008
Volume 202
The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth-Seventeenth Dynasties)
Current Research, Future Prospects
Volume 192
Foundations of Power and Conflicts of Authority in Late-Antique Monasticism
Proceedings of the International Seminar Turin, December 2-4, 2004
Volume 157
Catalogue of the Coptic Inscriptions in the Sudan National Museum at Khartoum (I. Khartoum Copt.)
Volume 121
L’École de Gaza: espace littéraire et identité culturelle dans l’Antiquité tardive
Actes du Colloque international de Paris, Collège de France, 23-25 mai 2013
Volume 249, 13
Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras VII
Proceedings of the 16th, 17th and 18th International Colloquium Organized at Ghent University in May 2007, 2008 and 2009
Volume 223
Centre and Periphery within the Borders of Islam
Proceedings of the 23rd Congress of L'Union Europeenne des Arabisants et Islamisants
Volume 207
Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III
Proceedings of the 6th, 7th and 8th International Colloquium organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 1997, 1998 and 1999
Volume 102
The Sakhmet Statues in the Precinct of Mut at South Karnak
The Brooklyn Museum Expedition to the Precinct of Mut at South Karnak
Volume 330
Scribal Practices and the Social Construction of Knowledge in Antiquity, Late Antiquity and Medieval Islam
Volume 266
Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen Band II
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 111
Conflict and Coexistence
Proceedings of the 29th Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Münster 2018
Volume 312
Contra Latinos et Adversus Graecos
The Separation between Rome and Constantinople from the Ninth to the Fifteenth Century
Volume 286, 22
Manuscripta Graeca et Orientalia
Mélanges monastiques et patristiques en l'honneur de Paul Géhin
Volume 243, 12
Encyclopedic Trends in Byzantium?
Proceedings of the International Conference held in Leuven, 6-8 May 2009
Volume 212
The Necropolis of Assiut
A Case Study of Local Egyptian Funerary Culture from the Old Kingdom to the End of the Middle Kingdom
Volume 180
Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550-330 B.C.)
Lexicon of Old Iranian Proper Names and Loanwords, Attested in Non-Iranian Texts
Volume 158
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