Writing and Re-Writing History by Destruction

Beschreibung

This volume presents research on ancient Syria, Mesopotamia, and Israel with a focus on the longue durée of the practice of reshaping the past through the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage in order to shape the present according to current interests.
This volume combines the papers held at the Minerva Center's "Research on Israel and Aram in Biblical Times" conference (Leipzig 2018) on the subject of writing and re-writing history by deliberate destruction in the regions of Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. An international group of scholars studies the subject using a multi-perspective and interdisciplinary approach. Archeological studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, and biblical studies focused on the destruction of ancient sites in Israel and Judah in the 1st millennium BC. The perspective of the defeated Israelites, Jerusalemites, and Judeans is described in detail in the Old Testament and in postbiblical literature and shows that the destructions in the past were a cultural and identity creator of the first magnitude. The longue durée of the practice of reshaping the past through the deliberate destruction of a cultural heritage in order to shape the present according to current interests becomes evident based on the Neo-Assyrian Empire's practice up to the modern era and is demonstrated by the example of the Arabian-Muslim conquest of Aram as well as current Turkish politics.

Autor*in

Angelika Berlejung
Born 1961; is Professor for "History and Religion of Israel and its Environment" at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Leipzig, an Extraordinary Professor for Ancient Studies at the University of Stellenbosch/South Africa, a Visiting Full Professor for Biblical Archaeology at Bar Ilan University/Israel, and a Full Member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences.

Themen in »Writing and Re-Writing History by Destruction«

Cultural heritage history of the Ancient Near East reshaping collective memory destruction of identity

Stimmen zu »Writing and Re-Writing History by Destruction«

Details

Link teilen