Details

Subject(s)

• Temples—Remodeling—Middle East—History—To 1500 [Browse]
• Middle East—Kings and rulers—Religious aspects [Browse]

Series

Oxford scholarship online [More in this series]

Summary note

This text examines temple renovation as a rhetorical topic within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations were oriented toward the past. Kings took the opportunity to rehearse a selective history of the temple, evoking certain past traditions and omitting others. In this way, temple renovations were a kind of historiography. Andrew R. Davis demonstrates a pattern in the rhetoric of temple renovation texts: that kings in ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, Syria and Persia used temple renovation to correct, or at least distance themselves from, some turmoil of recent history and to associate their reigns with an earlier and more illustrious past.

Notes

Also issued in print: 2019.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Target audience

Specialized.

Source of description

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on July 10, 2019).

Other title(s)

Oxford scholarship online.

ISBN

9780190868994 (ebook) :

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