The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East

This Handbook is a state-of-the-field volume containing diverse approaches to sensory experience, bringing to life in an innovative, remarkably vivid, and visceral way the lives of past humans through contributions that cover the chronological and geographical expanse of the ancient Near East.

It comprises thirty-two chapters written by leading international contributors that look at the ways in which humans, through their senses, experienced their lives and the world around them in the ancient Near East, with coverage of Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Persia, from the Neolithic through the Roman period. It is organised into six parts related to sensory contexts: Practice, production, and taskscape; Dress and the body; Ritualised practice and ceremonial spaces; Death and burial; Science, medicine, and aesthetics; and Languages and semantic fields. In addition to exploring what makes each sensory context unique, this organisation facilitates cross-cultural and cross-chronological, as well as cross-sensory and multisensory comparisons and discussions of sensory experiences in the ancient world. In so doing, the volume also enables considerations of senses beyond the five-sense model of Western philosophy (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell), including proprioception and interoception, and the phenomena of synaesthesia and kinaesthesia.

The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East provides scholars and students within the field of ancient Near Eastern studies new perspectives on and conceptions of familiar spaces, places, and practices, as well as material culture and texts. It also allows scholars and students from adjacent fields such as Classics and Biblical Studies to engage with this material, and is a must-read for any scholar or student interested in or already engaged with the field of sensory studies in any period.

List of Figures; List of Tables; Contributors; Acknowledgements; Editor's Note; Map; Introduction, Kiersten Neumann and Allison Thomason; Part I Practice, Production, and Taskscapes; 1 The Sense of Practice: A Case Study of Tablet Sealing at Nippur in the Ur III Period (c. 2112–2004 BCE), Marian H. Feldman; 2 Senses and Textiles in the Eastern Mediterranean: Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages (1550–1100 BCE), Caroline Sauvage; 3 New Sensory Experiences through Technological Innovation: The Usage and Production of Transparent Drinking Bowls in the Neo-Assyrian Palace, Katharina Schmidt; 4 To Touch Upon: A Tactile Exploration of the Apadana Reliefs at Persepolis, Kiersten Neumann; 5 Soundscapes and Taskscapes in the Ancient Near East: Interactions and Perceptions, Agnès Garcia-Ventura and Mireia López-Bertran; Part II Dress and the Body; 6 Adornment Practices in the Ancient Near East and the Question of Embodied Boundary Maintenance, Josephine Verduci; 7 Dress, Sensory Assemblages, and Identity in the Early First Millennium at Hasanlu, Iran, Megan Cifarelli; 8 Beyond the Flesh: Sensing Identity through the Body and Skin in Mesopotamian Contexts, Sarah J. Scott; 9 A Sense of Scale: Proprioception, Embodied Subjectivities, and the Space of Kingship at Persepolis, Neville McFerrin; Part III Ritualised Practice and Ceremonial Spaces; 10 Temple Ritual as Gesamtkunstwerk: Stimulation of the Senses and Aesthetic Experience in a Religious Context, Irene Winter; 11 Pure Stale Water: Experiencing Jewish Purifications Rituals in Early Roman Palestine, Rick Bonnie; 12 Megaliths and Miniatures: Scale and the Senses in the Early Neolithic, Sarah Kielt Costello; 13 Sensing Salience in the Landscapes of Egyptian Royal Living-Rock Stelae, Jen Thum; 14 In the Light and In the Dark: Exhibiting Power, Exploiting Spaces in Early and Old Syrian Ebla: An Analysis of the Five Senses in an Early Syrian Court, Frances Pinnock; 15 The Ishtar Gate: A Sensescape of Divine Agency, Beate Pongratz-Leisten; 16 The Jerusalem Temple: A Sensory Encounter with the Sacred, Christine Elizabeth Palmer; 17 The Ancient Synagogue at Nabratein: The Acoustic Dynamics of Architectural Change, Paul V. M. Flesher; Part IV Death and Burial; 18 Sensing the Ancestors: The Importance of Senses in Constructing Ancestorship in the Ancient Near East, Nicola Laneri; 19 Sensing the Dead in Household Burials of the Second Millennium BCE, Melissa S. Cradic; 20 The Smells of Eternity: Aromatic Oils and Resins in the Phoenician Mortuary Record, Helen Dixon; 21 The Sixth Sense: Multisensory Encounters with the Dead in Roman Egypt, Lissette M. Jiménez; Part V Science, Medicine, and Aesthetics; 22 Seeing Stars: Knowing the Sky in Mesopotamia, M. Willis Monroe; 23 Sensory Experience in Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine, Ulrike Steinert; 24 The Understanding of Intellectual and Sensorial Impairment in the Hebrew Bible, Edgar Kellenberger; 25 The Distant Eye and the Ekphrastic Image: Thinking Through Aesthetics and Art for the Senses (Western/Non-Western), Karen Sonik; Part VI Languages and Semantic Fields; 26 Language Technology Approach to "Seeing" in Akkadian, Aleksi Sahala and Saana Svärd; 27 Metaphors of Perception Verbs in Ancient Egyptian: The Proximal Senses, Elisabeth Steinbach-Eicke; 28 Metaphors of Sensory Experience in Ancient Egyptian Texts: Emotion, Personality, and Social Interaction, Camilla Di Biase-Dyson and Gaëlle Chantrain; 29 Smellscapes in Ancient Egypt, Dora Goldsmith; 30 Crossing Sensory Boundaries: From Vocabulary to Physical Experience, Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel; 31 Open Your Ears and Listen! The Role of the Senses Among the Hittites, Richard H. Beal; 32 Hearing and Seeing in Hurrian, Dennis R. M. Campbell; Index

Kiersten Neumann is Curator and Research Associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, USA, and has published numerous articles on topics pertaining to sensory experience, ritualised practice, and visual culture of the first millennium BCE, as well as museum practice, collections histories, and the reception of Assyrian and Achaemenid art.

Allison Thomason is Professor of History at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA. Her book, Luxury and Legitimation: Royal Collecting in Ancient Mesopotamia (2005), and her subsequent publications explore portable objects, dress, and sensory experiences in the ancient Near East.