Joachim Marzahn

Benjamin Sass

The book addresses the 335 Aramaic and figural impressions on bricks of the sixth century B.C., most of them uncovered during the German excavations in 1899-1917. This treasure trove, that remained practically unpublished for a hundred years, is well dated by cuneiform impressions, found on the same bricks, of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 B.C.) and his immediate successors. The Aramaic and figural brick impressions close a gap in our knowledge about Aramaic palaeography (the stamp legends are in the monumental script, hitherto poorly documented for the sixth century), contribute to our understanding of the onomasticon and the iconography of the period, and touch upon the history of the Aramaean presence in Babylon and upon the royal building activity there.

Aramaic and Figural Stamp Impressions on Bricks of the Sixth Century B.C. from Babylon

Eva Christiane Cancik-Kirschbaum

Margarete van Ess

In this collection of interdisciplinary papers, for the first time well-known scholars of Ancient Near Eastern Studies discuss Babylon from the point of view of the 'culture of knowledge'. The volume is the result of a conference that took place on the occasion of the exhibition Babylon ' Truth and Myth in Berlin. For the contemporary cultures of the Ancient World, Babylon was the epitome of learned scholarship. Yet in the processes of transformation of Late and post-Antiquity, to the same extent to which this culture of knowledge was forgotten after the collapse of the old oriental empires, Babylon became symbolic for the occult, for magic and esoteric knowledge.As the first joint pilot project by Topoi and the publisher Walter de Gruyter for the simultaneous publication in print and open access, this volume will, on publication, also be available via the website www.reference-global.de as an eBook 'open access'.

Joachim Marzahn

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