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Zusatztext "Building on a vast documentary record that covers the entire Syro-Mesopotamian tradition, Dolce's analysis offers an in-depth study in visual semiotics. She identifies specific 'semantic codes' and an explicit syntactical organization, through which a strong message was conveyed by means of visual imagery. This is iconology at its best: by highlighting the coherence of a representational program, and drawing on parallel written statements, our sensitivity is trained to appreciate the 'intrinsic meaning' of a topos such as the action of beheading – a topos with a valence that goes well beyond that of other types of mutilation precisely because of its ideological import."Giorgio Buccellati, University of California Los Angeles, USA Informationen zum Autor Rita Dolce is Associate Professor of Archaeology and History of Near Eastern Cultures and Fine Arts at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy, and a member of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Syria, where she has excavated for 40 years at the site of Tell Mardikh-Ebla. Her research interests lie mainly in the figurative art, urban topography and architecture of the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia and Syria. She has written numerous books and articles focusing particularly on visual communication as the language of power and a means of dissemination in the societies of the Ancient Near East, and on the urban origins of Ebla, its palatial culture and the structure and significance of cult places in this important Early Syrian kingdom. Zusammenfassung This volume examines the meaning of this specific act in times of war. With examples drawn from Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia between the 3rd and 1st millennium BC, from prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian period, this fascinating study will be valuable to anyone interested in the dynamics of war in the ancient world. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Image Credits Abbreviations Introduction Chapter I I.1. From the Distant Past to the Recent Past I.2. An Unrepeatable Act I.3. The Headless Body: Anonymity/Identity Chapter II II.1. Exclusivity/Multiplicity II.2. Exhibition/Quantification Chapter III III.1. What Happens to the "Coveted Object"? III.2. Destinations/Motivations III.3. Exhibition and Multivalence Chapter IV IV.1. Severed Heads and Birds of Prey IV.2. Eannatum of Lagash and the Birds of Prey IV.3. Mari and the Birds of Prey IV.4. Sargon I of Akkad and the Birds of Prey IV.5. Dadusha of Eshnunna and the Birds of Prey IV.6. The Assyrians and the Birds of Prey Chapter V V.1. Moving Through Space and Time V.2. How Does the Head Travel? Chapter VI VI.1. "Other" Decapitations in Times of War VI.2. What Happens to the Severed Heads of Statues? VI.3. Moving Through Space and Time VI.4. Annihilation/Catharsis Bibliography Index ...
