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Hauser, Stefan R. (Berlin) [German version] A. Concept and Contents (CT) Archaeology is concerned with all aspects of human life in the past. Primarily it makes use of material remains which, for most of human history, from the Paleolithic to modern times, represent the only evidence.  If at the beginning of archaeological research, focus was placed on individual objects, particularly ancient works of art,  the framework was then broadened on the one hand by the inclusion of all kinds of material evidence …

Hauser, Stefan R. (Berlin) [German version] A. Concept (CT) Traditionally the term 'Orientalism' has denoted the study of the languages, cultures or religions of the Orient. Depending on the context, 'Orient' can refer to a concrete or abstract region east of the current geographical location or east of what is generally defined as 'the West' (Occident). The Orient is commonly understood to comprise the countries of Asia as far as Japan; in the narrower sense, however, it refers to the region extending f…

[German version] [1] City on the Tigris This item can be found on the following maps: Writing | Urarṭu | Ḫattusa | Mesopotamia Aššur (today Qalat Šerqat), on the right bank of the Tigris. Cult site of the eponymous city god. Religious and until 9th cent. political centre of the Assyrian empire, see excavation by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft [1]. The old city, 55 hectares in size, was extended to the south in the mid 2nd millennium BC by a new city of 20 hectares. In the north were the ‘Old Palace’ and the temples…

[German version] (Amm. Marc. 25,7,9; Syriac Beth Zabde). Southern Armenian region where the Tigris emerges from the Taurus mountains. In AD 298, Z. became the most easterly province of the Roman Empire (Petrus Patricius Fr. 14 FHG 4, 189: Ζαβδικηνή/ Zabdikēnḗ) and in 363 was returned - together with e.g. Nisibis and four other regiones Transtigritanae/'regions beyond the Tigris' (Arzanena, Moxuena, Rehimena and Corduena; Limes VI with map) - to the Sassanids (Amm. Marc. ad loc.). Z. was then an administrative unit ( rōstāg) of the Sassanid district of Nisibis in Arbāyestān/Ar…

(Κτησιφῶν; Ktésiphôn). [German version] [1] Athenian, supporter of Demosthenes [2], 2nd half of the 4th cent. BC Athenian, son of Leosthenes from Anaphlystus, supporter of  Demosthenes [2], whom he had successfully, though technically pre-empting official endorsement ( Euthynae), proposed in 337/6 for a crowning.  Aeschines [2] lodged a protest against this that was unambiguously rejected in 330 at the ‘crown trial’ (Aeschin. In Ctes.; Dem. Or. 18; Plut. Mor. 840C and 846A). C. was also one of the emissaries to queen Cleopatra in Epirus (Aeschin. In Ctes. 242). Engels, Johannes (C…

[German version] A. General After a person's death the treatment and taking of his body to a particular place called grave ( Funerary architecture), mostly connected with death rituals. Burial customs varied depending on the society's religious concepts and particularly the concepts of  afterlife and the (social) status of the deceased or those organizing the burial. The main types of burial are inhumation or cremation (ash burial). There is also evidence of individual cases from the Neolithic Peri…

[German version] [1] Trading centre in north Mesopotamia This item can be found on the following maps: Syria | Zenobia | Commerce | Limes Trading centre in north Mesopotamia, founded middle of the 1st cent. AD. Expanded to a fortified round city ( c. 2 km diameter) in the mid 2nd cent., H. was an important sanctuary of the sun god  Šamaš and capital of a ‘kingdom of the Arabs’ starting c. 166, at the same time an Arsacid border province. The city was besieged in vain by Trajan (AD 116) and Septimius Severus (196 and 198). After the end of the Arsacid dynasty, it …

[German version] I. Definition Funerary architecture (FA) refers to architectonically designed structures built above the contemporary ground level for the purpose of  burial, as opposed to underground hypogea, which have rooms for the cult of the dead and hero cult. Columbaria can combine both types. Hypogea with a ground level cult room influenced the early Christian martyria above the graves. Regarding further aspects of FA, cf.  Hypogaeum;  Maussolleum;  Necropoleis. Kammerer-Grothaus, Helke (Bremen) II. Egypt and the Near East [German version] A. Egypt The Egyptian buria…