Book

Political Memory in and after the Persian Empire

An interdisciplinary study of the Persian Period

Author: Jason M. Silverman and Caroline Waerzeggers
Date: 01 January 2015
Links: SBL-site.org

Various disciplines that deal with Achaemenid rule offer starkly different assessments of Persian kingship. While Assyriologists treat Cyrus's heirs as legitimate successors of the Babylonian kings, biblical scholars often speak of a kingless era; in which the priesthood took over the function of the Davidic monarch. Egyptologists see their land as uniquely independently minded despite conquests, while Hellenistic scholarship tends to evaluate the interface between Hellenism and native traditions without reference to the previous two centuries of Persian rule. This volume brings together in dialogue a broad array of scholars with the goal of seeking a broader context for assessing Persian kingship through the anthropological concept of political memory.

Features

Articles present the results of an international symposium held in Leiden, the Netherlands, 2014
More than twenty illustrations
Seventeen articles, an introduction, and a summary response