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Sunday, November 6, 2016

1440-1400 BC-Torah

The Torah (/ˈtɔːrəˌˈtoʊrə/; Hebrew: תּוֹרָה, "Instruction, Teaching"), or the Pentateuch (/ˈpɛntəˌtuːk, -ˌtjuːk/), is the central reference of the religious Judaic tradition. It has a range of meanings. It can most specifically mean the first five books of the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, and it usually includes the perushim (rabbinic commentaries). The term "Torah" means instruction and offers a way of life for those who follow it; it can mean the continued narrative from Book of Genesis to the end of the Tanakh, and it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice.[1] Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the foundational narrative of Jewish peoplehood: their call into being by God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God, which involves following a way of life embodied in a set of moral and religious obligations and civil laws (halakha).
In rabbinic literature the word "Torah" denotes both the five books (Hebrew: תורה שבכתב‎‎ "Torah that is written") as well as the Oral Torah (תורה שבעל פה, "Torah that is spoken"). The Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash.[2]
According to rabbinic tradition, all of the teachings found in the Torah, both written and oral, were given by God through Moses, a prophet, some of them at Mount Sinai and others at the Tabernacle, and all the teachings were written down by Moses, which resulted in the Torah we have today. According to a Midrash, the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world, and was used as the blueprint for Creation.[3]
The majority of Biblical scholars believe that the written books were a product of the Babylonian captivity (c. 600 BCE), based on earlier written and oral traditions, and that it was completed by the period of Achaemenid rule (c. 400 BCE).[4][5]
Traditionally, the words of the Torah are written on a scroll by a sofer on parchment in Hebrew. A Torah portion is read publicly at least once every three days in the halachically-prescribed tune, in the presence of a congregation.[6] Reading the Torah publicly is one of the bases for Jewish communal life.


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1500 BC-Dynasty of Dunnum

The Dynasty of Dunnum, sometimes called the Theogony of Dunnum or Dunnu or the Harab Myth,[1] is an ancient Mesopotamian mythical tale of successive generations of gods who take power through parricide and live incestuously with their mothers and/or sisters, until, according to a reconstruction of the broken text, more acceptable behavior prevailed with the last generation of gods,[2] Enlil and his twin sons Nušku and Ninurta, who share rule amicably.[3] It is extant in a sole-surviving late Babylonian copy[4] excavated from the site of the ancient city of Sippar by Hormuzd Rassam in the 19th century.[5]

Synopsis[edit]

It chronicles the conflict of generations of the gods who represent aspects of fertility, agriculture and the seasonal cycle:[6] heaven, earth, sea, river, plough, wild and domesticated animals, herdsman, pasture, fruit-tree and vine.[4]
It begins, according to a restoration:
In the beginning, [Harab married earth.] Family and lord[ship he founded. Saying: “A]rable land we will carve out (of) the ploughed land of the country. [With the p]loughing of their harbu-ploughs they cause the creation of the sea. [The lands ploughed with the mayaru-pl]ow by themselves gave birth to Sumuqan. His str[onghold,] Dunnu, the eternal city, they created, both of them.[7]
— Translated by William W. Hallo, The world's oldest literature: studies in Sumerian belles-lettres
Then Sumuqan kills his father Harab (plough), marries his mother Ki (earth) and his sister and the cycle of carnage begins. The city of Dunnum was a synonymous toponym, with many places so named, such as one in the vicinity of Isin[7] and another lying of the right bank of the Euphrates in what is now northern Syria.[8] A dunnu is a fortified settlement, but the word can also be translated as strength or violence.[9]

Influence[edit]

The tale spread across to Phoenicia and over the Aegean, where its influence can be felt in the Ugarit myth Ba’al and Yam from the Ba’al cycle (ca. 1600-1200 BC),[2] the Hittite myth Song of Kumarbi (14th or 13th century BC)[1] and the Greek poet Hesiod’s Theogony (ca. 800-700 BC).[10]


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1500-1300 BC-Book of the Dead/ Other

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New 

Kingdom (around 1550 BCE) to around 50 BCE.[1] The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw[2] is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day.[3] Another translation would be Book of Emerging Forth into the Light. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts[4]consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1000 years.
The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not papyrus. Some of the spells included were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BCE. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period (11th to 7th centuries BCE). A number of the spells which made up the Book continued to be inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as had always been the spells from which they originated. The Book of the Dead was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased.
There was no single or canonical Book of the Dead. The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary considerably in their illustration. Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was most commonly written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a papyrus scroll, and often illustrated with vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey into the afterlife.


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1500 BC-Hittite military oath

The Hittite military oath (CTH 427) is a Hittite text on two cuneiform tablets.
The first tablet is only preserved in fragments (KBo XXI 10, KUB XL 13, and minor fragments), the second tablet survives in three copies, and can be restituted almost completely. The oldest copy (KUB XL 13) is fragmentary, but two younger copies (KUB XL 16, KBo VI 34) are well preserved. The text is in Old Hittite, with some scribal errors of the later copyists, and prescribes the oath to be taken by military commanders. More precisely, it describes a series of symbolic actions intended to represent the afflictions that should befall the oath-takers should they break their word. On one occasion, for example, women's clothing, a spindle and an arrow is brought before those swearing their allegiance. The arrow is broken, and they are told that should they break their oath, their weapons should likewise be broken, and they should be made women and given women's tasks. Then, a blind and deaf woman is brought before them, and they are told that if they break their word, they will be made blind and deaf women like this one. Then, a figurine of a person suffering from ascites is brought before them, and they are told that should they break their word, their bellies should swell with water, and the deities of the oath should eat their offspring (seed) within their bellies.
The deities of the oath repeatedly invoked with the Akkado-Sumerian spelling NIŠ DINGIR (representing Hittite lengai-) are identified with the goddess of treaties Ishara and the moon god Kaskuh.
To these similes, those swearing agree, saying "so be it." Oath-taking as conditional self-cursing in the event of oath-breaking is typical for other early Proto-Indo-Europeans cultures.
There is another, younger text (CTH 428) with similar content, termed the 'second military oath'. It is more fragmentary, and its main difference is that the oath-takers are promised well-being in case they keep their word, as well as being threatened by extinction should they break it. In comparison to the older oath, the younger text shows that the Hittite pantheon was increasingly influenced by Hurrian gods.





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Saturday, November 5, 2016

1500 BC-Poor Man of Nippur

The Poor Man of Nippur is an Akkadian story dating from around 1500 BC.[1] It is attested by only three texts, only one of which is more than a small fragment.[2]
There was a man, a citizen of Nippur, destitute and poor,
Gimil-Ninurta was his name, an unhappy man,
In his city, Nippur, he lived, working hard, but
Had not the silver befitting his class,
Had not the gold befitting people (of his stature).
His storage bins lacked pure grain,
His insides burned, craving food, and
His face was unhappy, craving meat and first-class beer;
Having no food, he lay hungry every day, and
Was dressed in garments that had no change.
In his unhappy mood, he thought to himself:
I'll strip off my garments which have no change, and
In my city of Nippur's market I'll buy a sheep!
So he stripped off his garments which had no change, and
In his city of Nippur's market he bought a three-year-old goat.
In his unhappy mood, he thought to himself:
Suppose I slaughter this goat in my yard-
There could be no feast, for where is the beer?
My friends in the neighbourhood would find out and be furious,
And my family and relatives would be angry with me.[3]
Instead he presents the goat to the mayor. This is interpreted as a bribe and Gimil-Ninurta is given only a mug of third-class beer and the leavings of the meal before being thrown out. Through the medium of the gatekeeper Gimil-Ninurta vows to avenge his mistreatment three times over but when the mayor hears this he laughs all day.
Gimil-Ninurta hires a chariot and robe from the king on credit. Returning to the mayor's house with a locked chest containing two birds he presents himself as a royal courier conveying gold to the temple of Enlil. Arising in the night and opening the chest to release the birds, he beats the mayor for the purported theft and is compensated with two minas of red gold, twice the sum owed to the king.
Gimil-Ninurta calls upon the mayor again disguised as an itinerant physician come to treat his wounds. Claiming that his medication is only effective in the darkness, he lures the mayor into a private room, binds the mayor's hands and feet to stakes and beats him once more.
The mayor instructs his staff to watch for his persecutor but Gimil-Ninurta hires an accomplice to identify himself as 'the man with the goat' at the mayor's gate and draw them out. He hides under a bridge near the mayor's house and beats the mayor nigh to death while he is alone.[4]


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1500 BC-Vedic period

Late Vedic Culture (1100-500 BCE).pngThe Vedic period (or Vedic age) (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE) was the period in Indian history during which the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, were composed.[note 1]
During the early part of the Vedic period, the Indo-Aryans settled into northern India, bringing with them their specific religious traditions. The associated culture (sometimes referred to as Vedic civilisation[note 2]) was initially a tribal, pastoral society centred in the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent; it spread after 1200 BCE to the Ganges Plain, as it was shaped by increasing settled agriculture, a hierarchy of four social classes, and the emergence of monarchical, state-level polities.[3][4] Scholars consider Vedic civilisation to have been a composite of the Indo-Aryan and Harappan cultures.[5]
The end of the Vedic period witnessed the rise of large, urbanised states as well as of shramanamovements (including Jainism and Buddhism) which challenged the Vedic orthodoxy.[6] Around the beginning of the Common Era, the Vedic tradition formed one of the main constituents of the so-called "Hindu synthesis".[7]

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1500 BC-Rigveda

Om symbol.svgThe Rigveda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, from ṛc "praise, shine"[1] and veda "knowledge") is an ancient Indiancollection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one of the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas.[2][3] The text is a collection of 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses, organized into ten books (Mandalas).[4] A good deal of the language is still obscure and many hymns as a consequence seem unintelligible.[5][6][7]
The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities.[4] For each deity series the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones; and the number of hymns per book increases.[2] In the eight books that were composed the earliest, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology and praise deities.[8][9] Books 1 and 10, which were added last, deal with philosophical or speculative[9] questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of god,[10] the virtue of dāna (charity) in society,[11] and other metaphysical issues in its hymns.[12]
Rigveda is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language.[13] Philological and linguisticevidence indicate that the Rigveda was composed in the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, most likely between c. 1500 and 1200 BC,[14][15][16] though a wider approximation of c. 1700–1100 BC has also been given.[17][18][note 1]
Some of its verses continue to be recited during Hindu rites of passage celebrations such as weddings and religious prayers, making it probably the world's oldest religious text in continued use.[21][22]


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Friday, November 4, 2016

1600 BC-Code of the Nesilim

The Code of Nesilim is an ancient Hittite legal code dating from c. 1650 – 1500 BCE.[1][2][3][4]

Translation[edit]

From the Ancient History Sourcebook,[5] The Code of the Nesilim, c. 1650 – 1500 BCE, Paul Halsall, August 1998, from: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1901), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 9–11 and scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text:
1. If anyone slay a man or woman in a quarrel, he shall bring this one. He shall also give four persons, either men or women, he shall let them go to his home.
2. If anyone slay a male or female slave in a quarrel, he shall bring this one and give two persons, either men or women, he shall let them go to his home.
3. If anyone smite a free man or woman and this one die, he shall bring this one and give two persons, he shall let them go to his home.
4. If anyone smite a male or female slave, he shall bring this one also and give one person, he shall let him or her go to his home.
5. If anyone slay a merchant of Hatti, he shall give one and a half pounds of silver, he shall let it go to his home.
6. If anyone blind a free man or knock out his teeth, formerly they would give one pound of silver, now he shall give twenty half-shekels of silver.
8. If anyone blind a male or female slave or knock out their teeth, he shall give ten half-shekels of silver, he shall let it go to his home.
10. If anyone injure a man so that he cause him suffering, he shall take care of him. Yet he shall give him a man in his place, who shall work for him in his house until he recovers. But if he recover, he shall give him six half-shekels of silver. And to the physician this one shall also give the fee.
17. If anyone cause a free woman to miscarry, if it be the tenth month, he shall give ten half-shekels of silver, if it be the fifth month, he shall give five half-shekels of silver.
18. If anyone cause a female slave to miscarry, if it be the tenth month, he shall give five half-shekels of silver.
20. If any man of Hatti steal a Nesian slave and lead him here to the land of Hatti, and his master discover him, he shall give him twelve half-shekels of silver, he shall let it go to his home.
21. If anyone steal a slave of a Luwian from the land of Luwia, and lead him here to the land of Hatti, and his master discover him, he shall take his slave only.
24. If a male or female slave run away, he at whose hearth his master finds him or her, shall give fifty half-shekels of silver a year.
31. If a free man and a female slave be fond of each other and come together and he take her for his wife and they set up house and get children, and afterward they either become hostile or come to close quarters, and they divide the house between them, the man shall take the children, only one child shall the woman take.
32. If a slave take a woman as his wife, their case is the same. The majority of the children to the wife and one child to the slave.
33. If a slave take a female slave their case is the same. The majority of children to the female slave and one child to the slave.
34. If a slave convey the bride price to a free son and take him as husband for his daughter, nobody dare surrender him to slavery.
36. If a slave convey the bride price to a free son and take him as husband for his daughter, nobody dare surrender him to slavery.
40. If a soldier disappear, and a vassal arise and the vassal say, AThis is my military holding, but this other one is my tenancy, @ and lay hands upon the fields of the soldier, he may both hold the military holding and perform the tenancy duties. If he refuse the military service, then he forfeits the vacant fields of the soldier. The men of the village shall cultivate them. If the king give a captive, they shall give the fields to him, and he becomes a soldier.
98. If a free man set a house ablaze, he shall build the house, again. And whatever is inside the house, be it a man, an ox, or a sheep that perishes, nothing of these he need compensate.
99. If a slave set a house ablaze, his master shall compensate for him. The nose of the slave and his ears they shall cut off, and give him back to his master. But if he do not compensate, then he shall give up this one.
158. If a man go for wages, bind sheaves, load it into carts, spread it on the straw barn and so forth "till they clear the threshing floor, for three months his wages are thirty pecks of barley. If a woman go for wages in the harvest, for two months he shall give twelve pecks of barley.
159. If anyone harness a yoke of oxen, his wages are one-half peck of barley.
160. If a smith make a copper box, his wages are one hundred pecks of barley. He who makes a copper dish of two-pound weight, his wages are one peck of emmer.
164. If anyone come for borrowing, then make a quarrel and throw down either bread or wine jug, then he shall give one sheep, ten loaves, and one jug of beer. Then he cleanses his house by the offering. Not until the year has elapsed may he salute again the other's house.
170. If a free man kill a serpent and speak the name of another, he shall give one pound of silver; if a slave, this one shall die.
173. If anyone oppose the judgment of the king, his house shall become a ruin. If anyone oppose the judgment of a lord, his head shall be cut off. If a slave rise against his master, he shall go into the pit.
176. If anyone buy an artisan's apprentice, buy either a potter, a smith, a carpenter, a leatherworker, a tailor, a weaver, or a lace-maker, he shall give ten half-shekels.
178. A plow-ox costs fifteen half-shekels of silver, a bull costs ten half-shekels of silver, a great cow costs seven half-shekels of silver, a sheep one half-shekel of silver, a draft horse twenty half-shekels of silver, a mule one pound of silver, a horse fourteen half-shekels of silver.
181-182. Four pounds of copper cost one half-shekel of silver; one tub of lard, one half-shekel of silver; two cheese one half-shekel of silver; a gown twelve half-shekels of silver; one blue woolen garment costs twenty half-shekels of silver; breeches cost ten half-shekels of silver...
187. If a man have intercourse with a cow, it is a capital crime, he shall die. They shall lead him to the king's hall. But the king may kill him, the king may grant him his life. But he shall not approach the king.
188. If a man have intercourse with his own mother, it is a capital crime, he shall die. If a man have intercourse with a daughter, it is a capital crime, he shall die. If a man have intercourse with a son, it is a capital crime, he shall die.
190. If a man and a woman come willingly, as men and women, and have intercourse, there shall be no punishment. And if a man have intercourse with his stepmother, there shall be no punishment; except if his father is living, it is a capital crime, the son shall die.
191. If a free man picks up now this woman, now that one, now in this country, then in that country, there shall be no punishment if they came together sexually willingly.
192. If the husband of a woman die, his wife may take her husband's patrimony.
194. If a free man pick up female slaves, now one, now another, there is no punishment for intercourse. If brothers sleep with a free woman, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment. If father and son sleep with a female slave or harlot, together, or one after the other, there is no punishment.
195. If a man sleep with the wife of his brother, while his brother is living, it is a capital crime, he shall die. If a man have taken a free woman, then have intercourse also with her daughter, it is a capital crime, he shall die. If he have taken her daughter, then have intercourse with her mother or her sister, it is a capital crime, he shall die.
197. If a man rape a woman in the mountain, it is the man's wrong, he shall die. But if he rape her in the house, it is the woman's fault, the woman shall die. If the husband find them and then kill them, there is no punishing the husband.
199. If anyone have intercourse with a pig or a dog, he shall die. If a man have intercourse with a horse or a mule, there is no punishment. But he shall not approach the king, and shall not become a priest. If an ox spring upon a man for intercourse, the ox shall die but the man shall not die. One sheep shall be fetched as a substitute for the man, and they shall kill it. If a pig spring upon a man for intercourse, there is no punishment. If any man have intercourse with a foreign woman and pick up this one, now that one, there is no punishment.
200. If anyone give a son for instruction, be it a carpenter, or a potter, or a weaver, or a tailor, or a smith, he shall give six half-shekels of silver for the instruction. [6]
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1650 BC- Ipuwer Papyrus

The Ipuwer Papyrus (officially Papyrus Leiden I 344 recto) is an ancient Egyptian hieratic papyrus made during the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, and now held in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands.[1] It contains the Admonitions of Ipuwer, an incomplete literary work whose original composition is dated no earlier than the late Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt (c.1991-1803 BCE).[2]
In the Admonitions a man named Ipuwer complains that the world has been turned upside-down, and demands that the "Lord of All" remember his religious duties and destroy his enemies.[1] The poem is considered the world's earliest known treatise on political ethics, suggesting that a good king is one who controls unjust officials, thus carrying out the will of the gods.[3] Ipuwer is often put forward in popular literature as confirmation of the Biblical exodus story, but these arguments ignore the many points on which Ipuwer contradicts Exodus.[4]


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