Historiography - Ethnography - Onymy : Investigations into the basic discourses of the ancient Levant
2021
Abstrakt
The founding myths and legends of the pre-Hellenistic Levant have been preserved - perhaps with the exception of the Old Testament - in the form of fragmentary informations of various origins, from onomastics and the structure of royal lists to brief reports of conquerors. Case studies of epigraphic sources from the Early Bronze Age (Ebla) through the Late Bronze Age (Ugarit) to the Early Iron Age (Aramaic, Old Testament, Philistines) reveal uniform rules that determined the form of these legends as a means of ethnic incorporation and political legitimation.
That the reflection of these rules could be used by capable authors for their own purposes is evidenced by an analysis of the work of the Ugaritic scribe Ilimilek.