Abstract
A
This volume, which is open access on Brill’s website, juxtaposes discussion of the memorialization and representation of collective violence across the chronological and geographical spectrum of the ancient Mediterranean world. By placing this set of memory media into conversation with one another, the volume contributes to a more robust and complex understanding of the media and interpretation of collective memory in the ancient Mediterranean. The foundational proposition of the volume—and of memory studies in general—is that what impacts a group’s identity is not a historical event in its own right, but how those events are remembered. The first chapter introduces collective violence and its various modes of memorialization (S. Amman); the remaining 11 chapters provide case studies of different cultural media representing collective violence. Although the volume is not broken into parts, it nevertheless has some thematization. Chapters 2–5 focus on the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint, including consideration of the archaeological ruins of Jericho’s walls as a lieu de mémoire for Joshua 6 (A. Berlejung), the respective geographical and textual modes of memorialization in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 21 compared with 2 Samuel 1 (S. Germany), and the commemorative narratives of Esther (H. Bezold) and 1 and 2 Maccabees (J. Rhyder) within their Hellenistic socio-literary contexts. Chapter 6 explores two city-states in south-eastern Anatolia (Carchemish and Sam’al) and their images of beheaded and trampled enemy soldiers engraved in orthostats or standing stones (I. Cornelius). Chapters 7 and 8 focus on Egypt, considering the representation of Israel in various milieus of Egyptian literature and historiography (A. Loprieno) and the role of the comedic in narrative memorialization in the Demotic Inaros Cycle (D. Agut-Labordère). Chapters 9 and 10 focus on Greece, particularly funerary reliefs (N.T. Arrington) and the varied representations of the Persian sack of Athens (D.C. Yates). Finally, Chapters 11 and 12 consider Rome, including the reinterpretation of historical memory throughout later Roman historiography (S. Lentzsch) and the moral connotations for specific Latin terms used for rebellion, defection and desertion (J.H. Clark). None of these contributors, however, seem to necessarily share a common definition of ‘memory’ as put forward in S. Ammann’s introduction; for example, in Chapter 2, A. Berlejung’s use of ‘memory’ is much nearer to ‘myth’. The volume could have benefited from increased attentiveness to each contributor’s differing utilization of concepts and terms that are interconnected with memory studies as another means of diversifying the volume’s interest in intersections between disciplines, media, times and cultures.