In this book, Bob Becking provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the origins, lives, and eventual fate of the Yehudites, or Judeans, at Elephantine, framed within the greater history of the rise and fall of the Persian Empire. The Yehudites were among those mercenaries recruited by the Persians to defend the southwestern border of the empire in the fifth century BCE. Becking argues that this group, whom some label as the first “Jews,” lived on the island of Elephantine in relative peace with other ethnic groups under the aegis of the pax persica. Drawing on Aramaic and Demotic texts discovered during excavations on the island and at Syene on the adjacent shore of the Nile, Becking finds evidence of intermarriage, trade cooperation, and even a limited acceptance of one another’s gods between the various ethnic groups at Elephantine. His analysis of the Elephantine Yehudites’ unorthodox form of Yahwism provides valuable insight into the group’s religious beliefs and practices. An important contribution to the study of Yehudite life in the diaspora, this accessibly written and sweeping history enhances our understanding of the varieties of early Jewish life and how these contributed to the construction of Judaism.

A study of the material culture of Egypt during the period of Achaemenid Persian rule, c. 526-404 BCEProvides a clear overview of the archaeological evidence for Achaemenid Egypt, including temples, tombs, irrigation works, statues, stelae, seals and coinsDemonstrates how different types of evidence, both textual and archaeological - including material of uncertain provenance - can be used to address a single historical questionOffers critical discussion of the dating criteria used by archaeologists for Egyptian Late Period materialElucidates strategies used by the Persians to establish and maintain control of EgyptExamines how these strategies may have affected the lives of people living in Egypt during the 27th DynastyCreates a new explanatory model for the introduction of coinage to ancient EgyptPrevious studies have characterised Achaemenid rule of Egypt either as ephemeral and weak or oppressive and harsh. These characterisations, however, are based on the perceived lack of evidence for this period, filtered through ancient and modern preconceptions about the Persians.Henry Colburn challenges these views by assembling and analyzing the archaeological remains from this period, including temples, tombs, irrigation works, statues, stelae, sealings, drinking vessels and coins. By looking at the decisions made about material culture - by Egyptians, Persians and others - it becomes possible to see both how the Persians integrated Egypt into their empire and the full range of experiences people had as a result.

"Herodotus is the epochal authority who inaugurated the European and Western consciousness of collective identity, whether in an awareness of other societies and of the nature of cultural variation itself or in the fashioning of Greek self-awareness - and necessarily that of later civilizations influenced by the ancient Greeks - which was perpetually in dialogue and tension with other ways of living in groups. In this book fourteen contributors explore ethnicity - the very self-understanding of belonging to a separate body of human beings - and how it evolves and consolidates (or ethnogenesis). This inquiry is focused through the lens of Herodotus as our earliest master of ethnography, in this instance not only as the stylized portrayal of other societies, but also as an exegesis on how ethnocultural differentiation may affect the lives, and even the very existence, of one's own people. Ethnicity and Identity in Herodotus is one facet of a project which intends to bring Portuguese and English-speaking scholars of antiquity into closer cooperation. It has united a cross-section of North American classicists with a distinguished cohort of Portuguese and Brazilian experts on Greek literature and history writing in English"--

The Judean community at Elephantine has long fascinated historians of the Persian period. This book, with its stellar assemblage of important scholarly voices, provides substantive new insights and approaches that will advance the study of this well-known but not entirely understood community from fifth-century BCE Egypt. Since Bezalel Porten’s pioneering Archives from Elephantine, published in 1968, the discourse on the subject of the community of Elephantine during the Persian period has changed considerably, due to new data from excavations, the discovery and publication of previously unknown texts, and original scholarly insights and avenues of inquiry. Running the gamut from archaeological to linguistic investigations and encompassing legal, literary, religious, and other aspects of life in this Judean community, this volume stands at a crossroads of research that extends from Hebrew Bible studies to the history of early Jewish communities. It also features fourteen new Aramaic ostraca from Aswan. The volume will appeal to students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism, as well as to a wider audience of Egyptologists, Semitists, and specialists in ancient Near Eastern studies. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Annalisa Azzoni, Bob Becking, Alejandro F. Botta, Lester L. Grabbe, Ingo Kottsieper, Reinhard G. Kratz, André Lemaire, Hélène Nutkowicz, Beatrice von Pilgrim, Cornelius von Pilgrim, Bezalel Porten, Ada Yardeni, and Ran Zadok. Moreover, a video recording of an interview conducted with Porten on his long career in Elephantine studies accompanies the book through a link on the Eisenbrauns website.

The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran—now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition A Penguin Classic Dick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from the Persian” (The Washington Post)—has revised and expanded his acclaimed translation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece, adding more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly marked explanations to ease along modern readers. Originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan in the tenth century, the Shahnameh is among the greatest works of world literature. This prodigious narrative tells the story of pre-Islamic Persia, from the mythical creation of the world and the dawn of Persian civilization through the seventh-century Arab conquest. The stories of the Shahnameh are deeply embedded in Persian culture and beyond, as attested by their appearance in such works as The Kite Runner and the love poems of Rumi and Hafez. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Iranian Expanse explores how kings in Persia and the ancient Iranian world utilized the built and natural environment to form and contest Iranian cultural memory, royal identity, and sacred cosmologies. Investigating over a thousand years of history, from the Achaemenid period to the arrival of Islam, The Iranian Expanse argues that Iranian identities were built and shaped not by royal discourse alone, but by strategic changes to Western Asia’s cities, sanctuaries, palaces, and landscapes. The Iranian Expanse critically examines the construction of a new Iranian royal identity and empire, which subsumed and subordinated all previous traditions, including those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia. It then delves into the startling innovations that emerged after Alexander under the Seleucids, Arsacids, Kushans, Sasanians, and the Perso-Macedonian dynasties of Anatolia and the Caucasus, a previously understudied and misunderstood period. Matthew P. Canepa elucidates the many ruptures and renovations that produced a new royal culture that deeply influenced not only early Islam, but also the wider Persianate world of the Il-Khans, Safavids, Timurids, Ottomans, and Mughals.

In April, 2008, an international colloquium was held at the University of Heidelberg—the fourth convocation of a group of scholars (with some rotating members) who gathered to discuss the status of Judah and the Judeans in the exilic and postexilic periods. The goal of this gathering was specifically to address the question of national identity in the period when many now believe this very issue was in significant foment and development, the era of the Persian/Achaemenid domination of the ancient Near East. This volume contains most of the papers delivered at the Heidelberg conference, considering the matter under two rubrics: (1) the biblical evidence (and the diversity of data from the Bible); and (2) the cultural, historical, social, and environmental factors affecting the formation of national identity. Contributors: K. Schmid, J. Schaper, A. C. Hagedorn, C. Nihan, J. Middlemas, D. Rom-Shiloni, J. Wöhrle, Y. Dor, K. Southwood, D. N. Fulton, P.-A. Beaulieu, L. E. Pearce, D. Redford, A. Lemaire, J. F. Quack, B. Becking, R. G. Kratz, O. Tal, J. Blenkinsopp, R. Albertz, J. L. Wright, D. S. Vanderhooft, M. Oeming, and A. Kloner. Earlier volumes in the series of conferences are: Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, and Judah and the Judeans in the in the Fourth Century B.C.E.