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"Woods is to be commended for establishing a new precedent for analyzing Sumerian grammar which will hopefully become a model for future studies of the language."
Paul Delnero, Johns Hopkins University
"Woods is to be commended for establishing a new precedent for analyzing Sumerian grammar which will hopefully become a model for future studies of the language."
Paul Delnero, Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
The Sun-god’s particular patronage of the legendary first dynasty of Uruk is well documented in the Sumerian epic tradition, even as evidence for the veneration of the god in this city is minimal. It is argued here that the Sun-god’s special status is part of a broader network of relationships centering upon the goddess Inana, which sought to identify the kings—of Uruk and later of Ur—not only with her lover, Dumuzi, but also with her twin brother, Utu, thereby doubly affirming their bond with the patroness of Uruk. The equation of the ostensibly contradictory roles of lover and brother, a unity of opposites, motivates aspects of the imagery and metaphorical language of the Uruk I epic cycle.
Abstract
Religious practices centered on controlled trance states, such as Siberian shamanism or North African zar, are ubiquitous, yet their characteristics vary. In particular, cross-cultural research finds that female-dominated spirit possession cults are common in stratified societies, whereas male-dominated shamanism predominates in structurally flatter cultures. Here, we present an agent-based model that explores factors, including social stratification and psychological dissociation, that may partially account for this pattern. We posit that, in more stratified societies, female agents suffer from higher levels of psychosocial trauma, whereas male agents are more vulnerable in flatter societies. In societies with fewer levels of formal hierarchy, males come into informal social competition more regularly than in stratified contexts. This instability leads to a cultural feedback effect in which dissociative experiences deriving from chronic psychosocial stress become canalized into a male religious trance role. The model reproduces these patterns under plausible parameter configurations.
This series has published an average of ten volumes per year over the last 5 years.
The Harvard Semitic Monographs series publishes volumes from the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Other series offered by Brill that publish volumes from the Museum include Harvard Semitic Studies and Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant, https://hmane.harvard.edu/publications.