Much Ado about Marduk : : Questioning Discourses of Royalty in First Millennium Mesopotamian Literature / / Jennifer Finn.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2017 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Finn, Jennifer,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records (SANER) , 16
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (X, 241 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Preface --; Contents --; Standard Abbreviations --; Chapter 1. Reading Counterdiscursive Texts in the First Millennium BC --; Chapter 2. The Kassite Revolution --; Chapter 3. The Library of Assurbanipal and the Counterdiscursive Landscape --; Chapter 4. The “Babylonian Problem” and Scribal Dialogues of Counterdiscursiveness --; Chapter 5. Counterdiscursiveness beyond belles lettres in and out of Nineveh --; Chapter 6. Textual Hegemony and the Counterdiscursive Public --; Epilogue. The Legacy of Late Akkadian Countertexts --; Bibliography --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781501504969; 9783110762495; 9783110719543; 9783110540550; 9783110625264; 9783110547733
• ISSN: 2161-4415
• DOI: 10.1515/9781501504969
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Jennifer Finn.

Scholars often assume that the nature of Mesopotamian kingship was such that questioning royal authority was impossible. This volume challenges that general assumption, by presenting an analysis of the motivations,methods, and motifs behind a scholarly discourse about kingship that arose in the final stages of the last Mesopotamian empires. The focus of the volume is the proliferation of a literature that problematizes authority in the Neo-Assyrian period, when texts first begin to specifically explore various modalities for critique of royalty. This development is symptomatic of a larger discourse about the limits of power that emerges after the repatriation of Marduk's statue to Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in the 12th century BCE. From this point onwards, public attitudes toward Marduk provide a framework for the definition of proper royal behavior, and become a point of contention between Assyria and Babylonia. It is in this historical and political context that several important Akkadian compositions are placed. The texts are analyzed from a new perspective that sheds light on their original milieux and intended functions.