Paper short abstract:

Hittites used Sumerian cuneiform script and established their own hieroglyph writing. Both scripts are applied in imperial seals framing the royalties who are related to the divine world in the seals. This paper investigates technologies of scripture combinations and their role in interpretation

Paper long abstract:

The Hittites used both the Sumerian cuneiform script and established their own hieroglyph writing. Both writing styles are explicitly applied in royal seals, side by side, framing the king or the queen. Sealing and the invention of writing are closely related in the Ancient Near East, and new writing styles accompany technological innovations in sealing.

Seals are multifunctional and afford different objectives in limited space, communicating both informational and symbolically. They are somehow part of the newspaper of the time. Most of the Hittite seals are also multilingual and enable space for the royal family to show both human and divine. As such, they are well qualified for analysis of technological possibilities and predispositions studying the relationship between text, language, and reality. This paper wants to investigate the connotations, denotations, and intertextuality of the seals' wording, imaging, and spelling and its possible bearings. Have they differed over time in structure, locality, or gender coding during the empire, influenced by technology as a part of communicating religion? Some significant seals will be used, exemplarily focusing on the effect of applied methods, highlighting the role of writing, and showing technologies. Derrida's notification of différance will be considered, as well as a historical anthropology perspective for interpretation.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation will attempt to compare the process of creation of the pagan sacred canon in Late Antiquity with contemporary formation of Christian and Jewish sacred texts.

Paper long abstract:

From its beginnings, the study of religion(s) has been concerned with the comparative history of religions. The methodology and theory of religion have changed profoundly since the pioneering work on the corpus of ‘holy books’ of the world's religions. The category of ‘religion’ was de-essentialized and re-described as an abstract noun merely used for analytical purposes by scholars of religion. This constructivist turn should have profound consequences for the history of religion(s). I would suggest that the categories of the ‘Holy Book(s)’, ‘sacred text(s)’, and ‘Scriptures’ should be re-described in the same way as the category of ‘religion’ was. In this context, it is worth revisiting the categories of ‘sacred books’ and ‘canon’ by applying new methodological approaches to writing and reading practices. The focus on the processes of sacralization of texts, which is closely related to reading, writing, and commenting techniques, will help solve some crucial problems connected with understanding ‘religion’ as cultural formation. This presentation will attempt to compare the process of creation of the pagan sacred canon in Late Antiquity with contemporary formation of Christian and Jewish sacred texts. Comparison of specific cases allow us to examine these technologies in their respective social and ideological contexts (reading communities). Their ideological context formed the specific lieux de savoir in which the reception of texts, their selection, and dissemination took place.