The Royal Palace Institution in the First Millennium Bc: Regional Development and Cultural Interchange Between East and West (Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, 4)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The first millennium BC saw two great powers embracing the East-West divide: the Achaemenid and Hellenistic empires. The papers in this volume examine how their powerful new kings created palatial institutions suitable to reign subjugated lands with old monarchic traditions. The royal palace, both the building and the institution, is regarded here as a microcosmos, a sort of lens through which to view historical topics such as the relationship between conquered and conqueror, notions of kingship, the development of monarchic roles and the mutual acculturation of East and West.
Simultaneously, as the center of power and propagator of culture, the royal palace throws much light on other parts of society. For instance, the royal court played a normative role, creating buildings and social models that the aristocracy and urban upper class emulated. Moreover, just as the functionality of a particular palace says much about the type of monarchy housed therein, its geographical situation comments on the relationship its king has to his subjects.
Four major periods provide the volume with a loose chronological structure. The pre-Achaemenid section includes papers on Cyprus, Assyria and Babylon, while the Achaemenid section contains a survey of central palaces plus considerations of lesser-known peripheral establishments in Armenia and Georgia. The Hellenistic papers address palaces in Macedonia, Caucasian Iberia and Albania (often ignored despite their wealth of palatial sites), and Syria; the editor also contributes an article on the royal Macedonian gardens. Finally, a piece on the Parthian palaces of the Arsacid dynasty rounds off the collection.
Relying on archaeological finds, as well as epigraphy and the writings of ancient authors, 'The Royal Palace Institution in the First Millennium BC' succeeds in establishing common ground among scholars who typically work in isolation from each other.
The Royal Palace Institution in the First Millennium Bc: Regional Development and Cultural Interchange Between East and West (Monographs of the Danish Institute at Athens, 4),Inge Nielsen,Danish Institute at Athens,8779340040,Ancient - General,Ancient - Greece,Archaeology,History,History - General History,History: World
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