Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in the Ancient World

John Baines is Professor of Egyptology Emeritus at the University of Oxford. Henriette van der Blom is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Birmingham. Yi Samuel Chen is Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Tim Rood is Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Oxford, where he is the Dorothea Gray Fellow and Tutor in Classics at St Hugh's College.

• Preface Introduction: Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in a Material World John Baines, Henriette van der Blom, Yi Samuel Chen, Tim Rood I: Mesopotamian and Hittite Traditions 1. Ancient Near Eastern and Hittite Traditions: Introduction Paul Collins, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford 2. The Domestication of Stranger Kings: Making History by List in Ancient Mesopotamia Piotr Michalowski, University of Michigan 3. 'He who saw the Deep': History as Ritual in the Material World of Mesopotamia Paul Collins 4. 'I swear that these are no lies, it is indeed true!' On the Role of the Individual in Early Mesopotamian Historiography Gebhard Selz, University of Vienna 5. The Hittites and their Past: Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia Amir Gilan, Tel Aviv University II: Egyptian and Maya Traditions 6. Egyptian and Maya Traditions: Introduction John Baines 7. Meaningful Pasts: On Social Logics and Conceptions of the Past in Ancient Egypt Marcelo Campagno, University of Buenos Aires 8. History and Historiography in the Material World: Ancient Egyptian Perspectives John Baines 9. Telling Time: Historical Thinking and the Ancient Maya Simon Martin, University of Pennsylvania Museum III: Chinese Traditions 10. Chinese Traditions: Introduction Glen Dudbridge , University of Oxford 11. Reflections and Uses of the Distant Past in the Chinese Bronze Inscriptions from the 10th to 5th Centuries BC Maria Khayutina, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich 12. The Scene of Inquiry in Early Chinese Historiography David Schaberg, University of California, Los Angeles 13. Three Moments of Definition in Chinese Historiography Glen Dudbridge IV: Biblical Traditions 14. Biblical Traditions: Introduction Laura Feldt, University of Southern Denmark 15. Periodization in Biblical Historiography Peter Machinist, Harvard University 16. Using the Past in the Hebrew Bible: The Fantastic, Memory Techniques and History in the Exodus Narrative Laura Feldt V: Classical Traditions 17. Classical Traditions: Introduction Henriette van der Blom and Tim Rood 18. Waiting for Herodotus: The Mindsets of 425 BC Christopher Pelling, University of Oxford 19. Historical Consciousness and the 'Aitiology' in Greece Rosalind Thomas, University of Oxford 20. Myth and History Entwined: Female Influence and Male Usurpation in Herodotus' Histories Emily Baragwanath, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 21. 'Stories embroidered beyond truth': Reading Herodotus and Thucydides in Light of Pindar's Olympian 1 Jonas Grethlein, University of Heidelberg 22. Thucydides and Myth Tim Rood 23. Fabula and History in Livy's Narrative of the Capture of Veii Christina Kraus, Yale University 24. Roman Republican History in Imperial Rhetorical Exercises Henriette van der Blom