Ritual and politics in ancient Mesopotamia

Ritual and Politics in Ancient Mesopotamia is a compilation of three essays by Julian Reade, Walther Sallaberger, and Philippe Talon, introduced and edited by Barbara Nevling Porter. The essays stem from a workshop organized by Porter as part of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale held in Helsinki in July 2001, under the same title as the book. Porter emphasizes in the introduction that the book aims at joining a discussion of ritual with that of politics, indicating that most Assyriologists so far “have instead examined the religious significance of rituals, as acts of worship, acts of communication with gods, or symbolic expressions of theological concepts.” Porter points out, however, that “this is now beginning to change,” with a number of relatively recent doctoral dissertations exploring this interface as well as the works of a number of senior scholars contributing to the growing discussion.