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This in-depth exploration of emotions in the ancient Near East illuminates the rich and complex worlds of feelings encompassed within the literary and material remains of this remarkable region, home to many of the world’s earliest cities and empires, and lays critical foundations for future study.

Thirty-four chapters by leading international scholars, including philologists, art historians, and archaeologists, examine the ways in which emotions were conceived, experienced, and expressed by the peoples of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the kingdom of Ugarit, from the Late Uruk through to the Neo-Babylonian Period (ca. 3300–539 BCE). The volume is divided into two parts: the first addressing theoretical and methodological issues through thematic analyses and the second encompassing corpus-based approaches to specific emotions. Part I addresses emotions and history, defining the terms, materialization and material remains, kings and the state, and engaging the gods. Part II explores happiness and joy; fear, terror, and awe; sadness, grief, and depression; contempt, disgust, and shame; anger and hate; envy and jealousy; love, affection, and admiration; and pity, empathy, and compassion. Numerous sub-themes threading through the volume explore such topics as emotional expression and suppression in relation to social status, gender, the body, and particular social and spatial conditions or material contexts.

The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East is an invaluable and accessible resource for Near Eastern studies and adjacent fields, including Classical, Biblical, and medieval studies, and a must-read for scholars, students, and others interested in the history and cross-cultural study of emotions.

List of Figures …ix
List of Tables …xii
List of Contributors …xiii
Acknowledgments …xxi
Editors’ Note …xxiii
Transliteration Conventions for Ancient Texts …xxiv
List of Abbreviations …xxv
Introduction: Emotions in the Ancient Near East: Foundations for
a Developing Field of Study …1
Karen Sonik and Ulrike Steinert
PART I
Theoretical and Thematic Approaches and Methods …25
I. Emotions and History …25
1 The Emotions of Dead Civilizations: “Come, Tell Me How You Lived” …27
Karen Sonik
2 Emotion and the Body: Embodiment, Conceptual Metaphor,
and Linguistic Encoding of Emotions in Akkadian …51
Ulrike Steinert
3 Digital Approaches to Analyzing and Translating Emotion: What Is Love? …88
Tero Alstola, Heidi Jauhiainen, Saana Svärd, Aleksi Sahala,
and Krister Lindén
II. Defining the Terms …117
4 Sumerian Emotion Terms …119
Margaret Jaques
5 Akkadian Emotion Terms …150
Janine Wende
6 Hittite Emotion Terms …171
Gary Beckman
7 Ugaritic Emotion Terms …197
Andrew R. Burlingame
III. Materialization and Material Remains …229
8 Emotions and Archaeology in Ancient Mesopotamia …231
Susan Pollock
9 Emotions and Musical Performance …246
Dahlia Shehata
10 Emotions and Body Language: The Expression of Emotions in Visual Art …269
Karen Sonik
IV. Kings and the State …327
11 Emotions and Assyrian Kingship …329
Johannes Bach
12 Emotions and Hittite Kingship: Feeling Like a King …359
Amir Gilan and Romina Della Casa
13 Emotions and the Brotherhood of Kings: Affection in the Amarna Letters …377
Amanda H. Podany
V. Engaging the Gods …395
14 Emotions and Emesal Laments: Motivations, Performance,
and Management …397
Uri Gabbay
15 Emotions and Ritual Laments: The Affective Function of Beer in Mesopotamia …413
Gösta Gabriel
16 Emotions and Religion: Ritual Performance in Mesopotamia …425
Beate Pongratz-Leisten
17 Emotions and Hittite Prayers …440
Lidewij E. van de Peut
PART II
Corpus-Based Approaches …453
I. Happiness and Joy …453
18 Joy and Happiness in Mesopotamian Royal Inscriptions …455
Nathan Morello
19 Joy and Happiness in Hittite Texts …472
Alice Mouton
II. Fear, Terror, and Awe …485
20 Awe as Entangled Emotion: Prosociality, Collective Action,
and Aesthetics in the Sumerian Gilgamesh Narratives …487
Karen Sonik
21 Fear and Terror in Assyrian Palace Reliefs …525
Dominik Bonatz
III. Sadness, Grief, and Depression …545
22 Grief and Sadness in the Sumerian Gilgamesh Narratives …547
Alhena Gadotti
23 Sadness and Grief in Akkadian Texts …562
Irene Sibbing-Plantholt
24 Grief and Sadness in Ugaritic Texts …584
Joseph Lam
IV. Contempt, Disgust, and Shame …595
25 Contempt and Related Emotions in Hittite and Akkadian
Literary Texts …597
Ilan Peled
26 Shaming the Enemy in Assyrian Palace Reliefs and Royal Inscriptions …614
Davide Nadali
V. Anger and Hate …629
27 Anger and Hatred in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian
Royal Inscriptions …631
Hanspeter Schaudig
28 Anger and Hatred in Hittite Texts …648
Sylvie Vanséveren
VI. Envy and Jealousy …661
29 Envy and Jealousy in Magico-Medical Texts …663
Elyze Zomer
VII. Love, Affection, and Admiration …677
30 Love and Desire in Sumerian Texts …679
M. Erica Couto-Ferreira
31 Love and Kindness in the Assyrian State …695
Frederick Mario Fales
32 Love and Affection in Hittite Texts …725
Birgit Christiansen
VIII. Pity, Empathy, and Compassion …739
33 Compassion, Pity, and Empathy in Sumerian Sources …741
Dina Katz
34 Pity and Suffering in Old Babylonian Akkadian Sources …754
Nele Ziegler
Index …768