Monday, April 30, 2018

Review of Long and Sørensen (eds.), Positions and Professions in Palmyra

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Tracey Long, Annette Højen Sørensen (ed.), Positions and Professions in Palmyra. Scientia Danica. Series H, Humanistica, 4 vol. 9; Palmyrene studies, 2. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2017. Pp. 136. ISBN 9788773044049. 200.00 DKK (pb). Reviewed by Michael Sommer, Universität Oldenburg (michael.sommer@uni-oldenburg.de)
The papers collected in the present volume were presented at a workshop held at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, in 2017. They all deal with aspects of status and profession, seen from different angles and through a variety of evidence. The editors have both been involved in the Palmyra Portrait Project, an Aarhus-based project concerned with the collection, cataloguing and documentation of the surviving corpus of Palmyrene funerary sculpture scattered across collections in the world. Hence not surprisingly, one of the approaches this volume takes to “position and profession in the Syrian oasis city is through funerary portraits. The second one is more conventional and focuses on the epigraphic corpus, which has been the subject of several studies in the past.

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Cross-file under Palmyra Watch. For many other past posts on the site of Palmyra, its Aramaic language, its artifacts, and its tragic fate while in the hands of ISIS, start here and follow the links.

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