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Document Details : Title: In reverence for deities and submission to kings Subtitle: A few gestures in ancient Near Eastern societies Author(s): CHOKSY, Jamsheed K. Journal: Iranica Antiqua Volume: 37 Date: 2002 Pages: 7-29 DOI: 10.2143/IA.37.0.116 Abstract : This essay focuses on four forms of reverential or devotional and submissive or deferential gestures: clasped hands; raised hand(s); bent forefinger; and kneeling and prostration. It continues and supplements, for earlier time periods and somewhat different locales, previous studies by me on the use of gesture in Iran and Central Asia from the Achaemenian period onward. Each of those four gestures appear to have been relatively commonplace within ancient Near Eastern societies, as will be seen, from the Mesopotamian floodplain to the Iranian plateau. So, the cultural framework in which the gestures are analyzed is that of Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Elam from Early Dynastic times until the end of the Neo-Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, and Neo-Elamite periods. The evolution, usage and significance of those gestures during a span of over two thousand five hundred years can be examined using extant evidence from sculptures, bas reliefs, wall paintings, and etchings on cylinder seals. The evidence garnered from such works of material culture may be correlated to textual descriptions of gestures in instances where such data is available. |
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