"A welcome addition to the study of the ancient Near East. It breaks away from Eurocentric approaches and tries to do justice to Mesopotamian thought, thus shedding new light on the relationship between text and representation. . . . Bahrani's book will become the center of a lively debate."—Bryn Mawr Classical Review

The Graven Image
Representation in Babylonia and Assyria

Zainab Bahrani

2003 | 256 pages | Cloth $59.95
Archaeology
View main book page

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction

1. The Aesthetic and the Epistemic: Race, Culture, and Antiquity
2. The Extraterrestrial Orient: Despotic Time and the Time of the Despots
3. Ethnography and Mimesis: Representing Aesthetic Culture
4. Being in the Word: Of Grammatology and Mantic
5. Salmu: Representation in the Real
6. Decoys and Lures: Substitution and the Uncanny Double of the King
7. Presence and Repetition: The Altar of Tukulti-Ninurta
8. Conclusion: Image, Text, and Différance, or from Difference to Différance

Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments