Experiencing Power, Generating Authority: Cosmos, Politics, and the Ideology of Kingship in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments The work contained in this volume is the result of a four-day workshop entitled “Experiencing Power—Generating Authority: Cosmos and Politics in the Ideology of Kingship in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia” held in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology November 2007. During the course of that week, fifteen scholars from the fields of Anthropology, Assyriology, and Egyptology shared their research, views, and expertise on questions relevant to the cross-cultural study of ancient kingship. After a fruitful week of papers and discussions , three participants—Manfred Bietak, D. Bruce Dickson, and Bradley Parker, along with Simon Martin of Penn Museum’s American Section— presented their research in a series of open lectures at the Penn Museum. The editors wish to thank the great many people whose help and encouragement aided in the successful arrangement of this working conference . As part of the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s International Research Conference Program, then-Williams Director Richard Leventhal granted us the resources to organize a conference involving some of the world’s most respected and innovative scholars to work on questions of interest to both specialized fields and to anthropology as a whole. Conference Series Director Holly Pittman generously gave of her time and energy in helping us plan and organize the conference and has since helped shepherd the publication of the conference volume to its completion. Many thanks are also due to our outside consultants Drs. David O’Connor and Richard Zettler for their many helpful suggestions during the planning and editing process. Unfortunately, due to time and academic constraints, some of our authors were not able to keep their contributions in this volume. For those xxviii Acknowledgments who would like to refer to this work, Bradley Parker’s paper, “The Construction and Performance of Kingship in the NeoAssyrian Empire,” was published in The Journal of Anthropological Research in 2011. We would also like to thank the Penn Museum personnel who made the conference sessions and associated events run smoothly and efficiently. Special thanks in this regard are due to Museum Events Staff Bethany Robblee Schell and Tena Thomason. Finally, many thanks are due to the scholars themselves, some of whom traveled great distances to participate in this demanding conference workshop , for so generously giving of their insights, research, and time. Jane A. Hill, Philip Jones, Antonio J. Morales ...