Pliny's Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water-clock, or the use of asses' milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in AD 79, and the natural curiosity that brought about his death is also very much evident in the Natural History -- a...

This volume contains all the known Old Syriac inscriptions from Edessa and the area around Osrhoene in Northern Mesopotamia from the first three centuries C.E., the number of which has substantially increased over the last decades. The texts are given in estrangelo script and are accompanied by an extensive philological and historical commentary. The originals are presented in photographs and line drawings. The volume also contains chapters on the script of these inscriptions, on the language and on the history and culture of Edessa. Two appendices offer the texts of three parchments written...

This collection of essays contains a wide range of topics reflecting the depth and breadth of interest of the scholar in whose honour they were commissioned - Kevin J. Cathcart. The central focus is Near Eastern, and covers a range of philological, linguistic, exegetical, historical and interpretative issues. The Near Eastern languages examined include Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, Septuagintal Greek, Syriac and Ugaritic, while exegetical and text-critical topics include treatments of issues in Deuteronomy, 1 Kings, Isaiah, Amos, Psalms and the Song of Songs. Hermeneutical and...

In the first centuries AD, although much of the Near East was ruled by Rome, the main local language was Aramaic, and the people who lived inside or on the fringes of the area controlled by the Romans frequently wrote their inscriptions and legal documents in their own local dialects of this language. This book introduces these fascinating early texts to a wider audience, by presenting a representative sample, comprising eighty inscriptions and documents in the following dialects: Nabataean, Jewish, Palmyrene, Syriac, and Hatran. Detailed commentaries on the texts are preceded by chapters on...

A collection of essays written in honour of Professor G. Rex Smith, arabist, historian, and scholar of the medieval history of the Yemen, on aspects of the pre-Islamic and Islamic history of Arabia and the Yemen written by a group of international scholars.