Joanna Töyräänvuori
Biographic Data
| ID | 286868 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joanna Töyräänvuori |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joanna |
| FAMILY NAME | Töyräänvuori |
| SIGNATURE | TÖYRÄÄNVUORI J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Helsinki |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4932-8755 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Kingship and Queenship in the Ancient Near Eastern Empires of the First Millennium BCE
Empires and kingship are long-standing topics of research in ancient Near Eastern studies; the study of queenship has gradually received more attention over recent decades. However, discussions of the social implications of kingship and queenship, comparisons of the gender roles, and their study across several empires remain rare. The paper at hand takes the unprecedented step of such a comparative analysis by tracing a specific detail of royal i…
A new inscribed Aramaic potsherd from Tell al-Assara, Jordan
Recent fieldwork undertaken by the joint Finnish-Jordanian Tell Yaˁmoun Regional Archaeological Survey (TYRAS) in the northern part of the Jordanian plateau explored the unexcavated site of Tell al-Assara. An initial survey of the site and its surface pottery indicates that it was occupied for much of the 1st millennium BCE. The initial survey also found an inscribed Aramaic potsherd, which we present and analyse here. This analysis of the inscri…
Ahatabu and her Stela (ÄM 7707)
This article is the third in a special issue of the Journal of Ancient History , “Social Biographies of the Ancient World.” This article uses Bourdieusian Field Theory to examine the ancient biography of an Egyptian woman named Ahatabu ( Egyptian ꜢḫtꜢbw / Aramaic ’Aḥatabu ) attested in the mortuary stela Berlin ÄM 7707. It presents her funerary habitus’ use of multiple cultural traditions in Persian Egypt. Sketching the stela’s place within sever…
Social Biographies of the Ancient World. Studying Ahatabu, Jonathan, and Babatha through a Bourdieusian Approach
This article is the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ancient History , “Social Biographies of the Ancient World.” It sketches out an outline of Ancient Near Eastern social structures by utilizing sociological concepts first developed by Pierre Bourdieu. It is our contention that the concepts of field, capital, habitus , and the interplay between theory and practice facilitate the analysis of social structures under first millenni…
Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts Outside of Ugarit
The cuneiform alphabetic script from Ugarit was in use during the Late Bronze Age. The origins of the script remain shrouded in mystery but it is generally assumed that the script was an invention of local scribes, as the majority of text finds are from the kingdom. The cuneiform alphabetic texts found outside of the kingdom of Ugarit make up a small percentage of the overall text corpus. These finds, spanning the Eastern Mediterranean and consis…
Algebraic Structure of Ancient Mesopotamian Omens
In this paper, it is shown that we can reconstruct an intuition of Boolean algebra in Mesopotamian divination with different omen series organized as catalogues. Each separate omen was formulated as a conditional statement 'if a sign p, then an event q' so that it has only the positive truth value in the Boolean algebra. This means that omen catalogues can be considered as a dataset containing some logical axioms (only true propositions). It is t…
Tell It Like It Is
This article presents the results of a joint Finnish-Jordanian survey project that focuses on investigating the interrelations of the imperial heartlands and the Levantine region in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. We used historical satellite images to identify potential sites on the northern Jordanian plateau, after which they were systematically investigated by archaeological survey. Of the sites discovered, the fortified site of Tell al-Assara …
The Egypto-Aramaean Stela of Ahatabu (Berlin ÄM 7707)
The mortuary stela of a woman named Ahatabu, found in the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt, is a uniquely customized artefact that gives insight into the multicultural environment of Achaemenid Egypt (526–332 BCE). The woman and her family seem to have lived in Marea in the western Delta, possibly in a garrison complex. The stela contains two inscriptions, one written in Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the other in Aramaic. The stela design draws on …
Jumalad sõjas
As we can see, divine support, divine intervention, and an ideology of (divine) warfare developed in the Hittite world throughout the whole of Hittite history and became better formulated and more complex with the passing of time, reaching their apex during the New Kingdom Period. If we can observe barely any divine support for Anitta’s deeds in the Text of Anitta, then Ḫattušili I, who ruled 100 years later, already elaborated this phenomenon mo…
Trial by Water through the Ages
The concept of trial by water or water ordeal is best known to the wider public through European witch trials from the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, but the practiced is first attested in near eastern texts from the Middle Bronze Age (2200–1550 BCE). The depiction of the medieval trials is largely folkloric, such trials were nonetheless known throughout the ancient world. The best evidence for ordeal by river is found in the lette…
Gods in Wars
In this article, the authors examine the divine support and religious justification of wars by Anatolian and North Syrian rulers in the Late Bronze Age, an epoch of international diplomacy. Notable is that many wars and conflicts in the region of Anatolia and North Syria took place in this period, which may have occasioned an increasing need to justify them by appeal to divinities
Mapping the Margins of Scrolls and Clay Tablets
Sociological concepts like identity theory, social identity theory, narrative theory of identity, and intersectionality are often cannibalized in discussions of ancient identity. Ancient identities were complex, multifaceted, and comparable to modern identities, but due to the fragmentary nature of the evidence, they are difficult to reach, and hence ought to be appreciated only as historical fictions. The bulk of the discourse on ancient identit…
Tell It Like It Is
This article presents the results of a joint Finnish-Jordanian survey project that focuses on investigating the interrelations of the imperial heartlands and the Levantine region in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. We used historical satellite images to identify potential sites on the northern Jordanian plateau, after which they were systematically investigated by archaeological survey. Of the sites discovered, the fortified site of Tell al-Assara …
Mapping the Margins of Scrolls and Clay Tablets
Sociological concepts like identity theory, social identity theory, narrative theory of identity, and intersectionality are often cannibalized in discussions of ancient identity. Ancient identities were complex, multifaceted, and comparable to modern identities, but due to the fragmentary nature of the evidence, they are difficult to reach, and hence ought to be appreciated only as historical fictions. The bulk of the discourse on ancient identit…
Trial by Water through the Ages
The concept of trial by water or water ordeal is best known to the wider public through European witch trials from the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, but the practiced is first attested in near eastern texts from the Middle Bronze Age (2200–1550 BCE). The depiction of the medieval trials is largely folkloric, such trials were nonetheless known throughout the ancient world. The best evidence for ordeal by river is found in the lette…
Gods in Wars
In this article, the authors examine the divine support and religious justification of wars by Anatolian and North Syrian rulers in the Late Bronze Age, an epoch of international diplomacy. Notable is that many wars and conflicts in the region of Anatolia and North Syria took place in this period, which may have occasioned an increasing need to justify them by appeal to divinities
The Egypto-Aramaean Stela of Ahatabu (Berlin ÄM 7707)
The mortuary stela of a woman named Ahatabu, found in the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt, is a uniquely customized artefact that gives insight into the multicultural environment of Achaemenid Egypt (526–332 BCE). The woman and her family seem to have lived in Marea in the western Delta, possibly in a garrison complex. The stela contains two inscriptions, one written in Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the other in Aramaic. The stela design draws on …
Jumalad sõjas
As we can see, divine support, divine intervention, and an ideology of (divine) warfare developed in the Hittite world throughout the whole of Hittite history and became better formulated and more complex with the passing of time, reaching their apex during the New Kingdom Period. If we can observe barely any divine support for Anitta’s deeds in the Text of Anitta, then Ḫattušili I, who ruled 100 years later, already elaborated this phenomenon mo…
Tell It Like It Is
This article presents the results of a joint Finnish-Jordanian survey project that focuses on investigating the interrelations of the imperial heartlands and the Levantine region in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. We used historical satellite images to identify potential sites on the northern Jordanian plateau, after which they were systematically investigated by archaeological survey. Of the sites discovered, the fortified site of Tell al-Assara …
A new inscribed Aramaic potsherd from Tell al-Assara, Jordan
Recent fieldwork undertaken by the joint Finnish-Jordanian Tell Yaˁmoun Regional Archaeological Survey (TYRAS) in the northern part of the Jordanian plateau explored the unexcavated site of Tell al-Assara. An initial survey of the site and its surface pottery indicates that it was occupied for much of the 1st millennium BCE. The initial survey also found an inscribed Aramaic potsherd, which we present and analyse here. This analysis of the inscri…
Ahatabu and her Stela (ÄM 7707)
This article is the third in a special issue of the Journal of Ancient History , “Social Biographies of the Ancient World.” This article uses Bourdieusian Field Theory to examine the ancient biography of an Egyptian woman named Ahatabu ( Egyptian ꜢḫtꜢbw / Aramaic ’Aḥatabu ) attested in the mortuary stela Berlin ÄM 7707. It presents her funerary habitus’ use of multiple cultural traditions in Persian Egypt. Sketching the stela’s place within sever…
Social Biographies of the Ancient World. Studying Ahatabu, Jonathan, and Babatha through a Bourdieusian Approach
This article is the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ancient History , “Social Biographies of the Ancient World.” It sketches out an outline of Ancient Near Eastern social structures by utilizing sociological concepts first developed by Pierre Bourdieu. It is our contention that the concepts of field, capital, habitus , and the interplay between theory and practice facilitate the analysis of social structures under first millenni…
Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts Outside of Ugarit
The cuneiform alphabetic script from Ugarit was in use during the Late Bronze Age. The origins of the script remain shrouded in mystery but it is generally assumed that the script was an invention of local scribes, as the majority of text finds are from the kingdom. The cuneiform alphabetic texts found outside of the kingdom of Ugarit make up a small percentage of the overall text corpus. These finds, spanning the Eastern Mediterranean and consis…
Algebraic Structure of Ancient Mesopotamian Omens
In this paper, it is shown that we can reconstruct an intuition of Boolean algebra in Mesopotamian divination with different omen series organized as catalogues. Each separate omen was formulated as a conditional statement 'if a sign p, then an event q' so that it has only the positive truth value in the Boolean algebra. This means that omen catalogues can be considered as a dataset containing some logical axioms (only true propositions). It is t…
Kingship and Queenship in the Ancient Near Eastern Empires of the First Millennium BCE
Empires and kingship are long-standing topics of research in ancient Near Eastern studies; the study of queenship has gradually received more attention over recent decades. However, discussions of the social implications of kingship and queenship, comparisons of the gender roles, and their study across several empires remain rare. The paper at hand takes the unprecedented step of such a comparative analysis by tracing a specific detail of royal i…
History (11 works) · Ancient history (8 works) · Ancient Near East History (7 works) · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology (5 works) · Art (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (4 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Literature (3 works)