Shana Zaia
Biographic Data
| ID | 4101412 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shana Zaia |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shana |
| FAMILY NAME | Zaia |
| SIGNATURE | ZAIA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Vienna |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3862-261X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Humor as Pedagogy
Applying Heterarchy Theory to Ancient Mesopotamian Religions
Heterarchy theory is a valuable tool for analyzing complex and changing relationships between elements in a system. It has been employed in anthropology, archaeology, and recently in religious studies. Its utility has not yet been exploited for religions that are studied through textual evidence, such as Mesopotamian religions. As Mesopotamian religions were polytheistic and the texts represent multiple genres from a broad timeframe, relationship…
Everything Must Go
This paper presents a study of YOS 17, 360, a collection of 30–33 administrative records from the Eanna temple in Uruk that are dated to Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur (Nebuchadnezzar) II’s 14 th year. The first few columns contain transactions concerning gold, while the rest are largely related to prebendary payments. In addition to providing an edition of YOS 17, 360 and related texts, this study seeks to understand why these particular transactions were co…
Let Praise of Aššur Not Be Forgotten
Understanding how the numerous temples in the Neo-Assyrian Empire situated themselves within the imperial network is challenging, largely because of a bias in the official sources towards a few temples, especially that of Aššur. Revealing the relationships between the less-attested temples necessitates not only moving beyond the top of the hierarchy but also doing away with hierarchies almost entirely, as they both limit the possible connections …
Going Native
Šamaš-šuma-ukīn is a unique case in the Neo-Assyrian Empire: he was a member of the Assyrian royal family who was installed as king of Babylonia but never of Assyria. Previous Assyrian rulers who had control over Babylonia were recognized as kings of both polities, but Šamaš-šuma-ukīn's father, Esarhaddon, had decided to split the empire between two of his sons, giving Ashurbanipal kingship over Assyria and Šamaš-šuma-ukīn the throne of Babylonia…
My Brother’s Keeper
When Esarhaddon named his successors, he split the empire between two of his sons, with Assurbanipal as king of Assyria and Šamaš-šuma-ukīn as king of Babylonia. This arrangement functioned until 652 BCE, at which point a civil war began between the brothers. The war ended with Assurbanipal’s victory and Šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s death in 648 BCE. While Šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s death is mentioned in several of Assurbanipal’s inscriptions, it is still unclear ho…
Kings, Priests, and Power in the Neo-Assyrian Period
Despite a relative dearth of information in the surviving corpus about Assyrian priests’ more routine concerns, the Assyrian state correspondence contains some details that can improve our knowledge of priests’ daily lives, rights, and responsibilities. Using four case studies, this paper analyzes situations in which priests are accused of misconduct or crimes to better understand the powers and expectations of individual priestly offices as well…
Another Exemplar of Esarhaddon’s Uruk B Cylinder (NBC 2511)
The Yale Babylonian Collection contains a partial cylinder, NBC 2511, that preserves a hitherto unknown example of Esarhaddon’s Uruk B inscription. While this exemplar does not deviate in translation from those already published in RINAP 4, there are some orthographic variations. This article presents an edition of NBC 2511 with some comments regarding its differences from the published exemplars and its parallels with other Esarhaddon Uruk cylin…
Aššur and His Friends
Large digital datasets of cuneiform sources lend themselves to computational analysis that can complement and improve upon traditional philological work. The present article applies social network analysis to an electronic corpus of 1,532 texts to study the god Aššur and his position in divine networks in the Neo-Assyrian period. Our results show that the performance of social network analysis can be improved by using a small window size and calc…
How To (Not) Be King
State-Sponsored Sacrilege
Because of the symbolic and religious importance of cult statues in ancient Mesopotamia, these images were targeted on numerous occasions by invading forces as part of the conquest of a foreign polity. In the case of the Assyrians, triumphant kings would sometimes list cult statues from a newly-conquered city or group as spoils of war, alongside members of the royal family, their subjects, and their precious goods. Such acts of divine deportation…
Aššur and His Friends
Large digital datasets of cuneiform sources lend themselves to computational analysis that can complement and improve upon traditional philological work. The present article applies social network analysis to an electronic corpus of 1,532 texts to study the god Aššur and his position in divine networks in the Neo-Assyrian period. Our results show that the performance of social network analysis can be improved by using a small window size and calc…
How To (Not) Be King
State-Sponsored Sacrilege
Because of the symbolic and religious importance of cult statues in ancient Mesopotamia, these images were targeted on numerous occasions by invading forces as part of the conquest of a foreign polity. In the case of the Assyrians, triumphant kings would sometimes list cult statues from a newly-conquered city or group as spoils of war, alongside members of the royal family, their subjects, and their precious goods. Such acts of divine deportation…
How To (Not) Be King
Going Native
Šamaš-šuma-ukīn is a unique case in the Neo-Assyrian Empire: he was a member of the Assyrian royal family who was installed as king of Babylonia but never of Assyria. Previous Assyrian rulers who had control over Babylonia were recognized as kings of both polities, but Šamaš-šuma-ukīn's father, Esarhaddon, had decided to split the empire between two of his sons, giving Ashurbanipal kingship over Assyria and Šamaš-šuma-ukīn the throne of Babylonia…
My Brother’s Keeper
When Esarhaddon named his successors, he split the empire between two of his sons, with Assurbanipal as king of Assyria and Šamaš-šuma-ukīn as king of Babylonia. This arrangement functioned until 652 BCE, at which point a civil war began between the brothers. The war ended with Assurbanipal’s victory and Šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s death in 648 BCE. While Šamaš-šuma-ukīn’s death is mentioned in several of Assurbanipal’s inscriptions, it is still unclear ho…
Kings, Priests, and Power in the Neo-Assyrian Period
Despite a relative dearth of information in the surviving corpus about Assyrian priests’ more routine concerns, the Assyrian state correspondence contains some details that can improve our knowledge of priests’ daily lives, rights, and responsibilities. Using four case studies, this paper analyzes situations in which priests are accused of misconduct or crimes to better understand the powers and expectations of individual priestly offices as well…
Another Exemplar of Esarhaddon’s Uruk B Cylinder (NBC 2511)
The Yale Babylonian Collection contains a partial cylinder, NBC 2511, that preserves a hitherto unknown example of Esarhaddon’s Uruk B inscription. While this exemplar does not deviate in translation from those already published in RINAP 4, there are some orthographic variations. This article presents an edition of NBC 2511 with some comments regarding its differences from the published exemplars and its parallels with other Esarhaddon Uruk cylin…
Aššur and His Friends
Large digital datasets of cuneiform sources lend themselves to computational analysis that can complement and improve upon traditional philological work. The present article applies social network analysis to an electronic corpus of 1,532 texts to study the god Aššur and his position in divine networks in the Neo-Assyrian period. Our results show that the performance of social network analysis can be improved by using a small window size and calc…
Everything Must Go
This paper presents a study of YOS 17, 360, a collection of 30–33 administrative records from the Eanna temple in Uruk that are dated to Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur (Nebuchadnezzar) II’s 14 th year. The first few columns contain transactions concerning gold, while the rest are largely related to prebendary payments. In addition to providing an edition of YOS 17, 360 and related texts, this study seeks to understand why these particular transactions were co…
Let Praise of Aššur Not Be Forgotten
Understanding how the numerous temples in the Neo-Assyrian Empire situated themselves within the imperial network is challenging, largely because of a bias in the official sources towards a few temples, especially that of Aššur. Revealing the relationships between the less-attested temples necessitates not only moving beyond the top of the hierarchy but also doing away with hierarchies almost entirely, as they both limit the possible connections …
Applying Heterarchy Theory to Ancient Mesopotamian Religions
Heterarchy theory is a valuable tool for analyzing complex and changing relationships between elements in a system. It has been employed in anthropology, archaeology, and recently in religious studies. Its utility has not yet been exploited for religions that are studied through textual evidence, such as Mesopotamian religions. As Mesopotamian religions were polytheistic and the texts represent multiple genres from a broad timeframe, relationship…
Humor as Pedagogy
History (11 works) · Ancient Near East History (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Ancient history (7 works) · Art (5 works) · Eurasian Exchange Networks (5 works) · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology (4 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · History (4 works)