From the Guest Editors

Previous articleNext article FreeFrom the Guest EditorsRomina Della Casa and Lidar Sapir-HenRomina Della Casa Search for more articles by this author and Lidar Sapir-Hen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAs we witness the ongoing environmental crisis spurred across the world by global warming, we are constantly reminded of our world’s instability and mutability. These circumstances situate the topic of this special issue, human-animal interactions, at the very center of today’s global agenda. Indeed, human-animal encounters color every aspect of our lives. Some interactions, such as those involving big mammals, are commonly recognized as producing changes in diverse ecosystems. Others might go unnoticed at first, as when insects make their way into our homes or gardens, but they trigger significant human reactions and practices that have a major impact on the environment. One way or another, in order to have a better appreciation of our world and its transformations, it is crucial that we approach the diverse nature of human-animal interactions throughout history. But how can we gain access to this type of knowledge? How can we approach the past from different perspectives and materials, so that we can have a better understanding of how human-animal interactions unfolded over time?Questions of this kind are the inspiration behind this special issue, along with our mutual passion for understanding these interactions and how they manifested in the ancient Near East. Born as a multidisciplinary project, this issue was first conceived in 2021, when we first met in Tel Aviv. By that time, Romina was a post-doctoral fellow at the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology (Tel Aviv University), conducting research under the supervision of Amir Gilan. Her project, Human–Nonhuman Encounters in Hittite Anatolia, revolved around adopting an anthropological perspective focused on the agency of nonhuman animals to examine Hittite text corpora. Its goal was to explore different textual genres to approach how the lives of the Hittites and those of other animals were mutually entangled and affected by each other.Lidar, as the head of the laboratory of zooarchaeology at the Institute, has been working with archaeological animal remains from prehistoric to historic periods, examining the social and cultural aspects of human-animal interactions. Our mutual interests in studying ancient animals and fomenting interdisciplinary collaborations quickly led us to coorganize an international conference that laid the foundations for this volume. The conference, “Animals of the Past” (see Della Casa and Sapir-Hen, this issue), was part of Romina’s fellowship and hosted scholars from Austria, France, Spain, Israel, Argentina, Canada, and the United States, and was streamed online in June 2021 (due to travel restrictions caused by the global pandemic). With great satisfaction, the fruitful discussions sparked by the lectures in zooarchaeology, archaeology, Hittitology, Assyriology, and biblical studies, as well as by members of the audience, revealed to us the importance and need to create more spaces for dialogue around this topic.Stimulated by such a vivid atmosphere, and with the purpose of sharing the content of the venue and other related studies, we embarked on the publication of this special issue. As a result, this interdisciplinary volume includes an essay introducing the general topic of the issue (“The Environment We Share: Human–Nonhuman Animal Interactions in the Ancient Near East”); and six studies in the fields of Zooarchaeology (“Domestication and the Flattening of the Wild in the Ancient Near East” and “Always a Hunter: The Role of Wild Animals during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of the Southern Levant”); Archaeology (“Human–Animal Encounters on Early Iron Age Stamp Seals”); Assyriology (“Ancient Mesopotamian Animal Omens: Structure and Patterns of Meaning” and “The Merdītu-Offerings: Animal Sacrifice in First Millennium Babylonian Religious Contexts”); and Hittitology (“Encountering Ancient Environments: The Impact of Nonhuman Animals in Hittite Anatolia”).This issue would not have been possible without the warm collaboration of Benjamin Arbuckle, Rocío Da Riva, Theo M. Kassebaum, Ido Koch, Christine Mikeska, and Nicla de Zorzi, who, as authors in this volume, generously decided to take part in this journey. Also, special thanks go to Amir Gilan and Oded Lipschits for introducing us to each other, as well as to the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University for their support. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Near Eastern Archaeology Volume 85, Number 4December 2022 A journal of ASOR Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723473 Views: 63Total views on this site Copyright © 2022 by the American Society of Overseas ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article

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