Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis examines how Heinsius, in his Monobiblos, engages with his Greek and Latin literary models in terms of imitation and allusion, illustrated by a commentary on the first and the third...Show moreThis thesis examines how Heinsius, in his Monobiblos, engages with his Greek and Latin literary models in terms of imitation and allusion, illustrated by a commentary on the first and the third elegy of the first edition of the Monobiblos.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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Death is a topic that is rarely discussed in Sumerian texts. Few literary texts deal with this topic while some only touch upon it, even though death was, and still is, unavoidable. The literary...Show moreDeath is a topic that is rarely discussed in Sumerian texts. Few literary texts deal with this topic while some only touch upon it, even though death was, and still is, unavoidable. The literary texts that concern death originate predominantly from the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods (2100 – 1600 BC). The subjects of these texts, the ones that die, are wide-ranging: humans, both kings and non-royal Mesopotamians had to come to terms with their mortality; gods, who, although immortal, were not invincible; and cities, which could ‘die’ by being destroyed and abandoned. Since there was a great variety in subjects dying, the question arises as to whether they were all treated the same in the texts. This forms the first research question: did the scribes follow a literary tradition when describing death? Furthermore, the preserved copies of these texts all date to the period after the transition from the Ur III dynasty to the first dynasty of Isin, and might reflect some of the ideological developments that are characteristic of this transition, such as in the ideology of divine kingship. The second research question addresses the issue of how the texts are related to royal ideology and whether during this post-Ur III period death was consistently described in similar terms or that other, perhaps political, influences are noticeable.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis examines all the material (reliefs, stelae, a statue and a papyrus) that in the past and/or the present have been/are connected to (the Memphite lost tomb of) Hormin. Hormin served as...Show moreThis thesis examines all the material (reliefs, stelae, a statue and a papyrus) that in the past and/or the present have been/are connected to (the Memphite lost tomb of) Hormin. Hormin served as the Overseer of the Royal Appartments of Memphis under the reigns of Seti I and Ramesses II. Based on criteria such as style, the Hormin material is defined and the origins of the incorrect connections to Hormin are investigated. Next to this, all the information is gathered in the Hormin material in order to attempt to reconstruct the life and career of Hormin. Moreover, the nineteenth century discovery and exploitation of the tomb, resulting in the material being spread over at least five museums (Bologna, Paris, Cairo, Leiden, Berlin), is examined. This information assists in deciding what can be said of Hormin's lost tomb and what not (architecture of the tomb; further material that can still be found in the tomb etc.). This thesis highlights the issues involved when studying New Kingdom Saqqara, especially material without a tomb context.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis aims to give an in depth look at the dummy writing and painting palettes of ancient Egypt. A suggested terminology of the subject is presented together with a corpus of dummy palettes...Show moreThis thesis aims to give an in depth look at the dummy writing and painting palettes of ancient Egypt. A suggested terminology of the subject is presented together with a corpus of dummy palettes and related objects. On the basis of this corpus the different aspects of the dummy palettes, such as their materials, symbolism, archaeological context, and ownership, are studied in order to reach a better understanding of why these objects were made and how they were meant to function.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
In what way can the two seemingly different parts of Isocrates’ Panegyricus be regarded as contributing to a specific goal? This is the question that my thesis will address. On the one hand,...Show moreIn what way can the two seemingly different parts of Isocrates’ Panegyricus be regarded as contributing to a specific goal? This is the question that my thesis will address. On the one hand, Isocrates seems to praise Athens and desire Athenian hegemony, while on the other hand the Panegyricus also advocates panhellenism. This thesis will argue that these two seemingly different parts of the speech can be seen as coherent and do in fact contribute to one goal, by researching Isocrates’ use of rhetorical strategies.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
By means of the sign known as Gardiner F27, theory on classification in ancient Egyptian written language is juxtaposed with orthography in both hieroglyphic and hieratic writing. Existing theory,...Show moreBy means of the sign known as Gardiner F27, theory on classification in ancient Egyptian written language is juxtaposed with orthography in both hieroglyphic and hieratic writing. Existing theory, currently a hotly debated topic in Egyptological scholarship, is tested and modified by means of source data primarily from the Ramesside period in Egypt. In this way the thesis opens up promising new avenues for future research.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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Does every individual human being have its own Form in the intellectual world? In contrast with his Platonic forerunners, Plotinus presents in Ennead V.7 an original approach to this controversial...Show moreDoes every individual human being have its own Form in the intellectual world? In contrast with his Platonic forerunners, Plotinus presents in Ennead V.7 an original approach to this controversial question and does not hesitate to deal with the question with a perspective that is broader than purely metaphysical. He goes beyond his predecessors in trying to come up with a comprehensive and philosophically correct discussion and does not contend himself with a didactic and dogmatic repetition of the (presumed) Platonic point of view. By means of a structuralistic approach, this commentary demonstrates that Plotinus denies the existence of a Form of an individual, but instead posits an individual forming principle (logos) in the soul. In addition, it is shown that Augustine in his remarks on the Form of the individual is clearly inspired by Plotinus.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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The main question answered in this thesis 'The figurability of theory. The philosophical significance of circularity in Parmenides’ is how circularity figures Parmenides’ doctrine and what its...Show moreThe main question answered in this thesis 'The figurability of theory. The philosophical significance of circularity in Parmenides’ is how circularity figures Parmenides’ doctrine and what its philosophical significance is. A significant and recurring notion in all three parts of the poem, circularity is employed as a didactic tool to demonstrate the theory to the audience, as a polemic notion to contrast his theory with the ones of his predecessors or the other section of his own poem (the δόξαι in case of the ἀλήθεια and vice versa), and as a reflective means to stress key aspects of his own theory. I employ notions from Marin’s semiotics of images, such as the deictic frame and the theoretical objects, having adapted them in order to make them fit for application to archaic Greek poetry rather than visual arts.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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Deze scriptie beschrijft de vriendschap tussen Cicero en Pompeius aan de hand van verschillende teksten: Laelius de amicitia, Commentariolum Petitionis en verschillende brieven uit de Ad familiares.
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis explores the interaction between pre-Socratic philosophy and the Prometheus Bound, a drama normally attributed to Aeschylus. My aim is to investigate the process whereby the dramatist...Show moreThis thesis explores the interaction between pre-Socratic philosophy and the Prometheus Bound, a drama normally attributed to Aeschylus. My aim is to investigate the process whereby the dramatist incorporates theoretical contents elaborated by early Greek philosophers that are in principle alien to his art. What role do such contents play when transposed onstage? And how does the tragedian contribute, through their re-elaboration, to the intellectual debates of his times? By examining the Prometheus Bound against some of the theological, ethical and epistemological notions of the pre-Socratics, this thesis aims at shedding new light on the interconnection between drama and contemporary philosophical speculation.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
The present thesis examines the liminal aspects of four Akkadian wisdom compositions from the first millennium B.C.E., specifically: Babylonian Theodicy, Counsels of Wisdom, Dialogue of Pessimism...Show moreThe present thesis examines the liminal aspects of four Akkadian wisdom compositions from the first millennium B.C.E., specifically: Babylonian Theodicy, Counsels of Wisdom, Dialogue of Pessimism and Ludlul bēl nēmeqi. The aim of the present study is to explore the social functions fulfilled by these four texts. I argue that the notion of liminality, as a creative social process, contributes to this discussion. Liminality, as a period which suspends social norms and allows their critical evaluation by an individual or a group (Turner, 1969), is instrumental to explain the social function of wisdom and to describe its productive process. In the present paper, I explore the liminal aspects of these four wisdom compositions based on character and plot description and on the analysis of parallelism and imagery. In these texts, metaphors of material boundaries and social marginality, alongside opposing parallel constructions, accentuate traditional social values exposing them to criticism. My thesis, through heuristic analysis of manuscripts and close-reading of standard versions, studies the relation between the textual representation of liminal situations and the production context offering a new theoretical perspective for the understanding of the social function of Akkadian Wisdom Literature.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
The conditional clause is one of the most common and important clause types in Biblical Hebrew, yet no consensus has been reached as to how its various forms correspond to the expression of...Show moreThe conditional clause is one of the most common and important clause types in Biblical Hebrew, yet no consensus has been reached as to how its various forms correspond to the expression of modality, most notably whether a condition is realizable or not. In this paper, it is analyzed how the two main factors of conditional sentences, particles and verbal forms, combine to add modal nuances to the conditional clause. It becomes clear that not a single factor is responsible for those nuances, but many factors combined. By applying modern linguistic insights in particles and the verbal forms, a new model is proposed.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
2022-06-30T00:00:00Z
This thesis investigates the revealed material (texts, rock monuments, pottery, architecture, seals, sealings and burials) in western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. More specifically, in my...Show moreThis thesis investigates the revealed material (texts, rock monuments, pottery, architecture, seals, sealings and burials) in western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. More specifically, in my thesis I examine the case of three western Anatolian sites, namely that of Gordion, Beycesultan and Miletus. This thesis does not only take into account the local material revealed in the aforementioned sites but it also investigates the foreign influences, such as the Mycenaean and the Hittite ones.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
2022-06-30T00:00:00Z
The thesis aims to investigate to what extent the Assyrian merchants living in Anatolia during the Old Assyrian period were influenced by local Anatolian religious customs. It does so by comparing...Show moreThe thesis aims to investigate to what extent the Assyrian merchants living in Anatolia during the Old Assyrian period were influenced by local Anatolian religious customs. It does so by comparing the archaeological and textual evidence concerning the religious practices in the hometown Assur and in the Old Assyrian settlement of Kultepe-Kanesh.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
open access
Until Esarhaddon's reign, adê "treaties" in the Neo-Assyrian period were considered an instrument of subjugation. Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty (EST), concluded in 672 BC, when the empire was...Show moreUntil Esarhaddon's reign, adê "treaties" in the Neo-Assyrian period were considered an instrument of subjugation. Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty (EST), concluded in 672 BC, when the empire was arguably at its peak, respects previous adê display tradition while introducing new visual elements in order to make it an instrument of internal political control.Show less
