UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Eternal Monument of the Divine King: Monumentality, Reembodiment, and Social Formation in the Decalogue Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7cc2970n Author Hogue, Timothy Scott Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Eternal Monument of the Divine King: Monumentality, Reembodiment, and Social Formation in the Decalogue A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures by Timothy Scott Hogue 2019 © Copyright by Timothy Scott Hogue 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Eternal Monument of the Divine King: Monumentality, Reembodiment, and Social Formation in the Decalogue by Timothy Scott Hogue Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor William M. Schniedewind, Chair The Decalogue was a monumental text. This does not mean that the text was important, enduring, or carved on stone. Its monumentality rests not in any sense of size, permanence, or publicity, but rather in its ability to provoke communities to imagine together and make meaning. This study contends that the Decalogue was composed and depicted in the Hebrew Bible by drawing upon contemporary monumental discourse designed to provoke this kind of communal engagement. In order to substantiate this argument, I have conducted a history of monuments and a history of monumentality. My history of monuments analyzes the Levantine “I Am” monuments of the Iron Age. These monuments were united by their function of reembodying the individual identified in their opening “I Am” statement. Once reembodied, this individual could address his audience in strategic ways so as to bring about social formation. This function was accomplished ii by much more than just the words of the monument’s inscription. My analysis also accounts for their deployment in space, their aesthetic features and medium, and the different ways in which communities interacted with them. I also analyze how these dimensions changed over time in order to periodize the monumentality of Levantine “I Am” monuments. While the function of these monuments remained stable during the few centuries during which they were employed in the Levant, the means of accomplishing it did not. Using this history of Levantine “I Am” monuments as a backdrop, I turn to a history of the monumentality of the Decalogue. The Decalogue drew upon monumental discourse from these inscriptions in order to develop its own monumentality. It was depicted utilizing the monumental discourse of specific periods. Editorial strata within the biblical text point to shifting depictions of the Decalogue that align it with new periods of monumentality in the Levant. That is, not only was the Decalogue composed to act as a monument for its original audience, later editors also updated it to better match contemporary monumentalities and thus to remain meaningful to subsequent generations. iii The dissertation of Timothy Scott Hogue is approved. Seth Sanders Aaron Alexander Burke Catherine E. Bonesho William M. Schniedewind, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2019 iv Contents ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ....................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ x VITA ............................................................................................................................................ xiii CHAPTER 1 - MONUMENTS, MONUMENTALITY, AND THE DECALOGUE .................... 1 How Communities Make Culture with Objects .................................................................... 2 Monuments in the Modern World: The Decalogue and the Constitution ............................... 3 Monuments in the Ancient World – The Decalogue and the “I Am” Monuments................. 8 Previous Scholarship on the Decalogue as a Socially Embedded Text ................................ 10 The King and His Monument ............................................................................................... 16 Monuments and Monumentality ........................................................................................... 18 History of Monuments and Monumentalities ....................................................................... 27 The Art Historical Relationship Between Epigraphic Remains and Manuscript Traditions 32 The Structure of This Study .................................................................................................. 36 A HISTORY OF LEVANTINE “I AM” MONUMENTS ........................................................... 39 CHAPTER 2 - THE MONUMENTALITY OF LEVANTINE “I AM” INSCRIPTIONS .......... 40 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 40 The Case for “Levantine Monumental Inscriptions” ............................................................ 41 Historical Background of Levantine Monumental Discourse .............................................. 43 Method and Corpus ............................................................................................................... 52 The Spatial Dimension: Distributing the Agent ................................................................... 64 Bounded Ritual Theatres – Centralized Monuments ............................................................ 66 Territorial Distribution – Peripheral Monuments ................................................................. 74 The Aesthetic Dimension: Reembodying the Agent ............................................................ 88 Stelae ..................................................................................................................................... 94 Statuary ................................................................................................................................. 98 Wall Reliefs ........................................................................................................................ 101 Portal Beasts........................................................................................................................ 106 Rock Reliefs ........................................................................................................................ 110 Orthography ........................................................................................................................ 113 The Semantic Dimension: Ventriloquizing the Agent ....................................................... 117 “I Am” Inscriptions as Direct Speech ................................................................................. 118 The “I Am” Formula ........................................................................................................... 124 v Memory and Ideology: Legitimating the Agent ................................................................. 127 Identity: Defining the Users ................................................................................................ 134 The Poetic Dimension: Embodying Perception .................................................................. 140 The “I Am” Formula as Deictic Reembodiment................................................................. 141 Embodying the Agent’s and the Users’ Perspectives ......................................................... 143 The Performative Dimension: Activating the Agent, Transforming the Users .............. 155 Monumentalization ............................................................................................................. 158 Reading ............................................................................................................................... 160 Incantations and Scripted Performances ............................................................................. 161 Offerings ............................................................................................................................. 165 Processions and Feasts ........................................................................................................ 170 Counter-monumental Practices ........................................................................................... 176 The Purpose of Ritual Engagement .................................................................................... 179 Conclusion: A Brief History of Levantine “I Am” Monuments ....................................... 183 The Origins of the Form in the Late Bronze Age ............................................................... 185 The Archaic Transitional Period (12th to Mid-10th Century BCE) ..................................... 186 The Age of Civic Ritual (Late 10th to Early 9th Century BCE) .......................................... 187 The Age of Territorialization (870-790 BCE) .................................................................... 188 The Age of Court Ceremony (790-690 BCE) ..................................................................... 189 The Age of Increased Internationalism and Decline (690 BCE and Following) ................ 190 The Afterlife of “I Am” Inscriptions .................................................................................