چکیده:
In this paper, an investigation on the relation between state-building and Near Eastern religion is attempted. Analyzing the city-state of Ḥaṭrā (Iraq, close to Kirkuk), it is demonstrated that pre-Islamic state craft in the region was dependent on the initiative of the Parthian monarchy in Iran. The kings of the Arsacid dynasty attempted to bestow the local Arabic tribes in the Jazira with a cultic center that would serve as a stronghold against Rome/Byzantium. The deity most venerated in Ḥaṭrā was the Sungod, Šamaš, the same as in Palmyra (Tadmor), Edessa (Urfa), and Emesa (Homs). It is of crucial importance, that since Constantine the Great venerated the Sungod before becoming a Christian, the combination between Greek and Iranian art on the border of the two empires became the basis of Christian art. Ḥaṭrā, a point of cross-cultural fusion between the East and the West, is now very much endangered as the troops of the “Islamic” State have destroyed the until recently well-preserved ruins.
خلاصه ماشینی:
After Alexander, this unified language of Syria ("Aram" in the Bible), Iraq and the whole Near East broke apart into various local dialects/scripts: Nabataean in the South, Edessenian, the local Aramaic used in Georgia (beautiful in the bilingual inscription of Serapitis, in Greek and this "Armazi" variant [Braund, 1994, 214]) and the dialect of Palmyra (Tadmur).
) is that these "Caravan cities" (Rostovtzeff 1932) were founded as centers of independent, or half independent states, run by Arab nomads (transformed into dynasties) on the borders of the dissolving Seleucid Empire and the Parthian monarchy, at the time when the Romans were steadily gaining influence in the Near East.
Since there are no datable traces before the first century CE, it is most likely that the foundation of the city was an attempt made by the Parthian kings, who settled Arab nomads in the area, around the time when they conquered Mesopotamia, in order to control the caravan trade between the Romans and their empires.
The plan of the city, the religious architecture (see below), the geographical position at the crossroads of a dozen of streets through the desert (Vattioni 1981, 4, according to Sir Aurel Stein), from Lower Mesopotamia (Ctesiphon and Spasinou Charax), through Takrit, Ḥaṭrā, the Jabal Sinjar, towards Edessa—and thus the Roman Empire (Sommer 2005, 388)—made it a classical "gateway city" between two "Idealtypen": the Arab Nomads and the sedentary people.
). 1 One point of great significance for this paper is the religious importance of the city of Ḥatrā for the development of Arabic states on the border between the Iranian (Parthian, Sasanian) and Roman/Byzantine empires.