The Deportation of Gods – Between Persian Policy and Ptolemaic Ideology
Abstract
In early Hellenistic Egypt, a set of Ptolemaic inscriptions reported on an intriguing phenomenon, namely, Ptolemaic kings bringing back “all the gods of the country,” which supposedly the Persians had once taken away from their sanctuaries. On the strength of these epigraphic testimonies, scholars have more recently opined on the movement of Ptolemaic military campaigns in the East and the religious policy of the Achaemenid empire. This paper will mainly focus on the general behavior and religious policy of the Achaemenid Great Kings towards local cults in the administration of the empire. Moreover, this approach will aid us more adequately to understand the tenets and background of these Ptolemaic texts.
Citation
Klinkott, Hilmar. "The Deportation of Gods – Between Persian Policy and Ptolemaic Ideology," Contextualizing Iranian Religions in the Ancient World - 14th Melammu Symposium. February 19, 2020.
About the Speaker
Hilmar Klinkott
University of Kiel
Hilmar Klinkott is Professor of Ancient History and History of the Near East at the Institute for Classical Studies/Department of Ancient History at the University of Kiel.
He studied Ancient History, Classical Archaeology, and Latin at the Ruprecht Carls University Heidelberg, earning his MA in 1997. He continued his studies at the University of Tübingen, earning his PhD in 2002. His thesis, Der Satrap: Ein achaimenidischer Amtsträger und seine Handlungsspielräume (Verlag Antike), was published in 2005.
After his habilitation in Ancient History at the University of Tübingen, he became Akademischer Rat in the Seminar für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik at the Ruprecht Karls-Universität Heidelberg in 2012 and a member of the Heidelberg excellence cluster “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” in 2013. In the same year, he changed his habilitation to the University of Heidelberg (“Umhabilitierung”).
After Deputy Professorships in Hamburg (for Professor Christoph Schäfer, 2009–2010), Mannheim (for Professor Christian Mann, 2014/15) and Mainz (Professor Marietta Horster, 2016), he was appointed Full Professor at the Institut für Klassische Altertumskunde of the Christian Albrechts University. Now at the University of Kiel, Professor Klinkott continues to focus on the history of the ancient Near East and the Achaemenid empire.