The Deportation of Gods – Between Persian Policy and Ptolemaic Ideology

Recorded: February 19, 2020
Event: Contextualizing Iranian Religions in the Ancient World - 14th Melammu Symposium
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.

by Hilmar Klinkott (University of Kiel)

The Deportation of Gods – Between Persian Policy and Ptolemaic Ideology

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.

About the Speaker

Hilmar Klinkott studied Ancient History, Classical Archeology and Latin at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg from 1990 to 1997 . The master’s thesis followed with Fritz Gschnitzer on the satrapies in the Alexander and Diadochi period. Since 2000 Klinkott took part in field research in Lycia. At the University of Tuebingen, Klinkott was then in 2002 when Frank Kolb with the work The Achaemenid satraps with their duties and responsibilities – An official definition Ph.D.; Josef Wiesehöfer acted as a second supervisor. In 2009 he completed his habilitation in Tübingen with a thesis on the subject between power and mass madness. On the political significance of the acclamation system in the west of the Roman Empire from the 3rd century BC Chr. To 96 AD. In 2013, he completed his rehabilitation in Heidelberg with the same work. His habilitation thesis remained unpublished. Klinkott was initially an academic advisor at the University of Tübingen and taught in the winter semester 2009/2010 and summer semester 2010 as a substitute professor for Christoph Schäfer at the University of Hamburg. Since the summer semester of 2012, he has been a research assistant at the University of Heidelberg, and since a post-doctoral qualification in April 2013, a member of the Philosophical Faculty. In the summer of 2016, Klinkott took the chair at the University of Kiel on a W2 to Professorship of Ancient History; He has been teaching there since October 2016. His main focus is on Achaemenid and Hellenistic history.