Identity, ancient Near EastDANIEL C. SNELL

Identity for human beings has always been

socially defined, but single individuals may

always have been tempted by competing identi-

ties. Scholars assume that tribal identity,

based on putative descent from an ancestor,

was an early way of identifying oneself.

It remains important in the region today, usually

linked to former nomadic status. But sedentary

farmers also may use this identity (van

Soldt 2005).

Long-lasting in southern Iraq was city patri-

otism and its identity. The old cities were

proud of their heritages, and in the late second

and first millennia BCE they enjoyed privileges

of exemption from forced labor and some

taxes. The exemptions were jealously guarded

by citizens.

City identity usually trumped tribal or ethnic

identity, although Amorite rulers in the early

second millennium persisted in using royal

names in their own separate language (see

AMORITES). This practice was followed also by

the Kassite rulers of the later second millen-

nium (see KASSITE DYNASTY). The Amorites’ god

was ridiculed, and so were the untutored

nomads. But when they conformed to city

norms, discrimination appears to have faded.

The influx of deportees caused by the Assyr-

ian and Babylonian empires must have

brought about much identity confusion and

change in the first millennium. The goal of

deportation was to subvert identities that had

in the past inspired rebellions. This goal was

not met in the provinces fromwhich deportees

came, since rebellions continued to arise, but

we do not know of rebellions in the areas to

which people were deported. Also, the kings of

Assyria explicitly counted the deportees as

people of Assyria. But what kings wanted and

how people felt may have been two different

things. The disappearance of the identity of the

ten so-called lost tribes of northern Israel

scared the Judahites into formulating and cod-

ifying their traditions. And this effort allowed

them in the period of exile 598–539 BCE to cling

to their identity and in later generations to

return to the land of Israel with an enhanced

sense of who they were (Snell 2007).

The case of the Persians, who also carried

their identity from ancient times to modern

ones, is less well known. Its persistence may be

rooted in the success of the Persian Empire and

in the resistance to the spread of Hellenism

(Momigliano 1975).

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Momigliano, A. (1975) Alien wisdom: the limits of

hellenization. Cambridge.

Snell, D. (2007) “The invention of the individual.”

In D. Snell, ed., A companion to the ancient

Near East: 357–69. Oxford.

van Soldt, W. H., ed. (2005) Ethnicity in the

ancient Near East. Leiden.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print page 3388.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah01097

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