The Historicality of the King: An Exercise in Reading Royal Inscriptions from the Ancient Levant

The problem with using royal inscriptions as historical sources is their inherent bias. The interests of the king drive the narratives of royal inscriptions. Yet this essential feature reveals their underlying concept of history. In royal inscriptions, historical thought is defined by the life and experience of the king. This article will present a hermeneutic for reading royal inscriptions that focuses on the individual king. The article will first look at the concept of historical time in epigraphic Hebrew and Old Aramaic sources before examining the complicated ways in which this concept is rendered in the principal genres of royal writings, the memorial and the dedicatory inscription. A survey of features found in memorial inscriptions from Dibon (the Mesha Stele) and Sam’al (Kulamuwa), followed by a study of the Old Byblian dedicatory inscriptions, will explore the complex process of configuring time and narrative around the king. In each genre of royal inscription, the linear time of the ruler intersects with cyclical traditions of kingship, revealing the historicality of respective king

A Quantum distance for noncommutative measure spaces and an application to quantum field theory

Nella prima parte della Tesi, presentiamo una versione "puntata" della topologia di Gromov-Hausdorff quantistica introdotta da Rieffel per spazi metrici quantistici compatti (cioè, spazi con unità d'ordine e una seminorma Lipschitz che metrizza la topologia *-debole sullo spazio dei funzionali positivi normalizzati). In particolare, proporremo una nozione di cono tangente quantistico di uno spazio metrico quantistico, come analogo noncommutativo del cono tangente di Gromov in un punto di uno spazio metrico ordinario, basata su una opportuna procedura di riscalamento della seminorma Lipschitz definita su uno spazio metrico quantistico. Tale costruzione estende effettivamente la corrispondente costruzione valida per spazi metrici ordinari. Infine, a titolo di esempio, descriveremo il cono tangente quantistico del toro noncommutativo bidimensionale. Nella seconda parte, invece, introduciamo una particolare distanza quantistica sull'insieme delle algebre di von Neumann Lip-normate (cioè, dotate di una ulteriore norma che metrizza la topologia debole sui sottoinsiemi limitati nella norma C*). Come avviene per le distanze di tipo Gromov-Hausdorff, anche questa distanza G.-H. duale è una pseudo-distanza, e diviene una vera distanza solo sulle classi di equivalenza isometrica (rispetto alla norma Lip) delle algebre di von Neumann Lip-normate. Inoltre, dimostreremo un criterio di precompatteza per famiglie di algebre di vN Lip-normate (fortemente) uniformemente limitate, utilizzando la nozione di ultraprodotto (ristretto) di algebre di vN Lip-normate. Infine, nell'ambito del'approccio algebrico alla teoria quantistica dei campi, applicheremo tale costruzione allo studio del limite di scala (cioè, quando si fanno tendere a un punto le regioni dello spaziotempo su cui sono definiti gli osservabili della teoria) di una rete locale di algebre di vN (le algebre degli osservabili), confrontando l'approccio tramite ultraprodotti (e con la convergenza nella distanza quantistica) con la costruzione delle algebre "limite di scala" di Buchholz e Verch, mostrando che nel caso del campo libero bosonico le due procedure forniscono lo stesso risultato.In the first part of this dissertation, we study a pointed version of Rieffel's quantum Gromov-Hausdorff topology for compact quantum metric spaces (i.e, order-unit spaces with a Lipschitz-like seminorm inducing a distance on the space of positive normalized linear functionals which metrizes the w*-topology). In particular, in analogy with Gromov's notion of metric tangent cone at a point of an (abstract) proper metric space, we propose a similar construction for (compact) quantum metric spaces, based on a suitable procedure of rescaling the Lipschitz seminorm on a given quantum metric space. As a result, we get a quantum analogue of the Gromov tangent cone, which extends the classical (say, commutative) construction. As a case study, we apply this procedure to the two-dimensional noncommutative torus, and we obtain what we call a noncommutative solenoid. In the second part, we introduce a quantum distance on the set of dual Lip-von Neumann algebras (i.e., vN algebras with a dual Lip-norm which metrizes the w*-topology on bounded subset). As for the other G.-H. distances (classical or quantum), this dual quantum Gromov-Hausdorff (pseudo-)distance turns out to be a true distance on the (Lip-)isometry classes of Lip-vN algebras. We give also a precompactness criterion, relating the limit of a (strongly) uniform sequence of Lip-vN algebras to the (restricted) ultraproduct, over an ultrafilter, of the same sequence. As an application, we apply this construction to the study of the Buchholz-Verch scaling limit theory of a local net of (algebras of) observables in the algebraic quantum field theory framework, showing that the two approaches lead to the same result for the (real scalar) free field model

Kingship and Carpe Diem, Between Gilgamesh and Qoheleth

The comparison of Qoheleth and Gilgamesh begins with the so-called carpe diem advice of Siduri and Eccl 9:7-9. Additionally, the rhetoric of kingship evoked through Gilgamesh’s narû (“stele”) at the beginning of the epic parallels the royal voice of Qoheleth beginning in Eccl 1:12. Yet these similarities raise several historical issues. First, Siduri’s speech is only found in an Old Babylonian fragment of the epic. The redaction of this advice was part of a process of adapting kingship motifs in the Standard Babylonian Epic. This process appears to bring Gilgamesh closer to Qoheleth, particularly in its reference to narû literature. But in reality the message of later versions of the Mesopotamian epic diverges from that of Ecclesiastes. Furthermore, Qoheleth’s royal voice finds a closer parallel in Northwest Semitic memorial inscriptions. A careful reconsideration of these factors will show that the similarities and differences reflect how both works interact with kingship

Ruin Hills at the Threshold of the Netherworld: The Tell in the Conceptual Landscape of the Ba'al Cycle and Ancient Near Eastern Mythology

In the Ba‘al Cycle’s description of the threshold separating the realms of the dead from that of the living, the key reference point is described as “the two tells (at) the boundary of the netherworld” (CAT 1.4 viii, 4). The specific word used to describe both topographical features is tl, the tell, an object well known in the archaeology of the Near East. The objects here are significant because they are literally ruin hills; specifically, they represent artificial topographical features. This nuance of the word tl distinguishes it from concepts of cosmic mountains shared with other cultures, but relates it to occurrences of the Sumerian cognate in terms such as DU6 KU3 (“Sacred Tell”) and SAḪAR.DU6.TAG4 (roughly translated as “burial tell”). This paper will begin with an archaeological and philological analysis of the Semitic term tl, informed by Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, in order to foreground the mythological valence of the two tells in the Ugaritic epic myth. The meaning instantiated by the word tell, as “ruin” and “hill,” allowed it to serve as an embodiment of time and space in the Ba‘al Cycle and other ancient Near Eastern literatures, demarcating cosmological thresholds and delineating boundaries of competing space

Wine Shipments to Samaria from Royal Vineyards

The Samaria Ostraca contain a subset of receipts that record wine shipments from what were evidently royal vineyards. But this particular group of ostraca has been largely overlooked in the study of the Northern Kingdom, probably resulting from the fact that not all of the ostraca were published in the editio princeps. This article presents a new edition of these ostraca, accompanied by an analysis of their particular features. The results of the analysis confirm that the wine shipments were the privileged possession of the king of Israel

Sheol, the Tomb, and the Problem of Postmortem Existence

The Hebrew Bible often portrays Sheol in a manner evocative of the tomb. In texts such as Psalm 88 the tomb is a dreary and isolating symbol. Yet this contrasts with the positive role of the family tomb where the dead are reunited with their ancestors. The ritual analysis of Judahite bench tombs, however, reveals a dynamic concept of death. This suggests that the varying images of the tomb in biblical literature were not contradictory, but reflective of a process of dying that began with burial

From Modes of Production to the Resurrection of the Body: A Labor Theory of Revolutionary Subjectivity & Religious Ideas

In this dissertation I attempt two needed tasks within historical materialism: first, to reestablish the standpoint of labor as the normative basis for critical theory beyond irrational bourgeois categories, and second, to show that labor’s own self-mediating rationalization, if it is to move beyond these contradictory categories, necessarily requires a certain religious-utopian consciousness. The dominant Weberian and Marxist paradigms for understanding labor and its relation to the religious variously perpetuated irrational bourgeois conceptions of labor as a bare efficient cause, with religion paternalistically positioned as an inherently idealist or mystifying external form. I argue, however, that the concrete rationality of labor’s revolutionary nature necessarily hinges on a ratio to emergent final causes for which consciousness of such is itself the rational kernel of the religious. Thus I retain the historical materialist primacy of the modes of production as an organizing concept but with a more comprehensive account of its self- transcending movement. Herein the religious arises internally as a non-reductive function of labor’s self-understanding as more than a disposable instrument. I claim any materialist critique of alienated labor implies this religious-utopian consciousness, and therefore any critique of religion must presuppose the normative form of the religious as revolutionary rather than reactionary, reflecting ideal trajectories generated from the productive forces in their basic revolutionizing transformation of nature. More specifically, I argue that theoretically the one religious-utopian ideal transcendentally necessary for grasping the normative standpoint of the laboring body as its own emergent final cause, without external mediation, is the resurrection of the body. I then substantiate this historically. The comprehensive rationality of the modes of production demands that the Marxist distinction between historical periods of formal and real subsumptions yield new assessments of pre-capitalist religious ideology as positively integral to labor’s self-mediating history. I then genealogically trace a Hebraic discourse on bodily resurrection whose revolutionarily demythologized form emerged directly from and for social consciousness of its communal mode of production. I further demonstrate historically that prior to capitalism the laboring body became intelligible to itself as constitutively active without idealist inversions under this certain Judeo-Christian articulation of the resurrection of the body

A Place in the Dust: Text, Topography and a Toponymic Note on Micah 1:10-12a

The poetry of Micah’s oracle of doom (Mic 1:8-16) combines two undeniable motifs, the motif of the lament and that of geography. The latter motif is not well understood due to the obscurity of the place names found in vv. 10a-12b. A careful study of the oracle’s geographical con-text, however, will lead to a more precise understanding of the topography of vv. 10-12b and serve as the basis for the identification of one of the more enigmatic place names, Beth-le-aphrah (v. 10b), with the archaeological site of Tell el-‘Areini

Quantum mechanical modeling of the chemical reactivity of metal surfaces: two case studies involving water formation and dissociation

In the first chapter we present numerical methods to describe termally activated processes and particularly the nudged elastic band method (NEB) to find minimum energy paths (MEPs) on potential energy surface (PES). In the second chapter we study a case that demonstrates by means of ab-initio calculations that steps are more reactive than plain surfaces. Water dissociation activation barrier is computed lower on stepped Pt(211) and Pt(311) surfaces respect to clean Pt(111) surface. In the third chapter we investigate water formation on Rhodium surface at high oxygen coverage with the aim to explain an interesting experiment performed at ELETTRA - Trieste. In the appendix A we make a brief discussion about density functionals and their drawbacks in correctly describing chemical reactions. In the appendix B we briefly describe a parallel work of development and code maintenance of PWSCF code of suite ESPRESSO [24] with the purpose of adding exact exchange and hybrid functionals to the code