SASA Master Class: Never Has There Ever: Royal Propaganda in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

This Masterclass will examine several different royal texts and their art from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and discuss their value as propaganda. Both ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia displayed such texts and art in public spaces such as on temple walls and border stelae. As most of the population would have been illiterate, art was meant to illustrate the main point of the texts or provide other visual clues as to the propagandistic nature of these public monuments.

We will study victory stelae and decrees, such as the ever-famous Rosetta Stone and Code of Hammurabi; military accounts and victory like the battle of Megiddo, Vulture Stela, and Semna stela; and diplomatic texts like the Ramesside Hittite treaty and the Amarna letters. We will analyze the literary formulae of these different texts, such as specific modes of addressing neighbors as well as boasts such as “never has the like been done”, all…