J.R. Ryan | Independent Scholar (original) (raw)
Books by J.R. Ryan
This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in ... more This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in the Gilgamesh and the Alexander the Great narrative traditions. As both archetypal monarchs are understood to have ruled as kings in Mesopotamia, this is a much more secure context for comparison. The result of this contextualisation is that the identified parallels are better supported and more clearly understood. Although the study is rendered in comparison, the exegesis of the episodes is not strictly bound by parallels between the traditions. The primary concern is a comparable engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology. This enables the thesis to contribute uniquely to the study of each figure’s kingship, as well as their comparative dynamic. Mesopotamian kingship was a contest, and our two subject kings represent rivals for the pinnacle in this arena. Therefore, the identification and presentation of a king to surpass all others is argued for both in presented deeds and persevering legends.
Chapter one outlines the premise of the thesis, addresses previous comparisons made in scholarship between the subject kings, and discusses the evidence. Specifically, this is the network of narratives utilised by the study. For the Gilgamesh tradition, these are the Akkadian language manuscripts of the Gilgamesh Epic and the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems concerning the death of Gilgamesh and his campaign against Huwawa. For the Alexander tradition, the study is limited to the Alexander narratives that share a relative geographically congruence with the Gilgamesh narratives. These are the canonical Graeco-Roman Alexander narratives by Diodorus, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Justin, as well as the Pseudo-Callisthenes narratives, the Syriac Alexander Legend and the Syriac Metric Homily. Chapter two outlines the methodology. Chapter three contextualises Gilgamesh’s campaign against Humbaba in Mesopotamian kingly action. Chapter four argues for a comparative understanding of Alexander’s siege of Tyre. Chapter five then compares the death of a king in each tradition, and chapter six the subsequent mythical wanderings of our protagonist kings. Chapter seven provides the thesis’ conclusion. The overarching themes are the legitimisation of one’s kingship and the transfer of power in the Mesopotamian royal tradition.
Talks by J.R. Ryan
Alexander the Great and Gilgamesh sit together in the narratives of antiquity as companions who v... more Alexander the Great and Gilgamesh sit together in the narratives of antiquity as companions who ventured beyond the limits conventionally set for man. By pushing and violating these spaces, each protagonist traverses landscapes that confuse and astound, whilst encountering beasts and beings that amaze. Both traditions are intimately, geographically, and ideologically connected, serving as landmarks for a kind of narrative that functioned to legitimise the king and ratify the imperial world over which he held dominion. Each beast encountered, each feature duplicated and out of place, or each marvel born out of hybridity re-enforces the understanding the world's end has been reached and that its king is absolute. This paper will expound the ideology in the Gilgamesh tradition, that influenced Persian ideals of space (transmitted in part by Herodotus and Ctesias), and infected Alexander's own campaign narrative. Building on these traditions of kingship and empire evident in the Epic of Gilgamesh, we can better understand a Persian conceptualisation of the invasions of Greece, the Greek reactions to Persian discourse, and Alexander's own performance of the expected role. From Gilgamesh to Alexander there is a road that passes scorpion-men, fifth-century BCE Greeks, and creatures that haunt the deep. All lie together as the fantastical beasts beyond the limits.
The palaces and temples of ancient Mesopotamia were adorned with the abundant and fragrant cedars... more The palaces and temples of ancient Mesopotamia were adorned with the abundant and fragrant cedars that populated the areas around and upon the eastern Mediterranean. Cedar oil also serviced ritual action, intimately connecting the sense of cedar with divine presence and royal settings. This special utility, adorning and intoxicating the halls of gods and kings, meant that sourcing the cedar became an action steeped in royal ideology and became a milestone that all kings must pass. The campaign to the cedar mountain to source the cedar transcended the trade realities of successive periods and filled the lines of heroic kingly narrative, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. This paper expounds that role cedar played in divine and royal cult in Mesopotamia from Gilgamesh down to Alexander the Great and specifically focuses on the sense engagement with cedar, creating a mental pathway from the city to the mountain, from the temple and palace to the hills of Lebanon. Both arenas borrowed and shared a sense of divinity and divinely sanctioned royal power from each other, while standing in one the sense evoked the other, linked the locales, and transported those immersed in fragrant cedar.
This paper takes it lead from, and so rightly pays homage to in the title, Heleen Sancisi-Weerden... more This paper takes it lead from, and so rightly pays homage to in the title, Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg's seminal paper that over thirty years ago questioned the prominence assigned to Atossa by Herodotus by deploying a combination of Near Eastern evidence and an evaluation of Greek literary topos.
Here I extend to similar question the picture of Roxane that has be promoted in the literary accounts and largely accepted by scholarship.
Roxane was the first queen of the Hellenistic era and her prominence and significance for Alexander, ideological and politically, bleeds through the surviving accounts. When considered within Near Eastern tradition, Roxane emerges as a significance counterpart to Alexander, and approaches the ideology encapsulated in the mythical (Semiramis) and divine (Ishtar) that had conceptualised the great royal couple for centuries.
The strategic and political significance of the marriage with the daughter of Oxyartes to settle a war of attrition in Bactria and Sogdiana is well understood. The significance of this region as a satrapy in the Persian Empire, and integrated nobility, also made this a region from which a legitimate ‘Persian’ queen could be sought. These realities led to a weaving of narratives that legitimized this union and set in within a tradition of the Great King and Queen in the Ancient Near East. Upon the very rock of Sogdiana and the surrounding lands, Alexander finds himself beset by the shadows of royal encounters of the female kind. We as scholars, are confronted by traditions of Greek, Mesopotamian, and Persian making, and the melding of all with common purpose.
Roxane paved the way for the Hellenistic Queens who followed and was consigned by the Diadochi to the position of obscurity and sexuality, as they weaved their own narratives of legitimatization, whilst they maligned Alexander's Queen. This paper will question that narrative.
The Alexander Romance (or more accurately here, Pseudo-Callisthenes) has conventionally been unde... more The Alexander Romance (or more accurately here, Pseudo-Callisthenes) has conventionally been understood as either a Ptolemaic or Roman Imperial period product, but very much Alexandrian at its core. From this assumed origin, the narrative supposedly acquired different traditions as it travelled through time and space.
This paper demonstrates that Pseudo-Callisthenes captures an aspect of a dialogue and cultural-political battle for the identity and patronage of Alexander in the Successor landscape. The Seleucid influence, and specifically co-regency period, presents an Alexander who travelled beyond the world to the mythical space to achieve universal kingship.It also provides us with insight into early Ptolemaic-Seleucid propaganda and ownership of Alexander the Great.
Differences in local cults and pan-hellenic identities for the gods speaks to a sub-structure and... more Differences in local cults and pan-hellenic identities for the gods speaks to a sub-structure and super-structure in the spread and connectivity of cult centres across the ancient world supposedly honouring the same god. In line with this, assimilation and harmonisation of divergent deities offers a ready solution, but when the connection between the sites is more linear, then certain parallels bear weight. This paper evaluates examples in antiquity where the sites of subsequent temples or their landscaping has been inspired by a desire to replicate the 'original' home of the god. By utilising both the archaeological record and the rich literary descriptions, it is possible to discern a cultural engagement with migration, and the replication of the old in the new.
Alexander's journey to Siwah is overwhelmed by an emphasis on the king's engagement with the gods... more Alexander's journey to Siwah is overwhelmed by an emphasis on the king's engagement with the gods and the recognition of his divine paternity. The hands of Ptolemy, Callisthenes, and Aristoboulos are self-evident and significant, but so is the chronology of the Graeco-Roman sources for an engagement with divine honours to Roman Emperors. The source of this divinity has often been understood as stemming from a belief that Alexander held of himself, but a range of engagements from the Neo-Assyrian, through the Persian, and into the Macedonian periods tell a different story, which the archaeological evidence from Siwah supports. Alexander was a king, king of Macedon, king of Egypt, king of the western satrapies, and claimant to the Persian throne. Siwah was a journey that he had to make ideologically. This paper will critically expose the tradition that Alexander was following in, as well as the legacy his journey to Siwah left on antiquity. It is Alexander the king that we find, not Alexander the god.
'In this paper I discuss narrative representations of Humbaba from the Gilgamesh tradition. The e... more 'In this paper I discuss narrative representations of Humbaba from the Gilgamesh tradition. The episode of Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s journey to the Cedar Forest to battle the ogre Humbaba is part of a long-lived narrative tradition in the Near East articulating cultural interactions with the Mediterranean basin. Humbaba, also known as Huwawa, is variously portrayed across the tradition imbuing the figure with demonic, monstrous and animalistic characteristics and attributes. At times this presents Humbaba as a hybrid of terrifying animals, creating a monster not to be challenged. I intend to consider these contributing parts with reference to the awesome nature of royal power. Humbaba will be considered to represent the fearsome, enfeebling, and grotesque morphology of supreme kingship. In this way, the animalism and monstrosity of powerful kings can be approached and evaluated. The presence and continued significance of this episode crosses cultural and chronological barriers. Relevant in Mesopotamian ideology for over a millennium, one can also see possible aspects of influence and interaction within the Greek canon. I endeavour to demonstrate that a core and universal reading can be understood across the entire tradition of the episode articulating the complexities of royal power and succession.'
by Borja Antela-Bernardez, Antonio Ignacio Molina Marín, Marie Widmer, Monica D'Agostini, Branko van Oppen, Chiara Di Serio, Frances Pownall, J.R. Ryan, Roberta Berardi, Emilio Rosamilia, and Rolf Strootman
Panel at the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics. University of St Andrews, 11-14th July 2018. ... more Panel at the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics.
University of St Andrews, 11-14th July 2018.
Organized by Eran Almagor, Timothy Howe & B. Antela-Bernárdez
Papers by J.R. Ryan
This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in ... more This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in the Gilgamesh and the Alexander the Great narrative traditions. As both archetypal monarchs are understood to have ruled as kings in Mesopotamia, this is a much more secure context for comparison. The result of this contextualisation is that the identified parallels are better supported and more clearly understood. Although the study is rendered in comparison, the exegesis of the episodes is not strictly bound by parallels between the traditions. The primary concern is a comparable engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology. This enables the thesis to contribute uniquely to the study of each figure's kingship, as well as their comparative dynamic. Mesopotamian kingship was a contest, and our two subject kings represent rivals for the pinnacle in this arena. Therefore, the identification and presentation of a king to surpass all others is argued for both in presented deeds and persevering legends. Chapter one outlines the premise of the thesis, addresses previous comparisons made in scholarship between the subject kings, and discusses the evidence. Specifically, this is the network of narratives utilised by the study. For the Gilgamesh tradition, these are the Akkadian language manuscripts of the Gilgamesh Epic and the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems concerning the death of Gilgamesh and his campaign against Huwawa. For the Alexander tradition, the study is limited to the Alexander narratives that share a relative geographically congruence with the Gilgamesh narratives. These are the canonical Graeco-Roman Alexander narratives by Diodorus, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Justin, as well as the Pseudo-Callisthenes narratives, the Syriac Alexander Legend and the Syriac Metric Homily. Chapter two outlines the methodology. Chapter three contextualises Gilgamesh's campaign against Humbaba in Mesopotamian kingly action. Chapter four argues for a comparative understanding of Alexander's siege of Tyre. Chapter five then compares the death of a king in each tradition, and chapter six the subsequent mythical wanderings of our protagonist kings. Chapter seven provides the thesis' conclusion. The overarching themes are the legitimisation of one's kingship and the transfer of power in the Mesopotamian royal tradition. PhD Classics Research Dr James Ryan King's College London 'foreign' occupant of throne. The tradition of kingship in Sumer and Akkad was inherently one of continuity and transfer from very early on. The Sumerian King List (SKL) clearly demonstrates this. Kingship was something bestowed on the earth by the gods. 11 When the gods reinstituted kingship on earth after the Flood in the city of Kish, it was the divine right to total rule on earth (or hegemonic kingship) that was bestowed. 12 Ideologically, earthly hegemony was placed on a single city. 13 This is a complex and sophisticated ideal, as rule in Kish developed to mean both a city-state power base with rights to totality, and a conceptualisation of totality itself. 14 As the conceptual world expanded with the imperial world, microcosms evidently developed.
This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in ... more This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in the Gilgamesh and the Alexander the Great narrative traditions. As both archetypal monarchs are understood to have ruled as kings in Mesopotamia, this is a much more secure context for comparison. The result of this contextualisation is that the identified parallels are better supported and more clearly understood. Although the study is rendered in comparison, the exegesis of the episodes is not strictly bound by parallels between the traditions. The primary concern is a comparable engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology. This enables the thesis to contribute uniquely to the study of each figure’s kingship, as well as their comparative dynamic. Mesopotamian kingship was a contest, and our two subject kings represent rivals for the pinnacle in this arena. Therefore, the identification and presentation of a king to surpass all others is argued for both in presented deeds and persevering legends.
Chapter one outlines the premise of the thesis, addresses previous comparisons made in scholarship between the subject kings, and discusses the evidence. Specifically, this is the network of narratives utilised by the study. For the Gilgamesh tradition, these are the Akkadian language manuscripts of the Gilgamesh Epic and the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems concerning the death of Gilgamesh and his campaign against Huwawa. For the Alexander tradition, the study is limited to the Alexander narratives that share a relative geographically congruence with the Gilgamesh narratives. These are the canonical Graeco-Roman Alexander narratives by Diodorus, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Justin, as well as the Pseudo-Callisthenes narratives, the Syriac Alexander Legend and the Syriac Metric Homily. Chapter two outlines the methodology. Chapter three contextualises Gilgamesh’s campaign against Humbaba in Mesopotamian kingly action. Chapter four argues for a comparative understanding of Alexander’s siege of Tyre. Chapter five then compares the death of a king in each tradition, and chapter six the subsequent mythical wanderings of our protagonist kings. Chapter seven provides the thesis’ conclusion. The overarching themes are the legitimisation of one’s kingship and the transfer of power in the Mesopotamian royal tradition.
Alexander the Great and Gilgamesh sit together in the narratives of antiquity as companions who v... more Alexander the Great and Gilgamesh sit together in the narratives of antiquity as companions who ventured beyond the limits conventionally set for man. By pushing and violating these spaces, each protagonist traverses landscapes that confuse and astound, whilst encountering beasts and beings that amaze. Both traditions are intimately, geographically, and ideologically connected, serving as landmarks for a kind of narrative that functioned to legitimise the king and ratify the imperial world over which he held dominion. Each beast encountered, each feature duplicated and out of place, or each marvel born out of hybridity re-enforces the understanding the world's end has been reached and that its king is absolute. This paper will expound the ideology in the Gilgamesh tradition, that influenced Persian ideals of space (transmitted in part by Herodotus and Ctesias), and infected Alexander's own campaign narrative. Building on these traditions of kingship and empire evident in the Epic of Gilgamesh, we can better understand a Persian conceptualisation of the invasions of Greece, the Greek reactions to Persian discourse, and Alexander's own performance of the expected role. From Gilgamesh to Alexander there is a road that passes scorpion-men, fifth-century BCE Greeks, and creatures that haunt the deep. All lie together as the fantastical beasts beyond the limits.
The palaces and temples of ancient Mesopotamia were adorned with the abundant and fragrant cedars... more The palaces and temples of ancient Mesopotamia were adorned with the abundant and fragrant cedars that populated the areas around and upon the eastern Mediterranean. Cedar oil also serviced ritual action, intimately connecting the sense of cedar with divine presence and royal settings. This special utility, adorning and intoxicating the halls of gods and kings, meant that sourcing the cedar became an action steeped in royal ideology and became a milestone that all kings must pass. The campaign to the cedar mountain to source the cedar transcended the trade realities of successive periods and filled the lines of heroic kingly narrative, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. This paper expounds that role cedar played in divine and royal cult in Mesopotamia from Gilgamesh down to Alexander the Great and specifically focuses on the sense engagement with cedar, creating a mental pathway from the city to the mountain, from the temple and palace to the hills of Lebanon. Both arenas borrowed and shared a sense of divinity and divinely sanctioned royal power from each other, while standing in one the sense evoked the other, linked the locales, and transported those immersed in fragrant cedar.
This paper takes it lead from, and so rightly pays homage to in the title, Heleen Sancisi-Weerden... more This paper takes it lead from, and so rightly pays homage to in the title, Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg's seminal paper that over thirty years ago questioned the prominence assigned to Atossa by Herodotus by deploying a combination of Near Eastern evidence and an evaluation of Greek literary topos.
Here I extend to similar question the picture of Roxane that has be promoted in the literary accounts and largely accepted by scholarship.
Roxane was the first queen of the Hellenistic era and her prominence and significance for Alexander, ideological and politically, bleeds through the surviving accounts. When considered within Near Eastern tradition, Roxane emerges as a significance counterpart to Alexander, and approaches the ideology encapsulated in the mythical (Semiramis) and divine (Ishtar) that had conceptualised the great royal couple for centuries.
The strategic and political significance of the marriage with the daughter of Oxyartes to settle a war of attrition in Bactria and Sogdiana is well understood. The significance of this region as a satrapy in the Persian Empire, and integrated nobility, also made this a region from which a legitimate ‘Persian’ queen could be sought. These realities led to a weaving of narratives that legitimized this union and set in within a tradition of the Great King and Queen in the Ancient Near East. Upon the very rock of Sogdiana and the surrounding lands, Alexander finds himself beset by the shadows of royal encounters of the female kind. We as scholars, are confronted by traditions of Greek, Mesopotamian, and Persian making, and the melding of all with common purpose.
Roxane paved the way for the Hellenistic Queens who followed and was consigned by the Diadochi to the position of obscurity and sexuality, as they weaved their own narratives of legitimatization, whilst they maligned Alexander's Queen. This paper will question that narrative.
The Alexander Romance (or more accurately here, Pseudo-Callisthenes) has conventionally been unde... more The Alexander Romance (or more accurately here, Pseudo-Callisthenes) has conventionally been understood as either a Ptolemaic or Roman Imperial period product, but very much Alexandrian at its core. From this assumed origin, the narrative supposedly acquired different traditions as it travelled through time and space.
This paper demonstrates that Pseudo-Callisthenes captures an aspect of a dialogue and cultural-political battle for the identity and patronage of Alexander in the Successor landscape. The Seleucid influence, and specifically co-regency period, presents an Alexander who travelled beyond the world to the mythical space to achieve universal kingship.It also provides us with insight into early Ptolemaic-Seleucid propaganda and ownership of Alexander the Great.
Differences in local cults and pan-hellenic identities for the gods speaks to a sub-structure and... more Differences in local cults and pan-hellenic identities for the gods speaks to a sub-structure and super-structure in the spread and connectivity of cult centres across the ancient world supposedly honouring the same god. In line with this, assimilation and harmonisation of divergent deities offers a ready solution, but when the connection between the sites is more linear, then certain parallels bear weight. This paper evaluates examples in antiquity where the sites of subsequent temples or their landscaping has been inspired by a desire to replicate the 'original' home of the god. By utilising both the archaeological record and the rich literary descriptions, it is possible to discern a cultural engagement with migration, and the replication of the old in the new.
Alexander's journey to Siwah is overwhelmed by an emphasis on the king's engagement with the gods... more Alexander's journey to Siwah is overwhelmed by an emphasis on the king's engagement with the gods and the recognition of his divine paternity. The hands of Ptolemy, Callisthenes, and Aristoboulos are self-evident and significant, but so is the chronology of the Graeco-Roman sources for an engagement with divine honours to Roman Emperors. The source of this divinity has often been understood as stemming from a belief that Alexander held of himself, but a range of engagements from the Neo-Assyrian, through the Persian, and into the Macedonian periods tell a different story, which the archaeological evidence from Siwah supports. Alexander was a king, king of Macedon, king of Egypt, king of the western satrapies, and claimant to the Persian throne. Siwah was a journey that he had to make ideologically. This paper will critically expose the tradition that Alexander was following in, as well as the legacy his journey to Siwah left on antiquity. It is Alexander the king that we find, not Alexander the god.
'In this paper I discuss narrative representations of Humbaba from the Gilgamesh tradition. The e... more 'In this paper I discuss narrative representations of Humbaba from the Gilgamesh tradition. The episode of Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s journey to the Cedar Forest to battle the ogre Humbaba is part of a long-lived narrative tradition in the Near East articulating cultural interactions with the Mediterranean basin. Humbaba, also known as Huwawa, is variously portrayed across the tradition imbuing the figure with demonic, monstrous and animalistic characteristics and attributes. At times this presents Humbaba as a hybrid of terrifying animals, creating a monster not to be challenged. I intend to consider these contributing parts with reference to the awesome nature of royal power. Humbaba will be considered to represent the fearsome, enfeebling, and grotesque morphology of supreme kingship. In this way, the animalism and monstrosity of powerful kings can be approached and evaluated. The presence and continued significance of this episode crosses cultural and chronological barriers. Relevant in Mesopotamian ideology for over a millennium, one can also see possible aspects of influence and interaction within the Greek canon. I endeavour to demonstrate that a core and universal reading can be understood across the entire tradition of the episode articulating the complexities of royal power and succession.'
by Borja Antela-Bernardez, Antonio Ignacio Molina Marín, Marie Widmer, Monica D'Agostini, Branko van Oppen, Chiara Di Serio, Frances Pownall, J.R. Ryan, Roberta Berardi, Emilio Rosamilia, and Rolf Strootman
Panel at the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics. University of St Andrews, 11-14th July 2018. ... more Panel at the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics.
University of St Andrews, 11-14th July 2018.
Organized by Eran Almagor, Timothy Howe & B. Antela-Bernárdez
This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in ... more This thesis identifies and elucidates a common engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology in the Gilgamesh and the Alexander the Great narrative traditions. As both archetypal monarchs are understood to have ruled as kings in Mesopotamia, this is a much more secure context for comparison. The result of this contextualisation is that the identified parallels are better supported and more clearly understood. Although the study is rendered in comparison, the exegesis of the episodes is not strictly bound by parallels between the traditions. The primary concern is a comparable engagement with Mesopotamian kingship ideology. This enables the thesis to contribute uniquely to the study of each figure's kingship, as well as their comparative dynamic. Mesopotamian kingship was a contest, and our two subject kings represent rivals for the pinnacle in this arena. Therefore, the identification and presentation of a king to surpass all others is argued for both in presented deeds and persevering legends. Chapter one outlines the premise of the thesis, addresses previous comparisons made in scholarship between the subject kings, and discusses the evidence. Specifically, this is the network of narratives utilised by the study. For the Gilgamesh tradition, these are the Akkadian language manuscripts of the Gilgamesh Epic and the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems concerning the death of Gilgamesh and his campaign against Huwawa. For the Alexander tradition, the study is limited to the Alexander narratives that share a relative geographically congruence with the Gilgamesh narratives. These are the canonical Graeco-Roman Alexander narratives by Diodorus, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Justin, as well as the Pseudo-Callisthenes narratives, the Syriac Alexander Legend and the Syriac Metric Homily. Chapter two outlines the methodology. Chapter three contextualises Gilgamesh's campaign against Humbaba in Mesopotamian kingly action. Chapter four argues for a comparative understanding of Alexander's siege of Tyre. Chapter five then compares the death of a king in each tradition, and chapter six the subsequent mythical wanderings of our protagonist kings. Chapter seven provides the thesis' conclusion. The overarching themes are the legitimisation of one's kingship and the transfer of power in the Mesopotamian royal tradition. PhD Classics Research Dr James Ryan King's College London 'foreign' occupant of throne. The tradition of kingship in Sumer and Akkad was inherently one of continuity and transfer from very early on. The Sumerian King List (SKL) clearly demonstrates this. Kingship was something bestowed on the earth by the gods. 11 When the gods reinstituted kingship on earth after the Flood in the city of Kish, it was the divine right to total rule on earth (or hegemonic kingship) that was bestowed. 12 Ideologically, earthly hegemony was placed on a single city. 13 This is a complex and sophisticated ideal, as rule in Kish developed to mean both a city-state power base with rights to totality, and a conceptualisation of totality itself. 14 As the conceptual world expanded with the imperial world, microcosms evidently developed.