Changes

The term “historiography” has multiple definitions in the modern world. Quite simply, it refers to the study of history, but more specifically it relates to the study of history throughout history – how people from the past viewed their own and other peoples’ histories. Historiography therefore concerns the study of historical methods and philosophies as well as the examination of what are considered “historical” texts. The modern historiographical tradition is for the most part the direct ancestor of the tradition developed by the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks were the first people to write what is considered a “narrative” history, whereby events are considered either chronologically or topically with commentary and analysis. The fifth century BC Greek historian, Herodotus, is often referred to as the “father of history” because his monumental work The Histories is the oldest extant narrative history in the world. Other Greek writers followed Herodotus with a similar style and formula of writing history and eventually the Romans did so as well, adding biographies, which became the quintessential form of Roman historical studies. The Greeks and the Romans wrote their histories critically and saw history as something to learn from and therefore historical works should edify the readers, which is of course essentially the same way modern historians view their craft. Although the Greeks and Romans gave the modern world their historiographical tradition, the people of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia also wrote history.

Historiography existed in the ancient Near East for over 2,000 years before Herodotus was born, but to the people of Egypt and Mesopotamia history served a much different purpose and therefore their historiographical tradition was much different. The Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians wrote their histories in the form of king-lists, historical annals, folk tales, and pseudo-historical myths not in critical narrative forms and not for the edification of the reader, but as part of their religious obligations. To the people of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, historical writing was a way for their kings to connect to their long dead ancestors and to show their appreciation to the gods.

In order to understand how the people of the ancient Near East recorded history, it is important to comprehend how they viewed the concept of history. The ancient Egyptians had no word that precisely corresponds to the modern word “history,” although they had different genres of what would today be considered historical writing. To the ancient Egyptians, record keeping of the near past was the way in which they demonstrated their idea of the continuum of history and was therefore a practical affair. <ref> Redford, Donald B. <i>Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals and Day-Books: A Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of History.</i> (Mississauga, Canada: Benben Publications, 1986), pgs. xiii-xvi</ref> Among the different ways in which the Egyptians demonstrated this concept, the king-lists best demonstrated a more complete knowledge of history that stretched back for several generations.

By the Late Period, when Egypt was often under foreign rule, Egyptian historical writing came to include a variety of pseudo-historical myths and folk stories that contained themes about Egypt’s earlier greatness and a possible return to glory under a liberating native pharaoh. <ref> Gozzoli, p. 227</ref> The Late Period was also when the Hellenized Egyptian priest, Manetho, wrote his history of Egypt in the third century BC. Manetho’s history of Egypt was primarily Egyptian in character, reading like a combination of king-list and annals, but was also influenced by the Greek philosophy of history to a certain extent as he obviously used some earlier Greek sources to complete his work. Later Greek historians, such as Herodotus and Diodorus, in turn were impressed with the Egyptian sense of the past, especially king-lists, which they noted in their works. <ref> Krebsbach, Jared. “Herodotus, Diodorus, and Manetho: An Examination of the Influence of Egyptian Historiography on the Classical Historians.” <i>New England Classical Journal.</i> 41 (2014) pgs. 104-7</ref> Although the Egyptian philosophy of history and historiography may have impressed and possibly even influenced the later Greek historians, it was a clearly different concept in form, style, and purpose.

Ancient Mesopotamia developed contemporaneously with ancient Egypt and although there were many differences between the two civilizations – such as the fact that many different ethnic groups ruled over and influenced ancient Mesopotamia throughout its history as opposed to Egypt being fairly homogenous – both societies viewed and recorded history in a similar manner.

The Sumerians were the first people to bring civilization to Mesopotamia around the year 3100 BC, and like their Egyptian counterparts, they had no word that corresponds to the modern English word “history.” <ref> Speiser, E. A. “Ancient Mesopotamia.” In <i>The Idea of History in the Ancient Near East.</i> Edited by Robert C. Denton. Second Reissue. (New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society, 1983), p. 38</ref> Also like in Egypt, nothing comparable to a narrative history developed in Mesopotamia and historiographical texts were all theological in nature. <ref> Speiser, p. 55</ref>

“The officials, nobles and people of Ekron, who had thrown Padî, their king, bound by (treaty to) Assyria, into fetters of iron and had given him over to Hezekiah, the jew (Iaudai), – he kept him in confinement like an enemy, – they (lit., their heart) became afraid and called upon the Egyptian kings, the bowmen, chariots and horses of the king of Meluhha (Ethiopia), a countless host, and these came to their aid. In the neighborhood of the city of Altakû (Eltekeh), their ranks being drawn up before me, they offered battle. (Trusting) in the aid of Assur, my lord, I fought with them and brought about their defeat. The Egyptian charioteers and princes, together with the charioteers of the Ethiopian king, my hands took alive in the midst of the battle.” <ref> Pritchard, pgs. 287-8</ref>

When the Assyrian Empire was destroyed in 612 BC, the political and cultural focus of Mesopotamia shifted to the south once more and the city of Babylon in particular. During the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty – which lasted from the reign of Nabopolassar (ruled 626-605 BC) until the Achaemenid Persian conquest in 539 BC – a series of historical texts known as the “Babylonian Chronicle” were written in the city. The Babylonian Chronicle was clearly influenced by the Assyrian annals as well as earlier forms of Mesopotamian historical writing, but was far less theological and therefore “represents the highest achievement of Babylonian historians with regard to the writing of history in a reliable and objective manner.” <ref> Grayson, A. Kirk, trans. <i> Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles.</i> (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2000), p. 8</ref> The Chronicle continued to be compiled after the Achaemenid Persian and Macedonian Greek conquests of Mesopotamia and provided inspiration for the Hellenized Babylonian historian, Berossos.

In many ways, Berossos’ life in Mesopotamia mirrored that of Manetho’s in Egypt. Berossos was a native Babylonian priest who lived in the third century BC under the Greek Seleucid Dynasty, dividing his time between the Greek and native Mesopotamian worlds. He was commissioned by the king Antiochus I (281-261 BC) to write a history of Babylon in Greek, which he did using native sources, much as Manetho had done in Egypt around the same time. <ref> Verbrugghe, Gerald P., and John M. Wickersham, eds. and trans. <i>Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.</i> (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), p. 26</ref> Although both Berossos’ and Manetho’s works have only survived in fragments often transmitted by later historians, they represent the intellectual juncture where the older forms of Near Eastern historiography merged with the new, narrative form of historical writing that was formulated by the Greeks.

Today, the Greeks are considered to be the inventors of the modern historiographical tradition and although that may be true for the most part, it is important to consider the historical traditions of the ancient Near East that preceded them. The people of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia both had philosophies of history and corpuses of historical writings that all modern scholars consider historiographical in nature. With that said, the Egyptians and Mesopotamians wrote their histories in a much different manner and for far different reasons than the Greeks did – the people of the ancient Near East wrote their histories to connect with their ancestors and their gods, not for posterity or edification.