Ebook: Mercury's wings: exploring modes of communication in the ancient world

Introduction / by F.S. Naiden and Richard Talbert -- Part one. Networks. Environmental perspectives on ancient communication / by Grant Parker -- Libraries and communication in the ancient world / by Matthew Nicholls -- Communication and Roman long-distance trade / by Taco Terpstra -- Military communication : the example of the classical battlefield / by F.S. Naiden -- Part two. Modes. Monuments of the Hittite and Neo-Assyrian empires during the Late Bronze and Iron ages / by James F. Osborne -- Communicating with images in the Roman empire / by Jennifer Trimble -- Musical persuasion in early Greece / by Timothy Power -- Gesture in the ancient Mediterranean world / by Gregory S. Aldrete -- Part three. Divinities. Messaging and the gods in Mesopotamia : signals and systematics / by Seth Richardson -- Pilgrimage and communication / by Ian Rutherford -- The inspired voice : enigmatic oracular communication / by Julia Kindt -- Christianity / by Michael Kulikowski -- Part four. Engagements. Cross-cultural communication in the Hellenistic Mediterranean and Western and South Asia / by Michael Canepa -- Cross-cultural communication in Egypt / by J.G. Manning -- Diplomatic communication in the ancient Mediterranean / by Sheila L. Ager -- Coinage and the Roman economy / by Kenneth W. Harl -- Communicating through maps : the Roman case / by Richard Talbert.;Mercury's Wings: Exploring Modes of Communication in the Ancient World is the first-ever volume of essays devoted to ancient communications. Comparable previous work has been mainly confined to articles on aspects of communication in the Roman empire. This set of 18 essays with an introduction by the co-editors marks a milestone, therefore, that demonstrates the importance and rich further potential of the topic. The authors, who include art historians, Assyriologists, Classicists and Egyptologists, take the broad view of communications as a vehicle not just for the transmission of information, but also for the conduct of religion, commerce, and culture. Encompassed within this scope are varied purposes of communication such as propaganda and celebration, as well as profit and administration. Each essay deals with a communications network, or with a means or type of communication, or with the special features of religious communication or communication in and among large empires.