Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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In this respect, in our opinion, this work by Pardee is a worthy
complement to books such as those by Marguerite Yon, The City of
Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra (Winona Lake, IN, 2006), and by Izak
Cornelius and Herbert Niehr, Gtter und Kulte in Ugarit. Kultur
und Religion einer nordsyrischen Knigsstadt in der Sptbronzezeit
(Mainz am Rhein, 2004).
Foreigners and Egyptians in the Late Egyptian Stories: Linguistic, Literary and Historical Perspectives. By Camilla Di Biase-Dyson. Probleme der gyptologie 32. Band. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Pp. xx + 488. $233 (cloth).
Reviewed by Nikolaos Lazaridis, California State University, Sacramento
Camilla Di Biase-Dyson, Junior Professor of Egyptology at the Georg-August Universitt in Gttingen, has produced a thorough linguistic and literary
The second noticeable weakness relates to the verbal explication of the SFL-based textual analysis of
the narratives. Specifically, occasionally in the course
of chapters 35 the author attempts to describe some
results of the works textual analysis in great detail.
This often seems unnecessary, as a table presenting
the results would suffice, and also since the author
does not make any new points on the basis of these
results and does not bring them up again in the conclusive sections; such is the case, for example, with
the ideational analysis of Djehuty (pp. 23436) or of
Herihor (p. 284). Such tedious verbal descriptions of
quantitative analysis are often features of published
doctoral dissertations. In such cases I recommend
a more thorough revision of a dissertations style of
presentation so that when it is turned into a book, its
analysis runs more smoothly and effectively guides the
readers attention towards the important results and
their interpretation.
Overall, Di Biase-Dysons monograph is an original
interdisciplinary examination of an exciting corpus of
ancient literary texts. One must highlight the significance of studies, such as Di Biase-Dysons, that successfully introduce new methodologies to disciplines
like Egyptology, whose identities have been traditionally distinguished by the geographically-defined materials they examine rather than their specific ways of
examining them. Such studies are thus most welcome,
as they expand Egyptologys spectrum of methodological options by fruitfully connecting it to other
disciplines tested methods and theories.
Sufism, Black and White: A Critical Edition of Kitb al-Bay wa-l-Sawd by Ab l-asan al-Srjn (d. ca.
470/1077). Edited by Bilal Orfali and Nada Saab. Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts, Volume
94. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. xii + 570. $196 (cloth).
Reviewed by Th. Emil Homerin, University of Rochester
The Kitb al-Bay wa-l-Sawd (The Book of Black
and White) is a substantial collection of Sufi sayings in Arabic compiled by Ab al-asan al-Srjn.
Though the exact dates of his life are, as yet, unknown, al-Srjn was reportedly a disciple of Amad
ibn Muammad ibn amzah al-f (d. 441/1049),
and al-Srjn is mentioned by several of his contemporaries, including al-Hujwr (d. ca. 470/1077), and
al-Anr al-Haraw (d. 481/1089), who stated that
al-Srjn oversaw religious endowments (awqf), including those for a Sufi monastery (rib), in the city
of Srjn in the province of Kirmn, in south-eastern