Mélanges d'orientalisme offerts à Jeanine et à Jean Ch. Balty
(Préface de Maurice SARTRE)

Édité par

Christian Cannuyer et Alexandre Tourovets

Illustration de couverture

Janine et Jean CH. Balty photographiés lors d'un sondage à la Porte Nord d'Apamée (photo Niels Hannestad, 1991)

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p. vii - Tabula Gratulatoria

p. xi - Sous le signe d'Apamée. Hommage à Jeanine et Jean Ch. Balty

p. xiii - Maurice SARTRE, De pierre et d'images : l'œuvre de Janine et de Jean Ch. Balty

p. xxiii - Bibliographie de Janine Balty

p. xxix - Bibliographie de Jean Ch. Balty

p. xli - Christian CANNUYER, In mémoriam : le cardinal Julien RIES (1920, 2013), vice-président honoraire de la Société Belge d'Études Orientales

p. xlvii - Joseph FAMERÉE, Éloge académique du cardinal Alain Ries

ACTA

p. 1 - Janine et Jean Ch. BALTY, Apamée, « Paysage relique »

The mosaics discovered under the cathedral of Apamea in 1937-1938 and 1971-1972 are dated to the third quarter of the 4th century AD. They decorated a very large building, whose plan excludes it can be a house. The figurative scenes that alternate with geometric panels, meet a philosophical program of rare consistency : successively one recognizes Socrates among the Sages of Greece ; Odysseus founding again Penelope, indifferent to the round of the Therapenids ( image of the wise’s soul abandoning the liberal arts to devote himself to philosophy) ; Cassiopeia triumphant in the beauty contest that opposes the Nereids (image of the wise’s soul escaping matter and merging with the Beauty) ; and finally the mosaic with the crown and the inscription ΕΥ ΧΡΩ ( εὐ χρῶ ) "do good use ". The clearly Neoplatonic tone of the enitre set of the images clearly invites us to see the building as a memorial celebrating, at the time of Julian, the memory of Iamblichus who had taught at Apamea in the early 4th century.

p. 27 - Stéphanie ANTHONIOZ, Orient et Bible : l'exemple de Babel, « la tête dans le ciel »

The article begins by reviewing past research concerning the comparative method in the ancient Near Eastern and biblical studies. It states the choices that may be made in light of actual scholarship. Then the Babel narrative (Gen 11:1-9) with the specific literary motive “head in the sky” constitutes a working example of this method. The results show how the analysis of the biblical text can be enriched with an historical and comparative approach. The tower of Babel is not built as in Mesopotamian temples to be a junction between heaven and earth, gods and men for the rest of the gods and the glory of the kings, the tower is un-built so that Yhwh-God remains in Heaven (thus becoming God of all the earth) and human kingship is never legitimized in the opening chapters of the Bible.

p. 41 - Christian CANNUYER, Le génie de Hormin. Le « scarabée-bouquetin » et le « Grand Chat-Âne » (TT 359) : deux cas d’hybridation dans la symbolique animalière de l’ancienne Égypte

In the Inherkhauy’s tomb at Deir al-Medina (TT 359), the designer Hormin has created a strange hybrid, a scarab with forelegs like ibex horns. In the same grave, he illustrated chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead, in which the Grand Solar Cat kills the snake Apopis near the iched-tree. It is usually said that this cat – also a hybrid – has hare ears. But according to Valerie Angenot, these ears are those of a donkey. These donkey ears may refer to a passage of chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, featuring a donkey talking with a cat at the very moment of the splitting of the iched-tree. In this paper, we also offer an interpretation of the two donkeys framing the sunrise in the tomb of Nakhtamon (TT 335), which are probably the two donkeys of Shou discussed in the Coffin Texts (Spells 173 and 622).

p. 65 - Gaëlle CHANTRAIN, Amour et désir en égyptien : quelques observations de sémantique lexicale. Le cas du verbe mri

The topic of this article is the verb mri, which is known as highly polysemic. I here propose to show how to find and organise the meaning(s) of a verb by analysing its actionality. The predicative system of Ancient Egyptian (especially Egyptian of the first phase) is essentially based on a grammaticalized system of aspectual oppositions. Because of the fact that aspect has a universal value (semantic perspective) but can be expressed by an infinity of means in languages (grammatical perspective) it must be considered in a double perspective: a semantic one and a grammatical one. I here apply this dialectical principle to the study of the verb mri. The purpose of this paper is to bring to a better understanding of the slightly semantic differences that could be expressed by the verb and to improve its translation in context.

p. 87 - Antoine FLEYFEL, La critique de l'orientalisme par Edward Said et la théologie contextuelle arabe dans son modèle libanais

The comparison between the thesis of Said on Orientalism and the Arab contextual theological thought in its Lebanese version was never carried out. Yet many elements calls for a rapprochement between these two worlds that study similar issues but from different disciplines. If Said's thesis is mainly based on literature, but also on politics, Lebanese theologians base their demonstrations on theological and religious elements, while pouring, too, on politics. This article proposes to discuss these similarities throughout four of Said's thesis, namely the political and cultural domination of the East by the West, depreciation of the Arabic language, the demonization of the Arab and Islam, and the Palestinian cause.

p. 97 - René LEBRUN & Agnès DEGRÈVE, Les études anatoliennes à l'U.C.L.

In this contribution the reader will find a short description of the researches relating to the ancient Anatolia and prested in the outline of the ‘Institut Orientaliste’ and the ‘Centre d’Histoire des Religions Cardinal Julien Ries’ of the ‘Université catholique de Louvain’ (Louvain-la-Neuve). The most important scopes are for example the relations between Egypt and the hittite Empire, the linguistic and cultural continuity in Asia Minor from the Bronze Age until the greco-roman period, many sections of the hittite prosopography ( princes = DUMU.LUGAL and priests ), and the publication such as the anthropological study of hittite rituals. An historical study of cities of Lycia, Pisidia and Cilicia is also very dynamic. Periodicals and collections : Publications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain ; Le Muséon ; Res Antiquae ; Hethitica ; Homo Religiosus.

p. 103 - Marc MALEVEZ, L'enseignement chez les moines coptes de l'Antiquité tardive et ses rapports avec l'instruction classique gréco-romaine des élites du temps

Having exposed that constitutes the paideia, the Greco-Roman classic teaching, and shown its reports with the monastic attitude, we shall bend over the parrèsia, which is one of its main characteristics, what will lead to compare the heathen philosopher and the Christian monk and to envisage the historic evolution of the weight of this "freedom of language". We shall be interested then in the specific training of the monks, by distinguishing the case of the wandering monks of that of the coenobites.

p. 119 - Virginie PREVOST, Recherches sur les édifices ibadites du Djebel Nafūsa

The Nafūsa Mountains, known as a stronghold of Berber Ibadism, have developed an extremely rich vernacular architecture. Little rural mosques abound in the jabal, which may occasionally go back to the eight or ninth centuries AD. Some mosques are associated with scholars or chiefs quoted in mediaeval Ibadi texts, or with the Christian past of the region. Many are semi-subterranean and present in the prayer hall noteworthy decorations carved out of the plastering. The three remaining communal fortified granaries also are of particular interest. All those Ibadi buildings will be studied in a forthcoming publication.

p. 123 - Alexandre TOUROVETS, L'architecture des palais achéménides : évolution technique et aménagement de l'espace architectural

Were the buildings of Persepolis and Pasargadae the ultimate examples of a continuous line of established Achaemenid building methods in which the architectural development was linked to the evolution of forms, layouts and techniques? Till now it has been difficult to answer this because of the lack of sufficient material information for that period. The hazardous circumstances of the archaeological discoveries give us a fragmentary documentation that we have to take into account. On the other hand, in the Zagros region, archaeological excavations have unearthed some major buildings dating from the first half of the first millennium BC (Iron Age), for example at the sites of Hasanlu and Godin Teppeh. Their space architectural organization could be considered as possible forerunners of the one of the monuments of the Achaemenid era, for example their great columned halls of Pasargadae that where built before the construction of the Apadana. Only an analysis of the inner function and circulations in the different buildings could bring some answers to this dramatically unsolved question and prove that the only evolution taken by the architecture is the course toward the most organized architectural space, like the Apadana of Persepolis can display.

p. 145 - Jan VAN REETH, Les fardes de la révélation. Une hypothèse sur la forme du Coran originel

From a survey of recent research, the Qur’ān emerges as having been produced by a team of scribes. Originally it consisted in a great number of loose oracles, multiplied and distributed to Muḥammad’s closest family and Companions. Each one kept the sheets (ṣuḥuf) he or she received into an unsewn dossier. These texts were only to be assembled (ǧama‘a) and codified (into one nusḫa) a century after the Prophet’s death, probably during the reign of ‘Abd al-Malik. This gradual and retarded codification enables us to explain the entangled and confused, but nevertheless internally stable character of the text.

p. 163 - Motia ZOUIHAL, Les liens du ribāṭ du šayḫ al-šuyūḫ avec la niẓāmiyya de Bagdad

Who was Abu Sa’d, [later appointed] šayḫ al-šuyūḫ of Bagdad ? What was his real role in the creation of the niẓāmiyya madrasa of Bagdad ? And what were the links between his ribāṭ and this madrasa ? The present article is an attempt to answer the previous questions and cast a new look on the renowned institution.