Sensing the Past. Detecting the Use of the Five Senses in Ancient Near Eastern Contexts

The volume collects the papers presented during the International conference “Sensing the Past. Detecting the Use of the Five Senses in Ancient Contexts”, held in Rome on June 4th 2018. Our attempt was to verify if, based on the presentation of specific case studies, through which it might be possible to identify some element – limited in time and spaces for thus possibly more reliable – of a “conscience of the perceptions” in the ancient Near East. Through specific discussions dedicated to Sight (Pinnock and D’Andrea), Hearing (Nadali, Verderame, Rendu Loisel, Laneri), Touching (Di Paolo and Collins), Taste (Vacca) and Smell (Buccellati), next to considerations on the use and contribution of the five senses for the comprehension of emotional aspects and matters of the ancient societies (Wagner-Durand), we believe we are offering a useful contribution to the beginning of a contextualised discussion about perceptions in the ancient Near East, from the perspective of archaeology, material culture and philology. The papers collected in the volume face in fact the challenge of making the immaterial material, even of those senses that are mostly considered invisible, silent, untouchable and no longer detectable due to their ephemeral nature.