Ricerc@Sapienza

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.

The paper analyses the physical and ideological use of sight in Ebla, during public ceremonies of kingship both in the third and in the second millennium BC. In the author's opinion, the use of sight, which was in part "natural" and in part ideologically created, was used in order to enhance the concept of kingship, the perception of roles in society and the feeling of appurtenance at different levels in all the participants.