Category موضوعي
Comparative narratives and law
Comparative studies of religious narratives, creation, laws and wisdom in ancient texts and later traditions, distinguishing resemblance and shared traditions from demonstrated or debated transmission.
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Original photograph
Site
Aulis
Ancient place on the Boeotian coast near the Euripus Strait in Greece; setting of Iphigenia's Greek story and site of a fifth-century BCE Artemis temple.
Artemis sanctuary remains at Aulis, Greece; George E. Koronaios, 2021. Evidence for a cult site, not for Iphigenia's episode
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Illustration
Literary figure
Agamemnon
Figure of Greek narrative, commander of the expedition to Troy and Iphigenia's father in Euripides; the play does not independently establish his historicity.
Agamemnon Musters the Greek Troops at Aulis, later European Story of Iphigenia tapestry, The Met 226955; artistic reception, not historical evidence for the figure
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Illustration
Person
Sarah
Abraham's wife and Isaac's mother in Genesis; her story with Hagar and Ishmael appears in chapters 16 and 21, not in the Genesis 22 scene itself.
Georg Pencz, Sarah Presenting Hagar to Abraham, ca. 1543, The Met 2012.136.766.2; later artistic depiction
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Illustration
Person
Hagar
Figure in Genesis: an Egyptian woman in Sarah and Abraham's household and Ishmael's mother; chapters 16 and 21 narrate her flight and later expulsion and survival.
Camille Corot, Hagar in the Wilderness, 1835, The Met 38.64; later artistic depiction of Genesis, not a historical likeness
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Illustration
Person
Ishmael
Son of Hagar and Abraham in Genesis; later Muslim interpretation identified him with the unnamed son in Qur'an 37's sacrifice scene.
George Richmond's Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness, 1829–33, The Met 2002.119a,b. Later artistic reception of Genesis, not a historical likeness
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Illustration
Person
Isaac
Son of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis; named explicitly in Genesis 22's sacrifice episode, while named after the unnamed-son scene in Qur'an 37.
Rembrandt's etching Abraham and Isaac, 1645, The Met 29.107.26. A dialogue imagined by the artist centuries after the text
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Illustration
Person
Abraham
Central figure in Genesis, the Qur'an and Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions; the sacrifice study compares what each text says about him.
Agostino Veneziano's engraving Abraham's Sacrifice, 1516–18, The Met 17.50.16-80. Later European artistic reception, not a historical likeness
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Original photograph
Site
Tauris
Ancient Greek name for Taurian territory on the Black Sea, associated with today's Crimean peninsula; the setting of Euripides' Iphigenia play.
Rocky Black Sea coast in the Crimean peninsula, modern photograph. Regional context for Tauris, not the site of Iphigenia's temple in the play
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Illustration
Study
A story's date is not its manuscript's date: how do we date ancient texts?
A story and its surviving manuscript may be centuries apart. Examples from Sargon, the flood, Enoch and the Qur'an explain how we date each stage.
Original IL Archive diagram of four distinct historical clocks: narrated event, composition, copy and material support. Modern methodological artwork, not a manuscript or artifact image
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Illustration
Entity
Radiocarbon dating
A probabilistic date range for organic material; for parchment it dates animal skin rather than ink directly.
Original clock diagram for dating organic material; it does not reproduce the Birmingham manuscript
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Original photograph
Study
Typhon and the storm-god battles: Illuyanka, Baal, and the limits of resemblance
How do Illuyanka, Baal and Zeus–Typhon battles resemble one another? Hittite, Ugaritic and Greek accounts, dated witnesses, stolen body parts and possible paths of contact.
Zeus confronts Typhon on a Greek hydria of the sixth century BCE, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich, 596. Photograph by Bibi Saint-Pol, 9 February 2007; a witness to the story’s artistic representation
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Illustration
Entity
Typhon / Typhoeus
Zeus's serpent-headed opponent, whose battle differs between Hesiod and later Greek accounts.
Modern diagram separating Hesiod's Typhoeus from the later sinew episode; not an ancient depiction
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Illustration
Entity
Illuyanka
The serpent opposed by the storm god in two Hittite narratives preserved in CTH 321.
Modern diagram separating the two CTH 321 Illuyanka versions; neither a tablet photograph nor a portrait of the serpent
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Illustration
Study
Kumarbi and Kronos: divine generations and the succession of kingship
The Hittite Kumarbi song and Hesiod’s Kronos–Zeus narrative: succession, swallowing and birth, the dates of damaged witnesses, and possible routes of story circulation.
Original IL Archive comparison of succession in CTH 344 and Hesiod's Theogony. The broken line by Teššub marks the missing final enthronement in the Hittite text; the question mark marks the unproven transmission route. This is not an ancient artifact
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Illustration
Ancient text
Hesiod’s Theogony
Greek poem on divine generations and Zeus’s kingship; its surviving form does not identify all of Hesiod’s sources.
Modern map of selected Theogony passages; verse order does not prove a transmission route
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Illustration
Entity
Kumarbi
Hurrian divine figure in Hittite CTH 344; challenges Anu and carries the storm god after swallowing his seed.
Modern succession diagram for CTH 344; neither a proven father–son genealogy nor an ancient portrait of Kumarbi
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Original photograph
Study
Divine assemblies in the Levant and Greece: resemblance and transmission limits
Councils of El, Baal and Zeus: how feasts, messengers and decisions move Ugaritic and Homeric stories, and what chronology and Phoenician–Greek contact help explain.
Volute-krater attributed to the Capodimonte Painter; South Italian Apulian, about 320–310 BCE. Front: divine assembly above Amazonomachy. Not Ugarit’s council or a particular Homeric scene
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Original photograph
Entity
Zeus
Zeus is the sky god and leading deity in many Greek traditions. In the Iliad he presides over divine gatherings while others can still speak and object.
Greek marble head, third or second century BCE. The Metropolitan Museum identifies the deity as probably Zeus; the attribution is uncertain, and the object postdates the Iliad's formation
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Illustration
Entity
Divine assembly type-scene
A way to analyse a recurring assembly scene in narrative, while its purpose, speakers and decision vary.
Modern explanatory diagram comparing functions of particular Ugaritic, Iliadic and Odyssean scenes: message, dispute and feast, forbidding or permitting intervention, and a return decision. A tool for reading narratives, rather than independent evidence of transmission
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Original photograph
Study
The son and the sacrifice: how Abraham’s story changed
How does Abraham's sacrifice story differ between Genesis and the Qur'an? A historical comparison of Jewish, Christian and Islamic retellings of the son, his rescue and the animal substitute.
The Sacrifice of Isaac, tapestry attributed to a workshop funded by William Sheldon, probably 1561–1613. Later depiction, not an artifact of the event
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Illustration
Entity
Sacrificial substitution
An offering replaces a person or another offering in a particular text; this alone establishes neither ritual origin nor borrowing.
Original diagram distinguishes text, interpretation, hypothesis and practice; comparison is not proof of borrowing or event
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Illustration
Entity
Akedah (binding of Isaac)
Jewish designation for Isaac’s binding in Genesis 22, developing through retelling and prayer.
Modern diagram comparing explicit textual features; not a proven transmission route or final composition order
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AI-generated
Study
Gog and Magog: from Ezekiel to the enclosed nations
Leader, land, nations and barrier: Genesis, Ezekiel and Revelation through Alexander, the Quran and hadith, with Gyges, Marduk and witness dates examined.
Modern generated illustration of a barrier between mountains; neither a discovered artifact nor an identification of the narratives’ barrier
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Illustration
Entity
Enclosed nations
Narrative motif of peoples beyond a barrier until their release, not a fixed ethnic name.
Modern method diagram distinguishing text, interpretation and copy dates; the rows do not give one date for the story
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Illustration
Entity
Gog and Magog
Names with different roles in genealogies, invasion prophecy, end-time nations and barrier traditions.
Modern comparison of names and barriers in specified texts; no identification of a living people or proof of a complete transmission chain
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Original photograph
Study
Solomon, spirits and birds: from Kings to the Talmud and Quran
Wisdom, rings, Ashmedai and the queen: texts and dates, from Josephus and the Testament of Solomon to birds, subjugation and the limits of unseen knowledge.
Bronze mirror, 12th–13th century; the museum interprets its scene as Solomon and his demons. Met 1978.348.2; public domain
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Illustration
Entity
Targum Sheni of Esther
An Aramaic translation and expansion of Esther containing an excursus on Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
Modern comparison of Eleazar’s and the Testament’s rings, nest and chamber glass, and Solomon’s roles; resemblance does not decide dependence
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Illustration
Entity
Testament of Solomon
A Greek pseudepigraphal text about Solomon commanding spirits and building the Temple, preserved in different forms.
Modern method diagram: manuscript, work and modern research dates differ; these rows do not prove a transmission chain
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Original photograph
Study
Birds from clay: Jesus, infancy accounts and the Quran
Thomas’ sparrows, Arabic and Armenian infancy accounts, Al Imran and Al Maidah: actions and dates, from an ancient papyrus to transmission questions.
Greek papyrus fragment P.Hamb.Graec.1011 before the joining fragment published in 2025
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Illustration
Ancient text
Arabic Infancy Gospel
Collection about Jesus’ childhood overlapping other accounts without being the same work.
Modern method diagram: work origins, manuscript and edition dates differ; no proven transmission chain
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Illustration
Ancient text
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Accounts of Jesus’ boyhood, distinct from the sayings Gospel of Thomas.
Modern comparison of breathing, clapping and command in specified versions; no direct transmission route established
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Original photograph
Study
Mary and the palm: accounts, dates and limits of the relationship
Surah Maryam, Pseudo-Matthew, Dormition traditions, Leto and Apollo: birth, journey and tree miracle, distinguishing composition, manuscript and episode dates.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a drawing by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, around 1770. It documents a later depiction, not the story's early date
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Illustration
Ancient text
Book of Mary’s Repose
Christian work within Mary’s Dormition traditions.
Modern method: six tests of proposed transmission; a book date does not date every chapter, and a copy does not date a story’s invention
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Illustration
Ancient text
Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
Latin work on Mary and Jesus’ childhood, distinct from canonical Matthew.
Modern comparison: labour and shaking in Maryam, journey and bending in Pseudo-Matthew; resemblance does not settle the source
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Original photograph
Study
Moses and the servant of God: the fish and water of life
Quran, hadith, al-Tabari, the Alexander Poem and Talmud: recurring fish motifs, different functions, and the evidence needed to establish transmission.
Elias and Khizr at the Fountain of Life in a Persian Shahnama manuscript painting from the late fifteenth century. It depicts a later reception of the life-water story
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Illustration
Ancient text
Syriac Alexander Poem
Poetic work about Alexander and life-water, distinct from the long Romance and prose Legend; attribution and date require examination.
Modern comparison: fish marks the meeting in al-Kahf, tests life-water in the Poem; fragrance signals Eden in Tamid. Different functions
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Illustration
Person
Khidr
Name of the servant in Islamic reports about Moses’ journey; al-Kahf leaves him unnamed.
Modern method diagram: verses, reports, commentary and reception are distinct layers; later names are not Quranic wording
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Original photograph
Study
Dhul Qarnayn and Alexander traditions: texts, dating and debate
Sun, horns, metal gate, Gog and Magog: comparing al-Kahf with the Syriac Legend, distinguishing narrative relationship from a proven source and historical identity.
Alexander’s head with ram’s horn on Lysimachos coin, 297–281 BCE; Met 05.44.430. Posthumous Hellenistic image, not an identified Dhul Qarnayn portrait
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Illustration
Ancient text
Syriac Christian Alexander Legend
Christian prose narrative of Alexander’s journeys and the gate restraining nations; distinct from Romance and Poem, with debated dating.
Modern method diagram: Alexander356–323BCE;proposed sixth/seventh-century layers;Budge manuscript1708–1709;edition1889. Dates have distinct functions
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Original photograph
Person
Alexander the Great
Macedonian king who lived from 356 to 323 BCE and became a hero of stories in different languages and traditions after his death.
Alexander’s head with ram’s horn on Lysimachos coin, 297–281 BCE; Met 05.44.430. Posthumous Hellenistic image, not an identified Dhul Qarnayn portrait
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