Glossary

Modern diagram of Hupasiya’s two relationships in the first account: helping Inara and wanting to return to his wife and children. The ending is marked as damaged; no unpreserved fate or portrait is supplied

Person

Hupasiya

Inara’s human helper in the first Hittite Illuyanka account, who binds the serpent after the feast.

صيغ للاسم: Hupasiya، Hupashiya

Hurrian-language incantation tablet from Ras Shamra, about 1400–1200 BCE, Louvre AO 12016. Rama, 20 October 2007. Evidence of Hurrian at Ugarit, not the Kumarbi-song tablet

Entity

Hurrians

Ancient Near Eastern groups and language, prominent in northern Mesopotamia, the Levant and Anatolia in the second millennium BCE.

صيغ للاسم: Hurrians

Modern illustrated glossary of later technical usage. Meanings changed between authors; modern psychological person is no automatic equivalent of ancient hypostasis. The diagram does not depict the divine being

Entity

Hypostasis

Term later used for distinguishing Father, Son and Spirit within one divinity.

صيغ للاسم: hypostasis، hypostases

The south area at Çatalhöyük in 2003, under a modern shelter, during the project Ian Hodder directed. Not his portrait and not the houses while they were occupied

Person

Ian Hodder

An archaeologist who directed the Çatalhöyük project from 1993 to 2018 and read its buildings as houses of dwelling and memory, not necessarily separate temples.

صيغ للاسم: Ian Hodder

The Whiteknights campus of the University of Reading, with the Humanities and Social Sciences building, 10 November 2007. A view of the university associated with Ian Rutherford’s work

Person

Ian Rutherford

Specialist in Greek literature and religion at the University of Reading, studying contacts with Anatolia and Egypt.

صيغ للاسم: Ian Rutherford

Title page of volume 1 of the Egyptian al-Manar printing of Ibn Kathir's commentary, 1343–1347 AH/c. 1924–1928 CE; a later printed edition, not a fourteenth-century image

Person

Ibn Kathir

Syrian Qur'anic exegete and historian (c. 1301–1373 CE) who favors Ishmael in his reading of the sacrifice account.

صيغ للاسم: Isma'il ibn 'Umar Ibn Kathir

Person

Ibn Taymiyya

Hanbali Muslim scholar (1263–1328) based in Damascus, who wrote on interpretation, law and theology; modern research considers his influence on identifying Abraham's son in the sacrifice story.

صيغ للاسم: Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya، Ibn Taymiyyah

Seated god, possibly El; Ugarit, 1400–1300 BCE according to the catalogue; gold-covered bronze, RS 23.394 / S3573. Catalogue information names Damascus Museum in 2011; current whereabouts not verified here. Attribution to El remains tentative

Entity

Iconography

Study of images, their attributes and contexts; resemblance alone does not prove identity.

صيغ للاسم: iconography، iconographic identification

Labour, revolt and human creation at the opening of Atrahasis, as summarized by ORACC’s Igigi entry. Modern literary-context diagram, not historical events or fixed membership

Entity

Igigi

Collective divine name in Akkadian sources, attested from the Old Babylonian period; its relationship to Anunnaki varies by text.

صيغ للاسم: Igigi

Detail of the entrance and modern architectural relief at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago, on 11 November 2023. The institute moved into this building in 1931; Ignace J. Gelb’s work was associated with the institution from 1929. The relief belongs to the twentieth-century architecture

Person

Ignace J. Gelb

University of Chicago Assyriologist (1907–1985), studying ancient languages, writing and personal names, including Amorite names.

صيغ للاسم: Ignace Gelb، Ignace J. Gelb

Historical portrait of Ignazio Guidi (1844–1935), from Wikimedia Commons. The file record credits the Italian Chamber of Deputies but does not identify the artist. CC BY 3.0

Person

Ignazio Guidi

Italian scholar (1844–1935) who edited Syriac forms of the Sleepers story and translated one into Italian.

صيغ للاسم: Ignazio Guidi، Guidi

Fragment of the Hawara papyrus preserving Iliad 2.757–775, about 150 CE. A witness to the epic’s transmission in the Roman period; its date is not the date of composition

Entity

Iliad

Greek epic attributed to Homer, narrating a phase of the Trojan War.

صيغ للاسم: Iliad

Modern distinction between Ilimilku’s scribal work and the origin of recorded traditions; no portrait or claim that he invented the myths

Entity

Ilimilku

Ugaritic scribe associated with the Baal Cycle, Kirta and Aqhat; handwriting and colophons aid attribution. His work alone does not date the traditions’ origins.

صيغ للاسم: Ilimilku، Ili-milku، Ilumilku

Modern diagram separating the two CTH 321 Illuyanka versions; neither a tablet photograph nor a portrait of the serpent

Entity

Illuyanka

The serpent opposed by the storm god in two Hittite narratives preserved in CTH 321.

صيغ للاسم: Illuyanka

Alternative parentage of Inanna in different traditions, according to ORACC. Modern teaching diagram, not three simultaneous branches of one family tree

Entity

Inanna / Ishtar

Prominent Mesopotamian goddess with a major centre at Uruk, whose parentage and cult traditions vary rather than forming one fixed genealogy.

صيغ للاسم: Inanna، Inana، Ishtar، Ištar

Modern narrative diagram of Inara, Hupasiya and the storm god cooperating in the first Illuyanka account. Arrows show successive roles in the story; not an artifact or a reconstruction of divine appearances

Entity

Inara

Goddess in Hittite traditions who plans the feast enabling the serpent’s defeat in the first Illuyanka account.

صيغ للاسم: Inara

Alternatives can overlap; this diagram does not document a particular narrative’s route

Entity

Independent development

Similar elements arising without historical transmission between them.

صيغ للاسم: Independent development

Modern comparison of breathing, clapping and command in specified versions; no direct transmission route established

Ancient text

Infancy Gospel of Thomas

Accounts of Jesus’ boyhood, distinct from the sayings Gospel of Thomas.

صيغ للاسم: Infancy Gospel of Thomas

Limestone ostracon bearing the opening of the Instruction of Amenemope in hieratic; evidence for copying the text in Persian-period Egypt, not its original manuscript. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26.3.165, institutional CC0 image via Wikimedia Commons; display derivative resized and converted to WebP

Ancient text

Instruction of Amenemope

Thirty-chapter Egyptian wisdom instruction preserved on a British Museum papyrus and scribal exercises; compared with Proverbs 22:17–23:11.

صيغ للاسم: Instruction of Amenemope، Wisdom of Amenemope

Modern comparison of intermediary arguments with the permission condition. Neither denial of all intercession nor a complete history of interpretation. [18][19][25][9]

Entity

Intercession

Mediation subject in the cited Quranic texts to permission and approval, not divine independence.

صيغ للاسم: intercession، intercessor، mediation

Modern abstract section: a burial cuts the floor, which is closed and used again. A grave physically below the house does not establish the origin of a cosmic underworld. Not an excavated-house plan

Entity

Intramural burial

Deposition of the dead within a settlement’s built area; burial beneath a domestic floor is one form.

صيغ للاسم: intramural burial، subfloor burial، residential burial

Second-century BCE Boeotian bowl with scenes from Iphigenia at Aulis, The Met 31.11.2. It does not show the deer substitution in Iphigenia among the Taurians

Person

Iphigenia

Mythic and dramatic daughter of Agamemnon. In Iphigenia among the Taurians, Artemis rescues her at the altar and substitutes a deer.

صيغ للاسم: Iphigeneia

Ruins of Darius’s palace at Persepolis in southwestern Iran, 24 September 2016. They belong to the Achaemenid period; construction of the site’s complex began around 518 BCE. This is one ancient Iranian site, distinct from Susa mentioned in the definition

Site

Iran

Iran is the modern country containing Shush, ancient Susa

صيغ للاسم: Iran

The Tigris in Baghdad, Iraq, on the evening of 29 December 2021. A modern river and city view illustrating the present geographical setting of Mesopotamia

Site

Iraq

Iraq is a modern country encompassing much of ancient Mesopotamia

صيغ للاسم: Iraq، modern Iraq

Person

Irenaeus of Lyon

Late-second-century Christian writer who mentioned the child Jesus and a teacher.

صيغ للاسم: Irenaeus of Lyon

Winged Iris on a Greek vase, about 500–490 BCE; Louvre L 43. An ancient representation of the divine messenger named in the Iliad

Entity

Iris

Greek divine messenger who conveys Zeus’s command to Poseidon in the Iliad.

صيغ للاسم: Iris

Rembrandt's etching Abraham and Isaac, 1645, The Met 29.107.26. A dialogue imagined by the artist centuries after the text

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.

صيغ للاسم: Yitzhak، Ishaq

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

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.

صيغ للاسم: Ismail، Yishmael

Person

Ittai Gradel

Roman historian (1965–2026) and coauthor of a study of rings bearing a Solomonic formula.

صيغ للاسم: Ittai Gradel

Kirkland Hall at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on 26 October 2023. The photograph shows part of the institution associated with Jack M. Sasson’s work in biblical studies and Assyriology

Person

Jack M. Sasson

Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern cultures scholar, Vanderbilt professor emeritus, also specializing in Mari’s archives.

صيغ للاسم: Jack Sasson، Jack M. Sasson

Jacob Milgrom, the Hebrew Bible scholar known for his research on Leviticus, offerings and purity. The source record dates this portrait to 13 September 1995 and credits Dr. Jo Milgrom

Person

Jacob Milgrom

Jewish biblical scholar (1923–2010), noted for studies of Leviticus, priestly traditions, purity and offerings.

صيغ للاسم: Jacob Milgrom

Modern method diagram: narrated Decius/Theodosius differ from homily composition and surviving copy. John is a named Latin intermediary; no particular copy route into Qur’an proven

Person

Jacob of Serugh

Syriac author of the late fifth and early sixth centuries, credited with a homily on the youths of Ephesus.

صيغ للاسم: Jacob of Serugh، Jacob of Sarug

University Hall at Brown University, Rhode Island, in a photograph dated 1 April 1997. It illustrates the university that Egyptologist James P. Allen joined in 2007

Person

James P. Allen

Egyptologist and Brown professor emeritus, studying ancient Egyptian language, literature and religion, including the Pyramid Texts.

صيغ للاسم: James Allen، James P. Allen

The Rotunda and Lawn, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 14 March 2011. Institutional context for Jenny Strauss Clay; a campus view, not her portrait

Person

Jenny Strauss Clay

Professor emerita at the University of Virginia, specializing in early Greek poetry and its gods and human–divine relations.

صيغ للاسم: Jenny Strauss Clay

Plastered skull from Jericho, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, displayed at the British Museum. An ancient modeled face on human remains, not a modern facial reconstruction

Site

Jericho / Tell es-Sultan

Archaeological mound near present-day Jericho in Palestine’s Jordan Valley, preserving early Neolithic settlement and Bronze Age layers.

صيغ للاسم: Tell es-Sultan

Jerusalem’s Old City seen from the north, photographed on 20 July 2012. The Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives appear in the background. This modern view brings together landmarks from several periods; it differs from the city in the time of the kingdom of Judah

Site

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is a city of religious importance in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

صيغ للاسم: Jerusalem

Christ between two angels in a sixth-century mosaic at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. He is shown seated above a blue sphere in a cosmic scene. Photograph by José Luiz, 17 September 2016

Person

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is Christianity’s central figure, who lived in the first century CE

صيغ للاسم: Jesus Christ

Person

Jillian Stinchcomb

Scholar of biblical reception who studies the Queen of Sheba across Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions.

صيغ للاسم: Jillian Stinchcomb

Modern diagram of John the Syrian's role in the Latin narrative's ending: an interpreter assisting Gregory. Greek or Syriac as the source language remains debated. This is neither a portrait nor a chain of transmission to the Qur'an

Person

John the Syrian, Gregory's interpreter

Interpreter named in the ending of the Latin Sleepers of Ephesus account, dated to the sixth century CE.

صيغ للاسم: John the Syrian

Roman marble table base depicting Jonah swallowed and cast up by a marine creature, early fourth century CE. Metropolitan Museum,77.7, public-domain photograph. Evidence of Christian artistic reception, not an artifact from the prophet’s time or identification of his fish’s species

Entity

Jonah / Yunus

Prophetic figure in Jonah and the Qur’an; distinguish the Kings notice from the book’s composition and later reception.

صيغ للاسم: Jonah son of Amittai، prophet Jonah، Yunus