Date of Completion: May 2012
Summary:
The dissertation examines over 1600 instances of vision verbs compiled from the Mesopotamian literary corpus and reveals that Sumerian and Akkadian both differentiate between inward-moving visual perception (i.e. sight) and outward-moving visual action (i.e. gaze). Moreover, each language has at least one verbal formulation that refers to gaze that has the capacity to affect its object. This influential gaze is under the almost exclusive purview of the gods and is subject in its use to strict hierarchical restrictions whereby it is always exerted by a higher-status being on a being of lower status and never the reverse. The dissertation establishes more precise definitions for Sumerian and Akkadian verbs of vision, uncovers Mesopotamian ideas about power and status, and proposes, based on the incidence of influential gaze, that Mesopotamians distinguished gods from human beings as active from passive.