1. Revisit Sennacherib's annals. What do we learn about the Neo-Assyrian Empire culturally from his text? About rhetorical practices?
Enuma Elish: http://www.ancient.eu/article/225/ (from which themes "were appropriated to provide a propagandistic undertone to Sennacherib's accounts" (72).
Code of Hammurabi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi (includes good images)
See also chapter on cuneiform in The Story of Writing
2. Note: ancient Near East includes what we today call the Middle East. It included Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. (See historical maps)
Example of story-list-sanction in the Famine Stela (p.201)
image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_Stela#/media/File:Famine_stela.jpg
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/prec/www/course/egypt/274RH/Texts/The%20Famine%20Stela.htm
3.Write: What useful generalizations can we make from our readings on Mesopotamian rhetorics and our first Near Eastern reading? What kinds of texts are available for study? What approaches have been used? What ways of thinking about the history of rhetoric does this set of readings offer?