Banca de DEFESA: RUAN KLEBERSON PEREIRA DA SILVA

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : RUAN KLEBERSON PEREIRA DA SILVA
DATE: 08/05/2026
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: Meet - Online
TITLE:

The architectural space of neo-assyrian palaces as a vehicle for Cultural Memory

KEY WORDS:

Neo-Assyrian reliefs; Neo-Assyrian palaces; Architectural space; Cultural Memory.

PAGES: 450
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: História
SUMMARY:

Neo-Assyrian imperial palaces were not merely administrative or power centers, but vehicles for
the production and preservation of cultural memory. Their architectural space, composed of
parietal reliefs and epigraphic and cuneiform inscriptions, functioned as mnemonic devices
intended to preserve an official memory of the Assyrian royalty, its king, and its people,
highlighting imperial hegemony and divine order, projecting these messages both to the
contemporary audience and to posterity. Reliefs and inscriptions are not treated as objects, but as
living things, bearers of material agency, interacting with humans and architectural environments,
shaping minds and behaviors, effecting a process of Material Engagement in which these artifacts
– despite various possible “deviations from the path” – remain active in the present, intertwined.
This paper proposes a “Brazilian Assyriology,” produced from the Northeast of Brazil, questioning
the Eurocentric and Orientalist view that reduced Assyria to a stereotype of barbarism and
violence. It defends a pluralistic perspective that recognizes the realities of the Assyrian imperial structure, expressed in the composition of official texts and images as part of a negotiated political
strategy of hegemony and an apotropaic device to maintain Cosmic Equilibrium and the prevailing
social order. The impressive force of these material records allows for the analysis of the circularity
of Assyrian memory in the contemporary world, since the Assyrian past reappears in
contemporary art productions; in the recognition and valorization of Mesopotamian historical,
archaeological, and cultural heritage in the face of the scourge of destroyed monuments; in the
fostering of contemporary national identities animated by the recovery of publicly recognizable
Assyrian symbols; in appropriations and promotion of propaganda and legitimation of political
power; and as part of Brazilian culture, identifiable in architecture and literature. These aspects
attest that Assyria is a past that has not been lost, but continues to flow along a meshwork or a set
of vines, connecting different times and spaces through its material and mnemonic traces.

 

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