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Archaic Myths of the Orient and the Occident. By IGOR M. DIAKONOFF: Orientalia Gothoburgensia, 10. Goteborg, Sweden: ACTA UNIVERSITATIS GOTHOBURGENSIS, 1995. Pp. 216. SK 180 (paper).
I. M. Diakonoff is best known to American readers as a scholar of ancient languages and of social and economic history of ancient western Asia. Even the diligent reader of his enormous output may feel initial surprise to meet him on the terrain of the mythographer, standing, as it were, backstage of his previous work. "The creation of myths is connected with the general forms of existence of archaic man and with his environment, irrespective of the particular language and ethnic origin of the tribes in question," he writes (p. 118). For Diakonoff, then, "Indo-European" or "Semitic" mythology are reworkings of human expression far older and more universal than in the forms now known, so it is a truncation (hence polemic with Dumezil) to posit the origins of the myths now known in specific peoples or regions, however interesting the later local forms may be in their own right. For Diakonoff, myth is "an emotionally charged interpretation of the world's phenomena in terms of events" (p. 87), that is, making sense of influences of the outside world and expressing reaction to them. These might include defining one's place in the world; positive, or more commonly negative, reaction to the notion "what is this?"; hunger; defense; cooperation; aggression; desire to eliminate physical discomfort; desire to satisfy sexual needs. Long...