The Idea of an Archetype in Texts Stemming from the Empire Founded by Cyrus the Great
The Idea of an Archetype in Texts Stemming from the Empire Founded by Cyrus the Great
The text of the so-called Cyrus Cylinder, as well as other writings that stem from the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great, is based on the idea of an archetype. When I say archetype here, I have in mind a text that is meant as a model for other texts that serve as copies of this model. As we will see, the idea of such a model text does not necessarily match the reality of an original text that is copied. What I just said seems at first to be self-evident, since the act of copying something does not require the copying of an original. What you are copying may already be a copy. But the very idea of an archetype is not self-evident. As I will argue, this idea goes beyond the reality of some text that someone copies for the first time in order to make another text, which can then be copied again to make still another text, and so on. When I say idea here, I will try to keep in mind the Theory
Keywords: Plato, Cyrus Cylinder, kings
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