On December 15, 2010, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the international conference "Problems of the History and Culture of the Ancient East", organized by the Department of History and Culture of the Ancient East of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The conference was dedicated to the memory of G. M. Bongard-Levin. Scientists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Kharkiv and Minsk took part in its work.

The plenary session was opened by Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors. Director of the Institute of Information Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, corresponding member. V. M. Alpatov, Deputy Head of the Russian Academy of Sciences. V. Ya.Belokrenitsky, Head of the Institute of Information Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Department of History and Culture of the Ancient East of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences V. P. Androsov, Head of the Center for Indian Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences T. L. Shaumyan, Corresponding member. RAS M. A. Dandamaev.

V. M. Alpatov highly appreciated G. M. Bongard-Levin's contribution to Russian science. Welcoming the participants of the conference, he stressed that the topics of the reports cover a wide range of modern Oriental studies disciplines, which perfectly reflects the diversity of interests of Grigory Maksimovich Bongard-Levin.

V. Ya. Belokrenitsky drew attention to the enormous efficiency of G. M. Bongard-Levin, permanent Chairman of the Dissertation Council of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1987, and permanent editor-in-chief of Vestnik Drevnoi Istorii since 1989.

T. L. Shaumyan shared her memories of meeting G. M. Bongard-Levin (a friendly and witty graduate student of the Department of Oriental Studies at the Faculty of History of Moscow State University) in 1954. Tatyana Lvovna admitted that it was thanks to Grigory Maksimovich and Yu. M. Alikhanov (a specialist in Sanskrit and Ancient India), with whom she became friends while still a tenth-grader, that she dedicated her life to a life of learning about the history and culture of India. Tatyana Lvovna considers it a great success for herself that for the first time, already as a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies (then the Institute of Asian Peoples), she came to India in 1975 at the same time as G. M. Bongard - Levin. T. L. Shaumian still has the best memories of that trip to Delhi, Gwalior and Bhopal.

* Abstracts were prepared for the opening of the conference: "Problems of the history and culture of the Ancient East". December 15, 2011 Moscow, IV RAS Publ., 2010.

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M. A. Dandamaev (IVR RAS, St. Petersburg) noted the exceptional role of G. M. Bongard-Levin as an organizer of science, who was able to find a way out of very difficult situations that his friends and colleagues often found themselves in. He noted that Grigory Maksimovich has always remained a loyal friend and assistant.

V. P. Androsov addressed his speech primarily to young scientists, described the main works from the extensive bibliography of Grigory Maksimovich's works, which testify to the scale of his personality. Particularly noted were: the main book of the life of G. M. Bongard-Levin (co-authored with G. F. Ilyin) "Ancient India", published in 1969; " India in Ancient Times "(also jointly with G. F. Ilyin), as well as published by him together with E. A. Grantovsky and immediately became very popular "From Scythia to India".

Several reports were also heard during the plenary session.

E. N. Komarov (IB RAS) in his report "Individualism and religious universalism in ancient and medieval India" focused on the exclusivity of India, which is characterized by religious universalism even at the highest state level. The author analyzes the social background and historical significance of this phenomenon. E. N. Komarov concludes that secularism as a constitutional principle of modern India was created on the basis of a positive tradition recorded by ancient and medieval sources.

The report of D. D. Belyaev and A. I. Davletshin (both RSUH) "Harappan writing: the current state of research" was devoted to the interpretation of approximately 3,700 Harappan inscriptions known to scientists at the moment. The authors of the report noted that most of the inscriptions (about 2 thousand) are made on seals, and the longest texts contain a sequence of 20-30 characters. To solve the fundamental question of whether Harappan signs can be considered written, it was proposed to compare them with the Zapotec script (III century BC-VII century AD) and the Teotihuacan script (II-VII centuries AD).

The plenary session was closed by the report of G. E. Kurtik (IIET RAS) "The history of the mathematical zodiac in the astronomy of ancient Mesopotamia". It addressed a number of issues: 1) early evidence of the introduction of the mathematical zodiac of the fifth century BC; 2) mathematical zodiac in observational and mathematical astronomy of the fourth and first centuries BC; 3) the origin of the 12-quotient division of the zodiac, its connection with the schematic calendar.

Further, the conference was organized in several areas, grouped into three sections.

During the first section, 11 reports were heard.

A.V. Safronov (IB RAS) in his report "On the question of the author of the letter RS 34.129" critically analyzed the traditional interpretation of the authorship of the Ugaritic letter text, in which an unnamed Hittite king appeals to the prefect of Ugarit with a request to transfer to Hattusa the dignitary Ibiadusha, who was held captive by the "people of Shikalayu" and, apparently, bought by the Ugarit authorities A. V. Safronov believes that the author of the letter is not Suppiluliuma II, but one of his predecessors. It cannot be anyone but Tudhalia IV.

The report of V. A. Golovina (IVI RAS) "Calf-print" from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA 10. 130-164) " was devoted to the analysis of steatite puffer (vye. 2.6 cm) of a reclining calf, on the horseshoe-shaped base of which is carved the inscription " Khor S [ankh]-ib-tawi, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, son of Ra Mentu (hotep)", which refers to the object as exceptional in its historical value, since it includes two elements of the royal name that belonged to the ruler of the XI dynasty: personal the name "Mentuhotep" with the "solar filiation" ("son of Ra") prefixed to it, enclosed in a cartouche, and the Choral name "Chorus that makes the heart of Both Lands (=Egypt) live". The combination of names is relevant to the long-debated problem of the" three choral names " of the king (kings?) with the personal name Mentuhotep. The author of the report noted that the inscription on the base connects the "calf" from the MMA collection with the king who later bore the throne name Nebhepetra (i.e., Mentuhotep II) - one of the most important ancient Egyptian kings, the unifier of Egypt after the collapse of the Old Kingdom and the turmoil of the 1st transition period and the creator of what we call the Middle Kingdom the kingdom. The inscription on the" calf " contains the rarest evidence of the initial phase of the reign of Mentuhotep II, associated with the early form of his choral name and, therefore, preceding the actual adoption by him between the 14th and 39th years of the reign of the titulature of the "general Egyptian" king. The inscription on the base also provides a rare opportunity for accurate dating of the small glyptic object: in this form, it could have appeared only before the 14th year of the reign of Mentuhotep II (i.e., until 2044 BC), after which the latter already bore the "second" of his "choral" names. Semantics of the object image (appearance

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According to the author of the report, it is connected with the significant elevation of the goddess Hathor during the reign of Mentuhotep II, who was revered, among other things, as the mother of her divine calf (i.e., the king). Conventionally referred to as a" seal", the" calf " from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection belongs to a class of objects widely represented in ancient times, for which the dual functions of an amulet and a seal are assumed. After analyzing the features of the inscription on the base of the "calf", as well as comparing it with the typological Middle Bulgarian analogies, V. A. Golovina came to the conclusion that this "seal" is mainly sacred (apotropical) and that it is used primarily (and possibly exclusively). like an amulet.

I. A. Ladynin (MSU) in the report " Tearcon/Taharqa, in the report of Megasthenes (FGrHist. 715. F. 11a = Strab. XV. 1. 6-8), "investigated the structure and logical connections within the fragment of Megasthenes' work on India (known in the transmission of two ancient authors-Strabo and Arrian), which justified the thesis that it was never conquered by anyone, except for mythological heroes and Alexander the Great. According to the speaker, Strabo preserved the factography of the fragment of Megasthenes more fully, while attaching little importance to the logic of its presentation; in Arrian, on the contrary, the logic is better recognized, but some facts are omitted. The author of the report has no doubt that a number of the stories presented (the conquests of Sesostris and its clashes with the Scythians, the alleged large-scale wars of Nebuchadnezzar I in North Africa, the presentation of Taharqa as the great conqueror, etc.) go back to the Egyptian tradition that took shape during the Sais XXVI dynasty.

O. I. Zubova (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in her report "Symbolism of images of royal tombs in Pyramid texts" analyzed the components that make up the theological concept of the essence and purpose of the royal pyramids of the V-VI dynasties. The most important texts for understanding the symbolism of the images of royal tombs are the pyramid protection texts, which were intended to protect the royal tombs from hostile forces, both earthly and otherworldly. O. I. Zubova noted that although these texts were first written down during the IV dynasty, they were used orally before when performing grave protection rituals. Special attention was paid to the controversial translation of utterance 534 of the pyramid of Pepi I, in which the pyramid and the surrounding complex of buildings are thought of as a sacrifice of Atum, and a new chain of images of the tomb ensemble that appears in RT 600 and 601 of the pyramid of Pepi II. Various images and names of the tomb ensemble, according to O. I. They bear witness to the symbolic significance of the royal tomb as a place where not only the earthly and the heavenly were united, but also the sacrament of the transformation of the earthly into the heavenly, of the human corruptible flesh of the king - into the divine, incorruptible, eternal. The perception of the pyramid as an aspect of the king's personality was, from the point of view of the author of the report, the reason for such an unusual phenomenon as the naming of kings by the names of their pyramids.

N. A. Tarasenko (Krymsky Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) devoted his speech to Chapter 175 A of the ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead" and its mythological parallels. The report proposed a translation and analysis of the text ("A saying not to die again..."), which is a dialogue between Atum and Thoth and describes the myth of the "children of Nut", whose main fault is the creation of a "hidden destruction" in the universe created by Atum, which resulted in the punishment proclaimed by Thoth: a reduction in the term life and the appearance of "imminent death". The speaker believes that the dictum was directed precisely against the "imminent death", and longevity in it is directly related to loyalty to God = the king. As parallels to the material under consideration, chapters 94, 123, and 17 of the Book of the Dead were proposed, given by pBrooklyn 47.218.84 (XXX din.), as well as the text in the Ismailia language J. E. 2248 (El-Arish, Late Period). N. A. Tarasenko considers it more preferable to interpret the "children of Chickpeas" as first-created people or a group of certain deities hostile to the demiurge.

A. A. Ilyin-Tomich (MSU) began his report "The Name of Hakeperraseneb" with a critical analysis of the dating of the "Hakeperraseneb Utterance" proposed by A. H. Gardiner and came to the conclusion that there is no data to support it. The report emphasized that the name Haheperraseneb remained in use even during the XIII dynasty, whose reign began 80 years after the death of Senusert II (whose reign A. H. Gardiner considered the only time this name spread). The author of the report believes that the whole theory that the "Haheperraseneb Speech" originated in a prosperous era should also be recognized as unfounded, and that the disasters of Egypt described in it are the fruit of the author's literary imagination. From his point of view, Haheperraseneb was inspired by events related to the dynastic crisis caused by the break of the XII century-

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nastia, or other dramatic events that occurred during the reign of the XIII dynasty. The second part of the report was devoted to identifying features of the geographical distribution of ancient Egyptian basileophoric names derived from Choral names of kings of the XII dynasty. A. A. Ilyin-Tomich demonstrated the predominant use of such names in the Memphis-Fayum region, i.e. in those areas where the pyramids and memorial temples of these kings were located, and in nearby areas, which indicates that regional character of the veneration of deceased kings (and in some centers of Upper Egypt, the cults of deceased regional chiefs had a comparable influence on anthroponymy). The author of the report concluded that the name Haheperraseneb only indicates that the work originated no earlier than the reign of Senusert II and no later than the end of the XIII dynasty, when the cults of the kings of the XII dynasty in the Memphis-Fayum region were suppressed; attempts to justify a more accurate dating based on this name are illegal.

A.V. Mironova's report "Scenes of the Sokar festival in ancient Egyptian architectural complexes of the New Kingdom era" touched upon the origin and transformation of the cult of the falcon god Sokar. Special attention was paid to the era of the New Kingdom, from which the most complete information about the nature of the Sokar festival has been preserved. At this time, various buildings dedicated to him were erected in Egypt, decorated with reliefs, on which (as well as in the calendar temple records) the program of the holiday was recorded. The report analyzed the compositions of the temples of Ahmenu (the time of Thutmose III, XV century BC) and Medinet Abu (the time of Ramesses III, XII century BC), as well as the tombs of the grandee Pazer (the era of Ramesses III). A.V. Mironova tried to identify the reason for the location of the Sokar festival scene in the southern or south-eastern part of the city. parts of a room in all of the above buildings. Having considered the nature of the holiday and the features of the Sokar cult, the author of the report came to the conclusion that he participated in the process of reviving Ra as a guide of the sun god to the day world. This, in turn, suggests that the southern and southeastern areas of the temple or tomb room were associated with the dwelling place of the Sokar from the Book of Amduat and the place of the origin, conception of the sun. The orientation of the scenes from west to east in the temples of Ahmenu and Medinet Abu, as well as the presence in the scenes of the festival of the standard with the lotus flower on top of the emblem of Nefertum (the god associated with the idea of the birth of the sun from the lotus flower) indicate, according to A.V. Mironova, that the result of the Sokar festival was

A. Y. Alekseev (Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University, St. Petersburg) in his report "Food problems in the Hittite State under Hattusilis III" analyzed the written sources that, in his opinion, for the first time record the food difficulties of the Hittites: KUB XXI, 38; KUB III, 34; KUB III, 27; KUB III, 58+KUB III, 47 and a fragment from the "Marriage Stele". Alekseyev suggests considering the beginning of the 1250s BC as the likely upper date for the beginning of grain problems in the Hittite state.The author of the report is inclined to think that these problems should have tied Hattusilis more tightly to Egypt, but due to the lack of data, it is difficult to judge the size of this. Concluding his speech, the speaker pinned his hopes on the opening of new monuments that will allow us to move further in this matter.

A. A. Petrova (IB RAS) made a presentation "The concept of spss in ancient Egyptian texts of the Ancient Kingdom era". She noted that this concept in the era of the Ancient Kingdom is found in a variety of sources and contexts and is significant for both kings and their subjects, important for both earthly life and posthumous existence. Within the framework of the report, various cases of using the term špss were presented, clearly demonstrating the difficulty of choosing an equivalent in Russian that would be suitable for each of them. However, according to the author of the report, it is still possible to distinguish a feature that unites all examples of the use of špss: it is significant that each time a god, person or object is described that has a status that distinguishes it from other gods, people or objects; it is emphasized that it is chosen, which implies the presence of certain privileges for the status holder, status is so desirable for nobles and kings both in this world and in the next.

The report of N. S. Timofeeva (RSUH) "V. I. Avdiev's letters to the party leadership concerning the organization of science in the 1940s and 1960s" vividly illustrated the relationship of the scientist who was at the origin of the formation of the Moscow school of Egyptology with the authorities. During the 1940s and 1960s, V. I. Avdiev repeatedly sent letters to the party leadership of the country with innovative projects (reorganization of the Moscow Group into a Branch of the VOS Institute).-

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current studies, the creation of a special cultural and historical journal "Vostok", the organization of an archaeological expedition to Egypt, the reorganization of the history methodology section of the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the creation of the section of source studies and historiography of universal history, as well as the Department of World Culture History at the Moscow State University Faculty of History, etc.), pointing out shortcomings in the organization of historical research in scientific institutes and higher school. Unfortunately, N. S. Timofeeva noted, the letters (both from the personal fund of V. I. Avdiev and from the archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences) are copied, there are no resolutions or registration marks on them, so it is impossible to trace the addressee's reaction, except for facts that were directly reflected in the course of the historical development of the Soviet scientific school.

V. Y. Shelestin (State Academy of Sciences) In order to determine the true significance of the ancient Hittite king Telepinu, he saw the task of his speech ("Telepinu's foreign policy activities") as the need to fit his activities into the context of the historical process in the Middle East and identify external guidelines for his policy. The author of the report examined a number of sources (STN 19, STN 20, STN 21, STN 22, STN 61, KUB XXVI, 71 iv) that report on Telepinu's foreign policy activities: the defeat of Hassuva, the battle of Tzitzilippe, the suppression of the uprising in Lavazzantia, and the conclusion of the Hittite-Kitzuvadna Treaty. Telepinu's goals were to restore suzerainty over Hassuwa (which the author of the report localizes in Tilbeshar) and control the trade route to Syria. The absence of references in the decree to Telepinu about his interaction with the Hurrians of Mitanni and Kitsuwadna should be interpreted by correlating the history of these states with the political views of Telepinu, whose real results of foreign policy activities can be assessed by comparing data on the territories under his control and the borders of the kingdom under Ammun. Shelestin emphasized Telepinu's desire to combine different principles of governance in the center of the country and on its periphery (with the help of officials and vassals), the contradictions between which have repeatedly plunged the country into turmoil, which the reformer tsar most wanted to prevent.

The presentations made during the second section were extremely interesting.

The section was opened by A. A. Nemirovsky's report (IVI RAS) "Elam, Media and Babylonia at the beginning of the VI century. BC: to a dark place kn. Judith." After analyzing the content of Jude I: 1-16 and comparing it with the totality of other data (prophecy Jer. 25: 25, prophecy Jer. 49: 34-39, prophecy Ezek. 32: 24 cf., the prophecy of Ezek. 50-51), the author of the report reconstructed the following course of events: in the first half - mid 590s BC. e. tensions between Media and Babylonia were growing; in 596 BC. e. a kind of reconnaissance in battle against Babylonia was tried by a Median vassal,who was trying to find a way out of Babylonia. king of Elam; by 593 BC, the great Median-Babylonian war and the defeat of Babylon by the Medes were expected in Asia Minor, but in 593/592 BC, Nebuchadnezzar invaded Elam, defeated it and its allied Median contingents, and captured Susa (under the name "Arphaxad" of Judith, apparently hiding, one of the younger Median "kings" or princes who died in this war), however, was limited to this, and the further diversion of Media to the war with Lydia (from 591/590 BC), and Nebuchadnezzar himself - to a new war in Palestine (from 590 BC, with the open manifestation of the Egyptian threat Babylonian possessions in Asia at the end of the 590s. In 585 BC, Nebuchadnezzar mediated the Media-Lydian reconciliation (Hdt. I. 74), and on the eve, during the Media-Lydian war, his hopes that someone would defeat Babylonia were finally resolved. The Jews no longer placed their trust in Media, but in Lydia (Ezek. 38-39 [587-585 BC]).

A. S. Desnitsky (Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences) in his report "Bible translation in Russia of the XXI century: current models" gave a brief overview of the main features of the latest translations of the Bible into Russian and other languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation. The author of the report proposed a number of questions ("choice points") 1, the answers to which determine the parameters of any new translation. A. S. Desnitsky is convinced that you can evaluate or compare a translation with others only on the basis of:

1 For example: for what audience the translation is being made; the purpose of the translation is liturgical, for independent reading, commented, artistic; independent translation or as part of a large project (parallel text in different versions, commentaries, accompanying materials); textual basis for translation; the relationship between different parts of the Bible; terminological decisions; the level of rhetorical and other aspects of the Bible. poetic independence of translation, etc.

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the goals that he sets for himself. The speaker noted that it is useless to compare a literal translation with a "dynamic" one, since they are addressed to different audiences and solve different tasks. But how successful a particular translation is in solving its tasks, how consistently and consciously it applies its methods and techniques, the author of the report is convinced-all this can be the subject of the most serious conversation.

V. P. Androsov's report (IB RAS) was devoted to"Hevajra Tantra" 2, or tantra "O Diamond", " O Flash of Lightning - [moment of Enlightenment] "(translated from Chinese). The Great Vajra of Compassion and Voidness), the root text of the anuttara-class mother yoga taught by Tilopa, Naropa, Maitripa, Marpa, and other Kagyu and sakya teachers (the two-part, 750-stanza version of tantra was known and commented on in India as early as the eighth century). the language of tantra is complex, symbolic, and in a certain sense its content is encrypted, being a secret for the uninitiated. The philosophical and theoretical basis of this tantra is madhyamika with provisions on the identity of samsara and nirvana. Hevajra Tantra is classified as" mother "based on principles developed by Indian thinkers, as reflected in the Vajra-Panjara Tantra, one of the Vajrayana cult texts. Apparently, this is a rather late tantra or finally fixed late (not earlier than the XI century), since it considers Vajrayana as an established tantric system consisting of four divisions, which respectively belong to all tantric texts. V. P. Androsov noted that the now well-known four-part system of Buddhist tantrism was established only in the XI-XII centuries. According to the Vajra-panjara Tantra explanations, the four divisions of the tantric system are called the tantra of deeds, the tantra of vow fulfillment, the tantra of yoga, and the tantra of ultimate yoga. Later, Tibetan monks, such as Budon, classified the Hevajra Tantra as the text of the highest yoga of the "mother" category.

Research by A. I. Motrokhov (Kharkiv National Research Center). V. N. Karazin University) "On divination practices in the poetry anthology "Manyoshu" " was devoted to the analysis of 20 songs of the first Japanese national poetry anthology, in which divination is mentioned (by steps, by arrow, on pebbles, on water, on turtle shell, etc.). The main focus is A. I. Motrokhov he paid attention to the most famous and widespread type of divination - evening, the best place for which was the "intersection of eight dozen roads", and the means of performing it was the ritual extraction of tam ("spirit", "soul") using the practice of kotoage ("raising words"), through which a spirit was summoned with a spell. After analyzing the Manyoshu songs dedicated to divination practices, the author of the report came to a number of conclusions: divination was performed either by professional urabe diviners or by close relatives on their own; divination was performed without referring to a certain deity or in order to receive a revelation from a deity or spirit. A. I. Motrokhov believes that the content of the corresponding Manyoshu songs reflects the real the state of divination practices, although the method of conducting many of them has since been lost and is still unknown.

S. V. Kullanda (IV RAS) made a report "The concept of vāyas - in the Rig Veda", in which he considered the Vedic lexeme, usually interpreted as "life force", in connection with the problem of gender and age stratification of early societies. According to the speaker, in some contexts of the Rig Veda (V, 15.4; VIII, 55.4), the word vāyas - refers to periods of life that go back to the age classes.

The main task of E. S. Lepekhova's research "Female deities in Tantric Japanese Buddhism as an example of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism" was to study the images of Dakini (or Dakiniten) and Seiryu Gongen, whose iconography and identification simultaneously with Hindu, Buddhist and Shinto deities, according to the author of the report, are a characteristic example of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism.Buddhist syncretism in Japan in the 13th-14th centuries. Having traced the transformation of the image of the Dakini (starting with Vajrayana Buddhism, early Chinese Tantrism, early Japanese Esoteric Buddhism to esoteric Buddhism in Japan in the 13th century) and explained the iconography of the image of the Shinto goddess Seiryu Gongen (with which the Dakini-ten was also associated by association with the daughter of the dragon king), E. S. Lepekhova came to the conclusion that the origin of images of female deities of Tantric Buddhism in Japan. However, the report notes, they were identified

2 " Hevajra Tantra-text and first commentaries in the Vajrayana system."

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with autochthonous Shinto deities, which indicates the widespread development of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism in the XIII-XV centuries.

A.V. Gromova (ISAA MSU) in her report "John Malala on the Eastern policy of the Roman emperors in the third century (On the peculiarities of compositional solutions)" focused on Malala's method (i.e., his choice and determination of the significance of individual events), which is reflected in his "Chronography" (the first extant world chronicle). The core of the description for the third century, from the point of view of the author of the report, are wars. However, it is noteworthy as a beautiful legend about Shapur's death (from illness in 270), included by Malala in his work, according to A.V. Gromova, in order to once again exalt his native Antioch (apparently, the public, which Malala was guided by, was impressed by the motif, "mirror" in relation to the reality that hurts national pride wars with the Persians in the middle of the third century), and the fact that often the description of wars is not an end in itself, but serves other tasks of the chronicler (for example, in the plot of Numerian, the war with the Persians is "embedded" in the story of Saint Babil, who did not allow the emperor to attend the service and paid for it with his life). Having considered Malala's description of the events of the third century in the East, A.V. Gromova considered it possible to assert that he uses the available material as he sees fit, selecting, selecting, reducing and adjusting the methods of processing depending on the tasks before him, which can serve as an example, if not of critical analysis, then at least of a clearly expressed author's position.

The section was concluded with a report by G. V. Sharygin (Institute of Internal Affairs of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "Towards understanding the term of the Southern Buddhist tradition ariyasacca". The author proposed his own version of defining the tradition of southern Buddhism as a unique cultural project implemented and supported by a unique public cultural movement, with a core representing a tightly organized closed community of full-fledged participants, having a broad ideological program of cultural transformations affecting the life of society in all its aspects. The main goal of this community is the radical improvement of man as a natural phenomenon, characterized by finding peace, harmony and inner freedom of a completely new quality, carried out as a conscious influence of the individual on his own inner world, ideas and behavior by unique methods of managing and changing the mental state. G. V. Sharygin proceeds from the fact that early Buddhist texts focus on the problem of change human nature, gaining "Buddhism", becoming a "Buddha". Taking into account the new lexicographic interpretations of the concept of ariyasacca (especially the one once proposed by Rupert Gethin: "four realities"), the author of the report offers his own translation:"four realities". Only in this way, in his opinion, can the cardinal problem of knowledge about early Buddhism be solved: why did everyone around the Buddha understand the four noble truths with their minds and hearts, but did not become enlightened-awakened? And why do billions of educated people on Earth today know perfectly well the four noble truths of Buddhism, and also that everything is impermanent, constantly changing and non-eternal, but they are not one step closer to enlightenment, but at the same time many who have met and listened to the Buddha in the Pali texts and many great enlightened people of the Southern tradition in general G. V. Sharygin believes that" noble truths "are not" statements of the doctrine", points of the doctrine, not" statements about the true state of affairs "that need to be learned, but rather" statements about the true state of affairs"."experiential identities of the enlightened/noble ones", the discovery, achievement, comprehension of which occurs on the extraverbal-rational experiential intuitive-direct path. This can be compared with the "intellectual insight" and, most importantly, the "emotional insight" of modern depth psychology, the desired experience events that bring liberation from suffering.

No less interesting was the work of the third section, where six reports were made.

V. B. Kovalevskaya (IA RAS) in her report " Chariots and horsemen of Assyria in the IX-VII centuries BC (statistical analysis)", having analyzed the statistics of images on Assyrian reliefs and paintings of the IX-VII centuries BC, considered the correlation of pictorial features in the iconography of chariots, charioteers and riding horses, and raised the question of time. After the appearance of the first horsemen, the author analyzed changes in horse equipment, landing, methods of controlling a horse and participating in military operations over the course of two and a half centuries (from the beginning of the IX to the last third of the VII century BC). The author of the report created two databases based on a sample of

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66 images of chariot and riding horses and a list of 76 main features for chariot horses and chariots and 61 for riding horses and riders. V. B. Kovalevskaya managed to construct and statistically substantiate a unique scheme of equipment changes (bridle design, changes in psalms, headband straps, saddle-blanket, rider's landing and gradual movement). improvement of methods of controlling a riding horse) of chariot and riding horses.

N. M. Nikulina (MSU) made a presentation "Palace style" in monumental and vase painting of Minoan Crete", dedicated to the final stage of the life of Cretan palaces, Minoan power and Minoan art, which lasted from about the middle of the XVI to the middle of the XV century BC and was both a time of unconditional prosperity and at the same time a period of weakening the Minoan sea power. N. M. Nikulina believes that in art there can be no clearly defined boundaries and direct reflection of the complexity of historical situations, but the changes taking place in society and its spiritual life are somehow reflected in the artistic style of its time, in the plot and formal features of its works. The author of the report considers artistic styles associated with late, final, and transitional historical periods to be particularly complex and contradictory. "Palace style" is a good example of this. According to N. M. Nikulina, some researchers unfairly consider it less interesting in artistic terms than the styles of previous periods of Cretan art: the number of monuments of the "palace style" exceeds The number of monuments is not only from the time of the Old Palaces, but also from the time of the first period of the New Palaces; the range of works of the "palace style"gives a broad idea of all types of Cretan art craft, about different types of this art; signs of changes in style towards greater conventionality are observed only in the second half of the The author of the report believes that it is in the monumental wall and vase paintings that the processes that took place in the artistic life of Crete and the islands during the period under review are particularly clearly traced: the appearance of new subjects in Cretan paintings (primarily scenes of cult ceremonies) and the return to older ones (rather than the "full-scale style"). The main thing is to transfer the action in time and space (complex angles appear, the dynamic nature of images increases, there is no cropping, the background becomes a decorative plane, the color solutions are contrasting). N. M. Nikulina compared the changes that took place in the monumental Cretan painting of the "palace style" with the transition from impressionism to post-Impressionism in Modern painting.

M. N. Tyurin (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in his report "On the interpretation of extraordinary structures of monuments of the Mureibit cultural community of the PPNA period" considered the archaeological material found in Hallan Chemi, Tell Mureibit and Gerf el Ahmar in terms of the evolution of the cult and social structure of the community of people who left them. The author of the report considers the Khallan Chemi monument to be the earliest, the interiors of public buildings of which suggest that the people who gathered in them could have a certain power and special status in relation to other relatives, but not among themselves. For Gerf el Ahmar, M. N. Tyurin assumes a" ranking " of society, which, in his opinion, is evidenced by the traces of human sacrifices found here (the victim must have had either a very low or rather high social status). In Tell Mureibit, the report notes, the evolution of the cult is clearly traced (there are no human remains in public buildings, but anthropomorphic figurines were found, apparently replacing a person at the sacrifice). The main feature of the unusual buildings studied in the report is their sacrifice after a period of functioning as a meeting place and concentration of prestigious resources. M. N. Tyurin suggested that both the construction and sacrifice of the building was carried out by a large team and was of the greatest importance for the entire group.

A.D. Nikitina (MIEP) made a report on the Decree on the "justice" of King Ammitsaduki and his role in the development of public law in Babylonia of the 2nd millennium BC. Explaining the nuances of the meaning of the term, the speaker devoted her speech to sources that contain the above-mentioned term in their names, but are not considered by domestic historians: decrees of Kings I The Babylonian dynasty, among which the decree of the second year of the reign of Ammitsaduki is most fully preserved (the most complete copy of it, compiled by F. R. Kraus from two copies).

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fragments, was divided by him according to the semantic context into 20 paragraphs). As a result of a detailed study of various copies of the decree, the author of the report believes, we can come to the following conclusions: this is the most important document of public law, which is the successor of the famous Hammurabi laws, including the structure of the document ("by association"); decrees issued much more often than laws, allowed us to respond more quickly and adequately to legal requests of the society, which, however, could not stop the processes of destruction of the community and the transformation of communal land into private land.

E. G. Vyrshchikov (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) devoted his speech 3 to the "twin cult" - one of the features of religion in the Chatal-Hyuk culture, which belongs to the number of universals for tribes and peoples that both preserve the ancient agricultural way (or its remnants) and do not pass to the productive economy at all. By "twin cult" and its corresponding "twin myths", the author of the report understands myths about miraculous beings represented as twins and often acting as the ancestors of a tribe or cultural heroes. 4 E. G. Vyrshchikov considers relief images of pairs of zooanthropomorphic deities (hereinafter ZAB) in a characteristic W-shaped pose ("goddesses" in the interpretation of J. R. R. Tolkien) to be obvious indications of the existence of a twin cult in the shrines of Chatal-Hyuk. Mellart), a pair of leopards and a bear. Special attention was paid in the report to sculptural bull heads, which often accompany both a twin pair and a ZAB separately. According to the speaker, the bull in Chatal-Hyuk is a symbol of masculinity. The author of the report finds controversial the almost generally accepted point of view today, according to which a WOMAN is depicted giving birth to a bull. In his opinion, the ZAB gives birth to a ram, while the twin pair (identical to the images of the ZAB, the leopard, and possibly the bear, which, in turn, are closely related to the female deity) is opposed to the bull by the oppositions female-male; top-bottom.

The section was completed with a report by G. Y. Kolganova (Institute of Internal Affairs of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "Time vector and spatial coordinate network"in the light of dialect differences in the Akkadian language". The report offered a critical assessment of the conclusions of the famous Russian Assyriologist I. S. Klochkov, which he came to while studying the problem of time perception by the Babylonians.5 Based on the data of experimental psychology of recent years, G. Y. Kolganova tried to demonstrate the absence of fundamental conceptual differences in the perception of time by the Babylonians. The report noted that the juxtaposition of the concepts "past" - "what is ahead" / "future" - "what is behind" is standard in space-time metaphors found in a wide variety of languages (ranging from ancient Egyptian to modern Russian), however, why the language works in this way is up to it still remains unclear. What is really important, from the point of view of the author of the report, but has not yet received proper understanding, is the general Akkadian lexemes, the usage of which is characterized by semantic features depending on the dialect affiliation. As an example, we considered the absence of intersection of the meanings of the same common Akkadian lexeme associated with representations of the past in the Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian dialects. 6 The report also noted that the main timeline of texts written in Akkadian is that of the past, and the main opposition is not" past-future", but"past-present". The plan of the future (both from the grammatical and lexical points of view) is marked relatively rarely.

In general, the work of the conference demonstrated the high level of reports and the extreme relevance of the problems of the history and culture of the Ancient East discussed in them. By dedicating the conference to the memory of G. M. Bongard-Levin, its organizers deliberately sought to cover the widest possible range of modern Oriental disciplines, thereby paying tribute to his scientific interests, which extended to various branches of Oriental studies.

3 "Twin cult in the Chatal-Hyuk culture".

4 Ivanov Vyach. Vs. Bliznechnye mifi [Twin myths] / / Mifi narodov mira, Moscow, 1980.
5 In particular, I. S. Klochkov considered the time of the Babylonians to be inhomogeneous, called its distinctive feature linearity, and also designated the connections between the direction in space and time: "past" - "what is ahead", "future" - "what is behind" ; when placing a time vector in a spatial coordinate network "past " correlates with the concept of "east" and through it with the concept of "top", and "future" is associated with the meaning of "west" and, accordingly, "bottom" (Klochkov I. S. Spiritual culture of Babylonia: man, fate, time. Moscow, 1983, pp. 21, 162-163).

6 The old Babylonian panā'um "to be, to go before" in Old Assyrian means "to turn, to turn".

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