Edward Coidan

 

Edward Coidan

 

 

Forschungsinteressen

  • Ethics of Ancient Warfare
  • Royal Ideology
  • Comparative Kingship
  • Ancient Political Theology
  • Cross-Cultural Transmission

Ausbildung

  • 2017-2022: Classics with Oriental Studies (Sanskrit), University of Oxford; focus on Ancient Greek History (Archaic, Alexander, Hellenistic); the Achaemenid Empire; Sanskrit literature and Indian History and Cultures in Antiquity
  • 2024: MA Master’s of Arts, University of Oxford
  • 2025-Present: PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, University of Innsbruck

Preise

  • 2015: Runner-up in St. John's Ancient History Essay competition, University of Oxford
  • 2017: Most Original Scholar, York College
  • 2019: Holbrook and Bickley Rogers Fund Travel Grant, Wadham College, University of Oxford
  • 2019: Krasis Scholarship, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Publikationen

  • "ÉG.KI.SUR.RA and Scribal Registers of Transgression in Pre-Sargonic Lagaš Royal Inscriptions”. In preparation (2026).
  • “Counting the Dead Before the Gods: Institutional Verification and the Processing of Violence in Sargonic Royal Inscriptions”. In preparation (2026).
  • “The Warfare Grammar Internalised: Uru-ka-gina's Reform Texts and the Lagaš Legal-Restorative Binary”. In preparation (2026).
  • Conference Report: “Montafoner Gipfeltreffen: Berge und Infrastruktur.” H-Soz-Kult, February 2026 (co-authored).
  • Conference Report: “Imperial Dynamics, Borderlands and Resistance: Entangled Worlds of Afro-Eurasia.” H-Soz-Kult, February 2026 (co-authored).

Dissertation

The following project will be executed in a series of published articles, in the format of a cumulative PhD.

Titled: “Ethical Worlds in Stone: Warfare, Justice, and Royal Rhetoric Across Ancient Afro-Eurasia”

My dissertation investigates how ancient Afro-Eurasian societies expressed ethical ideas about warfare, justice, and political authority through their royal inscriptions. Using a corpus that spans early Mesopotamian and Elamite foundation texts, Hurrian treaty-oath traditions, Neo-Assyrian and Urartian military inscriptions, Achaemenid imperial proclamations, and the edicts of Aśoka, the project examines how rulers justified conflict, framed the restoration of order, and articulated the moral principles that grounded their authority. The study combines close philological analysis with digital semantic methods, allowing both detailed reading of individual inscriptions and broader comparative mapping of ethical language across cultures.

The core geographical focus lies on Mesopotamia, East Anatolia, Iran, and South Asia, with additional evidence from Levantine, Elamite, and Hellenistic contexts incorporated where they clarify shared idioms, recurring formulas, or signs of intercultural transmission. By analysing themes such as divine mandate, legal-restorative rhetoric, punitive warfare, and moralised kingship, the dissertation explores how different traditions over time understood political responsibility and the ethical limits of violence.

Through the integration of philology and historical analysis, the project develops a new comparative model for understanding how ancient states conceptualised justice, authority, and the moral boundaries of warfare across linguistic and imperial landscapes.

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