Chapter VI provides case studies for the conceptual metaphor of conflict myth in the image reaching from the fourth in the first millennium BCE. Its approach is informed by Aby Warburg’s emphasis on gesture language and its history of reception as developed in his Mnemosyne Atlas and by Erwin Panofsky’s approach to iconology to develop the concept of interpictoriality as a network of pictorial references or Bildgedächtnis (collective pictorial memory).

The sixth chapter details the sudden appearance of Mary in the Subura’s landscape during the fifth century with Sixtus III’s construction of S. Maria. It argues that Sixtus used the basilica to proclaim his support for the new orthodox belief in Mary as theotokos, to condemn the heretical beliefs against her, and to invalidate Jews and Judaism, which would have been present in the Subura itself, among other areas of the city. After its construction, the basilica of S. Maria sparked the emergence of a new local significance based on the ideal Christian woman.

What Alberto Manguel claims for Talmudic and Islamic book culture can be extended to the history of reception of storytelling through text and image in Mesopotamia. In this book, storytelling, in general, and mythmaking, in particular, have been categorized as essential cognitive and cultural strategies of world-making to make sense of experience, to explain social and cosmic order, and, consequently, to structure knowledge in order to respond to future challenges and expectations. Thus, cognition and cultural learning merge in the process by which the ancient scholars, whom I regard as the primary agents behind the creation of texts and images receive, reactualize, and rework former material. Due to their orientational and expository nature, storytelling and mythmaking can claim their rightful place as systems of knowledge besides other systems of knowledge, including divination, magic, Listenwissenschaft, et cetera and should be considered on a par with logical reasoning. In other words, in its endeavor to create meaning, mythmaking is an epistemic and world-making endeavor. The diachronic approach in this book made it obvious that, despite its localized expression, the creation of a cultural repertoire of text and image revolving around the ruler was shared by the elites throughout Mesopotamia and contributed to their cultural identity, self-understanding, and self-representation. This repertoire was informed by core metaphors and conveyed in all media including myth, image, architecture, and ritual, with each medium creating its own narrative framework. It has also shown that the transfer of knowledge over centuries and millennia was not transmitted in a linear manner, but rather that scholarly communities shared and retained collective knowledge over generations, choosing and reviving particular tropes in specific historical situations and contexts.

The eighth and final chapter focuses on the restoration of residential occupation to the Argiletum – absent since Domitian – and Paschal I’s investment in the area during the eighth and ninth centuries. Paschal explicitly tied S. Maria to the flanking sister churches of S. Praxedis and S. Potentiana, unifying them in a physical and conceptual hierarchy of virginity and virtue. Several welfare centers attest to renewed foot traffic along the valley, while the construction of several elite houses within Domitian’s old forum shows a desire among elites to be connected to the Subura’s processional thoroughfare.

Chapter IV discusses various Sumerian and Akkadian stories as examples for myth as a fundamental instrument of thought and its explanatory, orientational, and worldmaking functions, as well as a reflection upon forms of political governance.

Chapter VII explores the projection of myth into Neo-Assyrian palatial architecture and landscape. It argues for a choreographed appearance of the ruler which was governed by the architectural design intended to translate myth into royal epiphany.

Chapter VIII Based on the ancient conception of the royal body as a semantic web of associations, this chapter explores allusions to the creation epic Enuma elish and the Gilgamesh Epic in the royal statue and royal dress respectively.

Chapter III introduces insights from cognitive narratology and cognitive sciences to explain human proclivity for storytelling as a meaning-making strategy to cope with experience and to project future action.