Children of Kubaba: Serious Games, Ritual Toys, and Divination at Iron Age Carchemish

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I am not qualified enough to evaluate the originallity of this paper to the area studied, or its contribution to archaeology, but the method of investigation and the documentation provided is compelling.

I particularly appreciate the use of comparative analysis in order to decipher the layers of meaning contained in the relief of the Royal Buttress.

The notes and bibliography attest to serious and extensive researches and shares with the reader a remarkable erudition.

In more general terms, the attention accorded to the multimodality of artefacts studied here stands as an interesting contribution to the field of religious materiality, and certainly contribute to consider monumental architecture and figuration within an alternative framework not only focused on objects as symbols and mediators.

The main criticism that could be addressed here is the great specialization of the subject matter, which in turn obscures the possible contributions of such an article to social sciences in a broader way, notably to ritual studies, visual studies, or anthropology of art. 

A paragraph or two could be added in order to make this point clearer.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your remarks. I hear your criticism and will do my best to to better highlight and frame the broader use of my results.

I will share a new draft of my manuscript in the coming weeks.

Best

Reviewer 2 Report

The article meticulously analyzes a royal ritual commemorated by a stone relief in ancient Carchemish. In this context, the authors investigate meticulously the religious and political meaning of the artistic symbolization of toys played by boys in the ancient east art. They claim that this art reflects different aspects of education and childhood in the old city. The authors also suggest the ritual is unique, and that it served then as an approval of a firstborn crown prince rights.

Yet, although the work is important, several points require further details and focus before this work becomes publishable, as follows:

1. The article includes multiple comparisons and explanations, yet these are lengthy and quite clumsy, and should be more concise, clearer, shorter, and more readable.

2. The article hypothesis is expressed as a fact already in his first sentence 'This paper explores the incorporation of children and their toys in political rituals…'. The authors should first analyze the evidence that are supposed to support their hypothesis.

3. The Illustration of Fig2 is unclear and blurred.

4. In many research fields it is better not to use first person phrases like [to my knowledge/understanding] (lines 29, 690, and more). It is better to use a more subtle phrases like ‘it appears that’ and so on.

5. As for the Conclusions section: the authors fail to analyze the differences between the term “children’s games” in its usual “naive” context, with the completely different context that was emphasized here as: '…the repeated use of metaphors of childhood in the epigraphic record of Carchemish and its neighbors (Posano 2017; Posano 2021, p. 69-70) underscores the profound meaning attached to the early ages of life.'

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your remarks.

This is my response according to your numbering.

1) In the revised manuscript, I tried to be more concise. I cut a number of sentence elements and moved somehow lengthier comments in footnotes. Major revisions are marked in yellow, smaller revisions are not marked and dispersed in the text.

2) I corrected the opening statement in order to make clear that the interpretation of the Royal Buttress as the representation of a political ritual is defended in the paper and not simply assumed.

3) The figure is blurred, although the template was not. I will re-digitize all figures for printing.

4) I do not agree with this remark, which is at odd with most style guidelines in the Anglo-Saxon world, where passive impersonal sentences are usually corrected away. However, I do recognize that this is entirely a matter of cultural preference and tried to eliminate most plethoric expressions such as "in my understanding".

5) I am not sure I fully understand this remark. However, I introduced major changes in the final part of the manuscript and tried to better address both the difference between the employment of toys for fun vs for ritual purposes and the possible interest of my research for a broader scholarly public.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors' response to the comments is appropriate and enables the publication of the article in its current form.