Early Mesopotamian divination literature : its organizational framework and generative and paradigmatic characteristics /
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In Early Mesopotamian Divination Literature: Its Organizational Framework and Generative and Paradigmatic Characteristics , Abraham Winitzer provides a detailed study of the Akkadian Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1600 BC) omen collections stemming from extispicy, the most significant Mesopotamian divination technique for most of that civilization's history. Paying close attention to these texts' organizational structure, Winitzer details the mechanics responsible for their origins and development, and highlights key characteristics of a conceptual framework that helped reconfigure Mesopotamian divination into a literature in line with significant, new forms of literary expression from the same time. This literature, Winitzer concludes, represents an early form of scientific reasoning that began to appreciate the centrality of texts and textual interpretation in this civilization's production, organization, and conception of knowledge.
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1 online resource (xxi, 489 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 460-477) and index. :
9789004347007 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Le Devin historien en Mésopotamie
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Le devin historien en Mesopotamie is a combined study of divination and historiography. More than mere custodians of historical memory, diviners approached omens as written signs and developed a sophisticated semiology to recognize and order them. Diviners perceived omens as potentially rich in various meanings and cultivated an elaborate hermeneutic for working these out using hypothetical and inductive reasoning. Even if omens were removed from the recorded facts, diviners endowed them with a wide range of possibilities. Divination sought to establish links among historical, cosmic, and natural events because it investigated at once the past, present, and future. The first study of its kind since 1946, when only about 60 historical omens were known, this work presents 385 in a comprehensive edition.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004390065 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.