Medicine in Ancient Assur : A Microhistorical Study of the Neo-Assyrian Healer Kiṣir-Aššur /
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In Medicine in Ancient Assur Troels Pank Arbøll offers a microhistorical study of a single exorcist named Kiṣir-Aššur who practiced medical and magical healing in the ancient city of Assur (modern northern Iraq) in the 7th century BCE. The book provides the first detailed analysis of a healer's education and practice in ancient Mesopotamia based on at least 73 texts assigned to specific stages of his career. By drawing on a microhistorical framework, the study aims at significantly improving our understanding of the functional aspects of texts in their specialist environment. Furthermore, the work situates Kiṣir-Aššur as one of the earliest healers in world history for whom we have such details pertaining to his career originating from his own time.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004436084
9789004436077
Sonnengrüße: Die sumerischen Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen /
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Dieses Buch ist eine umfassende Diskussion der mesopotamischen Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen, das viele bisher nicht übersetzte Texte enthält und zum ersten Mal die literarische Typologie genau definiert und den rituellen Kontext beschreibt, in dem sie verwendet wurde.This book is a comprehensive discussion of the Mesopotamian Kiutu incantation-prayers, containing many previously untranslated texts as well as for the first time precisely defining the literary typology and describing the ritual context in which it was used.
Was sind die Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen? Was sind ihre besonderen Merkmale im Vergleich zu anderen Arten von Gebetsbeschwörungen? Unter Verwendung vieler bisher unveröffentlichter Texte bietet dieses Buch die erste vollständige philologische Edition eines Korpus der sumerischen Literatur, der in der Wissenschaft oft unterrepräsentiert ist. Das Buch untersucht diese speziell an den Sonnengott gerichtete Texttypologie und ordnet sie in die breitere Geschichte der mesopotamischen Literatur und Religion ein. Einzigartig ist, dass diese Typologie von Gebetsbeschwörungen die Bewegung der Sonne am Himmel mit der Tageszeit verbindet, zu der sie vorgetragen wurde, was uns einen seltenen Einblick in die praktische Realität der mesopotamischen religiösen Praxis gewährt. What are the Kiutu incantation-prayers? What are their distinctive features in comparison to other types of incantation-prayers? Making use of many previously unpublished texts, this book offers the first complete philological edition of a corpus of Sumerian literature often underrepresented in scholarship. The book examines this textual typology specifically addressed to the Sun god finding its place within the broader history of Mesopotamian literature and religion. Uniquely, this typology of incantation-prayers connects the movement of the sun in the sky to the time of day when it was performed, giving us a rare glimpse into the practical realities of Mesopotamian religious practice.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004503724
9789004503717
Death Rituals, Ideology, and the Development of Early Mesopotamian Kingship : Toward a New Understanding of Iraq's Royal Cemetery of Ur /
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At the beginning of Mesopotamia's Early Dynastic period, the political landscape was dominated by temple administrators, but by the end of the period, rulers whose titles we translate as "king" assumed control. This book argues that the ritual process of mourning, burying, and venerating dead elites contributed to this change. Part one introduces the rationale for seeing rituals as a means of giving material form to ideology and, hence, structuring overall power relations. Part two presents archaeological and textual evidence for the death rituals. Part three interprets symbolic objects found in the Royal Cemetery of Ur, showing they reflect ideological doctrines promoting the office of kingship. This book will be particularly useful for scholars of Mesopotamian archaeology and history.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047416791
9789004146358
Bodies of knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia : the diviners of late Bronze Age Emar and their table collection /
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In Bodies of Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia Matthew Rutz explores the relationship between ancient collections of texts, commonly deemed libraries and archives, and the modern interpretation of titles like 'diviner'. By looking at cuneiform tablets as artifacts with archaeological contexts, this work probes the modern analytical categories used to study ancient diviners and investigates the transmission of Babylonian/Assyrian scholarship in Syria. During the Late Bronze Age diviners acted as high-ranking scribes and cultic functionaries in Emar, a town on the Syrian Euphrates (ca. 1375-1175 BCE). This book's centerpiece is an extensive analytical catalogue of the excavated tablet collection of one family of diviners. Over seventy-five fragments are identified for the first time, along with many proposed joins between fragments.
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1 online resource (xxi, 682 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004245686 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
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.
Corpus of Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals /
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Among the most important sources for understanding the cultures and systems of thought of ancient Mesopotamia is a large body of magical and medical texts written in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. An especially significant branch of this literature centres upon witchcraft. Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals and incantations attribute ill-health and misfortune to the magic machinations of witches and prescribe ceremonies, devices, and treatments for dispelling witchcraft, destroying the witch, and protecting and curing the patient. The Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals aims to present a reconstruction of this body of texts; it provides critical editions of the relevant rituals and prescriptions based on the study of the cuneiform tablets and fragments recovered from the libraries of ancient Mesopotamia. \'Now that we have the second volume, we the more admire the thoughtful organisation of the entire project, the strict methods followed, and the insightful observations and decisions made.\' Martin Stol, Bibliotheca Orientalis lxxIV n° 3-4, mei-augustus 2017
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1 online resource : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004318557 :
1566-7952 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sources of evil : studies in Mesopotamian exorcistic lore /
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Sources of Evil: Studies in Mesopotamian Exorcistic Lore is a collection of thirteen essays on the body of knowledge employed by ancient Near Eastern healing experts, most prominently the 'exorcist' and the 'physician', to help patients who were suffering from misfortunes caused by divine anger, transgressions of taboos, demons, witches, or other sources of evil. The volume provides new insights into the two most important catalogues of Mesopotamian therapeutic lore, the Exorcist's Manual and the Aššur Medical Catalogue, and contains discussions of agents of evil and causes of illness, ways of repelling evil and treating patients, the interpretation of natural phenomena in the context of exorcistic lore, and a description of the symbolic cosmos with its divine and demonic inhabitants.
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1 online resource (xiii, 382 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004373341 :
1566-7952 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Daimon in Hellenistic astrology : origins and influence /
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In The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence , Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum investigates for the first time the concept of the daimon (daemon, demon), normally confined to religion and philosophy, within the theory and practice of ancient western astrology (2nd century BCE - 7th century CE). This multi-disciplinary study covers the daimon within astrology proper as well as the daimon and astrology in wider cultural practices including divination, Gnosticism, Mithraism and Neo-Platonism. It explores relationships between the daimon and fate and Daimon and Tyche (fortune or chance), and the doctrine of lots as exemplified in Plato's Myth of Er. In finding the impact of Egyptian and Mesopotamian ideas of fate on Hellenistic astrology, it critically examines astrology's perception as propounding an unalterable destiny.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004306219 :
1566-7952 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
In the path of the moon : Babylonian celestial divination and its legacy /
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Celestial divination, in the form of omens from lunar, planetary, astral, and meteorological phenomena, was central to Mesopotamian cuneiform scholarship and science from the late second millennium BCE into the Hellenistic period. Beyond the boundaries of ancient Mesopotamia, the ideas, texts, and traditions of Babylonian celestial divination are traceable in Hellenistic sciences and philosophies. This collection of essays investigates features of Babylonian celestial divination with special focus on those aspects that influenced later Greco-Roman astronomy, astrology, and theories of signs. A multi-faceted collection of philological, historical, and philosophical investigations, In the Path of the Moon offers Assyriologists, Classicists, and historians of ancient science a wide-ranging series of studies unified around the theme of Babylonian celestial divination's legacy. \'The collected essays in this volume, successive steps in an ordered path, constitute an invaluable contribution to a better understanding of Babylonian divination.\' Lorenzo Verderame, \'Sapienza\' Università di Roma \'The reader interested in the multifaceted presentation of the problems related to the explanation of Babylonian celestial divination and well equipped with the knowledge of Akkadian will certainly be rewarded by the study of Rochberg's latest publication.\' Henryk Drawnel, SDB
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004189614 :
1566-7952 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Corpus of Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals.
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Among the most important sources for understanding the cultures and systems of thought of ancient Mesopotamia is a large body of magical and medical texts written in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. An especially significant branch of this literature centres upon witchcraft. Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals and incantations attribute ill-health and misfortune to the magic machinations of witches and prescribe ceremonies, devices, and treatments for dispelling witchcraft, destroying the witch, and protecting and curing the patient. The Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals aims to present a reconstruction of this body of texts; it provides critical editions of the relevant rituals and prescriptions based on the study of the cuneiform tablets and fragments recovered from the libraries of ancient Mesopotamia. This is the first volume in the three-part Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals series . Volumes two and three are expected in 2015 and 2018 respectively. \'Even in its incomplete form, Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals is a major contribution to the study of witchcraft, supernatural belief, folk medicine (both supernatural and non-supernatural), theories of magic, incantations, and ritual. This edition is required reading for any scholar with an interest in these topics.\' David Elton Gay, Indiana University
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004214897 :
1566-7952 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals Glossaries and Indices /
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Among the most important sources for understanding the cultures and systems of thought of ancient Mesopotamia is a large body of magical and medical texts written in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. An especially significant branch of this literature centres upon witchcraft. Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals and incantations attribute ill-health and misfortune to the magic machinations of witches and prescribe ceremonies, devices, and treatments for dispelling witchcraft, destroying the witch, and protecting and curing the patient. The Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals aims to present a reconstruction of this body of texts; it provides critical editions of the relevant rituals and prescriptions based on the study of the cuneiform tablets and fragments recovered from the libraries of ancient Mesopotamia.
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1 online resource. :
9789004416253
9789004416246
Further studies on Mesopotamian witchcraft beliefs and literature /
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"Among the most important sources for understanding the cultures, religions, and systems of thought of ancient Mesopotamia is the large corpus of magical and medical texts directed against witchcraft. The most important of these texts is the Akkadian series Maqlû ("Burning"). This volume offers a collection of studies on Mesopotamian witchcraft and Maqlû written subsequent to the appearance of the author's 2002 collection of studies on witchcraft (Brill, 2002). Many of the studies reprinted here take a diachronic approach to individual incantations and rituals and attempt to solve textual difficulties using literary-critical and/or text-critical approaches".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004421912
Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals : Volume Three /
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Among the most important sources for understanding the cultures and systems of thought of ancient Mesopotamia is a large body of magical and medical texts written in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. An especially significant branch of this literature centers upon witchcraft. Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals and incantations attribute ill-health and misfortune to the magic machinations of witches and prescribe ceremonies, devices, and treatments for dispelling witchcraft, destroying the witch, and protecting and curing the patient. The Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals aims to present a reconstruction of this body of texts; it provides critical editions of the relevant rituals and prescriptions based on the study of the cuneiform tablets and fragments recovered from the libraries of ancient Mesopotamia.
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1 online resource. :
9789004416277
9789004416260
Mesopotamian medicine and magic : studies in honor of Markham J. Geller /
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Mesopotamian Medicine and Magic. Studies in Honour of Markham J. Geller is a thematically focused collection of 34 brand-new essays bringing to light a representative selection of the rich and varied scientific and technical knowledge produced chiefly by the cuneiform cultures. The contributions concentrate mainly on Mesopotamian scholarly descriptions and practices of diagnosing and healing diverse physical ailments and mental distress. The festschrift contains both critical editions of new texts as well as analytical studies dealing with various issues of Mesopotamian medical and magical lore. Currently, this is the largest edited volume devoted to this topic, significantly contributing to the History of Ancient Sciences.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004368088
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.
The magical ceremony Maqlu : a critical edition /
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The Akkadian series Maqlû , 'Burning', remains the most important magical text against witchcraft from Mesopotamia and perhaps from the entire ancient Near East. Maqlû is a nine-tablet work consisting of the text of almost 100 incantations and accompanying rituals directed against witches and witchcraft. The work prescribes a single complex ceremony and stands at the end of a complex literary and ceremonial development. Thus, Maqlû provides important information not only about the literary forms and cultural ideas of individual incantations, but also about larger ritual structures and thematic relations of complex ceremonies. This new edition of the standard text contains a synoptic edition of all manuscripts, a composite text in transliteration, an annotated transcription and translation. \'These were only minor remarks scribbled in the margins of an excellent and most welcome edition of Maqlû, a real monument. This book is the firm foundation on which future studies on Maqlû will be based.\' Marten Stol, NINO Leiden, Bibliotheca Orientalis lxxIII n° 5-6, September-December 2016
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1 online resource (xxii, 402 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004291706 :
1566-7952 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The scaffolding of our thoughts : essays on Assyriology and the history of science in honor of Francesca Rochberg /
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Francesca Rochberg has for more than thirty-five years been a leading figure in the study of ancient science. Her foundational insights on the concepts of "science," "canon," "celestial divination," "knowledge," "gods," and "nature" in cuneiform cultures have demanded continual contemplation on the tenets and assumptions that underlie the fields of Assyriology and the History of Science. "The Scaffolding of Our Thoughts" honors this luminary with twenty essays, each reflecting on aspects of her work. Following an initial appraisal of ancient "science" by Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, the contributions in the first half explore practices of knowledge in Assyriological sources. The second half of the volume focuses specifically on astronomical and astrological spheres of knowledge in the Ancient Mediterranean.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004363380 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.