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1
Ossendrijver, Mathieu. "A Simulation-Based View on Mesopotamian Computational Practices." Claroscuro. Revista del Centro de Estudios sobre Diversidad Cultural, no. 20 (December 30, 2021): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.35305/cl.vi20.66.
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It is argued that iterative computations which are attested in Mesopotamian and other ancient sources can be productively analyzed and interpreted in a simulation-based framework. Ancient Mesopotamia present us with a rich body of textual evidence for computational practices over a period of more than three millennia. This paper is concerned with Mesopotamian iterative computations of empirical phenomena, where each iteration updates the values of certain quantities from one state to the next state. It will be argued that these computations can be fruitfully interpreted in the so-called simulation-based framework, which was recently developed by philosophers of science in order to better account for the role of simulations in modern science. This is exemplified on the basis of a text from the Ur III period (2100–2000 BCE) about the growth of a cow herd. Other Mesopotamian sources with iteratively computed sequences, in particular various types of mathematical tables, are ignored here, because they do not directly correspond to any phenomena. Section 1 briefly addresses some developments in the philosophy and historiography of science in order to introduce the simulation-based framework. Section 2 discusses the textual example. Section 3 contains the conclusions.
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Yu, Shuqian. "The Role of Death in the Epic of Gilgamesh." Communications in Humanities Research 19, no. 1 (2023): 210–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.54254/2753-7064/19/20231247.
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Humans fear of death and pursuit of eternal life have long been reflected in literary texts. As a representative of ancient Mesopotamian literature, the epic of Gilgamesh not only symbolizes the peak of Near Eastern epics, but also brings an ultimate proposition into literature for the first timeHow to resist the fear of death and how to achieve infinite immortality in a finite life. This paper consists of three parts. The first part is the introduction, which introduces the background and significance of the research. The second part is the text analysis, and the third part is the analysis of the philosophical significance of the image of death by combining the ancient religious view of Mesopotamia and the concept of modern people.
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Crocker, Richard L. "Mesopotamian tonal systems." Iraq 59 (1997): 189–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021088900003417.
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In his article “Babylonian Music Again”, O. R. Gumey provides a welcome update on research on the tablets concerning music of the ancient Near East. Gurney's article also has a corrective effect on a rambunctious article by Martin West that appeared shortly before. Gurney seems to me to have the musical system almost right. West, while he seems to understand the system, presents it in ways that I find illogical, and that I fear will be confusing or misleading. Furthermore, while some of West's conclusions exceed the span of even my own irresponsible imagination, some of his other conclusions seem unnecessarily restrictive, conservative, or simply old-fashioned. Here I want to assert limits of the kind and extent of musical conclusions that we can expect to draw from the available data, but also to explore the kinds of ideas that we can entertain without fear of restriction by those same data.Gurney as well as West report with approval a new reading proposed by Th. J. H. Krispijn. There is more to be said about this reading and about its effect on our understanding of ancient Near Eastern music. Krispijn's new reading is for the text UET VII 74, for which Gurney now gives an updated transliteration (p. 102). I reproduce here Gurney's paradigms for the instructions in Chapters I (ll. 1–12) and II (ll. 13–20) of UET VII 74.(1–12) If the sammu is (tuned as) X and the (interval) Y is not clear, you tighten the string N and then Y will be clear. Tightening.(13–20) If the sammu is (tuned as) X and you have played an (unclear) interval Y, you loosen the string N and the sammu will be (in the tuning) Z. [Loosening].When first interpreting this text twenty-five years ago, it was assumed that Chapter I involved loosening the strings one by one, thus shifting the whole tuning gradually downwards; and in Chapter II, tightening the strings one by one, with the reverse effect. As we then read the text, it did not specify tightening or loosening, and so the choice was arbitrary. Gurney (p. 102) blames the choice on the assumption that the text referred to the harp, whose longest and lowest string was identified as “front”, therefore (according to Nabnītu XXXII) the “first”.
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Fetaya, Ethan, Yonatan Lifshitz, Elad Aaron, and Shai Gordin. "Restoration of fragmentary Babylonian texts using recurrent neural networks." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 37 (2020): 22743–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003794117.
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The main sources of information regarding ancient Mesopotamian history and culture are clay cuneiform tablets. Many of these tablets are damaged, leading to missing information. Currently, the missing text is manually reconstructed by experts. We investigate the possibility of assisting scholars, by modeling the language using recurrent neural networks and automatically completing the breaks in ancient Akkadian texts from Achaemenid period Babylonia.
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Kurtik, Gennady E. "On the origin of the 12 zodiac constellation system in ancient Mesopotamia." Journal for the History of Astronomy 52, no. 1 (2021): 53–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021828620980544.
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This article pursues two main goals: (1) to reconstruct the history of the 12 zodiac constellation system in the astronomy of ancient Mesopotamia; (2) to reveal traces of this system directly in cuneiform texts. Among the most important circumstances led to appearance of this system: (1) development of ideas about the band of zodiac constellations, including—according to MUL.APIN—the total of 18 (or 17) constellations; (2) usage of the schematic year, containing 12 months, 30 days each, and (3) development of ideas about mathematical or uniform zodiac, subdivided into 12 equal parts, 30° each. A sequence of the so-called Normal stars singled out in the zodiacal band is an additional important source shedding light on the history of the Mesopotamian zodiac. The designations of Normal stars adopted in Astronomical diaries and other texts indicate that the system of 18 constellations was used in Mesopotamia until the end of cuneiform civilization. This means that in the second half of the first millennium BC the system of 18 constellations, adopted in MUL.APIN, and the system of 12 zodiacal constellations, borrowed from Babylonians by Greek astronomers, were used in parallel. It is also shown in the article that the system of 12 zodiac constellations was used in magical and astrological text BRM 4.20, dated back approximately to the last third of the fourth century BC.
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Cecilia, Ludovica. "A Late Composition Dedicated to Nergal." Altorientalische Forschungen 46, no. 2 (2019): 204–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/aofo-2019-0014.
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Abstract This article treats a composition that was probably dedicated to Nergal, a god with a long cultic tradition in ancient Mesopotamia who was mainly related to war and death. The text was first edited by Böhl (1949; 1953: 207–216, 496–497), followed by Ebeling (1953: 116–117). Later, Seux (1976: 85–88) and Foster (2005: 708–709) translated and commented upon it. I will present a new reading of the invocation on the tablet’s upper edge, which confirms that the tablet originated in Uruk during the Hellenistic period. Furthermore, I will discuss the many Neo-Babylonian and Late Babylonian grammatical elements of this composition. The high frequency of these elements, typical of the vernacular language, is unusual for a literary text and suggests that not only the tablet, but also the composition of the text stems from the first millennium BCE, and perhaps, just like the tablet, from Hellenistic Uruk. The purpose of this contribution is, therefore, to show through an analysis of this text, that the conservative and poetic literary language was reworked and adapted to the cultural situation of the late period in Mesopotamian literary production.
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Sanders, Seth. "OLD LIGHT ON MOSES' SHINING FACE." Vetus Testamentum 52, no. 3 (2002): 400–406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853302760197520.
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AbstractThe crux of Moses' shining face in Ex. xxxiv is explained by first-millennium Mesopotamian astronomical and lexical sources which attest an ancient understanding of light as material. Moses' face could, quite literally, radiate horns of light, and the need to translate the term as either divine radiance or physical protuberance is a side-effect of modern conceptual categories, irrelevant to ancient Israelite ideas. Furthermore, the well known ancient Jewish tradition of Moses' coronation, and his divine physical transformation attested in newly published Midrashic sources suggests an authentic ancient reading of the text that resolves the contradiction between Ex. xxxiii and xxxiv. While no human could see God and live, in Ex. xxxiv, the Israelites recoil from a transformed Moses who is no longer precisely human.
8
Grekyan, Yervand. "Evidence of celestial phenomena in Urartian cuneiform texts?" ARAMAZD: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies 13, no. 1 (2019): 81–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.32028/ajnes.v13i1.952.
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Unlike the ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform sources, there is no direct evidence of keeping records of celestial objects or astronomical phenomena in the corpus of the Urartian cuneiform texts. In spite of this, astral scenes are widely represented in religious symbolism and iconography of Urartian bronze art. An exceptional evidence of an Urartian cuneiform text could fill the lack of information, perhaps, pointing out the apparition of a comet.
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Schwemer, Daniel. "The Storm-Gods of the Ancient Near East: Summary, Synthesis, Recent Studies Part I." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 7, no. 2 (2007): 121–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156921207783876404.
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AbstractIn many regions of the ancient Near East, not least in Upper Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia where agriculture relied mainly on rainfall, storm-gods ranked among the most prominent gods in the local panthea or were even regarded as divine kings, ruling over the gods and bestowing kingship on the human ruler. While the Babylonian and Assyrian storm-god never held the highest position among the gods, he too belongs to the group of 'great gods' through most periods of Mesopotamian history. Given the many cultural contacts and the longevity of traditions in the ancient Near East only a study that takes into account all relevant periods, regions and text-groups can further our understanding of the different ancient Near Eastern storm-gods. The study Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens by the present author (2001) tried to tackle the problems involved, basing itself primarily on the textual record and excluding the genuinely Anatolian storm-gods from the study. Given the lack of handbooks, concordances and thesauri in our field, the book is necessarily heavily burdened with materials collected for the first time. Despite comprehensive indices, the long lists and footnotes as well as the lack of an overall synthesis make the study not easily accessible, especially outside the German-speaking community. In 2003 Alberto Green published a comprehensive monograph entitled The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East whose aims are more ambitious than those of Wettergottgestalten: All regions of the ancient Near East—including a chapter on Yahwe as a storm-god—are taken into account, and both textual and iconographic sources are given equal space. Unfortunately this book, which was apparently finished and submitted to the publisher before Wettergottgestalten came to its author's attention, suffers from some serious flaws with regard to methodology, philology and the interpretation of texts and images. In presenting the following succinct overview I take the opportunity to make up for the missing synthesis in Wettergottgestalten and to provide some additions and corrections where necessary. It is hoped that this synthesis can also serve as a response to the history of ancient Near Eastern storm-gods as outlined by A. Green.
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Schwemer, Daniel. "The Storm-Gods of the Ancient Near East: Summary, Synthesis, Recent Studies: Part II." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 8, no. 1 (2008): 1–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156921208786182428.
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AbstractIn many regions of the ancient Near East, not least in Upper Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia where agriculture relied mainly on rainfall, storm-gods ranked among the most prominent gods in the local panthea or were even regarded as divine kings, ruling over the gods and bestowing kingship on the human ruler. While the Babylonian and Assyrian storm-god never held the highest position among the gods, he too belongs to the group of 'great gods' through most periods of Mesopotamian history. Given the many cultural contacts and the longevity of traditions in the ancient Near East only a study that takes into account all relevant periods, regions and text-groups can further our understanding of the different ancient Near Eastern storm-gods. The study Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens by the present author (2001) tried to tackle the problems involved, basing itself primarily on the textual record and excluding the genuinely Anatolian storm-gods from the study. Given the lack of handbooks, concordances and thesauri in our field, the book is necessarily heavily burdened with materials collected for the first time. Despite comprehensive indices, the long lists and footnotes as well as the lack of an overall synthesis make the study not easily accessible, especially outside the German-speaking community. In 2003 Alberto Green published a comprehensive monograph entitled The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East whose aims are more ambitious than those of Wettergottgestalten: All regions of the ancient Near East—including a chapter on Yahwe as a storm-god—are taken into account, and both textual and iconographic sources are given equal space. Unfortunately this book, which was apparently finished and submitted to the publisher before Wettergottgestalten came to its author's attention, suffers from some serious flaws with regard to methodology, philology and the interpretation of texts and images. In presenting the following succinct overview I take the opportunity to make up for the missing synthesis in Wettergottgestalten and to provide some additions and corrections where necessary. It is hoped that this synthesis can also serve as a response to the history of ancient Near Eastern storm-gods as outlined by A. Green.
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Nasoraia, Brikha H. S. "Probing the Relationships Between Mandaeans (the Followers of John the Baptist), Early Christians, and Manichaeans." Religions 16, no. 1 (2024): 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16010014.
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Mandaeism is the only ancient Gnostic religion surviving to the present day from antiquity. ‘Gnosticism’ was a block of creative religious activity mostly responding to the early Christian teachings in unusual ways of cosmicizing Jesus, and presenting a challenge to the ancient church fathers in the first-to-third centuries CE. Mandaeism, by comparison, has roots from John the Baptist rather than Jesus, although it is also important to recognize that this baptizing movement emerged in part as a survival of a very old indigenous ethno-religious grouping from Mesopotamia, its followers eventually settling in Mesopotamia’s middle and southern regions. Indeed, much of the Mandaeans’ thought and practice, especially their rituals of water ablution, have deep origins going back to Sumer, Akkad and Babylonia, reflecting regionally wide influences from right across the Fertile Crescent. Mandaean culture and the Mandaic Aramaic language was of high report in the so-called Patristic period covered by this Special Issue, even in the Arabian Peninsula up until the rise of Islam (634 CE onward), and Mandaeans were honored as a third “People of the Book”—the Sabians (Ṣābeʾun; or ṣobba in modern Iraqi Arabic)—in the Qur’an (2:62; 5:69; 22:17); in the Muslim world, many Mandaic speakers switched language to colloquial Iraqi Arabic and (Arabicized) Persian. This article aims to raise some basic questions, relevant to Patristics, about aspects of relationships between Mandaeans and both early ‘mainstream’ Christians and the other large grouping, the Manichaeans. These questions first concern the common flight of the followers of John and Jesus just before the Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem (66–70 CE) and the role of the woman Miriai; second, the extent to which John and his followers affected the direction of early Christianity, and the consequences this had for ‘Baptist’/Christian relationships into the Patristic period, with attention paid to Mandaean views of Jesus; third, the process of the formation of early Mandaeism as it combined Hellenistic-Palestinian and Mesopotamian elements; and fourth, the signs that the Mandaeans not only influenced Mesopotamian Christian baptismal sects but were crucial in the emergence Manichaeism (from the 230s CE in Persian-dominated Iraq). This article will finish by concentrating on Mandaean–Manichaean relations in the light of a little known and previously secret Mandaic text (Diwan Razia), best known as Mani or Sidra d-Mani within a larger collection of unnamed occult texts. On the basis of the Mandaeans’ texts, we maintain that both Jesus and Mani apparently left their fold in turn.
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Schwemer, Daniel. "Any Evil, a Stalking Ghost, and the Bull-Headed Demon." Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 110, no. 2 (2020): 141–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/za-2020-0015.
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AbstractBased on first-millennium cuneiform manuscripts from Aššur, Babylon, and Uruk, this article offers an edition of a ritual against an illness conceptualized as the demon ‘Any Evil’. The text sheds light on how the catch-all figure Any Evil corresponds to the idea of a universal cure for any physical ailment, and how the rhetoric of the incantation articulates this relationship and facilitates the active participation of the patient. The ritual instructions of this and a closely related text show that Any Evil is envisaged as a bull-headed, male demon. This points to an adaptation of motifs that are typically associated with ghosts in ancient Mesopotamian thought and raises questions concerning the pictorial representation of Any Evil and its conceptual foundations.
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Al-Rawi, Farouk N. H. "Tablets from the Sippar library X. A dedication of Zabaya of Larsa." Iraq 64 (2002): 247–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021088900003727.
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The Neo- or Late Babylonian tablet presented here adds to the increasing number of ancient Mesopotamian formal inscriptions extant in copies made by first-millennium scribes. Another such tablet from the Sippar library, containing a copy of two building inscriptions reporting the work of Gudea and Šulgi on the temple of Nanše at Sirara, has already been published.The present tablet's existence was announced in Iraq 49 (1987) 249. The inscription copied on to it uses an early monumental script. The text (11. 1–13) is a dedication to the goddess Nanše made by a diviner called Nanna-mansum (or Sîn-iddinam) for the well-being of an Amorite sheikh called Zabaya. This is most probably the fourth king of Larsa, who enjoyed the same name and title and reigned in the mid-twentieth century BC, in the usual chronology. The present text is accordingly catalogued by the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia project under Zabaya of Larsa as E4.2.4.3 (Frayne, Old Babylonian Period, RIME 4, p. 112). Original inscriptions of this king have been found at Larsa and Maškan-šāpir.The colophon (11. 14–18), apparently written over a poorly erased text, is in a conventional late script. The object on which the inscription was found is reported as a bronze “buck” (daššu), presumably a goat-shaped figurine. This was no doubt the object dedicated by Nanna-mansum (or Sîn-iddinam) to Nanše for his royal master many centuries before. Such bronze castings occur elsewhere in the written sources as ornaments on a bed (Nbn 206, 2: da-áš-šá-a-tum).
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Carver, Daniel E. "Biblical Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context: A New Interpretation of Jeremiah 30–33." Journal of Biblical Literature 142, no. 2 (2023): 267–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.15699/jbl.1422.2023.5.
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Abstract In a new approach, I interpret biblical prophecy in light of its ancient Near Eastern divinatory context and offer a new perspective on the (non)fulfillment of prophecy. I begin with a description of how divine communication was understood according to Mesopotamian and biblical texts, laying a foundation for comparative analysis. I then apply this approach to the prophecies of restoration in Jeremiah 30–33. I argue that the prophecies in these chapters, originally intended to be fulfilled in the postexilic era, were canceled (except 31:35–37, 33:19–26) and that a new decision or decisions were given to take their place. Nevertheless, these canceled prophecies continue to have great divinatory significance that reveals patterns of how the deity intends to bless and dwell among the people. Ultimately, a close reading of the text in the light of its ancient Near Eastern contexts provides a strong corrective to the ways that these chapters are commonly interpreted.
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ESPAK, Peeter. "Genesis 11, 1–9 and its Sumerian Predecessors in Comparative Perspective: Early Views on “National Culture” and its Nature." STUDIA ANTIQUA ET ARCHAEOLOGICA 27, no. 2 (2021): 255–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.47743/saa-2021-27-2-2.
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The paper discusses some key texts from Ancient Mesopotamian and also Hebrew mythologies which may have had several indications and contained many ancient understandings about the early views on the modern notions of a nation, national culture and the role of language on these beliefs. The possible connection of the Sumerian epic tale Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is discussed in context with the Enuma Eliš myth in context with Hebrew Genesis’ the Tower of Babel story and the character of these text and the nature of their evolution is analysed. Based on some Sumerian royal correspondence, hymns, and epic literature and the worldview presented in Sumerian literature it is concluded that that certainly and especially a sort of a language based cultural and also ethnical understanding about a “distinct nation” culturally separate from “other” nations already existed more than 4000 years ago; reflected in many ways similarly also in the stories of Hebrew Genesis.
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Bunta, Silviu N. "THE MĒSU-TREE AND THE ANIMAL INSIDE: THEOMORPHISM AND THERIOMORPHISM IN DANIEL 4." Scrinium 3, no. 1 (2007): 364–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18177565-90000162.
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The present article offers an analysis of Daniel 4. It argues that the literary origins of the tree imagery in the biblical text most probably lie in Mesopotamian conceptions of the mēsu-tree, the tree that supplies the flesh of the gods, the material of their statuary presence. The presence of the imagery in Ezekiel 31 suggests that the Mesopotamian concept was incorporated into exilic and post-exilic redefinitions of the legitimate channels of the iconic worship of YHWH. Within a priestly redefinition of YHWH's iconic presence in Judah, Adam's physical resemblance to YHWH provided in humanity the only legitimate alternative to idol worship. Daniel 4 and its context exhibit similar ideological concerns and construct a similar solution to the ongoing iconic dilemma: humanity functions as the only legitimate equivalent of ancient Near Eastern cultic statues, as the replacement of YHWH's cultic statue of the First Temple no longer extant. The iconic connotation of the tree imagery requires a reassessment of the animal deforma¬tion of the tree, albeit a late addition to the original stratum of the narrative. Commonly interpreted through the lens of ancient Near Eastern depictions of human heroes with animal traits or life-habits, Nebuchadnezzar's loss of his dendromorphism can only mean in the terms of the parable the deformation of a theomorphic state. Within the parameters of this ideological context and of the tree parable, by losing his theomorphism and becoming theriomorphic, Nebuchadnezzar ceases to be object of worship and becomes worshipper. Moreover, in his deformation he also destroys the only legitimate object of iconic worship: himself. The context of Daniel 4, namely Daniel 3 and Daniel 5, suggests that in its deformed state humanity is only left to mistakenly worship idols.
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Böck, Barbara. "ÜBERLEGUNGEN ZU EINEM KULTFEST DER ALTMESOPOTAMISCHEN GÖTTIN INANNA." Numen 51, no. 1 (2004): 20–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156852704773558214.
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AbstractThe present study aims at interpreting a Sumerian hymn pertaining to the cult of the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love and war, Inanna/Ištar. Though this literary composition belongs to the realm of royal religion, and centres on the relationship between the goddess and the royal personage, the hymn also provides an insight into a cultic feast of rather popular character. The text describes a ritual; its inner logic follows the course of a cultic ceremony. Accordingly, the term "implicit ritual" as opposed to "explicit ritual", or liturgical order, can be applied. Until now the Sumerian hymn in question has been treated mainly from a text critical point of view. Certain aspects of the ritual performance, viz. the playful change of gender roles, are expressed through the epithets of the goddess. Recently, attention has been given to those epithets that allude to the power of the goddess to change her sex, and it has been proposed that they show a shamanistic side of the goddess. In what follows we shall put forward an alternative interpretation of the change of gender roles by using the concept of play and game as intrinsic to a religious system. The cultic feast of the goddess Inanna/Ištar will thus be traced back to a ritual of inversion which serves to reconstitute the moral and social order as well as to consolidate religious belief. Since our hymn is considered to be one of the main sources for the reconstruction of the so-called "sacred marriage" we shall also touch upon this ancient rite.
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Makkaveev, Nikolai A. "On the Dogs-Prostitutes in the Old Testament." Vostok. Afro-aziatskie obshchestva: istoriia i sovremennost, no. 6 (2022): 58. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s086919080023579-3.
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Despite the widespread ideas, there were no cult male prostitutes in Ancient Israel. Therefore, we must reject the popular hypothesis according to which the “dogs” in Deuteronomy (23:19) meant “male prostitutes”. The interpretation of female qedešot and male qedešim as cult harlots and fornicators dates back at least to the Vulgate (late 4th century) (while the translators of the Septuagint did not understand these words and interpreted them according to context). However, such an understanding contains a huge number of logical stretches and internal contradictions. We agree with Phyllis Ann Bird’s hypothesis about its origin. The interpretation of Mesopotamian temple singers and dancers assinnu as cult homosexual prostitutes analogous to the “dogs” looks unconvincing. Qedešot were minor servants at local sanctuaries, who supposedly disappeared as a result of the reform of the Jewish religion under Josiah (7th century BC) and were analogous to the Mesopotamian qadištu priestesses. both groups had no sexual functions. Hosea (8th century BC) compared qedešot to prostitutes (4:15) following the biblical prophets’ manner of calling “fornication” all that they considered a betrayal of the YHWH cult. In the story about Judah and Tamar, qedeša is used as an euphemism for the harlot (Gen. 38:21). The qedešim were invented by the compiler of the Deuteronomy (23:19), who did not know who the qedešot were, but duplicated them in the masculine gender, to give the prohibition an absolute character. The remaining references to qedešim are either revoicings and reinterpretations of the consonantal text under the influence of Deuteronomy (2 Kings 23:7; Job 36:14), or later insertions to explain the origin of the qedešim in Israel (1 Kings 14:23; 15:11; 22:47).
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Magdalene, F. Rachel, Bruce Wells, and Cornelia Wunsch. "Pre-trial negotiations: The Case of the run-away slave in Dar. 53." Iraq 70 (2008): 205–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021088900000954.
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The study of ancient Near Eastern trial procedure has a long history, and the judicial systems of several periods have been investigated in detail. What remains lacking is a thorough and systematic treatment of the trial law and procedure from the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, though numerous legal texts have been studied. Recently two dissertations by F. R. Magdalene and S. E. Holtz have described the adjudicative process from the bringing of charges by an accuser through various stages and actions, including the taking of witness statements, interrogation, the examination of physical evidence, courts' demands for further evidence, summonses, and the issuing of conditional and final verdicts. Both also provide a basis for further investigation of this southern Mesopotamian legal system, which seems to have followed longstanding traditions but also contains indications of new developments.While both studies examine several hundred trial-related documents, one particular text that has been the subject of interpretation since the late nineteenth century receives scant attention. The document in question is Dar. 53. A close analysis of its text raises significant questions with regard to a particular aspect of trial procedure during the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. The text has never been satisfactorily treated, and recent references to it in scholarly literature in fact have led to erroneous conclusions about what it reveals in general, and regarding law and procedure in particular. Despite a consistent belief that the text records a trial, Dar. 53 actually arises from pre-trial demands and the resulting negotiations.
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Knohl, Israel. "Sacred Architecture: The Numerical Dimensions of Biblical Poems." Vetus Testamentum 62, no. 2 (2012): 189–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853312x629199.
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Abstract I have recently studied the numerical architecture of several biblical poems and found sophisticated use of the numerical structures of words and cola. It is possible that some of these numerical structures are based on numerical values of the letters of the names of God. If this is indeed the correct explanation of these numerical structures, it should be perceived through wider cultural spectrum: The phenomenon of symbolizing divine names with numerical values is known in the Mesopotamian world. The development of Alphabetic script opened new possibilities for representation of divine name by numbers. Now, God might be represented by the numerical values of the letters of his names. This method has special significance in a society that forbids representing God’s image with a statue. The fact that the representation of the numerical values of letters is not attested in mundane use in Ancient Israel before the Hellenistic period, may point to the possibility that this method was first a sacred secret knowledge. The numerical structures are best demonstrated in the Masoretic version of the Hebrew Bible. This fact may bear a significant impact upon biblical text criticism.
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Anjum, Ovamir. "Editorial Note." American Journal of Islam and Society 40, no. 1-2 (2023): 2–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v40i1-2.3255.
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In this issue, you will find three peer-reviewed articles and two forum essays. Adrien A. P. Chauvet’s “Cosmographical readings of the Qurʾan” is a trained physicist’s probing, multidisciplinary inquiry about a topic of great interest to the recent generations of Muslims about the compatibility of Islam and science, and about the obvious exuberance Muslims feel when some modern discoveries point to the Qurʾanic truth. As a trained physicist, he wonders whether and how we can be sure that the scientific paradigms endorsed today will endure, and therefore, more pertinently, “how can the text stay scientifically relevant across the ages, while science itself is evolving?” It thus advances the scholarship on the scriptures’ relevance to past and present scientific paradigms, reviewing multiple ancient cosmographical paradigms (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hebraic, Greek, Christian, Zoroastrian and Manichean) as well as modern ones, while being grounded in Islamic theology and philosophy of science. It manages to advance a novel thesis in the growing field of Islam and science, advocating for a multiplicity of correspondences between both past and modern scientific paradigms, even if these paradigms conflict with one another.
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Bilić, Tomislav. "Following in the Footsteps of the Sun: Gilgameš, Odysseus and Solar Movement." Annali Sezione Orientale 82, no. 1-2 (2022): 3–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24685631-12340126.
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Abstract During the heyday of the solar-myth paradigm it was a norm to interpret every single mythic character and his or her actions in terms of either the annual or diurnal solar movement. With the paradigm’s inevitable demise, the body of evidence that was central to its approach was relegated to a more peripheral position by the adherents of succeeding paradigms that successively dominated the field. This has left a significant number of references to solar phenomena in ancient text on the margins of scholarly interest, including those that appear in the central texts of both Mesopotamian and Greek traditions. This paper focuses on a re-evaluation of the presence of solar resonances in a section of the Epic of Gilgameš that contains clear and explicit references to the sun and its course. At the same time, following in the footsteps of many earlier scholars, it offers a parallel analysis of a section of Odysseus’ itinerary of a similar character. This re-evaluation has shown that the respective sections of the heroes’ itineraries are partly structured on an analogy with solar movement, but that the dominant use of solar references in these texts is more haphazard and reflects more circumscribed intentions of the texts’ authors.
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Выдрин, Андрей. "Urim and Thummim in Ancient Israel: Critical Analysis of Sources and Hypotheses." Theological Herald, no. 3(34) (August 15, 2019): 17–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.31802/2500-1450-2019-34-17-38.
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В статье анализируются основные научные гипотезы о том, что собой представляли урим и туммим, каково было их назначение и способ использования. Для этого привлекаются различные источники, начиная с древнейших упоминаний в рукописях Кумрана, согласно которым урим и туммим ассоциировались с драгоценными камнями на наплечниках или нагруднике первосвященнического эфода. Данной точки зрения в той или иной степени придерживалось большинство последующих древних писателей (Иосиф Флавий, авторы соответствующих эпизодов из Вавилонского Талмуда, свт. Иоанн Златоуст, блж. Феодорит Кирский и др.). Однако, по мнению некоторых западных комментаторов, урим и туммим - это названия знаков или букв на нагруднике (блж. Августин и св. Беда Достопочтенный). Согласно третьему взгляду, уримом и туммимом была надпись с именем Яхве или две надписи с Божественными именами внутри нагрудника (Раши, Рамбан и др.). Начиная с XX столетия урим и туммим стали рассматривать в качестве жребия по аналогии с месопотамскими практиками, основываясь на эпизоде в 1 Цар. 14, 41-42 по версии Септуагинты. Автор статьи полемизирует с этим представлением, доказывая, что, во-первых, оригинальное чтение данного пассажа сохранилось в более короткой версии древнееврейского текста, во-вторых, что урим и туммим не могут быть жребием, а в-третьих, что в процессе получения ответа через урим и туммим главную роль играло пророческое вдохновение, ниспосылаемое Господом священнику. Само выражение «урим и туммим» могло передавать идею «совершенного света» и, предположительно, обозначать драгоценный камень, посредством которого подтверждалась истинность слов священника. The article analyzes the main scientific hypotheses about what Urim and Thummim were, what was their purpose and method of use. For this purpose, various sources are involved, starting with the oldest references in the manuscripts of Qumran, according to which Urim and Thummim were associated with precious stones on the shoulder pads or breastplate of the high priest’s ephod. This view in one way or another adhered to the majority of subsequent ancient writers (Josephus, the authors of the relevant episodes of the Babylonian Talmud, st. John Chrysostom, Theodore Kirsky, etc.). However, according to some Western commentators, Urim and Thummim are the names of the signs or letters on the breastplate (st. Augustine and St. Bede the Venerable). According to the third view, Urim and Thummim was an inscription with the name Yahweh or two inscriptions with Divine names inside the breastplate (Rashi, Ramban, etc.). The beginning of the twentieth century, the Urim and Thummim began to be regarded as a lot similar to Mesopotamian practices, based on the episode in 1 Sam. 14, 41-42 according to the Septuagint. The author argues with this idea, arguing that, firstly, the original reading of this passage is preserved in a shorter version of the Hebrew text, and secondly, that the Urim and Thummim can not be a lot, and thirdly, that in the process of receiving an answer through the Urim and Thummim played a major role prophetic inspiration sent down by the Lord to the priest. The very expression «Urim and Thummim» could convey the idea of «perfect light» and, presumably, denote a precious stone, by which confirmed the truth of the words of the priest.
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Böck, Barbara. "Proverbs 30:18-19 in the Light of Ancient Mesopotamian Cuneiform Texts." Sefarad 69, no. 2 (2009): 263–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.2009.v69.i2.595.
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BÖCK, BARBARA. "CHRISTOPHER WALKER and MICHAEL DICK: The induction of the cult image in ancient Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî ritual. (State Archives of Assyria Literary Texts, 1.) vii, 267 pp., CD. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Institute for Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki, 2001. $75." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 66, no. 2 (2003): 241–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x03230159.
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Stocks, Denys A. "Making stone vessels in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt." Antiquity 67, no. 256 (1993): 596–603. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00045804.
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Collins, C. John. "Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11." Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 72, no. 4 (2020): 243–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.56315/pscf12-20collins.
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READING GENESIS WELL: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1-11 by C. John Collins. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018. 336 pages. Paperback; $36.99. ISBN: 9780310598572. *C. John Collins makes judicious use of C. S. Lewis throughout his book and offers a reading of the early chapters of Genesis that seeks to avoid both an ahistorical fundamentalist interpretation and a dismissive scientism that views Genesis as bad science by ignorant people. Collins identifies himself as a "religious traditionalist," and he seeks to read Genesis in ways that take seriously the original context of the author and first readers of the text. In doing so, he makes more evident the real meaning of Genesis as a rival creation story to other creation stories circulating at that time in the ancient near East. Collins has a twofold goal. "The first is to provide guidance to those who want to consider how these Bible passages relate to the findings of the sciences. The second is to establish patterns of good theological reading, patterns applicable to other texts" (p. 32). *Collins emphasizes quite rightly that to interpret a text correctly it is important to consider the context. It is context that determines whether the words, "I'm going to kill you" are a lethal threat to life or the joking retort of a friend. Genesis is not trying to do contemporary science, so to read Genesis as opposed to or in support of contemporary science is to rip Genesis from its ancient context in terms of both its literary form and its world view. The story of Genesis is not trying and failing to answer contemporary scientific questions; rather, the story of Genesis is emphasizing that, "all human beings have a common origin, a common predicament, and a common need to know God and have God's image restored in them" (p. 113). *We can understand what Genesis truly means by putting Genesis back into its ancient context. As Collins notes, "I take the purpose of Genesis to begin with opposing the origin stories of other ancient peoples by telling of one true God who made heaven and earth ..." (p. 137). Once Genesis is put back into its context, we can better appreciate the genre of the work. The language of Genesis is not scientific but poetic. Collins notes that we can communicate truths using different kinds of language. In ordinary language, we say, "You are beautiful." In scientific language, we might say, "You exhibit visible signs of youth, health, fertility, and symmetry." In poetic language, we could say, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date." Imagine someone who got out a weather almanac, looked up the speed of winds last May, and replied, "Last May, the winds were unseasonably calm. No rough winds at all. Shakespeare was horrible at correctly noting the weather! What a dunce!" Of course, in writing Sonnet 18, Shakespeare was not trying and failing to compose an accurate weather report. The Bard's purposes, genre, and context are entirely different than meteorology. So, too, Genesis is not trying and failing to provide a scientific account of the origin of sun, moon, and stars--or man. To fault Genesis as a bad science is like faulting Shakespeare as a bad weather man. Collins correctly notes, "To call Genesis 'science,' whether ancient or modern is an enormous literary confusion" (p. 279). *So, if Genesis is not failing to be good science, since it is not even attempting to do science, what is Genesis about? The Genesis account is a correction to the rival stories of the ancient world. Genesis holds, in contrast to the pagan myths, that the sun, moon, and stars are not gods. The heavenly bodies exist to serve humans, to mark time. The idea that nature is not a god is an idea of signal importance, for if the created order is not divine, then the door is open for science to dissect and examine the secrets of nature. Genesis steers a middle course between a radical environmentalism (worshiping nature as divine) and a radical anti-environmentalism (domineering of nature as worthless material). *The role of humankind is also made more plain by contrasting Genesis with rival stories. Collins notes, "In the Mesopotamian stories the gods made humankind to do the work they do not wish to do, but they regret their action and decide to eliminate humanity because people have multiplied and become so noisy that the gods cannot rest (which was their original goal in making man)" (p. 190). *How unlike the God of Abraham who urges human beings to be fruitful and multiply. The Greek poet Hesiod wrote, "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nurture to do evil." By contrast, Genesis proclaims both man and woman to be made in the image and likeness of God. Both man and woman fall to the serpent's temptation. Both man and woman are cared for by God after the Fall. *Reading Genesis Well is a good book, and it could be made even better. At times, there is a great deal of windup before the pitch. At other times, there is needless repetition. For example, Collins writes, "The creation narrative portrays the sun, moon, and stars as makers for the (liturgical) seasons. They are servants to help humankind worship the Maker, not masters themselves worthy of human worship" (p. 293). This is a great point, but the point is made at least three times in the text. *The organization of the text could be improved in places. For example, when Collins quotes Rudolf Bultmann's famous assertion, "It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles," he does not respond to this assertion until pages later. *In places, not just form but substance can be improved. Collins quotes with approval James Packer saying, "The church no more created the canon [of scripture] than Newton created the law of gravity; recognition is not creation." But this is not quite right. The New Testament was written by early leaders of the church, such as Paul, Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John. It was the Council of Rome (p. 382) that fixed the biblical canon which was in some state of flux until then. The New Testament arose from the leaders of the early church and was cast into its current form by the leaders of the patristic church. That is much more than a mere recognition. Collins touches on the monogensism-polygenism question but does not address the dispute at sufficient length. *None of these quibbles should deter readers from profiting from Collins's research. Reading Genesis Well can indeed help us better understand one of the most ancient, most important, and most influential texts of all time. *Reviewed by Christopher Kaczor, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University, 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045.
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Wasserman, Nathan. "Treating Garments in the Old Babylonian Period: “At the Cleaners” in a Comparative View." Iraq 75 (2013): 255–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021088900000486.
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This article examines UET 6/2, 414, the Old Babylonian dialogue between a fuller and a client, commonly referred to as “At the Cleaners”, from the point of view of ancient technology. Drawing upon a wide range of Talmudic and Classical sources mentioning laundry, and based on a careful philological reading of the Akkadian text, this study offers a new understanding of the different stages of washing and treatment of luxury garments in the Old Babylonian period. It is argued that the possible humorous aspect of the text is irrelevant to the fact that UET 6/2, 414 is a unique composition in antiquity, offering a long and accurate sequence of laundry instructions. Washing procedures and ways of treating luxury garments in Mesopotamia are outlined step by step; new Akkadian terms pertaining to garments and clothing are presented; wages of laundry workers in ancient Mesopotamia are briefly discussed. The study concludes with a new edition and translation of UET 6/2, 414.
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Kellner, Angelika. "Time Is Running. Ancient Greek Chronography and the Ancient Near East." Journal of Ancient History 9, no. 1 (2021): 19–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jah-2019-0027.
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Abstract The article explores the question whether there was a possible dialogue between ancient Greek and Mesopotamian chronography. This is an interesting albeit challenging subject due to the fragmentary preservation of the Greek texts. The idea that cuneiform tablets might have influenced the development of the genre in Greece lingers in the background without having been the subject of detailed discussion. Notably the Neo-Assyrian limmu list has been suggested as a possible blueprint for the Athenian archon list. In order to examine this topic further, a thorough analysis of ancient Greek chronography starting in the second half of the fifth century BC, when eponymous dates in various literary compositions begin to appear, is required. A close examination of the fragmentary evidence shows how difficult it is to trace the supposed annalistic style in the local histories of Athens (Atthides). In the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the eponymous limmu officials served as the chronological backbone, but there remains a huge time gap between the seventh century cuneiform manuscripts and the Athenian archon list from the fifth century. A comparison of the Neo-Assyrian Eponymous Chronicles with the preserved Greek chronographic traditions in Eusebius’ chronicle (fourth century AD) shows that the similarity is mainly confined to an abbreviated style, as the entries clearly point to the different cultural and political settings. Apart from the Neo-Assyrian sources, the Neo- and Late-Babylonian chronicles deserve further attention in the present inquiry. Looking for a connection with ancient Greek chronography in the fifth century, the lack of wholly preserved texts on both sides in the corresponding time constitutes an unsurmountable obstacle. Presenting and scrutinising the textual evidence both for ancient Greek and for Mesopotamian chronography enables an improved understanding of similarities and differences alike. To exemplify this point, Greek and Akkadian temple histories serve as test cases.
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Fodor, Alexander. "Arabic Bowl Divination and the Greek Magical Papyri." Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic 9-10 (1994): 73–101. https://doi.org/10.58513/arabist.1994.9-10.6.
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Bowl divination or lecanomancy, a specific kind of hydromancy, has always been a favourite practice in the Middle East. It is generally agreed that its origins can be traced back to the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, from whom it spread to Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, Persians, Arabs, and Turks, arriving finally in Europe. The paper provides an analysis of a text from a modern Arabic book of magic, ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ as-Sayyid aṭ-Ṭūḫī‘s Siḥr Bār Nūḥ, in an endeavour to prove that the author relied on sources containing ancient material.
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Shibata, Daisuke. "An Old Babylonian manuscript of the Weidner god-list from Tell Taban." Iraq 71 (2009): 33–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021088900000723.
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AbstractThis article presents a fragment of an Old Babylonian clay tablet excavated in 2007 at Tell Taban, ancient Ṭābatum, near Hassake in Syria. The text is a common Babylonian scholarly composition known as the Weidner god-list. It is the oldest exemplar of this list so far recovered from north Mesopotamia and important for the history of the diffusion of Babylonian scholarship.
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Simkó, Krisztián. "THE MAGICAL POTENTIAL OF STONES USED FOR CYLINDER SEALS: NEW MANUSCRIPTS OF THE TEXT KNOWN FROM BAM 194 VIII’ 9’–14’." Iraq 77 (December 2015): 203–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/irq.2015.16.
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Besides their significance in administrative procedures, cylinder seals also played an important role as amulets in ancient Mesopotamia. There are many references to them being used in medical and magical procedures, which sometimes determine their features of magical potential. Thus not only the imagery and inscription of cylinder seals but also the raw material of which they were made contributed to their medico-magical usage (cf. Collon 1987: 119; 1997: 19–20). This paper deals with the last-mentioned feature of cylinder seals, that is their raw material, which is treated in a short series known from BAM 194 viii’ 9’–14’, as well as from another three tablets published here for the first time.
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Kennedy, Titus. "Temple Dedication and Construction Texts of the Ancient Near East with Elapsed Years: Implications for Long Duration Chronologies." Religions 15, no. 4 (2024): 408. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15040408.
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Ancient texts dedicating or commemorating temples that can be associated with archaeological remains such as architecture and inscriptions, along with identifiable kings who built or commemorated those temples and the specification of the elapsed number of years from a past event, are known from Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant over the span of several centuries. Although the texts originate from differing religious, cultural, and geographic contexts and were recorded on various mediums, the similarity in content, style, and objective indicates a shared tradition and allows the grouping of these texts into a distinctive category. These temple construction and dedication texts document a king or kings involved in the construction, reconstruction, or remembrance of a temple, a deity with whom the temple was connected, the location of the temple, and the specific number of years elapsed between construction or dedication and another significant cultural or religious event. Known examples come from Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, and Israel, spanning the 13th to the 2nd centuries BC, along with a text from ancient Rome that was likely influenced by this practice. Because the kings named are known from various historical documents and inscriptions, archaeological remains related to the temples have often been recovered; since the construction or dedication texts record elapsed years in reference to another event, these texts can be analyzed in regard to their viability as sources for the history and chronology of the ancient Near East in the context of religion and official records of the state. Investigation of these texts alongside king lists and temples reveals that temple construction and dedication texts of the ancient Near East that included mention of elapsed years provide valuable, detailed, and accurate information that can be used to identify the existence of ancient temples in time, corroborate periods of kingship or other important events, and contribute to understanding a method of historical chronology used by the ancients.
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Głowacz, Joanna. "Smok i Wąż starodawny z Ap 12, 3-4 i 12, 7-9. Symbolika i geneza wyobrażenia." Wrocławski Przegląd Teologiczny 25, no. 1 (2019): 161–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.52097/wpt.2259.
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The ancient and universal symbol of the serpent/dragon has a rich spectrum of meanings. The article describes archaic aspect of this idea, in which the serpent and dragon are personifications of chaos and demonic powers. Such personification appeared in many ancient cultures. The text describes some selected, associated with the world of the biblical: Land of Canaan, Land of Hatti, Mesopotamia and Egypt. Descriptions of fights in the sky, present in ancient religions, have many similarities. God – The Creator, or God – The Hero, which is the guarantor of the cosmic order, fighting the monster, the personification the primary evil and chaos. The dragon or serpent is the eternal enemy of the forces of good, represented the deity. These threads seem to confirm the idea that ancient serpent and dragon from the Apocalypse of St. John The Apostle, has biblical origins. Antiquity of this symbol may reach deeper – through the Leviathan and Rahab the Old Testament, the mythological characters of the Middle East and Egypt and deeper – in the most ancient times. Image of an Ancient Serpent and the Dragon, depicted in Apocalypse of St. John The Apostle, universal theme and supracultural can have rooted in ancient conceptual system. Pejorative evocative meaning of bases rational dates back to ancient archetype.
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Roberts, John R. "Biblical Cosmology: The Implications for Bible Translation." Journal of Translation 9, no. 2 (2013): 1–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.54395/jot-583n6.
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We show that the creation account in Genesis 1.1–2.3 refers to a worldview of the cosmos as the ancient Mesopotamians and ancient Egyptians understood it to be. These civilisations left behind documents, maps and iconography which describe the cosmological beliefs they had. The differences between the biblical cosmology and ancient Near East cosmologies are observed to be mainly theological in nature rather than cosmological. However, the biblical cosmology is conceptually different to a modern view of the cosmos in significant ways. We examine how a range of terms are translated in English Bible translations, including ḥōšeḵ, təhôm, rāqîᵃʿ, hammayim ʾăšer mēʿal lārāqîᵃʿ, and mayim mittaḥaṯ lā’āreṣ, and show that if the denotation of these terms is in accordance with a modern worldview then this results in a text that has incongruities and is incoherent in the nature of the cosmos it depicts. We therefore recommend that the translation should denote a biblical cosmology.
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Kang, Jinoon, and Sujung Kim. "A Study on the Analysis of the Interrelationship between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible Using Text Mining." JAHR 13, no. 2 (2023): 371–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.21860/j.13.2.9.
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The development of human civilization is a continuous process of imitation and creation based on exchange. Most historical research is performed qualitatively, so consequently, historical interpretations tend to be biased with personal or subjective viewpoints. In this context, Bible is the most-read book in history and comparative studies are steadily conducted owing to its similarities with the myths of ancient civilizations. This study combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to analyze the interrelationship between a myth and the Bible. Specifically, intertextuality analysis was performed around the great flood episode in Mesopotamia’s Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible’s Genesis. Text mining–based association rule analysis and word cloud analysis were combined to verify this. Intertextuality analysis revealed the interrelationship between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible; moreover, text mining helped verify the association in intertextuality analysis. Through this, the study proposes a research method for civilization exchange studies by objectively approaching the flow and directionality of exchanges among civilizations in the ancient Mediterranean regions. Furthermore, along with civilization exchange studies, a practical convergent research method for studies in the areas of humanities, regional studies, and history was suggested.
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Frenez, Dennys. "Cross-Cultural Trade and Socio-Technical Developments in the Oman Peninsula during the Bronze Age, ca. 3200 to 1600 BC." Ocnus | Quaderni della Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici dell'Università di Bologna 27 (September 1, 2020): 7–47. https://doi.org/10.12876/OCNUS2702.
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This paper presents an updated compendium of the archaeological and ancient textual data about long-range trade and multicultural interactions involving the nomadic and sedentary communities of the Oman Peninsula, with a specific focus on the Early Bronze Age including the so-called Hafit and Umm an-Nar periods (ca. 3200-2000 BC). Substantial evidence of direct and intermediated interactions is discussed in light of their contribution to the local development of particular socio-technical spheres and how they influenced the cultural and economic setting of the local society in the different phases. In order to properly interpret the long-term significance of this phenomenon, the discontinuous trajectory of mutual inputs with neighbouring regions is considered within a longer time span covering the seven millennia from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age.
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Ur, Jason, Lidewijde de Jong, Jessica Giraud, James F. Osborne, and John MacGinnis. "Ancient Cities and Landscapes in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey 2012 Season." Iraq 75 (2013): 89–117. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021088900000425.
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In 2012, the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) conducted its first season of fieldwork. The project's goal is the complete mapping of the archaeological landscape of Erbil, with an emphasis on the Neo-Assyrian and Hellenistic periods. It will test the hypothesis that the Neo-Assyrian landscape was closely planned. This first report emphasizes the project's field methodology, especially the use of a variety of satellite remote sensing imagery. Our preliminary results suggest that the plain was part of the urbanized world of Mesopotamia, with new cities of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Sasanian era identified.
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Dickens, Mark, and Natalia Smelova. "A Rediscovered Syriac Amulet from Turfan in the Collection of the Hermitage Museum." Written Monuments of the Orient 7, no. 2 (2021): 107–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.17816/wmo65952.
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Item ВДсэ-524 in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is an amulet scroll written in Syriac which was discovered by the Second German Turfan Expedition (19041905) and kept afterwards in the Museum of Ethnology (Museum fr Vlkerkunde) in Berlin. The artifact originates in the Turkic-speaking Christian milieu of the Turfan Oasis, probably from the Mongol period. The text, however, reflects a long tradition of magical literature that goes back to ancient Mesopotamia and can be categorised as a piece of apotropaic (protective) magic. The article contains an edition of the Syriac text with translation and a discussion of its place of discovery, its overall composition and specific words and expressions found in the text. The authors point out likely connections between the Hermitage amulet and the Turfan fragments SyrHT 274276 kept in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preuischer Kulturbesitz and briefly discuss its similarity with amulet H彩101 discovered in Qara Qoto by the 19831984 expedition of the Institute of Cultural Relics, Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.
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Raulwing, Peter. "Manfred Mayrhofer’s Studies on Indo-Aryan and the Indo-Aryans in the Ancient Near East: A Retrospective and Outlook on Future Research." Journal of Egyptian History 5, no. 1-2 (2012): 248–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187416612x632481.
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Abstract Around 100 years ago, the surprising discovery of linguistic traces of an older stage of the Vedic language in the ancient Near East caused an increasing amount of interest in various academic disciplines such as Indo-European linguistics, oriental studies (Assyriology), and Egyptology, among others. In default of a historical name, this language became known as “Indo-Aryan” in the ancient Near East over the course of the 20th century. Its relatively small text corpus, documented in cuneiform archives across the Eastern Mediterranean cultures, contains about two or three dozen termini technici; among them divine names, personal names, legal terms and—proportionally high in comparison to the overall number of the Indo-Aryan textual evidence—terms related to horses and chariots. The scholarly interest circled around linguistically possible Indo-Aryan influences on non-Indo-Aryan languages and cultures in the eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, including Anatolia, and Egypt in the Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom; among them, the hypothesis of the introduction of horses and chariots into the ancient Near East. During the 1930s and 1940s political and ideological developments, especially in German-speaking countries, influenced perspectives and results of studies on Indo-Aryan in the ancient Near East by introducing non-linguistic approaches and methodologies. Manfred Mayrhofer has dedicated a significant part of his long and successful academic career to the linguistic and bibliographical research of Indo-Aryan and its reception in scholarly studies. This retrospective attempts to review specific aspects of Mayrhofer’s studies on Indo-Aryan and the Indo-Aryans in the ancient Near East and adjacent areas and to provide an outlook on further tasks and research deriving from his legacy.
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Basu, Sudipta, and Gregory B. Waymire. "Recordkeeping and Human Evolution." Accounting Horizons 20, no. 3 (2006): 201–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.2308/acch.2006.20.3.201.
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We seek to characterize the evolutionary role played by the transactional record that is the foundation of modern accounting. We theorize that systematic recordkeeping crystallizes memory and, along with other institutions (e.g., law, weights, and measures), promotes the trust necessary for large-scale human cooperation. Our theory yields two predictions: (1) permanent records emerge to supplement memory when complex intertemporal exchange between strangers becomes more common and (2) systematic records and other exchange-supporting institutions co-evolve and feed back to increase gains from economic coordination and division of labor. Many aspects of ancient Mesopotamian recordkeeping are consistent with these hypotheses, suggesting that our evolutionary theory is plausible. We outline ways to directly test our predictions with experiments, ethnographies, and agent-based models, and describe other techniques that can be used to explore the co-evolution of accounting with the human brain, language, and law.
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Garcia-Ventura, Agnes. "A Tearful and Busy Mother." Avar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Life and Society in the Ancient Near East 2, no. 1 (2023): 85–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.33182/aijls.v2i1.2068.
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As a way to explore certain aspects related to the construction of motherhood, and by extension of an ideal of femininity in ancient Mesopotamia, in this article we examine a first millennium BCE baby incantation known to us thanks to two duplicates found in the city of Assur. More specifically, we concentrate on the two references to the mother in this text. In the first one the mother herself cries when she sees that she cannot stop her baby’s crying. In the second one the mother is presented as unable to attend to the work she has to do because of the baby’s crying. In our analysis we argue that both references underline important pillars in the construction of femininity. On the one hand we emphasise that the crying of the mother can be read, at least partially, as an empathetic reaction. On the other, we defend that the busy mother in the text embodies the ideal of the industrious woman – in contrast to the negative archetype of the lazy woman, a frequent trope in Sumerian and Akkadian literature.
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Frenez, Dennys. "Cross-Cultural Trade and Socio-Technical Developments in the Oman Peninsula during the Bronze Age, ca. 3200 to 1600 BC." Ocnus | Quaderni della Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici dell'Università di Bologna 27 (September 1, 2020): 7–47. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5513800.
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This paper presents an updated compendium of the archaeological and ancient textual data about long-range trade and multicultural interactions involving the nomadic and sedentary communities of the Oman Peninsula, with a specific focus on the Early Bronze Age including the so-called Hafit and Umm an-Nar periods (ca. 3200-2000 BC). Substantial evidence of direct and intermediated interactions is discussed in light of their contribution to the local development of particular socio-technical spheres and how they influenced the cultural and economic setting of the local society in the different phases. In order to properly interpret the long-term significance of this phenomenon, the discontinuous trajectory of mutual inputs with neighbouring regions is considered within a longer time span covering the seven millennia from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age.
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А.М., Суботялова, та Суботялов М.А. "ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЕ О ЗДОРОВЬЕ В ДРЕВНЕМ МИРЕ". Человеческий капитал, № 9 (20 вересня 2023): 74–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.25629/hc.2023.09.08.
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В истории науки важен вопрос становления и развития понятийного и терминологического аппарата. Понятие «здоровье» является одним из фундаментальных, так как оно задействовано в любой медицинской области. Данное понятие наполнялось разным содержанием в зависимости от эпохи, определенной культуры и медицинской школы, в рамках которой оно использовался. Целью настоящего обзора является анализ формирования понятия «здоровье» в Древнем мире. При подготовке текста данной публикации использовались статьи в изданиях, включенных в РИНЦ, PubMed. Глубина поиска публикаций составила 15 лет, также в обзор был включен ряд более ранних работ, соответствующих теме исследования. Представлены результаты о процессе формирования представлений о здоровье в Древнем мире. В обзоре представлен вклад врачей разных регионов в развитие концепта «здоровье». Проанализировано научное наследие специалистов (философов, врачей) Древнего Востока (Древняя Индия, Древний Китай), Античного средиземноморья (Древняя Греция, Древний Рим), Междуречья (Древняя Месопотамия), Древнего Египта. История становления и развития концепта «здоровье» может рассматриваться при изучении специальных вопросов в рамках вузовского курса «История медицины». В результате анализа выявлены общие идеи, объединяющие описание понятия «здоровье» в разных регионах Древнего мира. In the history of science, the question of the formation and development of the concepts and terms is important. The concept of “health” is one of the fundamental, as it is involved in any medical field. This concept was filled with different content depending on the era, a certain culture and the medical school in which it was used. The purpose of this review is to analyze the formation of the concept of "health" in the ancient world. In preparing this text, articles included in the RSCI, PubMed were used. The depth of the search for publications was 15 years, and a number of earlier works corresponding to the research topic were also included in the review. The results of the process of formation of ideas about health in the ancient world are presented. The review presents the contribution of doctors from different regions to the development of the concept of “health”. The scientific heritage of specialists (philosophers, doctors) of the Ancient East (Ancient India, Ancient China), the Ancient Mediterranean (Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome), Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt is analyzed. The history of the formation and development of the concept of “health” can be considered in the study of special issues within the framework of the university course “History of Medicine”. The analysis revealed common ideas that unite the description of the concept of "health" in different regions of the Ancient World.
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Ai-Turkey, Qusay Mansoor. "Cuneiform Inscription on the Brick from King Shalmanassar1stPeriod." لارك 1, no. 18 (2019): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.31185/lark.vol1.iss18.710.
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The text that we are going to study is considered one of the well-known writings which is usually known as " bricks inauguration " in buildings, palaces and temples and they are in the form of stamp or inscription. This type of cuneiform is codified as memorial models to indicate to the kind of construction and discrimination in terms of inauguration or re- construction and the impact that we are going to study a brick stone its total dimensions 27.2 cm. long , 22.3 cm. wide and 5.5 cm. thickness , written on it the cuneiform text belong to the period of the king, "Shalmaneser I " (1274 - 1245 BC. ) . the text consists of six lines of writing in Akkadian- Assyrian languages. a person found it on an unknown ancient hill which is now represent a cemetery which people of the region buried their dead for decades .it located within the boundaries of a village known as " Bastam " about 20 km to the north of the famous ancient city of Nimrud , on the east bank of the River " Upper Zab" within the boundaries of the city, "Kalak" in Erbil governorate .
 The importance of the text shown on the brick that it revealed to us the location of the important archaeological City for the researchers and those who specialize in archaeology . that is the city of "Kilizi " which was one of the Assyrian cities connected with other Assyrian cities in the northern Mesopotamia and the to discover what they had included contributes to increase information on the Assyrian state during its middle period. So my call is an urgent need to preview this archaeological hill and stand on the discovering archaeological remains and their buildings' foundations.
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Shorsh Omer, Sara, and Kameran Mohammed Jalal. "The Trade in Ancient Kurdistan (in the secand half 2nd Mellenium B.C.)." Journal of University of Raparin 11, no. 6 (2024): 94–118. https://doi.org/10.26750/vol(11).no(6).paper5.
Full textAbstract:
The Assyrians were commercially proficient, and Kurdistan was an important place. Trade in the Kurdistan region was at its peak in the second millennium BC, and Mitanni and Khouri controlled power, politics, and religion. And there was a business plan; archaeological digs revealed the following facts: Kurdistan's cities were an important trade gate for merchants, and at the same time, in terms of geographical nature, the plains were rich with crops such as wheat, barley, and sesame, and the mountainous areas were important places for grazing animals such as sheep, goats, and cattle, etc., so tribes were going to the Garman and highlands to find pastures for their livestock. However, they brought goods and raw materials abroad through trade, and the goods and supplies they had not touched had brought them abroad. These areas of Kawa trade with Kurdistan, such as southern Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Phoenix, etc., have been disclosed to us according to the text of the business text. Kurdistan's trade routes were interconnected between east, west, north, and south, and Kurdistan was a trade strategy center. Part of the trade route settled between the mountain ranges as an important trade route, and another part of the trade route also settled between the mountain ranges as an important trade route. The trade routes have been connected between the plains and areas of the cities, or the trade routes of the mountainous areas and the plains are connected to each other, and the construction of foreign trade routes will thus make the business of this area stronger. What was the importance of Kurdistan in terms of trade? The places where Kawa has exchanged trade with Kurdistan What was the importance of Kurdistan in terms of trade? Where were the places where they exchanged trade with Kurdistan? What were the goods and products exported and imported? The most important commodities were the minerals traded abroad and internally? What were those minerals? Kurdistan trades with the outside world because of the richness of its geography?
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Dobanovacki, Dusanka, Ljiljana Milovanovic, Andjelka Slavkovic, et al. "Surgery before common era (B.C.E.)." Archive of Oncology 20, no. 1-2 (2012): 28–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/aoo1202028d.
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Based on skeleton examination, cave-paintings and mummies the study of prehistoric medicine tells that the surgical experience dated with skull trepanning, male circumcision and warfare wound healing. In prehistoric tribes, medicine was a mixture of magic, herbal remedy, and superstitious beliefs practiced by witch doctors. The practice of surgery was first recorded in clay tablets discovered in ancient rests of Mesopotamia, translation of which has nowadays been published in Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine. Some simple surgical procedures were performed like puncture and drainage, scraping and wound treatment. The liability of physicians who performed surgery was noted in a collection of legal decisions made by Hammurabi about the principles of relationship between doctors and patients. Other ancient cultures had also had surgical knowledge including India, China and countries in the Middle East. The part of ancient Indian ayurvedic system of medicine devoted to surgery Sushruta Samhita is a systematized experience of ancient surgical practice, recorded by Sushruta in 500 B.C.E. Ancient Indian surgeons were highly skilled and familiar with a lot of surgical procedures and had pioneered plastic surgery. In the ancient Egyptian Empire medicine and surgery developed mostly in temples: priests were also doctors or surgeons, well specialized and educated. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, the world?s oldest surviving surgical text, was written in the 17th century B.C.E., probably based on material from a thousand years earlier. This papyrus is actually a textbook on trauma surgery, and describes anatomical observation and examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of numerous injuries in detail. Excavated mummies reveal some of the surgical procedures performed in the ancient Egypt: excision of the tumors, puncture and drainage pus abscesses, dentistry, amputation and even skull trepanation, always followed by magic and spiritual procedures. Various types of instruments were innovated, in the beginning made of stone and bronze, later of iron. Under the Egyptian influence, surgery was developed in ancient Greece and in Roman Empire. Prosperity of surgery was mostly due to practice in treating numerous battlefield injuries. Records from the pre-Hippocrates period are poor, but after him, according to many writings, medicine and surgery became a science, medical schools were formed all over the Mediterranean, and surgeons were well-trained professionals. Ancient surgery closed a chapter when Roman Empire declined, standing-by up to the 18th century when restoration of the whole medicine began.
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Hmayakyan, Hasmik Harutyun, and Monika Hovik Mirzoyan. "ON THE ICONOGRAPHY OF LIONS AND LEOPARDS ON THE GOBLET OF KARASHAMB." History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Caucasus 20, no. 2 (2024): 354–66. https://doi.org/10.32653/ch202354-366.
Full textAbstract:
The Goblet of Karashamb (c. 22nd-21st centuries BC, stored in the History Museum of Armenia, HMA 3183-206) is considered one of the most renowned archaeological artifacts in Armenia. The iconographic features of the goblet have already been discussed by researchers. Various opinions, parallels, and comparisons mentioned by them highlight that the Goblet of Karashamb synthesizes the iconography and jewelry styles distinctive to Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the South Caucasus. While concurring with this assessment, this study focuses specifically on the depictions of lions and leopards on the goblet, exploring potential parallels in Asia Minor culture. For the first time, these depictions are examined within the context of preserved Hittite sources, correlating their role with the attributes and proceedings of the Hittite KI.LAM festival (the “Festival of the Gate”) of Hattian origin. Certain aspects of the Goblet of Karashamb’s iconography suggest connections to early Hittite or pre-Hittite periods. The iconography of lions and leopards represents an ancient tradition in Asia Minor, exemplified by the Lion Gate of Hattusa. A notable instance of royal association with these animals appears in the Annals of Ḫattušilis I (c. 1650-1620 BCE), one of the earliest Hittite kings. The analyzed attributes of the KI.LAM festival, contextualized within the goblet’s iconography, have ancient Hattian roots and likely trace back to the early Hittite period. This interpretation is further supported by Anitta’s text (c. 1790-1750 BCE) from the early Hittite period, which scholars have compared to the KI.LAM festival description. Notably, the animals captured during the royal hunt in this text correspond to those depicted on the Goblet of Karashamb.
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Kiperwasser, Reuven, and Dan D. Y. Shapira. "Irano-Talmudica I: The Three-Legged Ass and Ridyā in B. Ta‘anith: Some Observations about Mythic Hydrology in the Babylonian Talmud and in Ancient Iran." AJS Review 32, no. 1 (2008): 101–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0364009408000056.
Full textAbstract:
In this paper we shall study an aggadic tradition from the Babylonian Talmud while trying to find traces of early Iranian mythological conceptions that were absorbed by the talmudic sages as a part of their own biblically enrooted knowledge. We shall also attempt to gain a better understanding of the talmudic text by presuming that it reflects ideas absorbed from the Iranian—or, rather, “Iraqian”—environment. Occasionally, however, early Iranian myths do not always survive in their original, complete forms, and sometimes only fragmentary remains in medieval Zoroastrian literature can be used for their reconstruction. The so-called ninth-century books in Pahlavi were edited by Zoroastrian priests at a rather late date, and in a quite tendentious manner. Significantly, the bulk of the numerous “pagan” strains were excised, probably because the editing work took place in a Muslim environment, and our knowledge of the actual popular religions of Sasanian—or, for our purpose, talmudic—western Iran and Mesopotamia/Iraq is far from adequate. Thus, every piece of secondary evidence regarding the popular Iranian beliefs is precious.
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Levinson, Bernard M. "Strategies for the reinterpretation of normative texts within the Hebrew Bible." International Journal of Legal Discourse 3, no. 1 (2018): 1–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ijld-2018-2001.
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Abstract Contemporary constitutional theory remains divided between competing approaches to the interpretation of normative texts: between originalism or original intent, on the one hand, and living constitution approaches, on the other. The purpose of this article is to complicate that problematic dichotomy by showing how cultures having a tradition of prestigious or authoritative texts addressed the problem of literary and legal innovation in antiquity. The study begins with cuneiform law from Mesopotamia and the Hittite Empire, and then shows how ancient Israel’s development of the idea of divine revelation of law creates a cluster of constraints that would be expected to impede legal revision or amendment. The well-known Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, provides a valuable test-case, with its normative statement that God punishes sinners across generations (vicariously extending the punishment due them to three or four generations of their progeny). A series of inner-biblical and post-biblical responses to that rule demonstrates, however, that later writers were able to criticize, challenge, reject, and replace it with the alternative notion of individual accountability. The article will provide a series of close readings of the texts involved, drawing attention to their legal language and hermeneutical strategies. The conclusions stress the remarkable freedom to modify ostensibly normative statements available to ancient judicial interpreters, despite the expected constraints of a formative religious canon attributed to divine revelation.