Download or read book Neo Assyrian and Greek Divination in War written by Krzysztof Ulanowski and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neo-Assyrian and Greek Divination in War is about practices which enabled humans contact the divine. These relations, especially in difficult times of military conflict, could be crucial in deciding the fate of individuals, cities, dynasties or even empires.
Download or read book Reading the Liver written by William Furley and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2015-06-05 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "William Furley and Victor Gysembergh present a study of ancient Greek extispicy (a form of prophecy by consulting animal entrails) based on the remains of ancient technical manuals on the subject. The aim is to study the papyrological texts in detail for their meaning and to relate this to similar practices in other parts of the ancient world"--
Download or read book Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece written by Lisa Raphals and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book compares the intellectual and social history and past and present contexts of mantic practices (divination) in Chinese and Greek antiquity.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life written by Gordon Lindsay Campbell and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life is the first comprehensive guide to animals in the ancient world, encompassing all aspects of the topic by featuring authoritative chapters on 33 topics by leading scholars in their fields. As well as an introduction to, and a survey of, each topic, it provides guidance on further reading for those who wish to study a particular area in greater depth. Both the realities and the more theoretical aspects of the treatment of animals in ancient times are covered in chapters which explore the domestication of animals, animal husbandry, animals as pets, Aesop's Fables, and animals in classical art and comedy, all of which closely examine the nature of human-animal interaction. More abstract and philosophical topics are also addressed, including animal communication, early ideas on the origin of species, and philosophical vegetarianism and the notion of animal rights.
Download or read book They Believed That written by William E. Burns and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-12-01 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This encyclopedia is the perfect guide to the weird, magical, superstitious, and supernatural beliefs of people from all over the world. This book is devoted to those human beliefs that fall in the "gray zone" between science, religion, and everyday life-call them superstitious, supernatural, magical, or just wrong. In an often incomprehensible world where lightning or plague could end life quickly or drought could condemn a poor family to agonizing death, superstitious beliefs gave people a feeling of understanding or even control. They have continued to shape societies and cultures ever since. This book covers a range of superstitious, supernatural, and otherwise unusual beliefs from the ancient world to the early 19th century. More than 100 entries explain beliefs, discuss historical evidence, and explain how each belief differs across cultures. This book is a perfect gateway for anyone curious about superstitious and magical beliefs, with topics ranging from the everyday, such as dogs and iron, to legendary figures, such as Hermes Trismegistus and the Yellow Emperor.
Download or read book Divining the Etruscan World written by Jean MacIntosh Turfa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-16 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar is a rare document of omens foretold by thunder. It long lay hidden, embedded in a Greek translation within a Byzantine treatise from the age of Justinian. The first complete English translation of the Brontoscopic Calendar, this book provides an understanding of Etruscan Iron Age society as revealed through the ancient text, especially the Etruscans' concerns regarding the environment, food, health and disease. Jean MacIntosh Turfa also analyzes the ancient Near Eastern sources of the Calendar and the subjects of its predictions, thereby creating a picture of the complexity of Etruscan society reaching back before the advent of writing and the recording of the calendar.
Download or read book Divination as Science written by Jeanette C. Fincke and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no doubt that Ancient Near Eastern divination is firmly rooted in religion, since all ominous signs were thought to have been sent by gods, and the invocation of omens was embedded in rituals. Nonetheless, the omen compendia display many aspects of a generally scientific nature. In their attempt to note all possible changes to the affected objects and to arrange their observations systematically for reference purposes, the scholars produced texts that resulted in a rather detailed description of the world, be it with respect to geography (the urban or rural environment on earth, or celestial and meteorological phenomena observed in the sky), biology (the outer appearance of the bodies of humans or animals, or the entrails of sheep), sociology (behavior of people) or others. Based on different divination methods and omen compendia, the question discussed during this workshop was whether the scholars had a scientific approach, presented as religion, or whether Ancient Near Eastern divination should be considered purely religious and that the term “science” is inappropriate in this context. The workshop attracted a large audience and lively discussion ensued. The papers presented in this volume reflect the focus of the sessions during the workshop and are likely to generate even more discussion, now that they are published.
Download or read book The Seer in Ancient Greece written by Michael Flower and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Surveying all kinds of evidence—historiographical, literary, dramatic, and visual—Flower provides a comprehensive, readable, and engaging account of the operations of 'seers' during the Classical period."—Mark Griffith, editor of Prometheus Bound and Antigone "In a page-turning tour de force of anthropological reconstruction, classicist Michael Flower revisits hundreds of ancient texts to tease out his case for the absolutely central role of seercraft at all levels of ancient Greek society. Thanks to Flower's invitingly-woven tapestry of their mesmerizing stories and anecdotes, we can now savor, and comprehend through his lucid and persuasive interpretations."—Peter Nabokov, author of Where the Lightning Strikes: American Indian Ways of History
Download or read book Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria written by Ann Jeffers and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-14 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with Deut. 18:9ff and its condemnation of magicians and diviners, this book explores the window that this text gives us into magic and divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria. Investigating the wealth of language combined with the archaeological and historical evidence, it seeks to place the influence of these factors in the emerging Israelite religion. An integral part of Ancient Near Eastern cosmology and culture, magic and divination are never completely eradicated despite the ideological warfare led by the Old Testament writers. The first part examines the function of various magicians and diviners. This is followed by a chapter on dreams and visions. The third chapter looks at the techniques and devices used by the oracular practitioners. Other subjects covered include magic in warfare, in the treatment of diseases, and blessing and cursing.
Download or read book Divination and the Shamanic Story written by Michael Berman and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories have traditionally been classified as epics, myths, sagas, legends, folk tales, fairy tales, parables or fables. However, the definitions of the terms have a tendency to overlap, making it difficult to classify and categorize material. For this reason, a case can be made for the introduction of a new genre, termed the shamanic story - a story that has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic journey (a numinous experience in non-ordinary reality) or one that contains a number of the elements typical of such a journey. Other characteristics include the way in which the stories all tend to contain embedded texts (often the account of the shamanic journey itself), how the number of actors is clearly limited as one would expect in subjective accounts of what can be regarded as inner journeys, and how the stories tend to be used for healing purposes. Within this new genre, it is proposed that there exists a sub-genre – shamanic stories that deal specifically with divination, and examples are presented and analysed to support this hypothesis. By means of textual analysis it can be shown they all share certain attributes in common, the identification of which forms the conclusion of the work.
Download or read book Ancient Mesopotamia written by A. Leo Oppenheim and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.
Download or read book Babylonian Liver Omens written by Ulla Susanne Koch and published by Museum Tusculanum Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Babylonians were famous even in their own time for their expertise in divination, and Koch-Westenholz suggests the lack of modern scholarship from the extensive written record is because the texts are dry, monotonous, and difficult to access and because divination is thought to be simple superstition not worth serious study. She makes a beginning on the accessibility problem by presenting three texts on interpreting sheep livers as the first of a projected complete series on the divinatory texts from the world's oldest extant general library. The edition is based on a catalogue, compiled by Ulla Jeyes as part of what was to be a collaboration on the project before Jeyes' untimely death, of the collections in the British Museum. The original inscriptions are followed by transcription and English translation. Tablets are illustrated in 48 photographic plates. Livers not included. Distributed in the US by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.
Download or read book Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World written by Amar Annus and published by Oriental Inst Publications Sales. This book was released on 2010 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of sign, a portent observed in the physical world, which indicates future events, is found in all ancient cultures, but was first developed in ancient Mesopotamian texts. This branch of Babylonian scientific knowledge extensively influenced other parts of the world, and similar texts written in Aramaic, Sanscrit, Sogdian, and other languages. The seminar will investigate how much do we know about the Babylonian theory and hermeneutics of omens, and the scope of their possible influences on other cultures and regions.
Download or read book The Open Court written by Paul Carus and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 814 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World written by Sarah Hitch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-24 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together studies on Greek animal sacrifice by foremost experts in Greek language, literature and material culture. Readers will benefit from the synthesis of new evidence and approaches with a re-evaluation of twentieth-century theories on sacrifice. The chapters range across the whole of antiquity and go beyond the Greek world to consider possible influences in Hittite Anatolia and Egypt, while an introduction to the burgeoning science of osteo-archaeology is provided. The twentieth-century emphasis on sacrifice as part of the Classical Greek polis system is challenged through consideration of various ancient perspectives on sacrifice as distinct from specific political or even Greek contexts. Many previously unexplored topics are covered, particularly the type of animals sacrificed and the spectrum of sacrificial ritual, from libations to lasting memorials of the ritual in art.
Download or read book A Scholar s Odyssey written by Cyrus Herzl Gordon and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Origin of Biblical Traditions written by Albert Tobias Clay and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
