Download or read book Babylonian Oracle Questions written by Wilfred G. Lambert and published by Eisenbrauns. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Babylonian tamitu texts are a corpus of questions addressed to the sun-god Shamash and the storm-god Adad jointly. Professional diviners were employed to put the questions with the appropriate rites and to formulate the wording correctly, since the only answer would be "yes" or "no." Thus the questions had to include a detailed exposition of the matter, and they open up intimate glances of things not otherwise available. Kings ask whether they should undertake a certain campaign, laying out a detailed plan of action. At the other end of the scale, a man wants to know whether his wife is telling him the truth. All tablets are of first millennium B.C. date, though some of the questions date from the second millennium B.C. Scribes copied out questions to serve as models for later use. In this volume W.G. Lambert has gathered together all the known material, including 54 tablets and fragments not previously published. All are given in cuneiform copy, transliteration, translation, with notes and an introduction. By far the greater part of this material has not been edited before.
Download or read book Questions Addressed to the Babylonian Oracle written by Wilfred G. Lambert and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Questions Addressed to the Babylonian Oracle written by Wilfred George Lambert and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Before Nature written by Francesca Rochberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-08-07 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the modern West, we take for granted that what we call the “natural world” confronts us all and always has—but Before Nature explores that almost unimaginable time when there was no such conception of “nature”—no word, reference, or sense for it. Before the concept of nature formed over the long history of European philosophy and science, our ancestors in ancient Assyria and Babylonia developed an inquiry into the world in a way that is kindred to our modern science. With Before Nature, Francesca Rochberg explores that Assyro-Babylonian knowledge tradition and shows how it relates to the entire history of science. From a modern, Western perspective, a world not conceived somehow within the framework of physical nature is difficult—if not impossible—to imagine. Yet, as Rochberg lays out, ancient investigations of regularity and irregularity, norms and anomalies clearly established an axis of knowledge between the knower and an intelligible, ordered world. Rochberg is the first scholar to make a case for how exactly we can understand cuneiform knowledge, observation, prediction, and explanation in relation to science—without recourse to later ideas of nature. Systematically examining the whole of Mesopotamian science with a distinctive historical and methodological approach, Before Nature will open up surprising new pathways for studying the history of science.
Download or read book Ancient Water Technologies written by L. Mays and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-05-19 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no more fundamental resource than water. The basis of all life, water is fast becoming a key issue in today’s world, as well as a source of conflict. This fascinating book, which sets out many of the ingenious methods by which ancient societies gathered, transported and stored water, is a timely publication as overextraction and profligacy threaten the existence of aquifers and watercourses that have supplied our needs for millennia. It provides an overview of the water technologies developed by a number of ancient civilizations, from those of Mesopotamia and the Indus valley to later societies such as the Mycenaeans, Minoans, Persians, and the ancient Egyptians. Of course, no book on ancient water technologies would be complete without discussing the engineering feats of the Romans and Greeks, yet as well as covering these key civilizations, it also examines how ancient American societies from the Hohokams to the Mayans and Incas husbanded their water supplies. This unusually wide-ranging text could offer today’s parched world some solutions to the impending crisis in our water supply. "This book provides valuable insights into the water technologies developed in ancient civilizations which are the underpinning of modern achievements in water engineering and management practices. It is the best proof that "the past is the key for the future." Andreas N. Angelakis, Hellenic Water Supply and Sewerage Systems Association, Greece "This book makes a fundamental contribution to what will become the most important challenge of our civilization facing the global crisis: the problem of water. Ancient Water Technologies provides a complete panorama of how ancient societies confronted themselves with the management of water. The role of this volume is to provide, for the first time on this issue, an extensive historical and scientific reconstruction and an indication of how traditional knowledge may be employed to ensure a sustainable future for all." Pietro Laureano, UNESCO expert for ecosystems at risk, Director of IPOGEA-Institute of Traditional Knowledge, Italy
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 Judges 1 written by Mark S. Smith and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 924 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking volume presents a new translation of the text and detailed interpretation of almost every word or phrase in the book of Judges, drawing from archaeology and iconography, textual versions, biblical parallels, and extrabiblical texts, many never noted before. Archaeology also serves to show how a story of the Iron II period employed visible ruins to narrate supposedly early events from the so-called "period of the Judges." The synchronic analysis for each unit sketches its characters and main themes, as well as other literary dynamics. The diachronic, redactional analysis shows the shifting settings of units as well as their development, commonly due to their inner-textual reception and reinterpretation. The result is a remarkably fresh historical-critical treatment of 1:1-10:5.
Download or read book Historiography Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel written by Mario Liverani and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Niels Peter Lemche and Emanuel Pfoh present an anthology of seminal studies by Mario Liverani, a foremost scholar of the Ancient Near East. This collection contains 18 essays, 11 of which have originally been published in Italian and are now published in English for the first time. It represents an important contribution to Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies, exposing the innovative interpretations of Liverani on many historical and ideological aspects of ancient society. Topics range from the Amarna letters and the Ugaritic epic, to the ‘origins’ of Israel. Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel will be an invaluable resource for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical scholars, as well as graduate and post-graduate students.
Download or read book The Loss of Male Sexual Desire in Ancient Mesopotamia written by Gioele Zisa and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After more than fifty years since the last publication, the cuneiform texts relating to the treatment of the loss of male sexual desire and vigor in Mesopotamia are collected in this volume. The aim of the book is to present Mesopotamian medical tradition regarding the so-called nīš libbi therapies. šà-zi-ga in Sumerian, nīš libbi in Akkadian, lit. "raising of the 'heart'", is the expression used to indicate a group of texts intended to recover the male sexual desire. This medical tradition is preserved from the Middle Babylonian period to the Achaemenid one. This broad range testifies to the importance of the transmission of this material throughout Mesopotamian history. The book provides the edition of this textual corpus and analyzes it in the light of new knowledge on ancient Near Eastern medicine. Moreover, this volume aims to show how theories and methodologies of Cultural Anthropology, Ethnopsychiatry and Gender Studies are useful for understanding the Mesopotamian medical system. This edition is an important tool for understanding Mesopotamian medical knowledge for Assyriologist, however since the texts have been translated and discussed using the anthropological and gender perspectives they are accessible also to scholars of other research fields, such as History of Medicine, Sexuality and Gender.
Download or read book Sharing and Hiding Religious Knowledge in Early Judaism Christianity and Islam written by Mladen Popović and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few studies focus on the modes of knowledge transmission (or concealment), or the trends of continuity or change from the Ancient to the Late Antique worlds. In Antiquity, knowledge was cherished as a scarce good, cultivated through the close teacher-student relationship and often preserved in the closed circle of the initated. From Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform texts to a Shi'ite Islamic tradition, this volume explores how and why knowledge was shared or concealed by diverse communities in a range of Ancient and Late Antique cultural contexts. From caves by the Dead Sea to Alexandria, both normative and heterodox approaches to knowledge in Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities are explored. Biblical and qur'anic passages, as well as gnostic, rabbinic and esoteric Islamic approaches are discussed. In this volume, a range of scholars from Assyrian studies to Jewish, Christian and Islamic studies examine diverse approaches to, and modes of, knowledge transmission and concealment, shedding new light on both the interconnectedness, as well as the unique aspects, of the monotheistic faiths, and their relationship to the ancient civilisations of the Fertile Crescent.
Download or read book An Introduction to Akkadian Literature written by Alan Lenzi and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2020-01-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book initiates the reader into the study of Akkadian literature from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. With this one relatively short volume, the novice reader will develop the literary competence necessary to read and interpret Akkadian texts in translation and will gain a broad familiarity with the major genres and compositions in the language. The first part of the book presents introductory discussions of major critical issues, organized under four key rubrics: tablets, scribes, compositions, and audiences. Here, the reader will find descriptions of the tablets used as writing material; the training scribes received and the institutional contexts in which they worked; the general characteristics of Akkadian compositions, with an emphasis on poetic and literary features; and the various audiences or users of Akkadian texts. The second part surveys the corpus of Akkadian literature defined inclusively, canvasing a wide spectrum of compositions. Legal codes, historical inscriptions, divinatory compendia, and religious texts have a place in the survey alongside narrative poems, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma elish, and Babylonian Theodicy. Extensive footnotes and a generous bibliography guide readers who wish to continue their study. Essential for students of Assyriology, An Introduction to Akkadian Literature will also prove useful to biblical scholars, classicists, Egyptologists, ancient historians, and literary comparativists.
Download or read book Text as Revelation written by Hanna Tervanotko and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Text as Revelation analyses the shift of revelatory experiences from oral to written that is described in ancient Jewish literature, including rabbinic texts. The individual essays seek to understand how, why, and for whom texts became the locus of revelation. While the majority of the contributors analyze ancient Jewish literature for depictions of oral and written revelation, such as the Hebrew Bible and the literature of the Second Temple era, a number of articles also investigate textualization of revelation in cognate cultures, analyzing Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek sources. With subjects ranging from Ancient Egyptian and Sibylline oracles to Hellenistic writings and the books of Isaiah, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, the studies in this volume bring together established and new voices reflecting on the issues raised by the interplay between writing and (divinatory) revelation.
Download or read book The Religious Aspects of War in the Ancient Near East Greece and Rome written by Krzysztof Ulanowski and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Religious Aspect of Warfare in the Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome is a volume dedicated to investigating the relationship between religion and war in antiquity in minute detail. The nineteen chapters are divided into three groups: the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome. They are presented in turn and all possible aspects of warfare and its religious connections are investigated. The contributors focus on the theology of war, the role of priests in warfare, natural phenomena as signs for military activity, cruelty, piety, the divinity of humans in specific martial cases, rituals of war, iconographical representations and symbols of war, and even the archaeology of war. As editor Krzysztof Ulanowski invited both well-known specialists such as Robert Parker, Nicholas Sekunda, and Pietro Mander to contribute, as well as many young, talented scholars with fresh ideas. From this polyphony of voices, perspectives and opinions emerges a diverse, but coherent, representation of the complex relationship between religion and war in antiquity.
Download or read book Envisioning the Past Through Memories written by Davide Nadali and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-11 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory is a constructed system of references, in equilibrium, of feeling and rationality. Comparing ancient and contemporary mechanisms for the preservation of memories and the building of a common cultural, political and social memory, this volume aims to reveal the nature of memory, and explores the attitudes of ancient societies towards the creation of a memory to be handed down in words, pictures, and mental constructs. Since the multiple natures of memory involve every human activity, physical and intellectual, this volume promotes analyses and considerations about memory by focusing on various different cultural activities and productions of ancient Near Eastern societies, from artistic and visual documents to epigraphic evidence, and by considering archaeological data. The chapters of this volume analyse the value and function of memory within the ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian societies, combining archaeological, textual and iconographical evidence following a progression from the analysis of the creation and preservation of both single and multiple memories, to the material culture (things and objects) that shed light on the impact of memory on individuals and community.
Download or read book Advances in Mesopotamian Medicine from Hammurabi to Hippocrates written by Annie Attia and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-09-24 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, which originated with a conference at the Collège de France, comprises articles on Babylonian and Assyrian medicine.
Download or read book Mesopotamian Civilization and the Origins of the New Testament written by Robin Baker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Redefines conceptions of the New Testament's origins by illuminating the East's contribution to the formation of early Christology. This book provides a missing link between scholarship on the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East and scholarship on the New Testament and early Christianity.
Download or read book Ancient Prophecy written by Martti Nissinen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation A study of the phenomenon of prophecy as documented in ancient Near Eastern texts and the Hebrew Bible as well as Greek sources, from the twenty-first century BCE to the second century CE.