Disease In Babylonia

The present collection of articles on disease in Babylonia is the first such volume to appear providing detailed information derived from published and unpublished medical texts in cuneiform script from the second and first millennia BC.

To date, the pathbreaking medical contributions of the early Mesopotamians have been only vaguely understood. Due to the combined problems of an extinct language, gaps in the archeological record, the complexities of pharmacy and medicine, and the dispersion of ancient tablets throughout the museums of the world, it has been nearly impossible to get a clear and comprehensive view of what medicine was really like in ancient Mesopotamia. The collaboration of medical expert Burton R. Andersen and cuneiformist JoAnn Scurlock makes it finally possible to survey this collected corpus and discern magic from experimental medicine in Ashur, Babylon, and Nineveh. Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine is the first systematic study of all the available texts, which together reveal a level of medical knowledge not matched again until the nineteenth century A.D. Over the course of a millennium, these nations were able to develop tests, prepare drugs, and encourage public sanitation. Their careful observation and recording of data resulted in a description of symptoms so precise as to enable modern identification of numerous diseases and afflictions.

Stol's comprehensive exploration of the Babylonians' conception and treatment of epilepsy adds a new chapter to the history of this ancient disease. The author presents the sources, examines the terminology and places epilepsy in context among kindred illnesses. A full edition (transliteration, translation, commentary and cuneiform copy) of the relevant parts of the Diagnostic Handbook is included. According to the Ancients, epileptics are 'struck by the moon'. An examination of the relationship between epilepsy and the moon yields surprising results. This volume deals with material that was unavailable to O. Temkin, author of the classic "The Falling Sickness; A history of epilepsy from the Greeks to the beginning of modern neurology," (1971). It show that traditional views of the Ancient Near East lived on among the Greeks and Romans.

Utilizing a great variety of previously unknown cuneiform tablets,Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice examinesthe way medicine was practiced by various Babylonian professionalsof the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C. Represents the first overview of Babylonian medicine utilizingcuneiform sources, including archives of court letters, medicalrecipes, and commentaries written by ancient scholars Attempts to reconcile the ways in which medicine and magic wererelated Assigns authorship to various types of medical literature thatwere previously considered anonymous Rejects the approach of other scholars that have attempted toapply modern diagnostic methods to ancient illnesses

This monograph begins with a puzzle: a Babylonian text from late 5th century BCE Uruk associating various diseases with bodily organs, which has evaded interpretation. The correct answer may reside in Babylonian astrology, since the development of the zodiac in the late 5th century BCE offered innovative approaches to the healing arts. The zodiac—a means of predicting the movements of heavenly bodies—transformed older divination (such as hemerologies listing lucky and unlucky days) and introduced more favorable magical techniques and medical prescriptions, which are comparable to those found in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and non-Hippocratic Greek medicine. Babylonian melothesia (i.e., the science of charting how zodiacal signs affect the human body) offers the most likely solution explaining the Uruk tablet.

Note biographique : Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Freie Universität Berlin; Joachim Marzahn, Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin;Margarete van Ess, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung, Berlin

Providing a comprehensive examination of the traits and areas of authority Ancient Babylonians attributed to their healing goddess, this book draws on a wide range of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform sources, including god lists, literary compositions, lexical lists, prognostic texts, incantations, and prescriptions. Analysing the use of selected metaphors associated with the goddess, a new perspective is offered on the explanation for disease as well as the motivation for particular treatments. Special chapters deal with the cuneiform handbook on prognosis and diagnosis of diseases, medical incantations appealing to the healing goddess, and the medicinal plants attributed to her. For the first time a body of evidence for the use of simple drugs is brought together, elaborating on specific plant profiles. The result is a volume that challenges many long-held assumptions concerning the specialized cuneiform medical literature and takes a fresh look on the nature of Ancient Babylonian healing.

This is the first comprehensive study of Babylonian prayers dedicated to Marduk, the god of Babylon, since J. Hehn's essay Hymnen und Gebete an Marduk (1905). Marduk was the god of the city of Babylon and was the most important god in Babylonia from the time of Hammurabi (the 18th century BCE) onwards. In this book, Takayoshi Oshima presents an up-to-date catalog of all known Babylonian prayers dedicated to Marduk from different historical periods and offers critical editions of 31 ancient texts based on newly identified manuscripts and a collation of the previously published manuscripts. The author also discusses various aspects of Akkadian prayers to different deities and the ancient belief in the mechanism of punishment and redemption by Marduk.