This work explores the interaction between magic and medicine in ancient Mesopotamia, as applied specifically to ghosts. Included is a discussion of sin and natural causes in Mesopotamian medicine. Additionally, it transliterates and translates 352 prescriptions designed to cure psychological and physical ailments thought to be caused by ghosts.

!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" html meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type" body An introductory guide for scholars and students of the ancient Near East and the history of medicine In this collection JoAnn Scurlock assembles and translates medical texts that provided instructions for ancient doctors and pharmacists. Scurlock unpacks the difficult, technical vocabulary that describes signs and symptoms as well as procedures and plants used in treatments. This fascinating material shines light on the development of medicine in the ancient Near East, yet these tablets were essentially inaccessible to anyone without an expertise in cuneiform. Scurlock’s work fills this gap by providing a key resource for teaching and research. Features: Accessible translations and transliterations for both specialists and non-specialists Texts include a range of historical periods and regions Therapeutic, pharmacological, and diagnostic texts

This collection of essays focuses on divination across the Ancient World from early Mesopotamia to late antiquity. The authors deal with the forms, theory and poetics of this important and still poorly understood ancient phenomenon.

Systems of Classification in Premodern Medical Cultures puts historical disease concepts in cross-cultural perspective, investigating perceptions, constructions and experiences of health and illness from antiquity to the seventeenth century. Focusing on the systematisation and classification of illness in its multiple forms, manifestations and causes, this volume examines case studies ranging from popular concepts of illness through to specialist discourses on it. Using philological, historical and anthropological approaches, the contributions cover perspectives across time from East Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, spanning ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome to Tibet and China. They aim to capture the multiplicity of disease concepts and medical traditions within specific societies, and to investigate the historical dynamics of stability and change linked to such concepts. Providing useful material for comparative research, the volume is a key resource for researchers studying the cultural conceptualisation of illness, including anthropologists, historians and classicists, among others.

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

This book by Laura Zucconi is an accessible introductory text to the practice and theory of medicine in the ancient world. In contrast to other works that focus heavily on Greece and Rome, Zucconi’s Ancient Medicine covers a broader geographical and chronological range. The world of medicine in antiquity consisted of a lot more than Hippocrates and Galen. Zucconi applies historical and anthropological methods to examine the medical cultures of not only Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome but also the Levant, the Anatolian Peninsula, and the Iranian Plateau. Devoting special attention to the fundamental relationship between medicine and theology, Zucconi’s one-volume introduction brings the physicians, patients, procedures, medicines, and ideas of the past to light.

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.