Harmal: The Genus Peganum is an in-depth treatment of one of the most commanding plants in the botanical kingdom. Humble in appearance, modest in its needs, Peganum harmala has been venerated for millennia as a Deity-manifesting entheogen and a powerful medicine. This book traverses harmal’s medicinal chemistry, its possible role in the origins of religion, and its employment from ancient times to the present in the therapy of patients suffering from infections, infestations, metabolic derangements, neurological degeneration, visual weakness, and cancer. Its peculiar indolic compounds, known as harmala alkaloids, are now appreciated as exerting profound effects on the mind and on the body. These effects are the result of the alkaloids’ interactions with, and binding to, serotonin receptors on the cell surfaces of neurons in the brain and lymphocytes in the blood, the latter constituting the diffuse structural basis of the immune system. This biphasic modulation by harmala alkaloids has led to a novel pharmacologic re-visioning presented herein for the first time, the concept of a "lymphoneuric syncytium" and its possible long term tuning via "somatodelic" as well as "psychedelic" effects. The scientific rationale underlying the use of harmal in the medicines of the past and the healing technologies of our future is developed through exhaustive and meticulous explorations in both ethnopharmacology and modern phytochemistry. The presentation is enhanced through appraisals of the effects of harmal in two clinical cancer case scenarios, and of intentional inebriation and "provings" by one of the authors and a psychiatric colleague. The noted and esteemed botanically-trained physician Dr. Andrew Weil states in his Preface that this "monumental" volume will become the standard reference work in the field. Harmal: The Genus Peganum will be an invaluable addition to the personal libraries of professional pharmacognosists, botanists, physicians, psychologists, neuroscientists, and all persons interested in the interrelationship of consciousness, medicine, and coevolution.

Pabuji , a medieval Rajput hero from the deserts of Marwar, is widely worshipped as a folk diety capable of proctecting against ill fortune. This book chorincles the epic narrative in English free verse as well as interesting details about the words , the music and the par itself.

This volume presents first editions of a variety of cuneiform tablets from the Old Babylonian period belonging to the collection of the late Shlomo Moussaieff. It makes available for the first time three texts representing varying levels of Mesopotamian scribal education. The first is what the authors argue is the most complete copy of the first fifty lines of the standard version of the Sumerian epic Gilgameš and the Bull of Heaven. The second is a hitherto unpublished bilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian) lexical list of unknown provenance, similar to the Proto-Aa syllabary. Each of the 314 entries preserved on this tablet provides a pronunciation gloss, a Sumerian logogram, and an Akkadian translation. A unique feature of this list is that the signs are arranged on the basis of graphic concatenation: each sign contains one of the graphic components of the preceding sign. It also yields a great number of hitherto unknown, synonymous Akkadian translations to the Sumerian logograms. The final chapter contains an edition of two groups of lenticular school tablets, containing thirty-three elementary-level scribal exercises. With this volume, Jacob Klein and Yitschak Sefati preserve and disseminate important artifacts that advance the study of Sumerian literature, Mesopotamian lexicography, and ancient Near Eastern scribal education.

Research in recent years has increasingly shifted away from purely academic research, and into applied aspects of the discipline, including climate change research, conservation, and sustainable development. It has by now widely been recognized that “traditional” knowledge is always in flux and adapting to a quickly changing environment. Trends of globalization, especially the globalization of plant markets, have greatly influenced how plant resources are managed nowadays. While ethnobotanical studies are now available from many regions of the world, no comprehensive encyclopedic series focusing on the worlds mountain regions is available in the market. Scholars in plant sciences worldwide will be interested in this dynamic content. The field (and thus the market) of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology has grown considerably in recent years. Student interest is on the rise, attendance at professional conferences has grown steadily, and the number of professionals calling themselves ethnobotanists has increased significantly. Various societies of such professionals include the Society for Economic Botany, the International Society of Ethnopharmacology, the Society of Ethnobiology, the International Society for Ethnobiology, and many regional and national societies in the field that currently have thousands of members. Growth has been most robust in BRIC countries. The objective of this new MRW on Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions is to take advantage of the increasing international interest and scholarship in the field of mountain research. We anticipate including the best and latest research on a full range of descriptive, methodological, theoretical, and applied research on the most important plants for each region. Each contribution will be scientifically rigorous and contribute to the overall field of study.

In the Arab world, people belong to kinship groups (lineages and tribes). Many lineages are named after animals, birds, and plants. Why? This survey evaluates five old explanations – “totemism,” “emulation of predatory animals,” “ancestor eponymy,” “nicknaming,” and “Bedouin proximity to nature.” It suggests a new hypothesis: Bedouin tribes use animal names to obscure their internal cleavages. Such tribes wax and wane as they attract and lose allies and clients; they include “attached” elements as well as actual kin. To prevent outsiders from spotting “attached” groups, Bedouin tribes scatter non-human names across their segments, making it difficult to link any segment with a human ancestor. Young’s argument contributes to theories of tribal organization, Arab identity, onomastics, and Near Eastern kinship.

The Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, perhaps the most famous of Mesopotamian literature, has been considered the artistry of one author inspired by Sumerian tales. Specialists have assumed that all the earliest evidence (ca. 1800-1700 BCE) reflects this creative unity. Deep contrasts in characterization and narrative logic, however, distinguish the central adventure to defeat the monster Huwawa from what precedes and follows it. The Huwawa narrative stands on its own, so that the epic must have been composed from this prior Akkadian composition. Recognition of the tale embedded in the epic allows each block of material to be understood on its own terms. Such literary-historical investigation from contemporary texts is new to Assyriology and may produce important results when applied to other Mesopotamian writing. "The book is well written and tightly argued...This makes it a first point of reference for anyone interested in the OB evidence for the Gilgamesh Epic." Scott C. Jones, Covenant College