What reality for animals in the Mesopotamian medical texts? Plant vs. Animal, Anthropozoologica 51 (2) pp. 99-104. (original) (raw)

2023_Animal Categorization in Mesopotamia and the Origins of Natural Philosophy

SEEN NOT HEARD COMPOSITION, ICONICITY, AND THE CLASSIFIER SYSTEMS OF LOGOSYLLABIC SCRIPT, 2023

Since antiquity, and especially since Aristotle,11 the categorization of animals has beenrepeatedly attempted in Western scholarly tradition. Etymologically, the word animal itself preserves the idea of something possessing a soul/breath (anima), an important characteristic shared by humans and animals. Categorization is always the result of reasoning. From a pragmatic point of view, the underlying deductive reasoning process is mostly covert. Nevertheless, such classes often show, especially at their fringes, variations that make the underlying reasoning/categorization explicit—“philosophical”—thus proving that categorization is not fixed but dynamic. To a lesser extent, this also holds true for classification and is probably the reason why the terms “classification” and “categorization” are often used indistinctly. In contrast to categorization, the processes of classification appear more or less automated from the point of view of linguistics. In this sense we may use the term implicit classification, which refers to classifications not further questioned at a given time and place.

An ox by any other name: castration, control, and male cattle terminology in the Neo-Babylonian period

Fierce lions, angry mice and fat-tailed sheep Animal encounters in the ancient Near East, 2021

The Fox in Enki and Ninhursaĝa Dumuzi and the Fly Lugalbanda and Anzu Ninurta and the Anzu's chick Inanna, Šukaletuda, and the Raven Conclusions: magical helpers and the metamorphosis human-animal Chapter 3 Canines from inside and outside the city: of dogs, foxes and wolves in conceptual spaces in Sumero-Akkadian texts 23 Andréa Vilela Canines from the 'inside': dogs Canines from the 'in-between': stray dogs Canines from the outside: wolves and foxes Conclusion Chapter 4 A human-animal studies approach to cats and dogs in ancient Egypt: evidence from mummies, iconography and epigraphy 31 Marina Fadum & Carina Gruber Human-cat relationships in ancient Egypt: the cat as an animal mummy Human-canine relationships in ancient Egypt: the dog as companion animal Conclusion Part II Animals in ritual and cult Chapter 5 Encountered animals and embedded meaning: the ritual and roadside fauna of second millennium Anatolia 39 Neil Erskine Deleuze, Guattari, and reconstructing ancient understanding Landscape, religion, and putting meaning in place Creatures, cult, and creating meaning Folding animals in ritual Bulls, boars, birds Folding animals on the road Human-animal interactions Conclusion vi Chapter 6 The dogs of the healing goddess Gula in the archaeological and textual record of ancient Mesopotamia 55 Seraina Nett The dogs of Gula in Mesopotamian art The Isin dog cemetery The dogs of Gula in Ur III documentary sources Conclusion

Metaphorical Allusions to Life-Giving Plants in Neo-Assyrian Texts and Images

Antiguo Oriente, 2018

In the royal correspondence of late Assyrian kings (8th–7th century BCE), a few letters refer to the so-called “plant of life” (Akk. šammu balāṭi) being placed by the king in the mouth or nostrils of his subjects. At the same time, in the royal iconography that goes from Tiglath-pileser III onward (8th century BCE), bas-reliefs and wall paintings often show the ruler holding a plant or flower in his lowered left hand. This paper analyses the portraits of the kings—with a special focus on the reign of Sargon II— in the light of textual evidence in order to identify the meaning and function of the plant of life. A link between texts and images will be proposed, thereby suggesting that the plant was used primarily by the king to express his mercy and metaphorically indicate himself as a life-giving ruler.

"Aluzinnu Versus ἀλαζών: On the Use of Medical Terminology in the Babylonian and Greek Comic Traditions." In AOAT 436 (2016): 587–603.

This article explores some of the similarities and differences that characterize two comical figures of the ancient world – the Mesopotamian braggart known as the "aluzinnu" and the possibly equivalent Greek "alazon" – and it uses the resulting observations to strengthen the idea that at least some names of Babylonian medical ingredients, generally labelled as “Dreckapotheke” (excremental material or animal body parts), actually may have referred to real medicinal plants. As it happens, the ambiguity conveyed by this particular class of drug names, and exploited in the comical lines of the Aluzinnu-text, is not detected in the Greek parody of medicine. It is here suggested that this difference may be due to the fact that similar excremental medical ingredients were instead administered literally in Greek medicine.

Composite animals in Mesopotamia as cultural symbols

Composite Artefacts in the Ancient Near East Exhibiting an imaginative materiality, showing a genealogical nature, edited by Silvana Di Paolo , 2018

Composite animals are the product of our thought processes. They are nonexistent in reality but their occurrence is observed universally. They exhibit a body structure that consists of multiple body parts taken from different animals of reality in order to form a single creature. This study focuses on a particular type of composite animal – the lion dragon – to elucidate its symbolic function through artistic and textual descriptions, and also its predecessor, the lion-headed eagle. A peculiar pose held by the creature is examined in order to reveal its specific role associated with an auditory aspect of the thunderstorm. The importance of the creature’s leonine head is indicated by the application of a special material (gold) to the head of the lion-headed eagle in some artefacts manufactured with composite materials.