Mesopotamian Religions Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Thorkild Jacobsen (1963; 1976) entwarf ausgehend von den Begriffen von Rudolf Otto (1917) ein Modell der mesopotamischen Religion, das sich durch seine Konsistenz auszeichnet und weite Bereiche von Göttervorstellungen, Mythologie und Ritual abdeckt. Dieser Beitrag will sowohl die Attraktivität wie die Grenzen des substanzialistischen religionsphänomenologischen Ansatzes herausarbeiten, der durch eine monotheistisch geprägte Perspektive gekennzeichnet ist. Des weiteren zeigt sich, wie weit verbreitet dieser Ansatz in der Altorientalistik war und ist, während funktionalistische Ansätze (etwa von E. Durkheim, C. Geertz) kaum rezipiert wurden. In Hinblick auf die religionshistorischen Befunde ist hervorzuheben, dass bei heutigem Wissensstand die Repräsentation von Herrschaft in der Götterwelt schon in der Uruk-Zeit nachweisbar ist, während der von Jacobsen als urtümlich aufgefasste Dumuzi-Amaʼušumgalana aufgrund seiner Namensform einer späteren Schicht des frühen dritten Jahrtausends angehört. Die Quellen der Uruk-Zeit, insbesondere die schriftliche Repräsentation von Städtenamen durch ihre jeweiligen Götter, deuten die Existenz eines mesopotamischen Pantheons schon im Chalkolithikum an. Man muss deshalb davon ausgehen, dass mit der Differenzierung von Göttern nach ihren Funktionsbereichen schon in der Uruk-Zeit auch eine lokale Gliederung einherging.

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- Sumerian Religion, History of Religion, Mesopotamia History, Mesopotamian Religions
- by Andreas Johandi
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- Religion, History, Mythology, Assyriology

Temples were nearly ubiquitous across the ancient Near East. Rather than serving as a gathering place for a worshipping congregation, a temple served as a terrestrial divine abode. In it, the god(s) lived amid society, yet carefully sequestered from it behind walls and doors. While primarily a residence, the temple also granted people limited access, usually for the purpose of divine service. The people believed that gods dwelt outside of the realm of human experience. Temples bridged the gap between human and divine, allowing regulated access to the deity, usually present in the form of a cult statue, and giving people the opportunity to influence the gods. Through this mutually beneficial interchange, the gods received the service they desired, while the people hoped their service would elicit divine protection and blessing. Protection and blessing, though, were conditional. The gods would remain and stay favorably disposed only if they were satisfied with their accommodation and service. Temples then, at least in theory, were lavishly and fastidiously constructed and maintained in order to keep the gods happy. This article focuses on the major temples, especially those from 1500–500 BCE, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. The article also focuses on the structure and ideology of the temples, not the rituals performed within them. For the most part, biblical and Israelite references will be kept to a minimum, as they are numerous enough to warrant their own article. Too numerous to include, archaeological reports generally have been excluded, yet they are referenced in the works cited and may be found with a Google web search.

The evidence for a history of Mandaeism during the period of Late Antiquity (3rd–8th c. CE) and its evolution as a religious tradition prior to and immediately following the advent of Islam is surveyed. This evidence includes the Mandaean manuscript tradition, the testimony of outside witnesses, and the corpus of incantation texts from Late Antique Mesopotamia. It is noted that the study of this evidence has typically been subsumed under the study of related traditions, and that it could benefit from a reassessment. The issues addressed include Mandaeism’s relationship to other religions, such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Manichaeism, the antiquity and authenticity of its traditions, and the extent of Islamic influence upon them.

- by Charles Häberl
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- Gnosticism, Aramaic, Zoroastrianism, Mesopotamia History

There was no intrinsic reason for angels to survive in early Christian thought: Their mediatorial role was played by Christ; they were also not needed as opponents of demons and demonic magic, as Christ filled that role too. They were, thus, peripheral to mainstream Christian thought in the ante-Nicene period. We do not, therefore, find much discussion of their nature in early Christian writings, and no genuine angelologies before the fourth century. The descriptions of angels which we find are generally couched in the symbolic language of clothing imagery, which was derived from Jewish sources. Yet Christians were interested in lesser heavenly beings, and they survived in popular devotion, until in the fourth century (after Arianism and Nicaea) they became a recognized part of Christian philosophic discourse.Why then did a belief in angels survive at all in Christian thought?Christians remained interested in angels, not primarily as mediators or as demon-fighters, but as models for emulation. This emulation of angels was primarily expressed in Christian ascetic celibacy, in imitation of the angels mentioned by Christ in the synoptic Gospels (Mt 20:30, Mk 12:25, Lk 20:35-6). Angels were models of perfection, they were beings who personified the state of being that many early Christians aspired to. Implicit in this emulation of angelic behaviour is the notion that acting in a particular manner (i.e. imitating heavenly beings) meant something - that it had a result - thus it gave ordinary people some agency, some control over their spiritual state.

- by Norman M . Ricklefs
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- Gnosticism, History, Ancient History, Early Christianity
- by Şevket Dönmez
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- Sumerian Religion, Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Historical Archaeology

This article challenges the common tendency in modern research to treat impurity as a religious phenomenon divorced from mundane concerns. Employing the cross-cultural psychological notion of “contagion,” this investigation examines the usage of terms for pollution and purity in Hittite and Akkadian as they relate to distinct domains of human experience, specifically: uncleanness, infection and transgression. Special attention is given to the use of these terms in reference to infectious disease. This analysis demonstrates the real-world experiential basis for notions of impurity and also provides a new perspective to shed light on the peculiarities of each culture (e.g. the absence of an Akkadian term for “pollution”). The article concludes with a detailed excurses on the etymology of Akkadian musukku and its relation to Sumerian (m)uzug.

- by Yitzhaq Feder
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- Hittite, Mesopotamian Religions, Akkadian, Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East
- by Peeter Espak
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- Comparative Religion, Mythology And Folklore, Ancient History, Folklore
- by Maurizio Viano
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- Sumerian Religion, Philosophy, Greek Literature, Near Eastern Studies

Concepts of religion and humanity form an integral component of Mesopotamian narrative literature, and these ideas are evidenced in the frequent exploration of themes involving mortality and immortality, power and authority, and creation and destruction. Through the use of plot, characterization, literary themes and techniques, and also structure, Mesopotamian myths and epics transmit religious ideas and beliefs, as well as informing on cultural identity and meaning. In both oral and written transmission, storytelling is a powerful medium for exploring ancient theology. Religious ideas are expressed in a wide array of Mesopotamian literary works, and while some features, such as the polytheistic view of the divine hierarchy, remain generally constant, different texts and " genres " show changes in focus and in the perception of the divine and the human. While deities and supernatural creatures have a prominent role in literature, Mesopotamian myth is not only concerned with theistic matters, but also with what it means to be human. It is often observed in modern scholarly works that humans, in the Babylonian Flood narrative of Atrahasis, and the creation myth of Enuma Elish, were born to serve the gods and perform their menial tasks. This is undoubtedly an important observation for the analysis of humanity and religion, yet the presentation of human/divine relations as one of simple subjection gives a misleading and superficial impression of the interaction between the mortal and divine spheres, one that is at odds with the subject's complexity, variety, and subtlety. Myths and epics provide a multifaceted picture of a number of different types of relationships between gods and humans: even in the narrative of Atrahasis, individual deities interact with humans in different ways; there is no " one size fits all " divine connection in Mesopotamian literature. Despite a rigid hierarchy in favor of the divine, these relationships are frequently close, involving strong emotional bonds. The human/ divine connection is not solely beneficial to either party, but reciprocal and often

- by Louise Pryke
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- Mythology, Love, Mesopotamian Religions, Myth, Folk Studies, Legends
- by John C Franklin and +2
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- Philology, Religion, Ancient Egyptian Religion, Sumerian Religion

A dolgozat fő kérdése, hogy milyen volt a mezopotámiai vallási felfogás, mennyire volt kizárólagos ez a világkép? Voltak-e olyan konfliktusok a környező népekkel, melyek vallási alapúnak tekinthetőek, azaz két eltérő vallási rendszer ütközéséből adódtak volna. Még egyszerűbben: megpróbálták-e a különböző mezopotámiai birodalmak ráerőltetni szomszédjaikra saját isteneiket és kultuszaikat, a politikai bekebelezést követte-e vallási elnyomás? A kérdést lezárhatnánk egy egyszerű nemmel, hiszen a gondolat is idegen volt a mezopotámiai kultúrától, nem azért, mert különlegesen toleráns lett volna, hanem egyszerűen az adott kulturális keretek között nem lett volna értelme egy másik népre vallási szokásokat vagy isteneket erőltetni, hiszen ők éppen a saját hatalmat erősítették. 1 Ugyanakkor az utóbbi idők szakmai vitái világossá tették, hogy a mezopotámiai vallásosság lényegét érintő kérdésről van szó. A vallási türelem vagy türelmetlenség kérdése egy olyan végletesen politeista pantheon esetében, mint a mezopotámiai, egyszerűen nem releváns. A Folyóköz istenvilága egy többnyelvű, etnikailag összetett kulturális térben alakult ki, és változott folyamatosan -a kisugárzás és a befogadás egyaránt jellemezte. Ha részletesebben szeretnénk körüljárni a kérdést, és meg szeretnénk érteni a nemleges válasz hátterét, akkor mezopotámiai vallás alapvető jellegzetességei mellett azt is látnunk kell, hogy milyen módon reagált más kultúrákra és vallási szokásokra.

- by Gábor Kalla
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- Assyriology, History of Religion, Mesopotamian Religions, Assyrian Empire

The chief aim of this essay is to posit a well-known Mesopotamian royal and divine epithet, ušumgallu "great dragon," as the source behind Ezekiel's enigmatic description of Pharaoh in 29.3, hattannīn haggādôl, "the great dragon." This relationship sheds new light and meaning on an old problem: why does Ezekiel refer to Pharaoh as a dragon? Rather than viewing this prophetic expression as a pejorative, the cognate evidence argues for the converse by rooting it in an enduring tradition of regal titles. Replicating Akkadian ušumgallu (Sumerian UŠUM.GAL) as efficiently as possible and drawing upon Israelite cosmological history (viz. Gen 1.21a), Ezekiel feigned including Pharaoh within a venerable, long line of Mesopotamian kings and deities to receive this title. Instead, and as is characteristic of Ezekiel's rhetoric, he upended the putative associations of the "great dragon," thereby exposing its true subordinate position under the hegemony of YHWH

- by Tyler Yoder
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- Egyptology, Assyriology, Rhetorical Criticism, Intertextuality

Resumen Los toros y leones androcéfalos alados, representaciones monumentales de genios guardianes benéficos de personas, palacios y ciudades, síntesis de una larga tradición religiosa y artística, se convirtieron en símbolo del prestigio y poderío neo-asirio. Dejaron huella en el imaginario no sólo de los pueblos dominados, sino incluso de imperios posteriores. Estos colosos ya forman parte del gran " Museo imaginario " de la humanidad. Abstract The Winged human-headed Bulls and lions, monumental representations of guardian benevolent genii for persons, palaces and cities, summary of a long religious and artistic tradition, they became symbol of neo-Assyrian prestige and power. They left traces in the popular imaginary, not only for the dominated peoples but even for later empires. These colossi are already part of Humanity's great " Imaginary museum " .

Built well over 3,000 years ago (c. 1380 BCE), the Eugal (Sum. é.u.gal) ziggurat at Dūr-Kurigalzu in southern Iraq still dominates the landscape. Although in a heavily deteriorated state, the original ziggurat, along with modern reconstruction efforts and other buildings unearthed during archaeological excavations at Dūr-Kurigalzu can be viewed using satellite imagery from Google Earth. This work explores possible celestial orientations for various points of the ziggurat, as well as possible sunlight and shadow scenarios pertaining to Mesopotamian justice and/or divination.

- by Clinton Briar
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- Divination, Mesopotamian Archaeology, Mesopotamia History, Mesopotamian Religions

Information about Mesopotamian history, culture, and religion is given. The work of the Epic of Gilgamesh and its connection with Mesopotamia are examined. Epic of Gilgamesh's work is analyzed and how it sheds light on past history is... more

- by Aslı Erginer
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- History, Ancient History, Mythology, Mesopotamian Religions

Esztári Réka (1984) assziriológus, az ELTE BTK Assziriológiai és Hebraisztikai Tanszékének tudományos segédmunkatársa, valamint a PPKE BTK Történelemtudományi Doktori Iskola Eszmetörténeti Műhelyének doktorjelöltje; folyóiratunk szerkesztője. Kutatási területe a mezopotámiai nemi szerepek vizsgálata, a nőgyógyászati jellegű mágikus-orvosi források által alkalmazott tudományos módszertan, illetve a Kr. e. 1. évezredi ómenértelmezés metodológiája. el tőlem! 1 Egy rejtélyes hattusai rituálé értelmezési nehézségei R itkán olvashatunk arról az immár másfél évszázados múltra visszatekintő assziriológiai szakirodalomban, s kiváltképp az utóbbi évtizedekben, hogy nagynevű s a mezopotámiai mágikus szövegek kiadására és feldolgozására szakosodott kutatók ne tudjanak értelmezni egy olyan rituálét, melynek, noha számos helyütt töredékes, mégis nagyobb terjedelmű, összefüggő szövegrészei maradtak ránk. A teljességgel egyedinek modható, rejtélyes akkád nyelvű rítusleírás, mely a jelen tanulmány elsődleges szöveges forrása, éppen ilyen kivételt jelent. Szövege egy nagyobb, ráolvasásokat és rituálékat tartalmazó gyűjteményes tábla (KBo XXXVI 29) részeként őrződött meg mint annak legelső darabja. Noha a gyűjtemény egésze akkád nyelven, ékírással íródott, az ismert kéziratok nem az egykori Mezopotámia területén, hanem a Hettita Birodalom hajdani fővárosában, Hattušában (a modern Boğazköy) kerültek elő. 2 Ahogyan azt a KBo XXXVI 29 és duplikátumai példaértékű kiadását elkészítő Daniel Schwemer felvetette, az általunk ismert kompendium egy babilóniai eredetin, vagy esetleg több különböző, Babilóniából származó szövegen alapulhatott. Utóbbiakat nagy valószínűséggel valamikor a Kr. e. 15-14. század folyamán, Észak-Mezopotámiában jegyezhették le -ahogyan ez a számos nyelvtani sajátosság és hurri jövevényszó jelenlétéből is kiviláglik. 3 Miután ez a verzió eljutott a hettita udvarba, a helyi királyi írnokok -akik természetesen jól ismerték és használták mind az ékírást, mind az akkád nyelvet -másolni kezdték a minden bizonnyal nagy becsben tartott szöveget. 4 A gyűjtemény további darabjai alapján a benne foglalt ceremóniák általánosságban démonok és rosszindulató halotti szellemek által okozott ártalmakat hivatottak elhárítani. Az ilyen típusú szövegek Mezopotámiában az általunk jobbára ráolvasópapnak nevezett bajelhárító szakemberek (āšipu) tudományához kapcsolódtak, az ő szakkönyvtáraik részét képezték. 5 Ugyanakkor -kiváltképp az utóbbiak jól ismert műveivel összevetve -ez a bizonyos legelső rituálé több szempontból is egyedinek mondható. Sajnálatos módon -s a korábbi értelmezők mentségére mondva -a kompendium kezdetét csupán egyetlen kézirat őrizte meg (1. kép), és ez utóbbi, ahogyan a képen is látható, meglehetősen töredékes. Az első rituálé eredetileg mintegy 60 sort ölelehett fel -ebből 44 maradt ránk, változó mértékben ép állapotban. 6 Mind az eleje, mind a vége elveszett, s mivel a mágikus ceremóniák esetében rendszerint a szöveg kezdetén határozzák meg a tulajdonképpeni elhárítandó problémát, illetve a végén utalnak a rituális folyamat eredményére, ez esetben látszólag nem sok kapaszkodóval rendelkezünk a ceremóniát életre hívó probléma, a szöveg Sitz im Lebene tekintetében.

- by Réka Esztári
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- Assyriology, Mesopotamian Religions, Ritual Theory, Ancient Mesopotamian Religions

Amorite ia-ah-wi and ia-wi are different spellings of the name element ZyaHwT/. /yaHwi/ certainly is a verbal form and not a theophoric element. A derivation of this form from /HWY is improbable. Instead, onomastic parallels and the structure of the Amorite onomasticon strongly favour a derivation from j/HWY ?to live" and, at the sa me time, an analysis as G-rather than as H-stem. ?to live" probably has the sense of god's mighty presence in the event of the birth. Thus, the Amorite onomasticon is irre levant for the analysis of the biblical divine name Yahwe.

- by Fatih yılmaz
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- Religion, History, Ancient History, Cultural History

Bodies make space speak. This graduate seminar investigates the relationship between bodily practice, social performance, and the production of architectural space. Critical literature on the human body, its gender and sexuality, its materiality, and everyday life have flourished in the recent decades, while discussions of architectural space, place and landscape came to the foreground. Drawing on this corpus of recent scholarship in the social sciences and humanities, we will work closely with architectural, art historical and archaeological case studies drawn from the ancient Near Eastern world, and consider the impact of such new paradigms on the field. Neolithic figurines, megalithic monuments, rock reliefs, cave paintings, funerary rituals, urban festivals and festive spaces with visual narrative programs will constitute some of the case studies. Discussions of embodiment, embodied subjectivity, agency of objects, animism of architectural spaces and landscapes, gendered representation of the body, gender performance, multi-sensorial experience of the everyday world, spectacles of the state and biopolitics will play a central role in the seminar. While reading theoretical scholarship on body, performance and space, we will also be studying closely select case studies of archaeological sites, bodies of material evidence drawn from athe ancient Middle Eastern world from prehistory to the late Iron Age.

- by Ömür Harmansah
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- Ancient History, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology
- by Niccolò Manassero
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- Mesopotamian Religions, Gilgamesh Epic
- by Michael Kozuh
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- Ancient History, Economic History, Assyriology, Mesopotamia History

В современном мире существуют три суперцивилизации – это египетско-месопотамская разделяющая суперцивилизация, индийская суперцивилизация множества и китайская объединяющая суперцивилизация. В данной статье описаны символы, а также... more

В современном мире существуют три суперцивилизации – это египетско-месопотамская
разделяющая суперцивилизация, индийская суперцивилизация множества и китайская объединяющая суперцивилизация. В данной статье описаны символы, а также материальные и духовные характеристики этих суперцивилизаций.

- by Konstantin Shchemelinin
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- Cultural History, Indian Philosophy, World History, Culture

The eighteen articles included into the present volume correspond to the principal spheres of Krecher’s scholarly interests: various aspects of Sumerian morphology and syntax; Sumerian lexicon and terminology; Sumerian onomastics;... more

- by Gábor Zólyomi and +2
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- Sumerian Religion, Akkadian Language, Mesopotamian Religions, Ancient Near East

Could anyone who reads Phaenomena by Aratus (c. 270 BC) fail to recognize the connection between myth and the heavens in the ancient Greek world? In the days of Augustus, Ovid wrote that "Aratus shall endure with the sun and the moon" (Amores I.15), and he followed Aratus with his Fasti that connects Roman holidays based on ancient myth with phenomena that take place in the skies.

- by George Latura
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- Ancient History, Ancient Religion, Mesopotamian Religions, Archaeoastronomy

A Bibliography of the Scientific Writings of Luigi Cagni

- by Giancarlo Toloni
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- Semitic languages, Hebrew Bible, Mesopotamian Religions, Ancient Near East

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh interacts with three goddesses: Ninsun, his mother and a goddess renowned for her wisdom, Ishtar, the goddess of love and sexuality, and Siduri, a minor goddess of wisdom. This article will investigate Gilgamesh's interactions and relations with these goddesses. How do these goddesses reveal or present themselves to Gilgamesh? How do the goddesses communicate with Gilgamesh, and how does he interact with them? The manner in which these interactions take place in the Standard Version of the Epic will be compared to the same episodes in the earlier Old Babylonian Version of the Epic and the Sumerian narratives in order to identify changes across time. Finally, how do these interactions differ from the way in which Gilgamesh interacts with male gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh? These various interactions will be compared and analysed to reveal not only similarities and differences in the way Gilgamesh communicates with the goddesses in the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also crucial differences in the manner in which male and female deities reveal themselves and communicate with Gilgamesh.

This paper reviews the evidence for Neolithic burial practices in SE Arabia, focusing in particular on sites in the Ja'alan region of eastern Oman. Attention is given to the nature of material buried with human remains, including jewellery and, most interestingly, the bones and shells of green turtles in the burials of Ra's al-Hamra 5 and 10. The paper concludes with a discussion of the possible evidence for "necrophobia" at the 5 th millennium BC Neolithic necropolis of Suwayh 1.

- by Vincent CHARPENTIER
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- Religion, Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology, Death

This course presents a broad survey of historical forces at work over the past 6,000 years, examining the manners in which human societies have organized themselves along categories of race, ethnicity, class, and gender to meet the challenges of the increasing human population and its demands on natural resources: thus, it examines continuity and change in societies over time, in different places, and among various peoples.

- by Nikolaus L Overtoom
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- Ancient Egyptian Religion, History, Ancient History, European History

"Yes, they are coming and, yes, there are more of them: Ever since the first ghoulish proto-vampires, werewolves and zombies lurched from the preliterate shadows to stalk the cuneiform-on-clay myths of Mesopotamia, they remain undead despite the passage of four millennia, adapting endlessly to every time and every place -- perhaps none more than our own.
"

- by Robert W Lebling
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- Mythology And Folklore, Artificial Intelligence, Folklore, Mythology
- by D.T. Potts
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- Religion, Literature, Mesopotamian Archaeology, Mesopotamia History

This magnificent book, published by Macmillan a month after the Faruqis’ deaths, presents the ‎entire world view of Islam-its beliefs, traditions, institutions, and its place in the cultures in which ‎it has taken mot. THE CULTURAL ATLAS OF ISLAM is not only a comprehensive introduction ‎to the Islamic experience in history and the modern world. It is an authoritative and deeply felt ‎statement of the faith of Islam, written for those of all faiths. Isma‘il and Lois Lamya’ al Famqi’s ‎book is, in fact, Islam explaining itself.‎

Sin duda, Göbekli Tepe rompe los paradigmas establecidos desde el siglo XX entorno al cambio de vida nómada al sedentarismo; el desarrollo de la agricultura y su relación con la naturaleza-ambiente, así como las primeras evidencias materiales de actividades de culto y ritual.
El presente ensayo tiene como objetivo discutir sobre el sitio de Göbekli Tepe, al sur de Turquía, levantado por grupos de cazadores-recolectores, el cual presenta arquitectura megalítica relacionada con aspectos religiosos para fechas muy tempranas, incluso antes que el surgimiento de la agricultura y el sedentarismo, así como una ocupación milenaria y diferentes etapas constructivas.

The Warka Vase is an iconic artifact of Mesopotamia. In the absence of rigorous botanical study, the plants depicted on the lowest register are usually thought to be flax and grain. This analysis of the image identified as grain argues that its botanical characteristics, iconographical context and similarity to an archaic sign found in proto-writing demonstrates that it should be identified as a date palm sapling. It confirms the identification of flax. The correct identification of the plants furthers our understanding of possible symbolic continuities spanning the centuries that saw the codification of text as a representation of natural language.

- by Naomi F Miller and +1
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- Near Eastern Archaeology, Mesopotamian Archaeology, Mesopotamian Religions, Ancient Near East

This paper deals with the possibility of retracing the monumental setting of ancient contexts now lost and not documented directly by the study of indirect sources that describe them, literally or visually. The assumption is that monuments that did not come down to the present day can nonetheless be studied and contextualized thanks to what is echoed in literary or epigraphic sources and to their depiction in other media.
Here, the possibility that one or more now-lost statues representing the mušḫuššu, the serpo-dragon of Marduk, were erected at Babylon at least since the Late Babylonian period is discussed on the basis of both epigraphic and iconographic evidence.

- by Vito Messina
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- Religion, Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Near Eastern Studies
- by Fröhlich Ida
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- Magic, Demonology, Mesopotamian Religions, Second Temple Judaism (Religion)

The article approaches the mythical epic Inūma ilū awīlum with respect to its narrative structure and procedure. Within this framework, it investigates the ideas pertaining to the nature of violence that is communicated through the sequence of events within the poem. The mode chosen to inform the epic’s reader is understood as narrative exemplification, being an equivalent to the demonstration of general principles through representative examples that can often be found in other epistemic contexts in ancient Mesopotamia, e. g. in mathematics or divination. Thus, the paper not only reconstructs a specific concept of violence but also elaborates on the more general question of whether and how these intellectual means might represent some form of a Babylonian philosophy.

Much ink has been spilled on the examination of Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine in the past, and the topic has received renewed attention in the present. The following article offers yet another synthetic analysis of the Mesopotamian divine sphere, amassing in one place a vast array of data and the scholarly assessments of that data. More particularly, after examining what constitutes a god in ancient Mesopotamia and the essential and characteristic qualities of Mesopotamian deities, the article attempts to sort the divine sphere, focusing on the relationship between the various beings that populate the divine world and between a single deity and its various aspects. However, although synthetic, the present contribution offers several new insights. Most prominently, it posits the concept of divine constellations as a model for understanding Mesopotamian deities, in which the major Mesopotamian deities are presented as a constellation of aspects that may be treated as (semi-)independent beings or as a unity depending on the context.

- by Michael Hundley
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- Theology, Assyriology, Biblical Studies, Mesopotamian Religions
- by Gioele Zisa and +1
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- Sumerian Religion, Historical Anthropology, Mesopotamian Religions, Anthropology of the Ancient World

This article is part of the catalogue of the exhibition "Acrobates" (co-edited with Cyril Thomas from the Cnac) and is published in French with an English translation by Silvana editoriale, Milan. The exhibition was co-organised between the Museums of Châlons-en-Champagne and the Centre National des Arts du Cirque. It took place in the 3 Museums of Châlons-en-Champagne (7/4-29/10/2018). The exhibition was awarded the title "Exhibition of National Interest" by the French Ministry of Culture in 2018.

- by Virginia Verardi
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- Archaeology, Mesopotamian Archaeology, Mesopotamian Religions, Syria