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After more than fifty years since the last publication, the cuneiform texts relating to the treatment of the loss of male sexual desire and vigor in Mesopotamia are collected in this volume. The aim of the book is to present Mesopotamian medical tradition regarding the so-called nīš libbi therapies. šà-zi-ga in Sumerian, nīš libbi in Akkadian, lit. "raising of the 'heart'", is the expression used to indicate a group of texts intended to recover the male sexual desire. This medical tradition is preserved from the Middle Babylonian period to the Achaemenid one. This broad range testifies to the importance of the transmission of this material throughout Mesopotamian history. The book provides the edition of this textual corpus and analyzes it in the light of new knowledge on ancient Near Eastern medicine. Moreover, this volume aims to show how theories and methodologies of Cultural Anthropology, Ethnopsychiatry and Gender Studies are useful for understanding the Mesopotamian medical system. This edition is an important tool for understanding Mesopotamian medical knowledge for Assyriologist, however since the texts have been translated and discussed using the anthropological and gender perspectives they are accessible also to scholars of other research fields, such as History of Medicine, Sexuality and Gender.

Although many assyriological studies have been done on internal organs in the Mesopotamian worldview, the pathologies associated with them, and their metaphorical and ideological value, little attention have been paid to the fact that, sometimes, internal organs are associated with verbs of movement. Perhaps, this limited regard can be attributed to the assyriological look at the Mesopotamian body being shaped by the modern biomedicine. According to biomedicine, in fact, the human internal anatomy is composed of a series of organs which stay fixed in their positions. On the contrary, I want to show how the internal organs in Mesopotamian anatomy are thought as capable to move. I will demonstrate, thanks to the contribution of the cultural anthropological perspective, that these movements of internal organs can determine two conditions: emotional and psychological states; and pathological signs. Consequently, some organ movements are considered necessary, in accordance to the functioning of the Mesopotamian anatomical-emotional system, while others produce alterations considered negative. In addition, the first case shows that there is no a clear distinction between “mind” and “body” in Mesopotamian, but that, on the contrary, the psycho-emotional dimension and bodily processes are strongly interrelated and that such expressions with internal organs and verbs of movement referring to emotional states should not be intended only metaphorically, but in the concreteness of bodily processes.

The Old-Babylonian text “A man and his god” has enjoyed a wide reputation for its many parallels with the biblical story of Job, and has been the subject of accurate philological analysis. This composition describes the suffering and pain of desperate man calls his God for healing. The aim of this work is to show how you can apply to the Mesopotamian literary texts dealing with the issue of suffering, pain and discomfort-disgrace, the theoretical and methodological tools of medical anthropology. An anthropological approach to the problem of illness in Mesopotamia can understand, in a deeper sense, the symbolic, socio-cultural and political complexity. The essay provides much food for thought on the concept of sickness and the body in the Old-Babylonian Mesopotamia. The affliction of the protagonist is both physical and mental. The words of the poem does not refer only and exclusively to the sphere of physical suffering. The verbs are used in their more general semantic value, showing a man debilitated, helplessly, the victim of an imbalance, which upsets not only the physical and psychological well-being, but also social relations. The pains are part of a broad category which is that of misfortune. Therefore, there is a clear distinction between the evils that affect physically and emotionally man and the events of the most varied nature, which affects his difficult life. The ignorance of the divine will seems to be the human condition. The miserable situation of the sufferer is determined by an inscrutable divine decision.