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This article examines the derivation of toy and game imagery in "The Elevation of Ištar." I argue that the presence of these metaphors in a first-millennium text represents a late stage in the development of Ištar's characterization as a childlike goddess . Tracing this development from Sumerian mythological and lexical texts into the Sumero-Akkadian and Akkadian traditions reveals Inanna/Ištar's well-known attribute of violent rage in a different manner . This suggests that the characterization of the goddess as childlike existed over a significant period of Mesopotamian history as shown by the inclusion of toy and game language in a variety of texts . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the archiving practices of a little-known group of Catholics in the Ottoman Empire, the Diyarbakır Chaldeans, in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It argues for a flexible definition of archives, based not on traditional characteristics such as links to a defined institutional repository, but on their purpose of community formation. The loose institutional structure of the Chaldean Church resulted in an unconventional archive, which never had one physical centre and consisted largely of liturgical manuscripts; nonetheless, it recorded recognizably archival material and gained cohesion from the overlapping circles of families, scribes and churches involved in its production, as well as from systematic innovations in scribal practices. The Diyarbakır Chaldean archive not only reflected the distinctive form of the community but also contributed to creating and reshaping it. By recording social ties, it kept these obligations alive for decades and generated ongoing commitments. It also imagined the community on an illusory level, occluding tensions and troubles in order to preserve an idealized image of a church united under pious leadership. This dispersed, mobile archive thus was intimately connected to community formation and contributed to the survival of the Chaldean Church in a time of immense difficulty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ancient Iraq Civilization witnessed the prominent role of Women, and a participated in making the history of Mesopotamia, Starting from the practice of his natural role in motherhood and in the passage of his way female divinities, and through their imitation and participation in religion and civil authority, and governance of or their management of public administrative and even commercial, the woman entered in the field of professional work, while it worked in various and several professional, as evidenced by the discovered Cuneiform texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the spatial configuration of the Roman easternmost borderland in Mesopotamia through several case studies and, particularly, with the aid of declassified aerial and satellite imagery. Satellite pictures from the 1960s and 1970s have proved to be of incredible value for the archaeological research in the Near East, contributing to a solid advancement in the understanding of large-scale phenomena on long-term periods. This is particularly true for the so-called late periods of Mesopotamian history which - traditionally - suffer from an inexplicable lack of terrain data. Although the research has consistently improved in the las decade or so, the support of remote-sensing techniques has open new and fruitful research trajectories on the matter. I will employ legacy aerial data, CORONA and HEXAGON declassified satellite imagery and U2 aerial data to assess some case studies in the region and to provide new insights on such a contested space, now roughly comprised between northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Surra Man Raa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The beginnings of the history of Mesopotamia date back to the mid second millennium before Christ. Various peoples settled down in that region and created more or less stable state organisms which, as the centauries passed, demonstrated and shared common cultural and civilizational heritage. Amongst the nations which made an enormous contribution to the development of medicine in Mesopotamia are Babylonians and Assyrians. The evidence of their achievements in medicine is found in the Code of Hammurabi and on clay tablets covered by cuneiform which were discovered in Nippur. In those days medicine was mainly of magical nature.

By providing the first comprehensive account of the role of the British and Indian press in war propaganda, this article makes an intervention in the global history of the First World War. The positive propaganda early in the war, intertwined with a rhetoric of loyalism, contrasted with how the conservative British press affixed blame for military defeats in Mesopotamia upon the colonial regime's failure to effectively mobilize India's resources. Using a highly emotive and enduring trope of the 'Mesopotamia muddle', the Northcliffe press was successful in channelling a high degree of public scrutiny onto the campaign. The effectiveness of this criticism ensured that debates about the Mesopotamian debacle became a vehicle for registering criticism of structures of colonial rule and control in India. On the one hand, this critique hastened constitutional reforms and devolution in colonial India and, on the other, it led to demands that the inadequacy of India's contribution to the war be remedied by raising war loans. Both the colonial government and its nationalist critics were briefly and paradoxically united in opposing these demands. The coercive extraction of funds for the imperial war effort as well as the British press's vituperative criticism contributed to a post-war, anti-colonial political upsurge. The procedure of creating a colonial 'scandal' out of a military disaster required a specific politics for assessing the regulated flows of information, which proved to be highly effective in shaping both the enquiry that followed and the politics of interwar colonial South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the discovery of rock reliefs in February 2019 on the southernmost part of Bamu mountains in western Iran and Mesopotamia which may be significant in the history of Iddin-Sin, king of Simurrum of the Mesopotamian area. Topics discussed include evidence for the existence of the Simurrum Kingdom, connection of the rock reliefs to the political frontiers of ancient Mesopotamia, and description of the rock relief of Iddin-Sin in terms of iconography and characteristics.

This article focuses on technical innovations, new interregional networks, and social upheavals in the fourth millennium BCE. Similar trends in the iconography of the lion, the heraldic animal of power, can be observed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus. This indicates that a process of concentration of power in the hands of strong rulers or kings took place relatively synchronously in these regions. The exchange of coveted raw materials such as copper and silver was connected with the transfer of knowledge between these regions, which can be seen in metal objects such as daggers and knives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A group of seven short late Old Babylonian texts, written in Akkadian, found in the early twentieth century in a grave in Susa, form the focus of this paper. The texts, which have attracted much scholarly attention since their publication in 1916 by Jean-Vincent Scheil, have until now not been collated. They are presented here with improved readings, a new translation, and extensive commentary. The mention in two of the texts of an alleged chthonic “weigher” is philologically disproved: psychostasia, the weighing of souls, did not exist in ancient Mesopotamian religion. The suggestion of some scholars that these Old Babylonian Akkadian texts are witnesses to Elamite, or even Iranian, belief in the weighing of souls is methodically refuted. The nature of the seven so-called Susa Funerary Texts (SFT) is discussed, demonstrating their close contacts to two other wellknown Mesopotamian genres—personal prayers and reports of oracular or prophetic visions. Finally, the question of their unusual find spot, viz., in a grave, is discussed and the possibility raised that this peculiar location is a result of the texts’ magical function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archeology of the Deh Luran plain was documented by the work of Frank Hole and his associates in 1960s and 1970s. While these investigations were mostly dedicated to the study of the village periods, the presence of early state formations on the plain was also documented by their surface surveys. Tepe Farukhabad was an exception, but because it was only a small settlement in the third and second millennia BCE, the excavations there did not yield fruitful results for this period. Based on their systematic surface study of Tepe Musiyan, Wright and Neely argued that during the third and second millennia BCE, this settlement played a central role in this strategic plain due to its location on the route from Susa to Der (Badra in Iraq). Recently, our team again surveyed the Deh Luran Plain. Our visit to Musiyan provided us with a cylinder seal discovered by one of the locals. The inscription reveals the owner as a person with an Amorite name who may have been present in Musiyan sometime during the early centuries of the second millennium BCE, contemporary with the end of the Šimaški period, which in Mesopotamia extends from late in the Third Dynasty of Ur until the early Old Babylonian period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication studies the Ur III worker-designations ab (-ba) -i l2, ama-i l2, and (nu-mu-) su-i l2, which appear in the economic sources from Umma and Girsu/Lagaš. Expending on the earlier treatments by C. Wilcke and W. Sallaberger, it is argued that these classifications designate workers who were temporarily freed from the performance of corvée duty, in order to be able to care for their elderly (and probably ailing) mothers and fathers. The existence of such regulations has important implications for the status of the Ur III labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction provides the theoretical framework for the volume ranging from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason via Landsberger's concept of Eigenbegrifflichkeit (conceptual autonomy) to Assyriological research on ancient Near Eastern epistemic practices, especially Van De Mieroop's recent volume Philosophy Before the Greeks. Then the introduction explores the field of the history of philosophy with special consideration given to those variants that focus on non-Greek and non-Western versions of philosophy. Thus, it asks whether and how ancient Mesopotamia can be investigated in such a framework. After that the structure of the volume is explained, and a brief summary of each contribution is given. The introduction concludes by thanking the many people who have helped to make this volume possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Crassus met the Parthian ambassador Vagises on the eve of his disastrous expedition ending at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, Vagises mocked his boldness and showed the palm of his hand, on which, according to him, no hair would ever grow unless the Roman were to reach Mesopotamia, the heart of Parthian empire. This bizarre gesture and statement, usually assumed to be frivolous, can only be understood in the context of Zoroastrian sexual and cathartic ethics, which of course no Roman or Greek could understand. The source of this information therefore could not have been Plutarch, but rather someone conversant with Persian culture, from either Parthian or Armenian stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Biblical law has had a profound influence on Western culture, but it must be understood in its historical context. It arose in the context of the tradition of Mesopotamian law, where scribes exhibited their flair for justice by writing statutes on a repertoire of traditional cases, of which the most outstanding example is the Laws of Hammurabi. Rarely did legal texts explicitly discuss legal principles. Three collections of formal legal statutes are found in the Hebrew Bible. The Book of the Covenant is most like Mesopotamian law in dealing with disputes arising in an agrarian society. The priestly law consists of two sources, the priestly source that aims at protecting the welfare of the people by the performance of sacred rituals and the Holiness source that seeks to sanctify the everyday activities of the people. Deuteronomy aims at ritual and social reforms. Among the most debated issues in scholarship today is biblical law's view of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of College of Education / Wasit is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of College of Education / Wasit is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The following examines the Akkadian scribal annotation tayyartu, 'return,' demonstrating that it refers to a repetitive section of a text that was not copied by the scribe. Editions of two texts where this annotation occurs, a Mīs Pî-type incantation and an Emesal prayer, are included. In addition, the phenomenon of repetition and abbreviation in incantations and Emesal prayers is briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a theory in which geographic attributes explain cross-regional institutional differences in (1) the scale of the state, (2) the distribution of power within state hierarchy, and (3) property rights to land. In this theory, geography and technology affect the transparency of farming, and transparency, in turn, affects the elite’s ability to appropriate revenue from the farming sector, thus affecting institutions. We apply the theory to explain differences between the institutions of ancient Egypt, southern Mesopotamia, and northern Mesopotamia, and also discuss its relevance to modern phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction. The understanding of history in general, as well as of the history of every particular human activity, is of utmost importance. Judging from the vast amount of available literature, this is especially true for the history of medical ethics. This article is a brief survey of the history of medical ethics from the ancient times to the present days. It includes the most important events, prominent names in the field of medicine of the given time, and the heritage they left behind in different parts of the world. Ancient Times. Although certain codes associated with the practice of healing existed in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the most important is the heritage of ancient Greeks, primarily due to the activities of a small medical school on the island of Cos, headed by Hippocrates. Middle Ages. Even though the Middle Ages are often called the “dark ages”, this era was marked by significant scientific and medical advancements. It was the time when the first medical guilds were founded, and great medical works of Greco-Roman authors were rediscovered and translated. The Age of Enlightenment and the 19th Century. This was the period when numerous writings on medical ethics appeared, and medical associations were founded, first of all in the Great Britain and the United States of America. Modern Times. The twentieth century was characterized by unprecedented advances in medical practice and research. Of special importance is the foundation of the World Medical Association. Conclusion. In all the cultures of the world, through all the ages, the individuals involved in healing of the sick had to respect certain ethical codes of conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that a broad survey of the evidence for hunger in ancient Mesopotamia shows that, while it was relatively rare in fact (if familiar enough in theory), the political management of hunger by early states points to its use in simulating their positions, in rhetoric and ideology, as providers of security and political membership as a rational economic choice. In fact, the social marginalization and moral pejorativization of the hungry points to these protections as "security theater" rather than security in fact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study draws on interdisciplinary research to establish an interpretative framework for an analysis of the material and textual evidence concerning infant loss in ancient Mesopotamia (c. 3000-500 BCE). This approach rejects the notion that high infant mortality rates result in widespread parental indifference to infant loss, arguing instead that underlying biological and transcultural realities inform human responses to this phenomenon. With this conclusion in mind, a review of ancient Mesopotamian archaeological evidence reveals patterns of differential infant burial; while the interpretation of these patterns is uncertain, the broader contexts of infant burials in ancient Mesopotamia do not point to parental indifference, but rather the opposite. The available textual evidence in turn indicates that ancient Mesopotamians valued their infants, sought actively to protect them from harm, and mourned deeply when they died, a conclusion that is not controverted by evidence of infant exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers the first ever discussion of all extant images of Abdissar, Monobazos I and ’tlw (Attalos), Kings of Adiabene. In analysing the numismatic and sculptural data, a few conclusions on the historical context are suggested. First, it is argued that stylistic features of the coinage of Abdissar suggest a date in the first half of the second century b.c.e., and this dating bears upon the question of the historical origin of the Kingdom of Adiabene. Adiabene originated as one of many “post-Seleucid” states which arose in the Near East when the Seleucid kingdom started to crumble, before the advent of the Parthians. This suggestion is also corroborated by stylistic features of the coinage which accentuate the divine investiture of royal power in Abdissar. It is also held that the Batas-Herir monument depicts King Abdissar. Second, the images on the coin of Monobazos I clearly reflect the time of Adiabene's economic prosperity and political rise to significance among Parthian “lesser kings” in the first half of the first century c.e. Third, the reign of King ’tlw (Attalos) remains largely obscure, but the placement of his sculpture in Hatra clearly shows good political relations and close cultural ties between the kingdoms of Adiabene and Hatra in the first half of the third century c.e. Additionally, the authors argue that the images of Oriental kings on the coins of Septimius Severus do not represent any particular Oriental rulers (of Edessa, Adiabene or Hatra), but are merely stereotypical images of what the Romans considered to be typical Oriental royal outfits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Sealand I dynasty ruled in southern Mesopotamia in the latter part of the Old Babylonian and at the beginning of the Middle Babylonian period. Unprovenanced archival documents dating to the middle years of this dynasty were published by Dalley in 2009. Most of these documents pertain to the palatial administration of resources. The present article aims at establishing a number of accounting principles and practices that were in place at a Sealand I palace. The administration of animal husbandry is examined in depth and its underlying principles of resource management are presented; these suggest that this palace functioned as an extended household providing resources for its own needs and for a number of temples. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the divination from sound in ancient Mesopotamia in the first millenium BCE, particularly the Akkadian divinatory series called Šumma ālu. It analyzes the concept of private vs. public space as one of the interpretative keys to the divinatory system of ancient Mesopotamia. It also examines how sound is written and described in Akkadian language and the association of sound in emotion, including anxiety, and phenomena.

This article investigates the relationship between ancient objects and their visual depiction in British archaeological expeditions in the Middle East in the mid-nineteenth century. The article focuses on the exploration of Ancient Mesopotamia initiated by the British adventurer Austen Henry Layard. Modern scholarship on Layard’s excavations and their reception in Europe has mostly presented them as well-organised, purposive, and logical enterprises in which finding objects and depicting them had a clear, well-defined purpose. Little attention has been paid to the fact that the excavated items were initially objects without a clear status, even after they had arrived in Europe. This article examines how the application of visual media – whether used for scholarship or for publicity – in the field and the museum reflected this uncertainty. In this context, photography as a new medium entered the chaos of the field and the museum as one among several media that brought along its own insecurities rather than a tool ready and able to solve a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the development of ancient Mesopotamian empires including the Sumer and the Sumerian civilisation and its association with the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian, ruled by various Kings. These include the Early Dynastic Period which is divided in three parts such as conflicts between military and spiritual leaders, the creation of Code of Hammurabi by King Hammurabi of the first Babylon Dynasty and the creation of libraries by King Assurbanipal II of Assyria.

The author argues that the evidence of observation in Egyptian third millennium BCE medicine and astronomy should allow ancient Egypt an important place in the history of science. The argument is primarily based on the absence of evidence of scientific observation in Mesopotamia preceding the Egyptian material, which renders the Egyptian observations of the movements of celestial bodies and trauma the earliest signs of science. While assigning "predictions" and "mathematical astronomy" a more important place, Assyriologists also date what they can document to long after the Egyptian observations and predictions, highlighting the chronological precedence of Egypt. Furthermore, the author stresses a complicated discourse involving the exchange of ideas that was ultimately stymied by the growing importance of religion and magic. Yet the development was not as linear as the usual versions suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Kani Shaie Archaeological Project's excavations of discovery into the early Bronze Age in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2013 and 2015. Topics covered include the traversal of goods and ideas across the Zagros Mountains which influenced the development of Mesopotamian civilization, and the formation of emerging hierarchies within small communities. Also noted are the origins of the Zagros societies and their militarized interaction with powerful Mesopotamian polities.

Modern sub-Saharan African studies on the recent adoption and impact of working-animal use provide valuable ethnographic insights for archaeologists into early exploitation of this new resource in antiquity. The systematic use of working cattle and (often forgotten in models) of donkeys constituted a key factor in the burgeoning of complex societies in fourth- and third-millennium BC Mesopotamia. Modern analogy indicates that models should include the economic importance of year-round utilisation of working animals and strategies for achieving this, including user training and animal hiring and lending. Another key finding is that the situation of women, commonly culturally constrained worldwide from handling cattle, is greatly ameliorated by the availability of donkeys, which can empower them in terms of income and status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of Near Eastern neolithization and its westward expansion from the core zone in the Levant and upper Mesopotamia has been broadly discussed in recent decades, and many models have been developed to describe the spread of early farming in terms of its timing, structure, geography and sociocultural impact. Until now, based on recent intensive investigations in northwestern and western Anatolia, the discussion has mainly centred on the importance of Anatolian inland routes for the westward spread of neolithization. This contribution focuses on the potential impact of east Mediterranean and Aegean maritime networks on the spread of the Neolithic lifestyle to the western edge of the Anatolian subcontinent in the earliest phases of sedentism. Employing the longue durée model and the concept of 'social memory', we will discuss the arrival of new groups via established maritime routes. The existence of maritime networks prior to the spread of farming is already indicated by the high mobility of Epipalaeolithic/Mesolithic groups exploring the Aegean and east Mediterranean seas, and reaching, for example, the Cyclades and Cyprus. Successful navigation by these early mobile groups across the open sea is attested by the distribution of Melian obsidian. The potential existence of an additional Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) obsidian network that operated between Cappadocia/Cilicia and Cyprus further hints at the importance of maritime coastal trade. Since both the coastal and the high seas networks were apparently already well established in this early period, we may further assume appropriate knowledge of geographic routes, navigational technology and other aspects of successful seafaring. This Mesolithic/PPN maritime know-how package appears to have been used by later groups, in the early 7th millennium calBC, exploring the centre of the Anatolian Aegean coast, and in time establishing some of the first permanent settlements in that region. In the present paper, we link this background of newcomers to the western edge of Anatolia with new excavation results from Çukuriçi Höyük, which we have analysed in terms of subsistence strategies, materiality, technology and symbolism. Additionally, further detailed studies of nutrition and obsidian procurement shed light on the distinct maritime affinity of the early settlers in our case study, something that, in our view, can hardly be attributed to inland farming societies. We propose a maritime colonization in the 7th millennium via routes from the eastern Mediterranean to the eastern Aegean, based on previously developed sea networks. The pronounced maritime affinity of these farming and herding societies allows us to identify traces of earlier PPN concepts still embedded in the social-cultural memories of the newcomers and incorporated in a new local and regional Neolithic identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni is the property of Editrice Morcelliana S.p.A. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Besides their significance in administrative procedures, cylinder seals also played an important role as amulets in ancient Mesopotamia. There are many references to them being used in medical and magical procedures, which sometimes determine their features of magical potential. Thus not only the imagery and inscription of cylinder seals but also the raw material of which they were made contributed to their medico-magical usage (cf. Collon 1987: 119; 1997: 19–20). This paper deals with the last-mentioned feature of cylinder seals, that is their raw material, which is treated in a short series known from BAM 194 viii’ 9’–14’, as well as from another three tablets published here for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Excavations at the relatively small but strategically placed site of Hirbemerdon Tepe, located along the west bank of the upper Tigris River in modern southeastern Turkey, have yielded significant results. During the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1600 B.C.E.), the site was situated in an ecologically stratified landscape that included river terraces suitable for agriculture as well as forested uplands ideal for pastoral and hunting activities. A significant result of these excavations, which were conducted by the Hirbemerdon Tepe Archaeological Project, was the discovery of a well-preserved architectural complex with associated ritual artifacts on the northern side of the high mound. This report describes and situates this Middle Bronze Age site within its geographic, cultural, and ecological context. It examines the emergence of this small regional center and investigates the role of ritual activities in the development of socially integrated communities in the frontier zone of northern Mesopotamia during the beginning of the second millennium B.C.E. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the history and culture of ancient Mesopotamia. Topics discussed include the recognition of Mesopotamia as among the most archaeologically rich and historically significant regions around the world, the abundance of the region's material culture and archival evidence, and the region's geography and agriculture.

The article discusses the economic means of production in ancient Mesopotamia during the first millennium BCE, which the author identifies with the Iron Age. Among other topics addressed are the economic histories including politics, trade, and agriculture of the Neo-Assyrian empire and Babylonia. Other topics include the breeding of cattle for the production of meat and dairy products, handicrafts and manufactures, and commerce.

The Neo-Assyrian Kingdom and the Urartian Kingdom were two important Near Eastern states in the Middle Iron Age (ninth to sixth centuries bc) that steered political developments and considerably transformed the lives of populations within their territories. This article aims to explore the origins of Urartian-Assyrian relations: the processes and ways through which Mesopotamian and Assyrian influences reached the eastern Anatolian highlands. The populations who founded the Urartian Kingdom lived mostly as semi-nomadic tribes in eastern Anatolia and surrounding areas during the Early Iron Age (thirteenth to ninth centuries bc). It is impossible to explain the emergence of the Urartian Kingdom in the Van region towards the mid-ninth century bc-which quickly became a powerful rival of its contemporaries-as a natural development of local culture. The main question at this stage is how and from where Assyrian influences were transmitted to the tribes who founded the Urartian Kingdom. Our opinion is that the answer to this question should be sought in the Upper Tigris region, which was inhabited by both cultures (Pre-Urartian and Assyrian) before the foundation of the Urartian Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role that incantations and apotropaic images in bowls played in preventing demons within Jewish and Christian homes in ancient Mesopotamia, including in regard to the relationship between scorpions and demons. An overview of the role that ritual played in the use of apotropaic bowls in ancient Mesopotamia, including for the exorcism of demons, is provided.

The world's first cities emerged on the plains of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria) in the fourth millennium bc. Attempts to understand this settlement process have assumed revolutionary social change, the disappearance of kinship as a structuring principle, and the appearance of a rational bureaucracy. Most assume cities and state-level social organization were deliberate functional adaptations to meet the goals of elite members of society, or society as a whole. This study proposes an alternative model. By reviewing indigenous terminology from later historical periods, it proposes that urbanism evolved in the context of a metaphorical extension of the household that represented a creative transformation of a familiar structure. The first cities were unintended consequences of this transformation, which may seem ‘revolutionary’ to archaeologists but did not to their inhabitants. This alternative model calls into question the applicability of terms like ‘urbanism’ and ‘the state’ for early Mesopotamian society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

El artículo discurre sobre la historia de Turquía Oriental como parte de la civilización antigua de Mesopotamia. El autor comenta sobre la importancia de Mesopotamia en el desarrollo del concepto de la civilización y describe el establecimiento de redes de comercio, mercados y ciudades. También se provee una cronología de la historia de Mesopotamia.

The aim of this article is to identify and interpret selected literary sources which address the components of the divine diet and its development, as well as the eating habits of Mesopotamian goddesses and gods. From the preserved texts it is clear that nourishment was an equally crucial issue for the well-being of both the Mesopotamian gods and every man and women. Moreover, apart from some exceptions, the divine diet was similar or even identical to that of humans. It differed in the quality of the ingredients or the actual dishes and, sometimes, also in relation to the quantity of food that was prepared. Because of these similarities, evidence of the development of the divine cuisine, which can be found within literary tradition, can potentially be interpreted as reflecting the social history of the human diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of what is told in this paper has been told before by the same author, in a number of publications of various kinds, but this is the first time that all this material has been brought together and treated in a uniform way. Smaller errors in the earlier publications are corrected here without comment. It has been known since the 1920s that quadratic equations played a prominent role in Babylonian mathematics. See, most recently, Høyrup (Hist Sci 34:1-32, , and Lengths, widths, surfaces: a portrait of old Babylonian algebra and its kin. Springer, New York, ). What has not been known, however, is how quadratic equations came to play that role, since it is difficult to think of any practical use for quadratic equations in the life and work of a Babylonian scribe. One goal of the present paper is to show how the need to find solutions to quadratic equations actually arose in Mesopotamia not later than in the second half of the third millennium BC, and probably before that in connection with certain geometric division of property problems. This issue was brought up for the first time in Friberg (Cuneiform Digit Lib J 2009:3, ). In this connection, it is argued that the tool used for the first exact solution of a quadratic equation was either a clever use of the 'conjugate rule' or a 'completion of the square,' but that both methods ultimately depend on a certain division of a square, the same in both cases. Another, closely related goal of the paper is to discuss briefly certain of the most impressive achievements of anonymous Babylonian mathematicians in the first half of the second millennium BC, namely recursive geometric algorithms for the solution of various problems related to division of figures, more specifically trapezoidal fields. For an earlier, comprehensive (but less accessible) treatment of these issues, see Friberg (Amazing traces of a Babylonian origin in Greek mathematics. WorldScientific, Singapore , Ch. 11 and App. 1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]