Assyrian and Babylonian Scholarly Text Catalogues

Medicine, Magic and Divination

Ulrike Steinert

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781501513633
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501504877
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference
• Index: History

The reconstruction of ancient Mesopotamian medical, ritual and omen compendia and their complex history is still characterised by many difficulties, debates and gaps due to fragmentary or unpublished evidence. This book offers the first complete edition of the Assur Medical Catalogue, an 8th or 7th century BCE list of therapeutic texts, which forms a core witness for the serialisation of medical compendia in the 1st millennium BCE. The volume presents detailed analyses of this and several other related catalogues of omen series and rituals, constituting the corpora of divination and healing disciplines. The contributions discuss links between catalogues and textual sources, providing new insights into the development of compendia between serialization, standardization and diversity of local traditions. Though its a novel corpus-based approach, this volume revolutionizes the current understanding of Mesopotamian medical texts and the healing disciplines of "conjurer" and "physician". The research presented here allows one to identify core text corpora for these disciplines, as well as areas of exchange and borrowings between them.

Part 1 Studies on Mesopotamian Text Catalogues

Irving L. Finkel

On Three Tablet Inventories

Cuneiform catalogues such as those edited in the following pages of this work, which list the incipits or first lines of textual works, provide the Assyriologist with uniquely revealing information. Their content can reflect three primary categories: series, where the component parts are given of a given structure, numbered and in order; genre, where known texts to deal with a specific problem are marshalled together, or contents, that itemise tablets from a specific tablet library. Three additional sources edited here represent a different phenomenon. Each likewise contains only an incipit list, but the nature and sequence in which the material is present recommends that they should rather be classified as tablet inventories.

Tablet Inventory 1

The first inventory, which has not been published before, is in the British Museum. This is BM 103690 (1911-4-8, 380; see Plates 22-27), written in a competent post Old-Babylonian or Middle Babylonian hand. It is made of a fine white clay and carefully ruled with two columns per side. Each column, as is clear from col. i, could accommodate some fifty lines of entries; the tablet was planned, in other words, to contain some two hundred lines of writing. Most of rev. col. iii and the whole of rev. col. iv were never inscribed, however. Lines 1-12 in col. iii appear to have been deliberately defaced after the ruling had been made. Probably this is connected with the fact that the remainder of the tablet was not inscribed. It is uncommon to find any cuneiform tablet that has been prepared for use with so much space left uninscribed. The fact that the only lines written on the reverse were partially erased suggests that an original and much more ambitious scheme on the part of the scribe – which anticipated needing space for about two hundred lines altogether – was interrupted, or the plan abandoned halfway through.

The first entry of all, most unusually, represents the title or heading in a surprisingly ‘modern’ way, ṭuppi rēšētim (DUB re-še-e-tim), ‘tablet of incipits’. Eighty-nine incipits can be read in whole or part. It is clear even at first sight that the genres are mixed, for the listed titles include omens (astrological, Šumma ālu, physiognomic and liver), medicine, lexicography and even assorted items of Sumerian literature. Most importantly, these distinct genres are not grouped together, but are itemised as if at random, a point to be taken up below.

BM 103690 (1911-4-8, 380) (Pl. 22-27)

Transliteration

Obv. col. i

1)	DUB re-še-e-tim
	Tablet of incipits.
2)	DIŠ ina itiBÁRA.ZAG.GAR ù 12 ITI.MEŠ i-na ITI AN BAD-tim
3)	ki-ma UD 1.KAM in-na-an-mu-ri-šú UD 27!.KAM IGI!	(astrological omens)
	If in the month of Nisan, or (in any of) the twelve months, (if) in (that) month … is seen on the 27th day as in its appearance on the first day (of the month).
4)	DIŠ UR.GI₇ a-na L[Ú] TE	(Šumma ālu omens)
	If a dog approaches a man sexually.
5)	DIŠ LÚ ina da-ba-bi-šu SAG.DU ú-la-pat	(physiognomic omens)
	If a man touches (his) head when talking.
6)	DIŠ KUR.GImušen a-na URU i-ter-ba
7)	ina É LÚ ku-bu uš-ša-bu	(Šumma ālu omens)
	If a goose has entered the city, a Kūbu-demon will live in a man’s house.
8)	DIŠ NA SÍG ú-ša-at pa-ni ma-si-ik	(physiognomic omens)
	If a man’s hair is tangled (and his) face is ugly.
9)	1 ì-nu den-líl u dé-a AN.TA.LÙ	(astrological omens)
	One (tablet of) When Enlil and Ea (…) an eclipse.
10)	1 DIŠ lal-x x UGU LÚ ˹ŠUB˺-ut	(Šumma ālu omens)
	One (tablet of) ‘If a … falls on a man’.
11)	DIŠ šam-mu ši-kin-šú GIM ša-ru-˹ri ša˺ ÚKUŠ	(Šammu šikinšu)
	If a plant’s characteristics resemble the tendril of a colocynth.
12)	DIŠ ina itiBÁRA mulEN.TE.NA.BAR.˹HUZ˺ x x-šú [I]GI-ma? šar-ha	(astrological omens)
	If in the month of Nisan, the … of the star Habaṣirānu … are seen and they are preeminent.
13)	DIŠ ina itiBÁRA UD 15.˹KAM˺ AN.˹TA˺.LÙ GAR-ma DINGIR-lum
14)	a-na ta-dir(SI.A)-ti-šú (sic!) e-liš a-dir-ma	(astrological omens)
	If an eclipse takes place on the 15th of Nisan, the deity is disturbed about its gloominess above (in the heavens).
15)	1 DIŠ x NA ˹ZAG˺ SAG.DU-˹šu˺ ú-zaq-qá-su	(medical)
	One (tablet of) ‘If ... on the right side of a man’s head stings him’.
16)	DIŠ NA ša x-ši?-tu[m? i-na] KI.NÁ-šú ŠUB-su	(medical?)
	If a … falls on a man [in] his bed.
17)	DIŠ N[A U]R.˹MAH˺ [(ina EDIN)] DAB.DAB-su	(medical)
	If a man is gravely injured by a lion [(in the steppe)].
18)	[…………] x [x] ˹ni?˺	(?)
19)	[…………] x x [……]	(?)
20)	[……]	(?)
21)	[……]	(?)
22)	[……]	(?)
23)	[…………] x x	(?)
24)	[………… h]u e x	(?)
25)	[………… i]-ba-i LUG[AL]	(omens)
26)	[…………………..] x-ši UD 27.KAM IGI ni [x]	(astrological omens)
27)	[DIŠ NA … ] DAB-s[u]	(medical)
	If a man is attacked by …
28)	[……] x x x [……] nu ir [……]	(?)
29)	[a-ab-ba h]u-luh-˹ha˺ en-líl nu-[gál]	(Sumerian lament)
	‘The raging sea’ (addressed to) Enlil; not [present (in the collection)].
30)	[…………] me-àm! (or: A BAR) [x (x)]	(Sumerian literary)
	…
31)	[…………] x x [x]	(?)
	…
32)	DIŠ NA MURUB4.MEŠ-šú GU7.GU7-[šú]	(medical)
	If a man’s hips continually hurt [him].
33)	[x-m]e-na sag-gá-[ni(?)]	(Sumerian literary)
	… on [his] head.
34)	[x] x x im mu-dam [(…)]	(Sumerian literary)
	…
35)	[D]IŠ NA GIDIM DAB-su-ma il-ta-az-za-ma	(medical)
	If a ghost has seized a man and persists (…).
36)	DIŠ NA šu-<a> -lam a-na ša-ha-[ṭi]	(medical)
	In order to remove a man’s cough.
37)	DIŠ 20 i-na UD 20.KAM is-hur-˹ma˺	(astrological omens)
	If the sun retrogrades on the 20th day.
38)	[……] x x a-na UD 1.KAM ṣi-tam [x] ZI	(medical)
	… for one day is swollen up(?) with a ‘growth’.
39)	˹DIŠ NA˺ [x x] x dam? pa ˹IGImin˺-š[ú? i]-bar-ru-ra	(medical)
	If a man … his eyes flicker.
40)	2 SÍG ina MURUB₄-š[u] x x [… i]t-te-bi	(medical)
	Two (tablets of) ‘(If) the hair on his waist […] stands on end’.
41)	DIŠ šam-mu ši-kin-šú G[IM ša-ru]-ri ÚKUŠ	(Šammu šikinšu)
	If a plant’s characteristics resemble the tendril of a colocynth.
42)	DIŠ MUL ina É ša aš x [ur]-ra-du-ma	(astrological omens)
	If a star descends from the house of ….
43)	˹na₄˺KA.GI.NA [DAB NA₄ š]a ki[t]-tim	(bilingual stone list)
	Meteor[ite is the stone] of truth.
44)	[DIŠ] d20 ú-na-˹šar?˺-ma la i-ru-up	(astrological omens)
	[If] the sun weakens in intensity but is not yet dark.
45)	4? DUB GÌR?.[M]EŠ	(medical?)
	Four Feet-tablets.
46)	DIŠ NA um-ma ma-AH-da TU[K-ši?]	(medical)
	If a man h[as] intense fever.
47)	DIŠ itiBÁRA.ZAG.GAR x [……]	(astrological omens)
	If (in) the month of Nisan … […].
48)	DIŠ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Catalogues, Corpora and Canons in Mesopotamian Scholarship
• Part 1: Studies on Mesopotamian Text Catalogues
• Part 2: Text Sources
• Plates
• List of Illustrations
• Indices