Melothesia in Babylonia : : Medicine, Magic, and Astrology in the Ancient Near East / / Markham Judah Geller.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• VerfasserIn: Geller, Markham Judah,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Cultures , 2
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (100 p.)

This monograph begins with a puzzle: a Babylonian text from late 5th century BCE Uruk associating various diseases with bodily organs, which has evaded interpretation. The correct answer may reside in Babylonian astrology, since the development of the zodiac in the late 5th century BCE offered innovative approaches to the healing arts. The zodiac-a means of predicting the movements of heavenly bodies-transformed older divination (such as hemerologies listing lucky and unlucky days) and introduced more favorable magical techniques and medical prescriptions, which are comparable to those found in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and non-Hippocratic Greek medicine. Babylonian melothesia (i.e., the science of charting how zodiacal signs affect the human body) offers the most likely solution explaining the Uruk tablet.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Introduction: Globalisation of Knowledge -- I. The Uruk ‘taxonomy’ (SBTU I 43) -- II. Uruk Astral Magic (BRM 4 20 and BRM 4 19) -- III. The Neo-Assyrian Precursor: Before the Zodiac -- IV. Ancient Aramaic and Greek Parallels -- V. Astrological Interpretation of SBTU I 43 -- VI. Melothesia -- VII. Concluding Hypothesis -- VIII. Appendix: Modern Reflections -- Indices