Gwendolyn Leick (Editor) - The Babylonian World

As the layers of the foundations of modern science and mathematics and the builders of a towering, monumental urban city, the Babylonians were by far the most insistent people of the ancient world in addressing an audience beyond their time. This lavishly illustrated volume reflects the modernity of this advanced and prescient civilization with thirty-eight brand new essays from leading international scholars who view this world power of the Ancient Near East with a fresh and contemporary lens.

Drawing from the growing database of cuneiform tablets, epigraphic research, and the most recent archaeological advances in the field, Gwendolyn Leicks collection serves as the definitive reference resource as well as an introductory text for university students.

By bringing into focus areas of concern typical for our own time such as ecology, urbanism, power relations, plurality and complexity this essential volume offers a variety of perspectives on certain key topics to reflect the current academic approaches and focus. These shifting viewpoints and diverse angles onto the Babylonian World

result in a truly kaleidoscopic view which reveals patterns and bright fragments of this lost world in unexpected ways.

From discussions of agriculture and rural life to the astonishing walled city of Babylon with its massive ramparts and towering ziggurats, from Babylonian fashion and material culture to its spiritual world, indivisible from that of the everyday, TheBabylonian World is a sweeping and ambitious survey for students and specialists of this great civilization.

Gwendolyn Leick is presently senior lecturer at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

A specialist in the Ancient Near East, she has published extensively on the topic, including The Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Architecture and Whos Who in theAncient Near East.

THE ROUTLEDGE WORLDS

THE GREEK WORLD

Edited by Anton Powell

THE ROMAN WORLD

Edited by John Wacher

THE BIBLICAL WORLD

Edited by John Barton

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WORLD

Edited by Philip F. Esler

THE CELTIC WORLD

Edited by Miranda Green

THE MEDIEVAL WORLD

Edited by Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson

THE REFORMATION WORLD

Edited by Andrew Pettegree

THE ENLIGHTENMENT WORLD

Edited by Martin Fitzpatrick, Peter Jones,

Christa Knellwolf and Iain McCalman

THE HINDU WORLD

Edited by Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby

THE BABYLONIAN WORLD

Edited by Gwendolyn Leick

Forthcoming:

THE EGYPTIAN WORLD

Edited by Toby Wilkinson

THE VIKING WORLD

Edited by Stefan Brink and Neil Price

THE RENAISSANCE WORLD

Edited by John Jeffries Martin

THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD

Edited by Susan Doran and Norman Jones

THE OTTOMAN WORLD

Edited by Christine Woodhead

THE BYZANTINE WORLD

Edited by Paul Stephenson

W O R L D

Edited by

Gwendolyn Leick

First published 2007

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

2007 Gwendolyn Leick

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,

including photocopying and recording, or in any information

storage or retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

The Babylonian world/edited by Gwendolyn Leick. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Babylonia.

I. Leick, Gwendolyn, 1951

DS69.5.B23 2007

935.02 dc22

2006102809

ISBN 0-203-94623-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0415353467 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0203089456 (ebk)

ISBN13: 9780415353465 (hbk)

ISBN13: 9780203089453 (ebk)

Lebensalter*

Ihr Stdte des Euphrats!

Ihr Gassen von Palmyra!

Ihr Sulenwlder in der Ebne der Wste,

Was seid ihr?

Euch hat die Kronen,

Dieweil ihr ber die Grnze

Der Othmenden seid gegangen,

Von Himmlischen der Rauchdampf und

Hinweg das Feuer genommen;

Jezt aber siz ich unter Wolken, darin

Ein jedes eine Ruh hat eigen, unter

Wohleingerichteten Eichen, auf

Der Heide des Rehs, und fremd

Erscheinen und gestorben mir

Der Seeligen Geister.

Friedrich Hlderlin

* Translation is on p. 591.

List of illustrations

List of contributors

Gwendolyn Leick

The world of Babylonian countrysides

Seth Richardson

Land and land use: the middle Euphrates valley

Lucia Mori

Agricultural techniques

Blahoslav Hruska

Urban form in the first millennium BC

Heather D. Baker

Architecture in the Old Babylonian period

Harriet Crawford

Babylonian seals

Dominique Collon

Babylonian sources of exotic raw materials

D. T. Potts

Cloth in the Babylonian world

Irene Good

The Babylonian visual image

Zainab Bahrani

vii

C o n t e n t s

Food and drink in Babylonia

Frances Reynolds

Economy of ancient Mesopotamia: a general outline

Johannes Renger

The Old Babylonian economy

Anne Goddeeris

Aspects of society and economy in the later Old Babylonian Period

Frans van Koppen

The Babylonian economy in the first millennium BC

Michael Jursa

The Egibi family

Cornelia Wunsch (translated from German by Gwendolyn Leick)

Social configurations in Early Dynastic Babylonia ( c.25002334 BC)

Petr Charvt

The palace and the temple in Babylonia

Walther Sallaberger

Power, economy and social organisation in Babylonia

Gebhard J. Selz

Arameans and Chaldeans: environment and society

Frederick Mario Fales

Women and gender in Babylonia

Laura D. Steele

The role and function of goddesses in Mesopotamia

Brigitte Groneberg

Inanna and Ishtar in the Babylonian world

Joan Goodnick Westenholz

The Babylonian god Marduk

Takayoshi Oshima

Divination culture and the handling of the future

Stefan M. Maul (translated from German by Gwendolyn Leick) 26

Witchcraft literature in Mesopotamia

Tzvi Abusch

viii

C o n t e n t s

Incantations within Akkadian medical texts

M. J. Geller

The writing, sending, and reading of letters in the Amorite world

Dominique Charpin (translated from French by Dafydd Roberts)