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Author: Carol Moss
Publisher: Children's Press(CT)
Published: 1999-03
Total Pages: 68
ISBN-13: 9780531159309
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDescribes the enormous accomplishments of the Sumerians and Babylonians of ancient Mesopotamia in every scientific area, a heritage which affects our own everyday lives.
Author: Don Nardo
Publisher: Lucent Press
Published: 2008-10-09
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781420501025
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDescribes developments in science, technology, and warfare during the ancient Mesopotamian era.
Author: A. Leo Oppenheim
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2013-01-31
Total Pages: 494
ISBN-13: 022617767X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.
Author: Rita Watson
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2011-03-21
Total Pages: 251
ISBN-13: 9004202315
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe beginnings of written science have long been associated with classical Greece. Yet in ancient Mesopotamia, highly-sophisticated scientific works in cuneiform script were in active use while Greek civilization flourished in the West. The subject of this volume is the astronomical series MUL.APIN, which can be dated to the seventh century BCE and which represents the crowning achievement of traditional Mesopotamian observational astronomy. Writing Science before the Greeks explores this early text from the perspective of modern cognitive science in an effort to articulate the processes underlying its composition. The analysis suggests that writing itself, through the cumulative recording of observations, played a role in the evolution of scientific thought. "All in all, the authors should be congratulated for this groundbreaking study. Apart from significant new insights into MUL.APIN it has opened up a new avenue for research on ancient scientific texts that is likely to yield further interesting results, particularly if the cognitive analysis is combined with other approaches." Mathieu Ossendrijver, Humboldt University
Author: Michael Baigent
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2015-07-17
Total Pages: 311
ISBN-13: 1591432227
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA detailed study of the earliest forms of astrology in Mesopotamia and their far-reaching hermetic influences from the Renaissance to the present day • Reveals the roots of modern astrology in the Babylonian science of omens, which was concerned not with individuals but with the state and king • Explores Mesopotamian mythology as it relates to the planets and to astrology • Traces the hermetic transmission of this knowledge over the centuries from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Renaissance Italy Among the many significant discoveries excavated from Assyrian king Ashurbanipal’s royal library in Nineveh were tablets documenting the development of Mesopotamian astrology, now recognized as the earliest astrological science. Drawing upon translations of the Nineveh library tablets as well as many other ancient sources, Michael Baigent reveals the roots of modern astrology in the Babylonian science of omens. He explains how astrology in the Babylonian and Assyrian empires was concerned not with individuals but with the king and the state. He shows that by the first dynasty of Babylon, around 1900 to 1600 BC, astrology had become a systematic discipline, the preserve of highly trained specialists intent upon interpreting omens from the movements of planets and stars. He explores Mesopotamian mythology as it relates to the planets and to astrology as well as to Mesopotamian religion, magic, and politics--for the mythology of Babylon and Assyria served the state and thus changed as the state changed. He shows how this ancient form of astrology uniquely represents both Sun and Moon as masculine entities and Saturn (Ninurta) as the principle of order imposed on chaos. He examines the connections between ancient astrology and the symbolism of Western religions, such as how the “Greek” or “Templar” cross may symbolize the Babylonian god Nabu, now known as Mercury. Tracing the hermetic transmission of this knowledge over the centuries from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Florence, Baigent reveals how the religious and magical aspects of early Babylonian cosmological speculation played a significant role in the Renaissance, influencing prominent figures such as Cosimo de Medici, Marsilio Ficino, and Botticelli.
Author: Francesca Rochberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-01-01
Total Pages: 380
ISBN-13: 022640627X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the modern West, we take for granted that what we call the “natural world” confronts us all and always has—but Before Nature explores that almost unimaginable time when there was no such conception of “nature”—no word, reference, or sense for it. Before the concept of nature formed over the long history of European philosophy and science, our ancestors in ancient Assyria and Babylonia developed an inquiry into the world in a way that is kindred to our modern science. With Before Nature, Francesca Rochberg explores that Assyro-Babylonian knowledge tradition and shows how it relates to the entire history of science. From a modern, Western perspective, a world not conceived somehow within the framework of physical nature is difficult—if not impossible—to imagine. Yet, as Rochberg lays out, ancient investigations of regularity and irregularity, norms and anomalies clearly established an axis of knowledge between the knower and an intelligible, ordered world. Rochberg is the first scholar to make a case for how exactly we can understand cuneiform knowledge, observation, prediction, and explanation in relation to science—without recourse to later ideas of nature. Systematically examining the whole of Mesopotamian science with a distinctive historical and methodological approach, Before Nature will open up surprising new pathways for studying the history of science.
Author: Ariane Thomas
Publisher: Getty Publications
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 238
ISBN-13: 1606066498
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq, was home to the remarkable ancient civilizations of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria. From the rise of the first cities around 3500 BCE, through the mighty empires of Nineveh and Babylon, to the demise of its native culture around 100 CE, Mesopotamia produced some of the most powerful and captivating art of antiquity and led the world in astronomy, mathematics, and other sciences—a legacy that lives on today. Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins presents a rich panorama of ancient Mesopotamia’s history, from its earliest prehistoric cultures to its conquest by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. This catalogue records the beauty and variety of the objects on display, on loan from the Louvre’s unparalleled collection of ancient Near Eastern antiquities: cylinder seals, monumental sculptures, cuneiform tablets, jewelry, glazed bricks, paintings, figurines, and more. Essays by international experts explore a range of topics, from the earliest French excavations to Mesopotamia’s economy, religion, cities, cuneiform writing, rulers, and history—as well as its enduring presence in the contemporary imagination.
Author: Samuel Noah Kramer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2010-09-17
Total Pages: 386
ISBN-13: 0226452328
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“A readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture” from a world-renowned Sumerian scholar (American Journal of Archaeology). The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. “An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity.” —Library Journal
Author: Richard G. Olson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2009-12-21
Total Pages: 276
ISBN-13: 0313065233
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy did the Greeks excel in geometry, but lag begin the Mesopotamians in arithmetic? How were the great pyramids of Egypt and the Han tombs in China constructed? What did the complex system of canals and dykes in the Tigris and Euphrates river valley have to do with the deforestation of Lebanon's famed cedar forests? This work presents a cross-cultural comparison of the ways in which the ancients learned about and preserved their knowledge of the natural world, and the ways in which they developed technologies that enabled them to adapt to and shape their surroundings. Covering the major ancient civilizations - those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, the Indus Valley, and Meso-America - Olson explores how language and numbering systems influenced the social structure, how seemingly beneficial construction projects affected a civilization's rise or decline, how religion and magic shaped both medicine and agriculture, and how trade and the resulting cultural interactions transformed the making of both everyday household items and items intended as art. Along the way, Olson delves into how scientific knowledge and its technological applications changed the daily lives of the ancients.
Author: Susan Pollock
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1999-05-20
Total Pages: 276
ISBN-13: 9780521575683
DOWNLOAD EBOOKInnovative study of the early state and urban societies in Mesopotamia, c. 5000 to 2100 BC.
