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Melothesia in Babylonia

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STMAC aims to advance an inter-disciplinary and inclusive approach to the study of science in the ancient world, ranging from mathematics and physics, medicine and magic to astronomy, astrology, an...
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  • 27 October 2014
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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.

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Price: $148.99
Pages: 112
Publisher: De Gruyter
Imprint: De Gruyter
Publication Date: 27 October 2014
ISBN: 9781614517757
Format: Hardcover
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Mark Geller, Free University, Berlin.