1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996234837003316

Titolo

In the wake of the compendia : infrastructural contexts and the licensing of empiricism in ancient and medieval Mesopotamia / / edited by J. Cale Johnson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Boston, [Massachusetts] ; ; Berlin, Germany : , : De Gruyter, , 2015

©2015

ISBN

1-5015-0250-6

1-5015-0252-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (336 p.)

Collana

Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Cultures, , 2194-976X ; ; Volume 3

Disciplina

509.35

Soggetti

Science - Iraq - History - To 1500

Technology - Iraq - History - To 1500

Scientific literature - Iraq - History and criticism

Technical literature - Iraq - History and criticism

Reference books - Iraq - History - To 1500

Empiricism in literature

Semitic literature - History and criticism

Multilingualism and literature - Iraq - History - To 1500

Learning and scholarship - Iraq - History - To 1500

Iraq Intellectual life

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Introduction -- Encyclopaedias and Commentaries -- Compendia and Procedures in the Mesopotamian Astral Sciences -- Listenwissenschaft and the Encyclopedic Hermeneutics of Knowledge in Talmud and Midrash -- ‘Tested’ Remedies in Mesopotamian Medical Texts -- Theory and Practice in the Syriac Book of Medicines -- The ‘Science of Properties’ and its Transmission -- Between Demonology and Hagiology -- The Babylonians and the Rational -- Phenomena in Writing -- Depersonalized Case Histories in the Babylonian Therapeutic



Compendia -- Source index -- Subject index -- Word index

Sommario/riassunto

In the Wake of the Compendia presents papers that examine the history of technical compendia as they moved between institutions and societies in ancient and medieval Mesopotamia.This volume offers new perspectives on the development and transmission of technical compilations, looking especially at the relationship between empirical knowledge and textual transmission in early scientific thinking. The eleven contributions to the volume derive from a panel held at the American Oriental Society in 2013 and cover more than three millennia of historical development, ranging from Babylonian medicine and astronomy to the persistence of Mesopotamian lore in Syriac and Arabic meditations on the properties of animals. The volume also includes major contributions on the history of Mesopotamian “rationality,” epistemic labels for tested and tried remedies, and the development of depersonalized case histories in Babylonian therapeutic compendia. Together, these studies offer an overview of several important moments in the development of non-Western scientific thinking and a significant contribution to our understanding of how traditions of technical knowledge were produced and transmitted in the ancient world.