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What are the Kiutu incantation-prayers? What are their distinctive features in comparison to other types of incantation-prayers? Making use of many previously unpublished texts, this book offers the first complete philological edition of a corpus of Sumerian literature often underrepresented in scholarship. The book examines this textual typology specifically addressed to the Sun god finding its place within the broader history of Mesopotamian literature and religion. Uniquely, this typology of incantation-prayers connects the movement of the sun in the sky to the time of day when it was performed, giving us a rare glimpse into the practical realities of Mesopotamian religious practice.
What are the Kiutu incantation-prayers? What are their distinctive features in comparison to other types of incantation-prayers? Making use of many previously unpublished texts, this book offers the first complete philological edition of a corpus of Sumerian literature often underrepresented in scholarship. The book examines this textual typology specifically addressed to the Sun god finding its place within the broader history of Mesopotamian literature and religion. Uniquely, this typology of incantation-prayers connects the movement of the sun in the sky to the time of day when it was performed, giving us a rare glimpse into the practical realities of Mesopotamian religious practice.
Abstract
This paper investigates the presence and action of demons in New Kingdom medical texts, in which these supernatural beings are recognisable only by their determinative, whereas the etymology of certain names is not always clearly understood. Several scholars have presented their own interpretations about this topic, most of whom believe these names can be ascribed to illnesses or to the supernatural sphere, though others have expressed reservations about these ascriptions. A fresh analysis of medical texts from an emic perspective helps in reconsidering this topic: prescriptions and incantations suggest the ancient Egyptians really perceived these entities as supernatural beings and not merely as manifestations of illnesses. The presence of the same demons in other contexts, such as funerary texts, confirms this hypothesis and encourages an in-depth study of the medical sources.
Abstract
Ancient Near Eastern kings were always assumed to mediate between the divine and human worlds, but where they fell in the spectrum between mortal and divine varied from one king or dynasty to the next. Additionally, human kings could claim divine or semi-divine status through certain activities attached to the office of kingship. Through a diachronic survey, this study examines how the royal act of lawgiving elevated human rulers above other people. As lawgivers, these rulers could embody certain attributes of gods of justice within their political realms – most evident in metaphors attributing solar imagery and solar language to human rulers in royal ideology. Using cognitive metaphor theory, I examine the various ways that ancient audiences received and processed this figurative language, answering for themselves how the king could simultaneously be a mortal man and represent a solar god of justice.
Abstract
The paper revisits the Hurrian section that is inserted in the Ugaritic-language tablet RS 24.643 (KTU 1.148). The present work comprises two main parts: an individual analysis of each line and clause and a structural analysis of the whole hymn. A near complete elucidation of the hymn is proposed.