Overview
Celestial divination, in the form of omens from lunar, planetary, astral, and meteorological phenomena, was central to Mesopotamian cuneiform scholarship and science from the late second millennium BCE into the Hellenistic period. Beyond the boundaries of ancient Mesopotamia, the ideas, texts, and traditions of Babylonian celestial divination are traceable in Hellenistic sciences and philosophies. This collection of essays investigates features of Babylonian celestial divination with special focus on those aspects that influenced later Greco-Roman astronomy, astrology, and theories of signs. A multi-faceted collection of philological, historical, and philosophical investigations, In the Path of the Moon offers Assyriologists, Classicists, and historians of ancient science a wide-ranging series of studies unified around the theme of Babylonian celestial divination's legacy. ""The collected essays in this volume, successive steps in an ordered path, constitute an invaluable contribution to a better understanding of Babylonian divination."" Lorenzo Verderame, ""Sapienza"" Università di Roma ""The reader interested in the multifaceted presentation of the problems related to the explanation of Babylonian celestial divination and well equipped with the knowledge of Akkadian will certainly be rewarded by the study of Rochberg’s latest publication."" Henryk Drawnel, SDB
Full Product Details
Author: Francesca Rochberg
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Volume: 6
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 3.20cm
, Length: 23.50cm
Weight: 0.850kg
ISBN: 9789004183896
ISBN 10: 9004183892
Pages: 472
Publication Date: 11 May 2010
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
This collection is a praiseworthy testament to the dedication, focus, and enterprise of a scholar without whose attention and efforts the field would be all the poorer. Rochberg's scholarship is both definitive and exemplary, and she poses and addresses general questions that are both lucid and evocative, with a characteristic flair and expertise. In this way, her work is an aid as well as an inducement to current and succeeding generations of Assyriologists and Classicists to further their studies on the intellectual cultures of the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean, and beyond, and to investigate more thoroughly their contributions, interaction, and legacy. -Clemency Montelle, University of Canterbury, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol.133, no.2 (2013) The volume offers food for thought, not just identifying particular ideas and elements that have Mesopotamian origins or discussing the nature of the Babylonian preoccupation with the celestial bodies, but raising questions of the transmission of cultural artefacts, which routes they may have followed, and how they were incorporated into a new religious and / or scientific context. -Ulla Susanne Koch, University of Freiburg, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, vol.110, no.6 (2015) The collected essays in this volume, successive steps in an ordered path, constitute an invaluable contribution to a better understanding of Babylonian divination. -Lorenzo Verderame, Sapienza Universita di Roma, Aestimatio 8 (2011)
This collection is a praiseworthy testament to the dedication, focus, and enterprise of a scholar without whose attention and efforts the field would be all the poorer. Rochberg's scholarship is both definitive and exemplary, and she poses and addresses general questions that are both lucid and evocative, with a characteristic flair and expertise. In this way, her work is an aid as well as an inducement to current and succeeding generations of Assyriologists and Classicists to further their studies on the intellectual cultures of the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean, and beyond, and to investigate more thoroughly their contributions, interaction, and legacy. - Clemency Montelle, University of Canterbury, in: Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol.133, no.2 (2013) The volume offers food for thought, not just identifying particular ideas and elements that have Mesopotamian origins or discussing the nature of the Babylonian preoccupation with the celestial bodies, but raising questions of the transmission of cultural artefacts, which routes they may have followed, and how they were incorporated into a new religious and / or scientific context. - Ulla Susanne Koch, University of Freiburg, in: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, vol.110, no.6 (2015) The collected essays in this volume, successive steps in an ordered path, constitute an invaluable contribution to a better understanding of Babylonian divination. - Lorenzo Verderame, Sapienza Universita di Roma, in: Aestimatio 8 (2011)
Author Information
Francesca Rochberg, Ph.D., University of Chicago, is Catherine and William Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published widely on Babylonian divination and science, including The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
