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Mesopotamian Medicine and Religion: Current Debates, New Perspectives
Author(s) -
Robson Eleanor
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
religion compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-8171
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00082.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , philology , rigour , historiography , sacrifice , scholarship , psychology , classics , history , epistemology , anthropology , sociology , philosophy , theology , political science , law , gender studies , archaeology , feminism
The study of Mesopotamian medicine, while unprecedentedly productive, is stuck in a historiographical rut that cognate disciplines left some years ago. I review the current state of the field from a peripheral vantage point and use case studies from Sumerian literature and Neo‐Assyrian royal letters to exemplify alternative approaches that do not sacrifice philological rigour for anthropological attention to socio‐intellectual context.