Search results for "Near east"

Il corpo sessuato delle dee. Agricoltura, pastorizia e mondo vegetale nella Mesopotamia antica

2021

Divine love is the central theme of many ancient Mesopotamian compositions. Both Sumerian and Akkadian texts poetically describe the love and sexual relationship between gods. The object of this study is to analyze the metaphorical language used to describe divine love relationships, focusing in particular on the use of images from agriculture, pastoralism, and the plant world. Such metaphors contribute to the creation and at the same time to the reinforcement of a sexual imaginary, not only divine but also human. Divine sexuality and the metaphors used to describe it would, over the millennia, become paradigms for understanding and thinking about human sexuality: male power and vigor, fema…

New chronology for Ksâr ‘Akil (Lebanon) supports Levantine route of modern human dispersal into Europe

2015

Modern human dispersal into Europe is thought to have occurred with the start of the Upper Paleolithic around 50,000-40,000 y ago. The Levantine corridor hypothesis suggests that modern humans from Africa spread into Europe via the Levant. Ksâr 'Akil (Lebanon), with its deeply stratified Initial (IUP) and Early (EUP) Upper Paleolithic sequence containing modern human remains, has played an important part in the debate. The latest chronology for the site, based on AMS radiocarbon dates of shell ornaments, suggests that the appearance of the Levantine IUP is later than the start of the first Upper Paleolithic in Europe, thus questioning the Levantine corridor hypothesis. Here we report a seri…

Medicina babilonese e antropologia medica. Sull’efficacia delle terapie per il ripristino del desiderio sessuale maschile in Mesopotamia

2021

Research on the medical systems of ancient Mesopotamia has progressed considerably in recent years and has been enriched by theoretical contributions from the social sciences. This paper aims to show how theories and methodologies of Medical Anthropology can be useful to understand the internal logic of nīš libbi therapies, which aim to regain the male sexual desire. The article explores Mesopotamian classificatory systems related to the body and pathologies, as well as the relationship between male and female agencies in the therapeutic itinerary. Other issues are investigated: recipients of treatment; symptomatology and ideology of binding; interrelationship between incantations and presc…

“In quel giorno, in quella notte, in quell’anno”. Cosmogonie e cosmologie sumeriche e assiro-babilonesi

2020

The paper attempts to reconstruct the cosmogonic and cosmological doctrines of the Mesopotamian peoples over their three millennia of history. It focuses on both Sumerian and Akkadian sources that describe the origin, formation, and organization of the universe according to Mesopotamian religious thought.

Antropologia religiosa e studi sul Vicino Oriente antico

2021

Dialogo tra antropologia religiosa e studi sul Vicino Oriente antico

Medicinal Plants from Near East for Cancer Therapy.

2017

Background: Cancer is one of the major problems affecting public health worldwide. As other cultures, the populations of the Near East rely on medicinal herbs and their preparations to fight cancer. Methods: We compiled data derived from historical ethnopharmacological information as well as in vitro and in vivo results and clinical findings extracted from different literature databases including (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) during the past two decades. Results: In this survey, we analyzed the huge amount of data available on anticancer ethnopharmacological sources used in the Near East. Medicinal herbs are the most dominant ethnopharmacological formula used among ca…

Recensione di Ilona Zsolnay (ed.), Being a Man: Negotiating Ancient Constructs of Masculinity

2021

The workers' strike of 1963 at Tell Chuera: Persistence of colonial practices in Near Eastern archaeology?

2022

This case study appears in: Mays C, Laborie L, Griset P (eds) (2022) Inventing a shared science diplomacy for Europe: Interdisciplinary case studies to think with history. A team of archaeologists from Berlin under the direction of Prof. Anton Moortgat conducted, starting from 1958, excavations at the important ancient urban site of Tell Chuera in northeast Syria. The heterogeneous composition of the Syrian workforce contributed to frequent quarrels and conflicts. In October 1963, one of these conflicts escalated into a 5-day strike, during which the workers also demanded higher wages. After the involvement of local police by the archaeologists, the strike was ended with the threat of bruta…

Dall’alterità alla città. Regalità, sessualità e agricoltura in Gilgameš, Enkidu e gli Inferi

2021

Analisi antropologica del componimento mitologico sumerico Gilgamesh, Enkidu e gli Inferi

Going, Returning, Rising. The Movement of the Organs in the Mesopotamian Anatomy

2019

Although many assyriological studies have been done on internal organs in the Mesopotamian worldview, the pathologies associated with them, and their metaphorical and ideological value, little attention have been paid to the fact that, sometimes, internal organs are associated with verbs of movement. Perhaps, this limited regard can be attributed to the assyriological look at the Mesopotamian body being shaped by the modern biomedicine. According to biomedicine, in fact, the human internal anatomy is composed of a series of organs which stay fixed in their positions. On the contrary, I want to show how the internal organs in Mesopotamian anatomy are thought as capable to move. I will demons…