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Article

cuneiform  

Martin Worthington and Mark Chetwood

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Linguistics
  2. Near East

The cuneiform writing system originated in Southern Iraq in the mid-to-late 4th millennium bce and was used into the Common Era. Hence for over half of human history there were people writing in cuneiform. Extant sources suggest that it was the usual script for writing Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, and Elamite. Cuneiform documents, mostly consisting in clay tablets, are thus attested from Egypt and Turkey in the West to Iran in the East. The majority are written in Sumerian and/or Akkadian, and stem from ancient Iraq.

The cuneiform script1 has no punctuation, no equivalent of capital letters, and spaces are not normally left between words (though Old Assyrian frequently used a single vertical wedge as “word divider”). Sight-reading cuneiform, at least in Sumerian and Akkadian, and particularly for complex writings such as poetry, was probably a process of “fits and starts,” and not as smooth as sight-reading is for us today.

Article

Parthian-Roman Wars  

Jason M. Schlude

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
25 January 2019
Subjects:
  1. Near East
  2. Roman History and Historiography
Founded and ruled by the Arsacid royal family, the Parthian empire (c. 250 bce–227 ce) was the native Iranian empire that filled the power vacuum in the Middle East in the midst of Seleucid decline. Arsacid interaction with the Roman empire began in the mid-90s bce, eventually established the Euphrates river as a shared border, and was peaceful in nature till 54 bce. In that year, the first of four cycles of Parthian-Roman wars began. Since the Romans carried out the initial large-scale mobilization of troops that introduced most of these wars, it is appropriate to associate these four cycles with the various Romans who coordinated the Roman military efforts: (a) Crassus to Antony (54–30 bce); (b) Nero (57–63 ce); (c) Trajan (114–117 ce); and (d) Lucius Verus to Macrinus (161–217 ce). The fundamental causes for these conflicts were Roman imperialism, which was well ingrained by the 1st century bce, and Parthian imperialism, which accelerated in the 2nd century bce, probably accompanied by the Arsacids’ attempts to present themselves as successors to the Achaemenid dynasty.

Article

medicine, Mesopotamia  

John Z. Wee

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 May 2021
Subjects:
  1. Science, Technology, and Medicine
  2. Near East
Cuneiform medical manuscripts are found in large numbers, mostly from 1st-millennium bce sites throughout ancient Mesopotamia. Included in the therapeutic tradition are pharmacological glossaries, herbal recipes with plant, mineral, and animal ingredients, and healing incantations and rituals. A Diagnostic Handbook created at the end of the 2nd millennium bce maps out a blueprint for medical practice that sketches out how a healer progresses in his knowledge of the sickness—initially interpreting bodily signs in ways reminiscent of omen divination, and only later arriving at a settled diagnostic verdict and treatment of the kind depicted in the therapeutic tradition. Mesopotamian aetiologies focused on malevolent agents external to the body, encouraging concerns for contagion, prophylaxis, and sanitation, while omitting significant roles for dietetics and exercise aimed at rectifying internal imbalances. Operative surgery was limited, because of the inadequacy of available analgesics and antiseptics. Suppliants seeking a cure visited temples of the healing goddess Gula in the cities of Isin and Nippur, while, among the professions, the “magician” and the “physician” were most associated with medical practice. After the 5th century bce, Calendar Texts and other astrological genres linked various ingredients to each zodiacal name, indicating certain days when a particular ingredient would become medically efficacious.

Article

Arbela  

John MacGinnis and David Michelmore

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
27 February 2024
Subjects:
  1. Christianity
  2. Greek History and Historiography
  3. Jewish Studies
  4. Late Antiquity
  5. Near East
  6. Roman History and Historiography
The history of Arbela (cuneiform Urbilum/Urbel/Arbail, modern Erbil) is documented in archaeological and textual sources. From the point when it first entered history in the middle of the 3rd millennium, the city’s fortunes alternated between periods of independence and incorporation within the super-regional states of Mesopotamia, including the Ur III kingdom and, more briefly, the Upper Mesopotamian empire of Shamshi-Adad I. In the later 2nd millennium the city was incorporated within the Assyrian Empire, rising to become a regional capital of major importance. Following the fall of Assyria, the city was incorporated within the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Arsacid, and Sasanian empires. A period of independence as an emirate in the early mediaeval period was a golden age. This came to an end with the city’s submission to the Mongols, after which it came under the control of the Black Sheep and White Sheep Turcomans and the Safavid and Ottoman empires.Arbela—modern Erbil—is a city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq with a documented history going back more than four thousand years. It is situated in the trans-Tigris region at the interface of the Zagros Mountains and the fertile plains of .

Article

Sumerian  

Martin Worthington and Mark Chetwood

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Linguistics
  2. Near East
Sumerian is a language of ancient Iraq. It is ergative and has no known relatives. Attested from the early 3rd millennium bce, it remained a living language until c. 1900 bce but was still used in the Common Era (chiefly in the context of temple liturgy). It survives on tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets. While the majority of these are administrative records, there are also substantial numbers of literary manuscripts (tablets), including narratives about Gilgamesh and hymns by the priestess Enheduanna, the world’s first-known named poet. A sub-variety with the ancient label “Emesal” is sometimes thought to have been a gender-lect.Sumerian is probably the world’s oldest written language (the other contender being Egyptian). Written in the cuneiform script, it survives on tens of thousands of clay tablets,1 the vast majority of which stem from southern Iraq. When Sumerian was first spoken, is not known; it is first identifiable in the city of .