3. Classifications of knowledge, theory and practice

Scholar and scholarship at the Assyrian court

• 'Haruspices' TT  bārû; 'astrologers' TT  scribes of Enuma Anu Enlil TT ; 'physicians' TT  asû; 'exorcists' TT  āšipu; 'lamentation priests' TT  kalû
• Evidence from letters (SAA 10), queries and reports (SAA 4, SAA 8), administrative records
• Bodies of scholarship, especially bārûtu, āšipūtu, kalûtu
• Evidence from library holdings, catalogues, and quotations in letters and reports
• Acquisition by inheritance, copying, oral tradition, conquest
• But what do these modern translations mean? What did the scholars really do?

Case Study 1: the senior 'astrologer' Balasi PGP  (48 letters and reports extant)

• 20 reports of celestial phenomena TT , from routine lunar observations (e.g., SAA 8: 89) to rarer planetary conjunctions TT  (e.g., SAA 8: 82)
• 28 letters to the king, 9 co-authored with Nabu-ahhe-eriba PGP  and 1 with Bamaya PGP  (both 'astrologers')
• Interpretations of celestial phemonema (e.g., SAA 10: 47); bird omens (SAA 10: 58), dream rituals (SAA 10: 59), omens from anomalous births TT  (SAA 10: 60), hemerologies TT  (SAA 10: 61), personal advice (SAA 10: 43)

Case Study 2: the 'lamentation priest' Urad-Ea PGP  (14 letters and reports extant)

• 7 letters about rituals TT  to propitiate angry gods (e.g., SAA 10: 340) or at standard festivals
• 4 letters co-authors with 'exorcists' and 'astrologers' about Substitute King Ritual TT  (e.g., SAA 10: 1, 25, and 212)
• 3 reports of celestial observations (SAA 8: 181, 182, and 183)

Scholars collaborated across 'disciplines' and were themselves 'interdisciplinary' to some extent. Those 'disciplines' changed over time and place: the practices captured by the Neo-Assyrian documents do not necessarily reflect those of Mesopotamian scholars elsewhere and in other periods, even though they may have taken the same titles and referred to the same scholarly works.

Further reading

• Parpola, 'Assyrian library records', 1983
• Parpola, Letters from ... scholars, 1993: Introduction (pp. XIII-XXVII)
• Fincke, 'Babylonian texts', 2003-04
• Frame and George, 'Royal libraries', 2005
• Brown, Mesopotamian planetary, 2000: Chapter 1, 'The astronomer-astrologers: the scholars' (pp. 33-52)
• Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian astrology, 1996: Chapter 3, 'The Neo-Assyrian period' (pp. 54-73) and Chapter 4, 'The received tradition' (pp. 74-96)
• Lanfranchi, 'Scholars and scholarly tradition', 1989

Content last modified: 07 Jul 2012.