Wrestling with Nature From Omens to Science

Natural Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia 35

Assyriologique Internationale Prague, July 1–5, 1996, ed. Jirˇí Prosecký (Prague: Academy
of Sciences of the Czech Republic Oriental Institute, 1998), 456n28.

38. Ibid., 451.


39. A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, rev. ed.,
    completed by E. Reiner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 246–48.


40. W. G. Lambert, “A Catalogue of Texts and Authors,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies
    16 (1962): 64 I (K.2248), on lines 1–4.


41. W. G. Lambert, “Enmeduranki and Related Matters,” Journal of Cuneiform Stud-
    ies 21 (1967): 126–38 (132–33).


42. Ibid., 126–38.


43. William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and
    Early Modern Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 351.


44. Goodnick Westenholz, “Thoughts on Esoteric Knowledge and Secret Lore,”
    455n26.


45. Neugebauer, Astronomical Cuneiform Texts, No. 135 (reading of the date is un-
    certain, see p. 19 for discussion); see also Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone,
    No. 98.


46. See the case study of the omens taken with reference to an observed late ap-
    pearance of full moon, and the conjunction of Saturn and Mars with the moon in
    Virgo of March 15, 669 BCE, in Ulla Koch- Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology: An
    Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination (Copenhagen: Museum Tus-
    culanum Press, 1995), 140–47.


47. M. Stolper, “Lurindu the Maiden, Be ̄l- ittannu the Dreamer, and Artaritassu the
    King,” in Munuscula Mesopotamica: Festschrift für Johannes Renger, ed. B. Böck, E. Cancik-
    Kirschbaum, and T. Richter (Münster: Ugarit- Verlag, 1999), 595; on the Nippur scribes
    of the Achaemenid period, see F. Joannès, “Les archives de Ninurta- ahhê- bullit,” in
    Nippur at the Centennial: Papers Read at the 35e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale,
    Philadelphia, 1988, ed. Maria deJong Ellis (Philadelphia: Occasional Publications of the
    Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, 1992), 87–100.


48. E. Reiner, Astral Magic in Babylonia (Philadelphia: American Philosophical
    Society, 1995), 63.


49. Parpola, Letters, No. 76; cf. Hunger, Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings,
    No. 499.


50. C. H. W. Johns, Assyrian Deeds and Documents (London: George Bell and Sons,
    1898), No. 851 obv. i 8.


51. S. Parpola, “A Letter from Šamaš- šumu- ukı ̄n to Esarhaddon,” Iraq 34 (1972): 22.


52. P. A. Beaulieu, “The Descendants of Sîn- le ̄qi- unninni,” in Assyriologica et
    Semitica: Festschrift für Joachim Oelsner, ed. J. Marzahn and H. Neumann (Münster:
    Ugarit- Verlag, 2000), 1–16.


53. P. A. Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus King of Babylon 556–539 B.C. (New Ha-
    ven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 7–8.


54. F. Rochberg, “Scribes and Scholars: the tupšar Enu ̄ma Anu Enlil,” in Marzahn
    and Neumann, Assyriologica et Semitica: Festschrift für Joachim Oelsner, 359–76.


55. S. Parpola has argued that in Neo- Assyrian, the writing LÚSANGA (ŠID) = šangû
    is reserved for “priest,” while “scribe” is consistently written LÚDUB.SAR or LÚA.BA; see