Brilliant Essays and/or Influential Chapters
Divination and Scientific Spirit
By Professor Jean Bottéro
Source: Bottéro, J. (1987) Mesopotamia: writing, reasoning and the Gods. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London,
In this groundbreaking essay, Professor Bottéro presents reasons why we should turn to Mesopotamia to seek for the origins of not only Greek science, but also for the foundations of the scientifc spirit in the West. He then suggests that, it is wrong to consider that divination, extremely used for astrology and astronomy in Mesopotamia, was not carried out within specific parameters that bordered scientific rigor of our times, and that all credit to the beginnings of scientific reasoning can only be attributed to the Greeks instead. The question should be therefore reformulated, because the Greeks probably inherited from the Mesopotamians, their predecessors, the scientific approach and the scientific spirit. Thus, the Greeks did not develop their views on science from the void, but internalized the Mesopotamian values of note-taking, observation and deduction. Divination, very much practiced in Mesopotamia, can be classified in two categories 1) inspired divination, the one sent by Divine Beings, and 2) deductive divination, which is a product of mental activity, comparison, selection and outline of future possibilities based on the observation and analysis of past and likely course of events.
Professor Bottéro says that although inspired divination is not very well known from real records, from the second millennium before common era deductive divination has been known by the sages, and we have extant clay tablets to prove this statement, i.e. documents and omens, a myriad of clay tablets on how to proceed and interpret omens, to the extent that deductive divination can be thought of as an intellectual activity which left its imprint in Ancient Mesopotamia. Thus, Professor Bottéro encourages us to consider deductive divination within its context and change prevailing derogatory views of it, suggesting that deductive divination is instead an intellectual activity which is also a certain kind of knowledge.
Many examples of deductive divination are provided to ground Professor Bottéro´s reasonings. Basically, he proposes that since the most ancient omens in Mesopotamia, the sages´ observations of a sequence of events apparently disconnected, under certain circumstances, could lead to the elaboration of conclusions, where event, cause and conclusion could be interlinked.
Thus, deductive divination, which started as empyrial observations, evolved to deductive knowledge. This discovery is of great importance. From a previous knowledge about something we can deduce and plan or predict facts and elaborate conclusions which may or may not be proved right or wrong. Deductive knowledge is a precondition to do science. Without deductions no hypotheses can be elaborated or conclusions drawn upon. It must be added that divinatory treaties were systematically written up in clay, thus the Mesopotamians gave a scientific character to it.
From knowledge based purely on observation, starting with the accidental and unpredictable cases, divination thus became foreknowlege, and was systematically written up for further study. This is already what we call science in the formal sense of the word as given us by Plato and Aristotle of Greek fame. But the spirit of science can be traced back to Mesopotamia, from the deductive divinatory treaties and this is the hypothesis put across by Professor Bottéro. Scientific method and spirit thus can be traced back to Mesopotamia. He also adds that encyclopaedic curiosity, analysis and scientific attitude were present in the divinatory treaties as well. This was the wisdom the Greeks assimilated, but they first learnt it from the Ancient Near East. Another great moment in the history of humankind, and another Mesopotamian first.
Lishtar´s Note: This is a brief summary of a much longer essay, and umissable as it is. Particularly, I never cease to get amazed at the integrity, scientific rigour and understanding of the Mesopotamian soul displayed by Professor Bottéro in this article. This is the reason why the series of Bright Minds, Inspiring Thoughts starts with this essay. It is the mark of great historians to bring the past to life in its own context so that we can understand the wisdom it may bring to our lives here and now. This is 20th century scholarship that reflects major understanding of three millennia of Ancient Mesopotamia to last for the 21st century and beyond.
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
The next series of three essays is written by the towering figure of Professor Thorkild Jacobsen, whose brilliant career and dedication to Mesopotamia made him serve in Harvard University, Yale and Chicago, not necessarily in this order. In Harvard, he was Professor Emeritus of Assyriology.
I chose the series of lectures given at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and printed as The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man in 1946, updated and reprinted in 1977 by the Chicago University Press.
The three articles written by Professor Jackobsen in 1946 show the seeds of his seminal work The Treasures of Darkness, a History of Mesopotamian Religion, published in 1976. "Treasures of Darkness", incidentally, is an answer to A. Oppenheimer´s chapter on the impossibility to write a history of Mesopotamian Religion. A. Oppenheimer´s book Ancient Mesopotamia - portrait of a dead civilization is also a classic for all of us who love Mesopotamia. Oppenheimer´s statement on the impossibility of writing on Mesopotamian religion was right for his time and season, once the great corpus of Sumerian and Mesopotamian literature was only available from 1960s onwards. So when Jacobsen wrote his chapters for the Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man he did not have available most of the works we have now. Treasures no doubt that Jacobsen himself helped to translate.
It is a pleasure and an honor to review one of my favorite Assyriologists of all times. Just to give you the taste of what follows, the first chapter on Mesopotamia is called "The Cosmos as the State" Enjoy and grow in Professor Jackobsen´s wisdom and flawless prose that brings once again Mesopotama alive before our very eyes.
PS: I have seen pictures of Professor Jacobsen, and he was a Norse god with a Mesopotamian soul for sure
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Thorkild Jacobsen - The cosmos as the State 1
Preliminary words on Chapter V - Mesopotamia, the cosmos as the State, by Thorkild Jacobsen in The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man.
Yesterday I was re-reading this monumental essay, which is 59 pages long. Soon I realized that a review of the chapter in one post would not do justice to it. Why so? The language, the knowledge and knowing, the wisdom, the elegance of the prose, the use of metaphors and comparisons, style, impeccable line of thought and deductions based on factual evidence from clay tablets, all this made me realize that I should try and analyze subchapter by subchapter to try and convey a shadow of the whole chapter itself to you.
It is both a delight, as well as an almost impossible task to review the work of such a genius Assyriologist. I approach this Great Work with reverence and awe.
However, there is also another great pleasure in this task, which is MINE, all MINE : to pass on to you here in the board a little of Professor Jacobsen´s scholarship and humanism at his best.
And may Professor Jacobsen guide my thoughts and keyboards... from the Heights Above where he certainly is now!
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Thorkild Jacobsen 2 - The cosmos as a State
In the first subchapter of Mesopotamia: the Cosmos as a State, Professor Jacobsen establishes a parallel between Egypt and Mesopotamia to find out how the environment acted upon both civilizations to shape the values and worldviews of each civilization.
He starts by saying that if the pyramids proclaim Egypt´s sense of sovereignty over material forces, in Mesopotamia we have mounds and buried cities in the deserts of the Near East. Nevertheless, at the time Professor Jacobsen conceived this essay, the wealth of inscribed clay tablets in cuneiform had not been unearthed or translated in the numbers we have now. And they constitute a legacy as towering and perhaps more enduring than the pyramids themselves. Or information from the source, as we would say these high tech days...
However, if the Egyptian believed in the endurance of his/her works, the Mesopotamian also new that for wo/men "days are numbered" and that immortality was for the gods alone.
The question is how both civilizations developed such different moods. Professor Jacobsen offers the hypothesis of the environment and its influence on the world soul of both peoples.
Egypt grew out of a compact country, where village lay close to village, all protected by either mountain or river barriers. Over this sheltered world, passed everyday the never failing sun, calling Egypt back to life and activity, after the darkness of the night. Thus, Egypt developed a youthful and self-reliant arrogance. The gods had made this land for women and men to live in it and rejoice.
Mesopotamia, on the other hand...
(will upload this before getting disconnected... was already once)
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Jacobsen 3- The cosmos as the State
Thus, Nature favored Egypt in every way.
Mesopotamia, on the other hand, grew in a harsh, dry and difficult environment. We find there the same cosmic rhythms - the change of seasons, the movements of the stars across the skies - but we also find an element of force and violence which was not present in Egypt. The rivers Tigris and Euphrates are not like Nile. The twin rivers may rise unpredicatably and fitfully, breaking dikes and submerging crops. There are scorching winds which turn into dust storms, and threaten to suffocate the living. There are torrential rains which turn all firm ground into a sea of mud and thus rob freedom of movement. In Mesopotamia, Nature is a host of powers which rule over life and death.
The Mesopotamian therefore contemplated these sources of power with awe and reverence and fear. Standing amidst such powers, s/he realized how weak s/he really was if compared to the Powers of Nature. Yet, s/he knew through Creation myths that humankind had been created to continue the workings of existence for the gods, thus there was a faith in a cosmic order of unimaginable designs guiding creation and humans alike. To put it more succintly, the Mesopotamian saw the cosmic order as an order of wills - as a state.
How then, did this cosmic order come into being?
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Jacobsen 4 - The cosmos as a State
Just reviewing Professor Jacobsen´s thoughts on order as the synchronization of superior powers in Nature: To the Mesopotamian, cosmic order did not appear as something given. Rather, it became something achieved - cosmic wills, each so frightening, each so powerful, so awe-inspiring. The Mesopotamian understanding of the cosmos tended therefore to express itself in terms of integration of wills, that is, in terms of social orders, such as the family, the community, and most particularly, the state.
The Mesopotamian view of the world seems to have found its characteristic form at about the time when Mesopotamian civilization as a whole took shape, that is, in the Proto-literate period, around the middle of the 4th millennium Before Common Era.
Thousands of years had already passed since man first entered the valley of the Twin Rivers, and one pre-historic culture had followed another - all basically alike, none signally different from what one might have found elsewhere in the world.
But with the advent of the Proto-literate period the picture changes. Overnight, as it were, Mesopotamian civilization crystalizes.
In the economic sphere, appeared planned large-scale irrigation by means of canals, a form which forever after was to be the characteristic of Mesopotamian agriculture. Concurrent with it was a spectacular increase in population (Listhar´s Note: baskets built cities, and in the myth of the Creation of the Pickax). Villages expanded into cities, and the political pattern of a new civilization emerged - Primitive Democracy. Because in the new city-state ultimate political power rested with a general assembly of all adult freemen. Normally, the community wre guided by a council of elders, but in times of crisis, for example, the general assembly could confer absolute powers on one of its members and proclaim him king. Such kingship was an office held for a limited term, and as the assembly could confer it, so it could also revoke it when a crisis was past.
Centralization of authority and new political pattern may have been responsible, along with other factors, for the emergence of a truly monumental architecture in Mesopotamia. Imposing temples now began to rise in the plain, often built on gigantic artificial mountains of sun-dried bricks, the famous ziggurats. Works of such imposing proportions presupose a degree of orgnaization and direction in the community which achieved them.
In the intellectual/spiritual fields, writing was invented, first serving to facilitate accounting of goods donated to the temples. Eventually, it became the vehicle for literature. And art then flourished.
In economics, politics and in the arts Mesopotamia thus found at this early stage its guiding forms, created set ways in which to deal with the universe in its various aspects as they confronted man. It would not be surprising, therefore, to find that the view taken of the universe as a whole should likewise have clarified and taken form at that time. That this actually happened is indicated by the world view itself. As we have mentioned, Mesopotamian civilization interpreted the universe as a state. However, the basis of interpretation was not the state that existed in historic times but the state as it had been before history - a Primitive Democracy. We have therefore the right to assume that the idea of a cosmic state crystalized very early, when Primitive Democracy was the prevalent type of state - indeed with Mesopotamian civilization itself.
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Jacobsen 5 - Mesopotamians and Nature
The Mesopotamian attitude towards the phenomenon of Nature
Professor Jacobsen proceeds to enquire on how Mesopotamians might have acquired their vision of the universe ensouled. What I find particularly remarkable in this subchapter is the bright mind of the 20th century scientificist scholar diving into the fabric of an ancient civilization who saw the world as full of astonishing powers, whose might was perceived in all there was. Science meets mysticism here without losing its focus. It is clear therefore that Jacobsen understands and explains how ancient Mesopotamians saw their world, but he, as the scholar of his time, does not completely accept these views: only scrutinizes them and appreciate them at a distance.
"By saying that the phenomenon of the world were alive for the Mesopotamian, that powers [and nature] were personified, ... we have glossed over a potential distinction which was felt by the Mesopotamians. It is not correct to say that each phenomenon was a person: we must say that there was a will and a personality in each phenomenon - in it and yet somehow behind it [Lishtar would say being and transcending it ], for the single concrete phenomenon did not completely circumscribe and exhaust the will and personality associated with it."
This is a magnificent explanation of a pantheistic worldview, which was exactly what the Mesopotamians shared about their cosmos. Through metaphor identification with these mighty powers was achieved, and thus wo/men reached out for closer contact with such the powers that ruled all spheres and had created human existence. Metaphor is the language of desire, the language of High Magickal Arts, by the way.
Thus, proceeds Professor Jacobsen, to understand nature, the many and varied phenomenon around wo/man, was to understand the personalities in these phenomena, to know their character, the direction of their wills, and also the range of their powers. And this task was not different from that of understanding other fellow wo/men.
Finally, we have another reason to ground our assumption that when the universe was taking form for the Mesopotamian, s/he lived in Primitive Democracy. All great undertakings, all important decisions, originated in a general assembly of all the citizens
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Jacobsen 6 - Possible origin of astrology?
Don´t know why, my last post in this thread was cut out. Probably it was either too long or I was far too tired to notice that the most important part had not been sent through cyberspace to the board * sighs
So what Professor Jacobsen wanted to say is that important matters in Mesopotamia were solved by the Assembly, and not the affair of a single individual. Thus, Mesopotamians also saw these great powers reflected in the skies, co-operating to run the universe. In his words, cosmic institutions would naturally come to loom important in the Mesopotamian view of the universe, and the structure of the universe would stand out clearly as the structure of the state.
What Professor Jacobsen has so elegantly put across is the astral origins of religious beliefs in Mesopotamia as reflected on earth and vice versa. The literary expression was "From the Great Above to the Great Below", or the Mesopotamian far older version of the hermetic maxim "as above so below".
Astrology was one of the ways of trying to make sense of the designs of heaven and earth.
Brilliant, isn´t it? But what he forgot to add, and this is what we are doing now, is that the Heights Above reflected the Earth Below and the Earth below connected to the Heights Above in an never-ending cycle.
I said I was not very much into Astrology or Chaldean Magick. But as a Cheerful Mystic in the Tradition, this is the gut feeling that I have, whenever I meditate on the first mystics, shamans and shamankas, looking at the stars every night and living on earth, around the marshes in Eridu (South Mesopotamia), building life and making it be in the Light of the Heavenly Stars. This is the truth reflected in the symbol of Anu and Ninhursag: the horned crown (The Skyfather) upon the altar (Ninhursag-the Living Earth). This is Sumerian, this old and ... makes sense!
Nisaba be praised!
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Jacobsen 7 - The structure of the cosmic state
Thus the Mesopotamian cosmos encompassed the whole existing world and all creatures, i.e. the living humans, animals, the green world, the inanimate and natural phenomena, as well as notions such as justice, righteousness, the form of a circle, etc. How such entities could all be seen as members of a state, we have shown, it was because they had in them will, character and power. More importantly, though, the criterion of differentiation for the role of all creatures in the harmonious cohesion of the state was power.
How so?
In the state on earth there were large groups of people who had no voice in the assembly, such as children and slaves. Adults and freemen could decide on state affairs. Thus, quite similarly, in the state which the universe constituted, only natural forces whose power inspired the Mesopotamians with awe, and whom they therefore ranked as gods, were considered full citizens of the universe, and were thought to exercise political influence. The general assembly in the cosmic state was therefore an assembly of gods and goddeses, the ruling powers of existence which inhabited all spheres, more often reflected in the stars of the Heights Above.
Tomorrow, the workings of the Assembly.
It is a delight for me to turn the table round once more on those who think of Mesopotamia as a land of depravity and vice. It was not so. Words direct from clay tablets give us an idea of order, organization, faith in the future and in one´s heritage, spiritual and material. Because humankind was created to continue for the gods the workings of existence.
Great, isn´t it?
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Jacobsen 8 - The Assembly of the Great Gods
We hear a lot about the Assembly of the Great Gods, who met to deliberate and judge the affairs of all worlds at the Ekur, Enlil´s temple in Nippur. The leader of the Assembly was An/Anu, the Skyfather, and at his side stood Anu´s and the Earth Mother´s firstborn, Enlil, Lord Air.
Matters were presented to the assembly, and then the gods "asked one another", i.e. discussed the matter. Issues then were clarified, and the consensus would begin to stand out. Of special weight in the discussion were the voices of the most prominent gods, "the seven gods who determine destinies". In this way, full agreement was finally reached, all the gods assented with a firm "Let it be", and decision was finally announced by Anu or Enlil. Enlil was the one who had executive duties to ensure that the command of Anu was going to be followed to the letter. Anu therefore was the image of authority and Enlil, the embodiment of force, or the precise measure upon which authority can be exercised.
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Re: Jacobsen 8 - The Assembly of the Great Gods
Tried to post a picture of Thorkild Jacobsen but it seems that the link to angelfire.com did not work... will try to post it again using our email members´ only device!
best,
Lishtar
PS: He was a Norse (Danish) Bard with a Mesopotamian Soul Plus... he was soooooooo yummy... as well...
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
Background on Jacobsen´s pre-philosophy and Mesopotamia...
from the ANE list (unmissable!!!)
From: "Raul Veede" <oop@ut.ee>
To: <ane@oi.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 1:28 AM
Subject: ane Mesopotamian pre-philosophy
> could someone of you give any reference about the pros and cons of using > terms like 'pre-philosophy' and 'protophilosophy' about the later period of Mesopotamian wisdom literature?
I have seen Frankfort's "Before philosophy" and some books by Chanyshev, but I suppose there could be more on that theme.
> Hopefully,
> Raul Veede,
> stud. phil.
I think it is important to realize that Frankfort's use of the term is intimately associated with a particular philosophical school: The neo-kantianism of Ernst Cassirer. Cassirer sees *myth* as a kind of transcendental philosophy, and his overarching project is to explain how human thought has developed form this primitive beginning. The development
that he traces - and which Franfort an Thorkild Jacobsen accept rather uncritically - is entirely speculaltive. Cassirer's thesis is based on his reading of asyriological litterature form the beginning of the century, particularly Jastrow and Winckler. From Jastrow he gathers the idea that
mesopotamian religion was originally "animistic" (a very popular term at the time, inspired by E.B. Tylor, but which has since been discarded by both anthropology and comparative religion as an adequate description of the religion of tribal peoples). The basis for this idea was the assumption,
that certain texts that were termed "magical" - basically incantations and exorcisitic rituals - represented the oldes stratum of mesopotamian religion. They had to be, for that was what everybody believed at the time-first there was magic, then came religion, and finally science did away with
both of them. In fact, these "magical" texts are known primarily in late copies from the first millenium, though some of them can be traced back to about 1800 BC. They may be old, but their use and popularity certainly did not decrease with time.
Winckler, on the other hand, was the originator of astral mythology, a fantastic theory that traced all religion back to a kind of neo-platonic,astral philosophy, which supposedly was formualated by sumerian scholars some time in early prehistory (Winckler's guess is 6-4000 BC!). Off course,
the sources used to reconstruct this philosophy was very late: Astrological texts from tha latter part of the 1. millenium BC, and - particularly - the comments of a few hellenistic philosophers, particularly Diodorus.
Cassirer combines these two views in a curious synthesis, in which primitive man is "lost in the immediacy of his perceptions" and only gradually "constructs" a cosmos, an ordered universe governed by laws. The first such
universe is that of astral mytology. Here's a quotation from his "The philospophy of symbolic forms", volume II, page 113:
"This turn from the sensuous and particular, from the deification of particular natural powers, to the Universal, can be followed with special clarity in Babylonia and Assyria, the home and source of all "astral" religion. The beginnings of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion point back to the sphere of a primitive *Animism*. Here again the basic stratum consists
in a belief in demons, in f:riendly and hostile powers which intervene arbitrarily and capriciously in events. Sky demons and storm demons, demons of meadow and field, and of mountain and spring stand side by side with hybrids *still preserving traces* of animal worship and older totemistic
views. But as Babylonian thought concentrated increasingly on the contemplation of the stars, its general form changed. The primitive demon mythology was not done away with, but it was relegated to a low level of popular faith. The religion of the wise men, of the priests, became the religion of the "sacred epochs" and "sacred numbers." The *true basic
phenomenon of the divine* is represented in the definiteness of the astronomical process, in the temporal rule that governs the course of the sun, moon, and planets. The individual heavenly body is not conceived and worshiped as a godhead in its immediate corporeity; it is rather apprehended
as a partial revelation of the universal divine power which acts according to constant norms of events. From the heavens, which are its clearest manifestation, this divine order may be followed in constant gradations down
to the order of earthly, specifically human (political and social) reality as one and the same fundamental form which realizes itself in the most diverse spheres of existence«.(113)
As a philosopher, you will probably recognize the strong platonistic element in this description, and as I already said, the reason is simply that it is a reconstruction based on late, hellenistic source. There is no basis for it
whatsoever. Neither is there any basis that mesopotamian religion was ever "animistic" - the gods seems to have been largely antropomorphic as far back as the sources can take us. There is indeed a close, association between
certain gods and certain natural phenomenon- including astral bodies as there is in most other polyteistic religions. Whatever that association means - and it is often very complex and expressed in very artful ways - it does not in any way proove that the gods developed out of deified plants,
animals and stones.
So, is it reasonable to talk of "proto-philosophy" in Mesopotamia? The philosophical genre of writing in the greek sense was certainly never used, but what does that say about how or what people thought? There is no reason
to think that myth is somehow the profoundest expression of archaic thought. There are narratives and dialogues that clearly deal with questions of life, death, morality and other existential questions. There are mystical and systematic texts that still largely elude us, there is mathematics, law,
philology, theology, divination, medicine, astrology.... I don't know, it seems to me the term "philosophy" needs to be defined more clearly.
Anyhow, here are a few books that may be of interest to you:
Bottéro, J., Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods (Chicago, 1992).
Denning-Bolle, Sara: Wisdom in Akkadian literature : expression, instruction, dialogue. Leiden : Ex Oriente Lux, 1992.
Mededelingen en verhandelingen van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap "Ex Oriente Lux" ; 28
Lambert, W. G.: Babylonian wisdom literature Oxford : Clarendon, 1982 (orig 1962)
Livingstone, Alasdair: Mystical and mythological explanatory works of Assyrian and Babylonian scholars. Oxford : Clarendon, 1987.
Sasson, Jack M, :Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. London : Prentice-Hall, 1995. 4 volumes. In volume III you will find a handfull of essays related to your question.
Greetings,
Peter Westh,
postgraduate student of the history of religions,
Denmark
From the Depths and To the Heights to share in all spheres
It is a delight for me to turn the table round once more on those who think of Mesopotamia as a land of depravity and vice. It was not so. Words direct from clay tablets give us an idea of order, organization, faith in the future and in one´s heritage, spiritual and material. Because humankind was created to continue for the gods the workings of existence. 
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