"Full of matter for anyone interested in language, religion, and politics in the ancient world."--R. T. Ridley, "Journal of Religion"
With this book, three distinguished French historians tell the story of the birth of writing and reason, explaining how the logical and religious structures of Near Eastern and Mesopotamian cultures served as precursors to those of the West.

Our ancestors, the Mesopotamians, invented writing and with it a new way of looking at the world. In this collection of essays, the French scholar Jean Bottero attempts to go back to the moment which marks the very beginning of history.
To give the reader some sense of how Mesopotamian civilization has been mediated and interpreted in its transmission through time, Bottero begins with an account of Assyriology, the discipline devoted to the ancient culture. This transmission, compounded with countless discoveries, would not have been possible without the surprising decipherment of the cuneiform writing system. Bottero also focuses on divination in the ancient world, contending that certain modes of worship in Mesopotamia, in their application of causality and proof, prefigure the "scientific mind."

In this intriguing blend of the commonplace and the ancient, Jean Bottero presents the first extensive look at the delectable secrets of Mesopotamia. Bottero's broad perspective takes us inside the religious rites, everyday rituals, attitudes and taboos, and even the detailed preparation techniques involving food and drink in Mesopotamian high culture during the second and third millennia BCE, as the Mesopotamians recorded them.

Offering everything from translated recipes for pigeon and gazelle stews, the contents of medicinal teas and broths, and the origins of ingredients native to the region, this book reveals the cuisine of one of history's most fascinating societies. Links to the modern world, along with incredible recreations of a rich, ancient culture through its cuisine, make Bottero's guide an entertaining and mesmerizing read.

One of the world's foremost experts on Assyriology, Jean Bottero has studied the religion of ancient Mesopotamia for more than fifty years. Building on these many years of research, Bottero here presents the definitive account of one of the world's oldest known religions. He shows how ancient Mesopotamian religion was practiced both in the public and private spheres, how it developed over the three millennia of its active existence, and how it profoundly influenced Western civilization, including the Hebrew Bible.

In this intriguing blend of the commonplace and the ancient, Jean Bottero presents the first extensive look at the delectable secrets of Mesopotamia. Bottero's broad perspective takes us inside the religious rites, everyday rituals, attitudes and taboos, and even the detailed preparation techniques involving food and drink in Mesopotamian high culture during the second and third millennia BCE, as the Mesopotamians recorded them.

Offering everything from translated recipes for pigeon and gazelle stews, the contents of medicinal teas and broths, and the origins of ingredients native to the region, this book reveals the cuisine of one of history's most fascinating societies. Links to the modern world, along with incredible recreations of a rich, ancient culture through its cuisine, make Bottero's guide an entertaining and mesmerizing read.

Recientemente, entre los archivos de la Universidad de Yale, se B+exhumaronB; tres tablillas cuneiformes del 1600 antes de Cristo, hasta el momento no traducidas... y que resultaron ser cuarenta recetas de cocina. Este descubrimiento da pie a Jean Bottero a sumergirse en la desconocida gastronomia de la antigua Mesopotamia. Armado de esas cuarenta recetas, pero tambien de cartas cruzadas entre comerciantes, B+manuales de devocionB;, tratados adivinatorios y de interpretacion de los suenos, listados enciclopedicos e incluso alguna obra B+literariaB;, Bottero nos acerca a esa refinada cultura, cuya cosmovision se halla indirecta pero firmemente integrada en el ciclo de la comida y la bebida. Nos enteramos asi de la importancia de los cereales y del pan (cocinado o presentado de mas de doscientas maneras), de la predileccion por los asados y los caldos, y del papel fundamental del ajo, la cebolla y el puerro en muchos guisos.

"Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia," based on articles originally published in "L'Histoire" by Jean Bottero, Andre Finet, Bertrand Lafont, and Georges Roux, presents new discoveries about this amazing Mesopotamian culture made during the past ten years. Features of everyday Meopotamian life highlight the new sections of this book. Both gourmet cuisine and popular cookery used fish, meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains, available fresh or preserved (through methods still used today), and served with beer and wine. While feelings toward love and sex are rarely found in personal writings or correspondence, myths, prayers, and accounts of an acceptance of a wide range of behaviors (despite monogamy, prostitution flourished) argue that both were considered natural and necessary for a happy existence.

Under law woman existed as a man's property, yet stories show that wives frequently used beauty and wits to keep husbands in hand, and a wife's financial holdings remained her property, reverting to her family at her death. Women were allowed to participate in activities that could increase this wealth and some, pledged to the gods and shut away in group homes, were nonetheless able to participate in lucrative business ventures. Also included are accounts of the exceptional life of the queen and the women of Mari, the story of the great Queen Semiramis, and chapters on magic, medicine, and astrology.

The concluding section offers a fascinating in-depth comparison of ancient Sumerian myths and stories similar to those found in the Hebrew bible. The new information found in "Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia" makes a significant contribution, one that deepens our knowledge and understanding of this great, ancient civilization.

The civilization of Ancient Mesopotamia flourished between 3300 BC and 2000 BC in the southern half of the lands between and to either side of the Tigris and Euphrates, where a vast grain harvest (about equal to Canada's today) supported a large and well-ordered population. The early development of cuneiform writing, the world's first phonetic script, means that for the first time in the history of humanity it is possible to learn something of how people thought and felt. This book aims to do just that and, as the reader soon finds out, succeeds triumphantly. Jean Bottero and his colleagues take the reader on a voyage of discovery into the public and private realms of the lives of our first civilized ancestors -- their cooking and eating, feasts and festivals, wine and drinking, love and sex, what women could do and what they couldn't, magic and medicine, trial by ordeal, life in a palace above and below stairs, astrology and divination, gods and religion, and literature and myth.