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Reflections on the Pivotal Role of Animals in Early Mesopotamia

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Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World

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Abstract

Overt and covert classification are well-known and ubiquitous linguistic processes. Moreover, classification seems to be firmly grounded in and connected to the mental abilities of living beings, essential to survival in different environments. Preconceptions as well as elaborate cladistics are part of the classification process.

The English of this paper was kindly revised by Craig Crossen – once again I am indebted to his professional editorship. I am also most grateful to O. Goldwasser, who repeatedly discussed with me various aspects of this paper and to whom I owe the Egyptian references. I would further like to express my gratitude to my students E. Marsal and J. Pfitzner. Many topics they will discuss in their PhD dissertations will elaborate or modify some of the theses presented here. For the transcriptions and translations of literary texts I used the data provided in ECTSL (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/); for abbreviations cp. one of the standard lists, e.g. http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=abbreviations_for_assyriology.

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    Gebhard Selz

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Selz, G. (2019). Reflections on the Pivotal Role of Animals in Early Mesopotamia. In: Mattila, R., Ito, S., Fink, S. (eds) Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World. Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-24388-3_3

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