Medicine in Ancient Assur: outlining the career of a healer from the 7th century BCE
Please note this seminar is now online, which you can watch at the MFO
In the middle of the 7th century BCE, a young man by the name of Kisir-Ashur trained to become a healer in the city Assur, located in the northern part of modern-day Iraq. As a member of a reputable family of “exorcists” (Akkadian ashipu), Kisir-Ashur had access to significant scholarly knowledge based on written traditions stretching back into the second millennium BCE. At least 73 manuscripts from his family’s massive library contain Kisir-Ashur’s name in the colophons, a subscript at the end of the text providing various information about the copyist and the contents. Due to this amount of written material from Kisir-Ashur’s own time, he is one of the earliest healers in world history for whom we have significant details pertaining to his career. My study of Kisir-Ashur’s medical manuscripts was recently published in a monograph entitled Medicine in Ancient Assur (available with open access). In this presentation I will outline my analysis of Kisir-Ashur’s education and practice in order to discuss various aspects of medicine in ancient Mesopotamia.
Date: 21 November 2022, 16:00 (Monday, 7th week, Michaelmas 2022)
Venue: Online - you can watch at the Maison Francaise d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford OX2 6SE
Speaker: Troels Arboll (University of Oxford)
Organising department: Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology
Part of: Centre for the History of Science Medicine and Technology (OCHSMT) Seminars and Events
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMkf-ugrDkpHtZESIauqm9AzX2-opBbk175
Audience: Members of the University only
Editors: Laura Spence, Belinda Clark