Project description
Understanding healers and medicine in ancient Mesopotamian Uruk
Medical practitioners have been present in Mesopotamia since the middle of the 3rd millennium and have played a crucial role in society. However, our knowledge of Mesopotamian medicine is limited. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the ASHIPUM project aims to understand how ancient Mesopotamian healers operated within their spatial, geographical, and social contexts. It will conduct a practice-oriented study of the archives of the exorcist-healers from Late-Babylonian Uruk, integrating textual and archaeological data. It will determine what the exorcist-healers of Late-Babylonian Uruk knew, integrate textual information with archaeological and material data, and reconstruct the daily practices and know-how implied by healing-related activities in Uruk. ASHIPUM will also include dissemination activities to share its findings.
Objective
The overarching goal of the project ASHIPUM is to understand how ancient Mesopotamian healers acted within their spatial, geographical and social contexts. To do this, I will conduct a practice-oriented study - still lacking in Assyriological scholarship - of the archives of the exorcists-healers from Late-Babylonian Uruk (end 5th century-beginning 2nd century BCE), integrating textual and archaeological data. This case study has not been comprehensively analysed from a medico-historical viewpoint. By focusing on its promising features, I will be able to overcome three problems related to the study of Mesopotamian medicine. ASHIPUMs objectives are: 1) to determine what the exorcists-healers of Late-Babylonian Uruk knew, on the basis of their archives; 2) to integrate textual information with archaeological and material data relevant for a medico-historical study; 3) to reconstruct the daily practices and the know-how implied by healing-related activities in Uruk. As designed, the project will be best implemented at Paris 1 University Panthon-Sorbonne under the supervision of Philippe Clancier in the light of his expertise in the archives of the exorcists-healers and their historical, material contextualisation. I will benefit from my integration into his team ArScAn-HAROC, specialized in material culture, and the trainings offered by my host institution in archaeology, anthropology, French language, digital skills, project management and career development. In turn, I will share my experience on Mesopotamian medicine and give impulse to this subject at ArScAn by networking with specialists across the region of Paris and beyond. The action includes dissemination activities through presentations, journal articles, a conference (with related proceedings) and online content for ArScAns projects. Communication will be ensured by online presence, participation at outreach events in the Parisian region, a citizen science program and a poster exhibition.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
75231 Paris
France