Ricerc@Sapienza

In this chapter I analyze the way the demonic attack takes place according to ancient Mesopotamian incantations and its relation with illnesses aetiology.

Since the 1990s, there has been an unceasing debate over computer semiotics as an autonomous discipline aimed at establishing the function of the logical operators of programming and computing. In fact, the structural and semantic encoding of the analytical object also comprise one of the main trends in Natural Computing (nc) and in the fast-moving field of computer science.

Dall’occidente nostro, le sponde del Mediterraneo che lambiscono la Siria e la Palestina, ovvero la ‘terra santa’ e l’Egitto sino al confine con la Libia sono definite da secoli orientali; ma è bene ricordare che questo è solo l’orientamento stabilito ‘ex Occidente’, e che per i primi abitanti della Babilonia, invece, questo mare sarebbe stato il “Mar Superiore”, confine del mondo allora conosciuto, mentre per noi, che oggi lo possiamo osservare dall’alto, è la punta di una mezzaluna rovesciata, quasi opposta a quella ‘fertile’ viva nella memoria collettiva.

Eridu è ancor oggi, dopo le poche e intense campagne di scavo archeologico che ne rivelarono, già alla metà del secolo scorso, i sui oltre settemila anni di vita, unanimemente riconosciuta come una delle più importanti capitali sante della Mesopotamia antica, come il luogo abitato dal dio della creazione Enki e come la sede, prediletta dagli dei, su cui, secondo il testo cardine della più arcaica storiografia vicino-orientale, la Lista Reale Sumerica, sarebbe discesa, prima del Diluvio, la regalità in terra.

I deal with the evidence for private cults in southern Mesopotamian houses between the end of the third and the beginning of the second millennium BC. The focus will be mainly on Ur, where several features were singled out and named “private chapels.” Other sites will also be taken into account for comparison. The main idea that some sort of cult ceremony was performed in private houses is not questioned. However, discrepancies in the evidence will be analysed, which might have some meaning for the interpretation of the real nature of these private cults.

The attention towards the registration of damage to ancient archaeological sites and historical places in the Mediterranean and the Near East has increased because of the frequency of deliberate destruction.

The theme of the royal lion hunt occupies several rooms in the North Palace of Assurbanipal at Nineveh; if Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace can in fact be rightly considered a monument for display of military successes of the Assyrian king and his army, the palace built by Assurbanipal (the last

The Italian archaeological project at Tell Zurghul is a joint archaeological expedition of Sapienza Università di Roma and the Università degli Studi di Perugia and started working at the site in 2015; three seasons of excavation have been conducted with three operations (Area A, Area B, and Area D) and a survey on the western edge of the site (Area C) (Figure 1).

Analysis of the images of the Assyrian sieges as they are depicted on the wall palace reliefs of the Assyrian kings: the contribution takes into account pictorial style, need for the comprehension and development of stories through images and the political and ideological implication of the use of such images in the Assyrian context.

The present study focuses on the value of visual narratives as expression of meaning and emotions via the emplotment of stories that, because they are told, seen and narrated, acquire a deep cultural and mnemonic importance across time.