Mythical Literary Works of the Old Babylonian Period as Artefacts of Epistemic Practices – as well as the Question of a “Philosophy before the Greeks”

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Gösta Gabriel
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 416865429

On the one hand, Mesopotamian scholarly texts only report specifics – specific omens, specific calculations, specific legal propositions – and do almost never explicate general concepts. This is especially true for mythical literature (i.e. hymns, epics), which usually narrates single past events. On the other hand, there are indications that general rules and principles were known and applied. This ostensible discrepancy between the source material and presumable epistemic practices is to be solved.Thus, the project aims to answer the question of whether and how Mesopotamians communicated knowledge of generic principles. For this, it asks whether individual cases represent potential use cases of general rules that would be exemplified in this way. The project focuses on (Sumerian and Akkadian) mythical literature from the Old Babylonian period for two reasons. First, as central element of the stream of tradition, these texts represent a decisive source of ancient concepts. Second, the underlying intellectual procedures become especially apparent in this period since traditional epistemic practices of earlier centuries were applied to new contexts.The Emmy-Noether group consists of three sub-projects. The main project investigates which ideas on the conditio humana can be found in the Gilgameš tales of the Old Babylonian period and how they were communicated. The team leader analyzes the ideas in five core texts separately, focusing on the graphemic and lexematic level as well on the texts’ stories. The outcome is interpreted under consideration of intertextual references to other textual artefacts of this period. The first PhD project works on the use of list-like elements (e.g., enumerations) in literary works. Where and why is this type of text applied? Are the respective texts thus embedded in the lexical tradition? The second PhD project examines where and how explicit conditional sentences are used in the literary corpus. How do these conditionals connect with those of divinatory and/or legal textual artefacts? After surveying the entire literary corpus of the Old Babylonian period (using ETCSL and SEAL), each PhD candidate selects one or two texts in order to investigate them comprehensively. The data of all sub-projects is collected in a project database to facilitate the joint interpretation of the findings. Furthermore, the database will be made generally accessible for potential future research. Finally, the main project addresses the question of whether the identified epistemic practices could be subsumed under a definition of philosophy and would hence represent a “Philosophy before the Greeks” (Van De Mieroop 2016). Thus, the project builds on most recent research in Assyriology and aims to encourage a transdisciplinary discourse on the status of Mesopotamian epistemic practices.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups