David Brown
I was a full-time career academic until 2006 and, until 2018, a Berlin-based school teacher who continued to work on the history of the most ancient astral sciences. Since 2018, I have stopped working in academia.
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Papers by David Brown
This article engages with Pongratz-Leisten's important analysis of god-king communication, as made manifest in the surviving cuneiform sources, and draws particularly on my expertise in the area of cuneiform divination. Issue is taken with P-L's assertion that divination is totally distinct from magic and rather one of the many instruments of political power serving to sacralize the king and stabilize his rule.This article review provides a thorough, but critical summary of P-L' s book. Whether, royal divination was used to sacralize the king, rather than simply to satisfy his personal desire for divine approbation, cannot be determined easily, it is argued. Where Pongratz-Leisten believes the scholars and kings shared a common religious belief system, and worked together in harmony to project to the wider populace a vision of royal rule and behaviour that was wholly in accord with divine wishes, I suggest, instead, that the scholars fed off the royal ego, and behaved in such a way as to perpetuate a system that favoured them economically.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23862783
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43076496?seq=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23281910?seq=1
https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203946237.ch32
The paper offers a developmental analysis of the fundamental cuneiform units of time and space, and argues that they were a function of calculating efficiency, environmental determinism, the power of the imperial enforcement of standards, competition between scholars and adherence to ancient ideas as to the original symmetry of the universe.
The paper concludes with the publication of BM 91283, a possible sinking water clock from Nimrud.
This paper deals with a major theme of my 2018 book in summary form, though for complete references to the claims made, the reader will have to consult my book.
In Greek intellectual circles, however, monotheistic trends and a disenchanted view of the universe can frequently be found. Contrary to the traditional view that these developments can be accounted for entirely on the basis of internal Greek-only processes, it is suggested here that the advent of Anaximander's apeiron and Xenophanes' arche-Deity and the like were also stimulated by Greek interaction with the new technology of astronomical prediction emerging from Mesopotamia.
A summary of the history of Mesopotamian religious thinking concludes the article.
This article engages with Pongratz-Leisten's important analysis of god-king communication, as made manifest in the surviving cuneiform sources, and draws particularly on my expertise in the area of cuneiform divination. Issue is taken with P-L's assertion that divination is totally distinct from magic and rather one of the many instruments of political power serving to sacralize the king and stabilize his rule.This article review provides a thorough, but critical summary of P-L' s book. Whether, royal divination was used to sacralize the king, rather than simply to satisfy his personal desire for divine approbation, cannot be determined easily, it is argued. Where Pongratz-Leisten believes the scholars and kings shared a common religious belief system, and worked together in harmony to project to the wider populace a vision of royal rule and behaviour that was wholly in accord with divine wishes, I suggest, instead, that the scholars fed off the royal ego, and behaved in such a way as to perpetuate a system that favoured them economically.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23862783
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43076496?seq=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23281910?seq=1
https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203946237.ch32
The paper offers a developmental analysis of the fundamental cuneiform units of time and space, and argues that they were a function of calculating efficiency, environmental determinism, the power of the imperial enforcement of standards, competition between scholars and adherence to ancient ideas as to the original symmetry of the universe.
The paper concludes with the publication of BM 91283, a possible sinking water clock from Nimrud.
This paper deals with a major theme of my 2018 book in summary form, though for complete references to the claims made, the reader will have to consult my book.
In Greek intellectual circles, however, monotheistic trends and a disenchanted view of the universe can frequently be found. Contrary to the traditional view that these developments can be accounted for entirely on the basis of internal Greek-only processes, it is suggested here that the advent of Anaximander's apeiron and Xenophanes' arche-Deity and the like were also stimulated by Greek interaction with the new technology of astronomical prediction emerging from Mesopotamia.
A summary of the history of Mesopotamian religious thinking concludes the article.
This article engages with Pongratz-Leisten's important analysis of god-king communication, as made manifest in the surviving cuneiform sources, and draws particularly on my expertise in the area of cuneiform divination. Issue is taken with P-L's assertion that divination is totally distinct from magic and rather one of the many instruments of political power serving to sacralize the king and stabilize his rule. This article review provides a thorough, but critical summary of P-L' s book. Whether, royal divination was used to sacralize the king, rather than simply to satisfy his personal desire for divine approbation, cannot be determined easily, it is argued. Where Pongratz-Leisten believes the scholars and kings shared a common religious belief system, and worked together in harmony to project to the wider populace a vision of royal rule and behaviour that was wholly in accord with divine wishes, I suggest, instead, that the scholars fed off the royal ego, and behaved in such a way as to perpetuate a system that favoured them economically.