The study of Babylonian medicine has often suffered from an overreliance on the localization of illnesses in particular body parts, but new work on Babylonian therapeutics suggests that Mesopotamian physicians were concerned with the conditions and circumstances in which illness and misfortune might affect a patient. Physiognomy and ekphrasis represent two different ways of describing these conditional factors and also call for a much more thorough engagement with Graeco-Roman sources.
Seminar
Mesopotamia and Greece/Physiognomy and Ekphrasis: Plaidoyer for a Renewed Comparative Approach
Dr. J. Cale Johnson
Dr. Alessandro Stavru