Giorgio Buccellati – författare

This English translation of Giorgio Buccellati’s ambitious work offers readers an insightful discussion of ancient Mesopotamian religion and spirituality in its relationship to the biblical ethos.

Our understanding of ancient Mesopotamian religion, while shaped by a wealth of archaeological, artistic, and epigraphic evidence, remains limited with regard to a proper hermeneutic approach. In this volume, Buccellati sheds light on the spirituality of Mesopotamian polytheism by drawing comparisons with that of biblical monotheism. These comparisons are used to better understand the divine-human relationship in the Mesopotamian context, as both individuals and members of a wider community. In addition, Buccellati provides detailed discussions on divination and the central role of fate in ancient Mesopotamia. Buccellati’s understanding of Mesopotamian religion and spirituality as illuminated by biblical texts, now available to an Anglophone audience, offers much food for thought on this challenging subject.

"When on High the Heavens…": Mesopotamian Religion and Spirituality with Reference to the Biblical World provides a wide-ranging and thorough exploration of Mesopotamian religion for students, scholars, and researchers in Near Eastern archaeology and history, biblical studies, and the history of religion and spirituality.

This English translation of Giorgio Buccellati’s ambitious work offers readers an insightful discussion of ancient Mesopotamian religion and spirituality in its relationship to the biblical ethos.

Our understanding of ancient Mesopotamian religion, while shaped by a wealth of archaeological, artistic, and epigraphic evidence, remains limited with regard to a proper hermeneutic approach. In this volume, Buccellati sheds light on the spirituality of Mesopotamian polytheism by drawing comparisons with that of biblical monotheism. These comparisons are used to better understand the divine-human relationship in the Mesopotamian context, as both individuals and members of a wider community. In addition, Buccellati provides detailed discussions on divination and the central role of fate in ancient Mesopotamia. Buccellati’s understanding of Mesopotamian religion and spirituality as illuminated by biblical texts, now available to an Anglophone audience, offers much food for thought on this challenging subject.

"When on High the Heavens…": Mesopotamian Religion and Spirituality with Reference to the Biblical World provides a wide-ranging and thorough exploration of Mesopotamian religion for students, scholars, and researchers in Near Eastern archaeology and history, biblical studies, and the history of religion and spirituality.

This volume, now available in English, explores how Mesopotamia’s urban revolution in the late fourth millennium B.C. shaped a new mentality, leading to new forms of social interaction, and to the development of the state, its laws and its religion to consolidate new managerial hierarchies in the region.

How is it that the phenomenon of the state, a society structured along lines of power that frame individuals in a new supra-organism, suddenly came into being during the fourth millennium B.C.? In this book, Buccellati explores the emergence of statehood and power structures in ancient Mesopotamia against the background of the long prehistoric period. It was the arena in which the earliest cities and states were born and that offers us the first and richest documentation of the development of political life in antiquity. This book provides rich documentation of the causes that led to the formation of the territorial state, tracing its evolution from city-states to universal empires from ca 3500 B.C. to 500 B.C. At the same time, it examines the tension between individual rights and supra-personal systems of power during this period and explores new forms of social interaction that coincided with the economic dimension of the urban revolution. This paradigmatic history, newly translated into English for Anglophone readers, offers a key to understanding modern political forms and their transformations.

At the Origins of Politics provides a thorough examination of the development of the state in ancient Mesopotamia, suitable for students, scholars, and researchers working on Near Eastern history and society, and ancient societies and politics more broadly.

This volume, now available in English, explores how Mesopotamia’s urban revolution in the late fourth millennium B.C. shaped a new mentality, leading to new forms of social interaction, and to the development of the state, its laws and its religion to consolidate new managerial hierarchies in the region.

How is it that the phenomenon of the state, a society structured along lines of power that frame individuals in a new supra-organism, suddenly came into being during the fourth millennium B.C.? In this book, Buccellati explores the emergence of statehood and power structures in ancient Mesopotamia against the background of the long prehistoric period. It was the arena in which the earliest cities and states were born and that offers us the first and richest documentation of the development of political life in antiquity. This book provides rich documentation of the causes that led to the formation of the territorial state, tracing its evolution from city-states to universal empires from ca 3500 B.C. to 500 B.C. At the same time, it examines the tension between individual rights and supra-personal systems of power during this period and explores new forms of social interaction that coincided with the economic dimension of the urban revolution. This paradigmatic history, newly translated into English for Anglophone readers, offers a key to understanding modern political forms and their transformations.

At the Origins of Politics provides a thorough examination of the development of the state in ancient Mesopotamia, suitable for students, scholars, and researchers working on Near Eastern history and society, and ancient societies and politics more broadly.