Concepts of the female body in Mesopotamian medical texts

A Lecture and Video-Conference by Ulrike Steinert, BabMed – Babylonian Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin

Thursday, October 26, 2017 4 p.m.-6 p.m. (Paris time) at the Ivry sur Seine CNRS building, 27 rue Paul Bert, Porte de Choisy/Porte d'Ivry subway station, room C in the basement or by distance through video-conference

This talk outlines the concepts associated with the female body in gynaecological texts from 2nd and 1st millennium BCE Mesopotamia, concentrating on ideas about anatomy and the physiology of sexual reproduction marked by conception, gestation and birth. I will show that the Mesopotamian texts employ a systematic set of interrelated metaphors, some of which are very common cross-culturally and are grounded in basic conceptual metaphors. The survey shows that the female body is represented as a productive body and that reproduction is seen in analogy to craft production and to processes in agriculture and animal husbandry (including water management and irrigation). Thus, in Mesopotamian medicine, the female body, its fertility and physiology are interpreted and regulated according to the experiences and practices of human-environment interaction, employing a model of the body which can be termed "the body technologic".

This presentation constitutes the twelfth monthly session of the interdisciplinary seminar "The Individual and his Body in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin" organized by Alice Mouton and supported by the Labex RESMED and the UMR 8167 Orient et Mediterranee.

Please click here for the announcement poster download.

All the persons who are interested in attending the session (either in Ivry sur Seine or through video-conference) are welcome for free but should register by e-mail beforehand.

contact: mailto:alice.mouton@cnrs.fr