John Steele

Kathryn Stevens

Johannes Haubold

This volume offers the first holistic examination of the Astronomical Diaries, a remarkable set of 1000 clay tablets from ancient Babylon in which for over 500 years (6th–1st century BCE) scholars combined astronomical observations with records of events on earth.

The Astronomical Diaries in Context

Keeping Watch in Babylon

The I-li, Or, Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial

The I-li

Seven Skins - two words scrawled above a hit-list. Six names - targets for assassination by bomb, bullet or blade. Three killers - two vicious professionals and an idealistic young terrorist. Two Security Service officers - confused and at each other's throats. One lost girl - abused and on the run. And Jackie Shaw - outnumbered, disavowed and ready to tear an entire city apart. When a series of apparently random assassinations hit London, MI5 and GCHQ deduce that the killers are working through a hit-list of retired security forces operatives and that their next target is an ex-police officer from Belfast now living rough in the capital. Desperate to find the officer before he too is eliminated, the Security Services coerce Jackie Shaw, a man steeped in the violent history of Northern Ireland, into working for them. While the three killers stalk their next victim, Jackie trawls the city's underbelly in search of their target as he tries to protect a girl who is desperate to escape a gang of brutal traffickers. Leaving a trail of bullet casings and bodies, Jackie and the girl find themselves alone and on the run, fighting not just to uncover what or who the Seven Skins are but to save their own lives.

Seven Skins

Hermann Hunger

MUL.APIN, written sometime before the 8th century BC, was the most widely copied astronomical text in ancient Mesopotamia: a compendium including information such as star lists, descriptions of planetary phases, mathematical schemes for the length of day and night, a discussion of the luni-solar calendar and rules for intercalation, and a short collection of celestial omens. This book contains an introductory essay, followed by a new edition of the text and a facing-page transliteration and English translation. Finally, the book contains a new and detailed commentary on the text. This is a fascinating study, and an important resource for anyone interested in the history of astronomy.

The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN

The I-li, Or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial

Arthur Purchas was said to be perhaps the most gifted person ever to come to this country. Surgeon and doctor, architect, engineer, geologist, explorer, musician, botanist, artist, priest, inventor; in his time he was one of our most prominent citizens. The Purchas story of exceptional achievement, tragedy and adventure, has remained largely untold ¿ until now.

The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dr Arthur Purchas

No Ordinary Man

Christine Proust

This volume explores how scholars wrote, preserved, circulated, and read knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia. It offers an exercise in micro-history that provides a case study for attempting to understand the relationship between scholars and scholarship during this time of great innovation. The papers in this collection focus on tablets written in the city of Uruk in southern Babylonia. These archives come from two different scholarly contexts. One is a private residence inhabited during successive phases by two families of priests who were experts in ritual and medicine. The other is the most important temple in Uruk during the late Achemenid and Hellenistic periods. The contributors undertake detailed studies of this material to explore the scholarly practices of individuals, the connection between different scholarly genres, and the exchange of knowledge between scholars in the city and scholars in other parts of Babylonia and the Greek world. In addition, this collection examines the archives in which the texts were found and the scribes who owned or wrote them. It also considers the interconnections between different genres of knowledge and the range of activities of individual scribes. In doing so, it answers questions of interest not only for the study of Babylonian scholarship but also for the study of ancient Mesopotamian textual culture more generally, and for the study of traditions of written knowledge in the ancient world.

John Steele

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