Creating the event: the metamorphoses of an oracular consultation in Mesopotamia

Authors

  • Jean-Jacques Glassner Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9141.v0i170p15-46

Keywords:

Mesopotamia, oracular consultation, Narâm-Sîn, memory, historiography

Abstract

This article focuses on Narâm-Sîn’s military achievement and the oracular consultation connected with it, which formed a long commemorative tradition in Mesopotamia between the eighteenth and third centuries BC. This lengthy process preserved and disseminated the memory of the king’s achievement, revealing a series of transformations in the oracle questions and their interpretation. Diviners and scribes played a key role in these dynamics of memory construction and legitimization of the facts. By examining the development of this historiography through the few sources available, one can see how the Mesopotamians came to acknowledge the past as a supply of experiences that afforded a better understanding of the present.

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Published

2014-06-30

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

GLASSNER, Jean-Jacques. Creating the event: the metamorphoses of an oracular consultation in Mesopotamia. Revista de História, São Paulo, n. 170, p. 15–46, 2014. DOI: 10.11606/issn.2316-9141.v0i170p15-46. Disponível em: https://www.journals.usp.br/revhistoria/article/view/82563.. Acesso em: 18 may. 2024.