Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Abbreviations viii
4. Program xvii
5. Introduction 1
6. Part 1 What Is Fortune? What Is Misfortune?
7. Luck, Fortune, and Destiny in Ancient Mesopotamia Or How the Sumerians and Babylonians Thought of Their Place in the Flow of Things 5
8. The Concept of “Misfortune” in Sumerian Wisdom Literature 25
9. Man’s Fate: Divine Responsibility for Human Welfare in Ḫatti 39
10. Part 2 Man
11. Fortune and Misfortune of the Individual: Some Observations on the Sufferer’s Plaint in Ludlul bēl nēmeqi II 12–32 51
12. On the Fortune—or Misfortune—of Having Children: The Abundance of Children According to the Omen Text K. 6403 59
13. Gendering for Fortune and Misfortune: Ritual Gender Assignment in the Ancient Near East 75
14. Why Did Paškuwatti’s Patient Fail in the Matrimonial Bed? 97
15. Introduction aux symptômes mentaux en Mésopotamie 105
16. Legal Remedies against Misfortune: Evasion, Legal Fiction, and Sham Transactions in Late Bronze Age Emar 119
17. Hierarchy at the Hittite Court 129
18. Fortunes and Misfortunes of Messengers and Merchants in the Amarna Letters 143
19. Made Men: Rich Slaves of the Nūr-Sîns and the Egibis 165
20. Betting on the Right Horse: Loyalty in the Early Years of the Neo-Babylonian Empire 177
21. Part 3 King
22. The Origins of the LUGAL Office 193
23. Ups and Downs in the Career of Enmerkar, King of Uruk 201
24. “Šulgi, Mighty Man, King of Ur” 211
25. The Fate of Yasmaḫ-Addu, the King of Mari 221
26. Finding the Good Genius in Your Bowl 237
27. The Royal Adoption Scene in Ugaritic and Biblical Texts 247
28. “One Epic or Many?” Das Tukultī-Ninurta-Epos zum Ersten, zum Zweiten und zum. . .? 259
29. Part 4 City and State
30. Climate Change, the Mardu Wall, and the Fall of Ur 271
31. Regional Differences in Middle Assyrian 297
32. The Anatolian and Iranian Frontiers: Analyzing the Foreign Policy of the Assyrian Empire under Esarhaddon 307
33. Finis Assyriae: The Fall of the Assyrian State, or the Fall of the Assyrian Civilisation? 325
34. Fortune and Politics: Nabopolassar’s Campaigns in 616–615 b.c.e. and His Alliance with Media 335
35. More about the Crisis in Uruk 347
36. Part 5 God and Temple
37. Don’t Insult Inana! Divine Retribution for Offense against Common Decency in the Light of New Textual Sources 359
38. Fortune and Misfortune of the Eagle in the Myth of Etana 371
39. Within the Ekur: Sitz im Leben for a Literary Topos Regarding Nintur 383
40. Some Remarks on the Archaeology of the Ekur of Nippur during Post-Kassite Times 409