Introduction

Summary

The material of central interest to this book belongs to the ancient historical world of the Middle East, specifically to what I have previously and continue to classify as science in Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform texts. Cuneiform texts were my point of departure, but they led me down an unexpected path for the historiography of premodern science in the direction of the anthropology of science. As a consequence, in contrast to previous emphases on historical epistemologies reflected in historical bodies of knowledge, my interest shifts here to historical ontologies reflected in the worlds of the scribal compilers and practitioners of those bodies of knowledge. The shift in emphasis toward ontology, I will argue, can be theorized in terms of worldmaking, best approached by means of an anthropology of premodern science.