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Mesopotamia

The Land of the Four River Banks

I. Methodology
1. Hermeneutics

Overview

Giorgio Buccellati – August 2024
  1. An integrated system. – T The 4Banks websites serve the traditional purpose of an annotated bibliography, and may be used accordingly as a source of information. It aims however to go beyond by offering a hermeneutic dimension.
  2. The two hermeneutics. – We aim to explore in depth two different hermeneutic levels – the one of the authors’ interests on the one hand, and, on the other, the one of the ancient world as seen through the lens of the authors cited.
  3. The scholarly tradition. – In this light, we aim to study specific topics seen in the development of the interests as they emerge from the publications, in the meaure in which they affect the core narrative to which any given version of the website is dedicated.
  4. The hermeneutic gradient. – The websites in the cluster relate to aspects of ancient life that are at different degrees of mediation with respect to our ability to assimilate their values – with politics being the most distant and religion the closest, for reasons that will be briefly explained.