Pan - Babylonism is a theory that attached exceptional importance to Mesopotamian culture, deriving all other cultures of the world from Babylonia and denying the ability of other peoples to develop independently. Pan-Babylonism was semi-popular among historians in the late XIX - early XX centuries. [1] . The emergence of pan-Babylonism is associated with biblical criticism and Protestant theology [2] .
Supporters argued that Babylonia is the center of civilizations of most of the world's nations, including peoples not only of the Mediterranean, but also of India, China, Central and South America [3] .
The theory was popular in Germany. Her supporters were Peter Christian Albrecht Jensen , Alfred Jeremias , Hugo Winkler and Friedrich Delich [4] [5] .
Adherents of pan-Babylonism relied on a number of parallels between Assyrian-Babylonian sources (for example, the cosmogonic myth of Enum Elish or the picture of the Flood in the epic of Gilgamesh ) and the Bible. Separately emphasized the idea of the relationship of Mesopotamian astral myths with the origin of the religions of the Old and New Worlds, as well as ideas about the widespread diffusion of the Babylonian system of measures and other elements of the Babylonian culture. The constructions of pan-Babylonism were often supplemented by unscientific ideological elements - attempts to draw parallels with pan-Germanism , anti-Semitic and anti-Christian prejudices.
Leading experts on the history of the Ancient East - Eduard Meyer , Adolf Erman , James Henry Brasted , Boris Turaev - criticized pan-Babylonism. They showed that even the closest geographically and actively in contact with Babylonia Egyptian civilization created its own written language and culture on its own.
Pan-Babylonism practically disappeared after the death of its main supporter - Hugo Winkler [6] . The claims of pan-Babylonism were refuted by the astronomical and chronological arguments of the German Jesuit priest Franz Xavier Kugler [7] . Having studied the corresponding cuneiform texts, he came to the conclusion that the most famous representations of Mesopotamian astronomy are of relatively late origin and could not form the basis of astronomical knowledge of other peoples.
See also
- Hyperdiffusionism
Notes
- ↑ Soviet historical encyclopedia
- ↑ Rostislav Snigirev. Biblical archeology . - ISBN 5041155445 .
- ↑ Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- ↑ Gold, Daniel. (2003). Aesthetics and Analysis in Writing on Religion: Modern Fascinations . University of California Press . pp. 149-158. ISBN 978-0520236141
- ↑ Scherer, Frank F. (2015). The Freudian Orient: Early Psychoanalysis, Anti-Semitic Challenge, and the Vicissitudes of Orientalist Discourse . Kanarc Books. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-78220-296-7
- ↑ Brown, Peter Lancaster. Megaliths, Myths, and Men: An Introduction to Astro-Archeology . - Dover. - Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000 .-- P. 267. - ISBN 9780486411453 .
- ↑ Jong, Teije de. Babylonian Astronomy 1880-1950: The Players and the Field . In Alexander Jones, Christine Proust, John M. Steele. (2016). A Mathematician's Journeys: Otto Neugebauer and Modern Transformations of Ancient Science . Springer pp. 285-286. ISBN 978-3-319-25863-8