Scholars, Priests, and Temples: Babylonian and Egyptian Science in Context. Introduction

Abstract

This article introduces a double issue comprising 11 papers about Babylonian and Egyptian priests and scholarship between ca. 600 bce and 200 ce. They constitute the proceedings of the workshop “Scholars, Priests, and Temples: Babylonian and Egyptian Science in Context”, which was held at the Humboldt University Berlin, 12–14 May 2016, with support of the Excellence Cluster TOPOI. The workshop brought together Assyriologists and Egyptologists with expertise in Babylonian and Egyptian scholarship, priesthoods and temple institutions. All contributions have been revised and updated since then. The present contribution offers a brief introduction on previous research, cross-cultural interactions, economic aspects, royal patronage, and internal developments of Babylonian and Egyptian temple scholarship, followed by short summaries of the papers.