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Alan Pritchard
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AL Oppenheim
Mesopotamia in the early history of alchemy.
Rev Assyriol Archeol Orient 1 Jan 1966: p. 29.
http://highwire.stanford.edu/cgi/medline/pmid;19928331

"The purpose of this article is to draw attention to two small and fragmentary cuneiform texts which, in my opinion, throw light on a chapter of the history of science which has hitherto been hardly touched upon"

Alexander Guthrie Stewart
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Thanks, I might be able to get hold of that.  How on earth do you find such out of the way articles?

Paul Ferguson
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This short paper on Alchemy and Mathematics, available as a .pdf download, was inspired by Oppenheim's work:

http://akira.ruc.dk/~jensh/Publications/2000%7Bd%7D_Alchemy.PDF

Alexander Guthrie Stewart
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Ahh, further digging reveals that these are the texts that were discussed in my archaeological glass and glazes module a couple of weeks ago.  Much more information can be found in Oppenheimer, Brill, Barag and Von Saldern, "Glass and glassmaking in ancient Mesopotamia", Corning Museum of glass, 1970.

In my opinion, there's no relation to alchemy except insofar as early technical operations became subsumed into Alchemy around 2,000 years ago.  But the texts are interesting for the mix of technical information about what materials should be used, how much of each, and the unusual 2 stage manufacturing process, and religious actions such as sacrifices and taboos to be observed. 

adammclean
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Alan Pritchard wrote: AL Oppenheim
Mesopotamia in the early history of alchemy.
Rev Assyriol Archeol Orient 1 Jan 1966: p. 29.
http://highwire.stanford.edu/cgi/medline/pmid;19928331

There appears to be a complete run of this journal Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale in Glasgow University Library. I will try and access the article on my next visit in a week or so.




Alan Pritchard
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The full reference is vol 60 part 1 (1966) pp.29-45.

Alan Pritchard
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This group.

Feeds from various sources, especially Highwire Press CiteTrack, which picked up this reference from a continuous updating of Medline (which often includes older material) and IngentaConnect InTouch, Sage Publishers and other publishers feeds (all for for more academic material)

and eBay, Google Alerts, other less-academic groups.




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