Current Evidence Boundary
Sumerian medical practice is attested but sparsely. The archive currently has one direct medical tablet and a small corpus of incantations that provide ritual context. We avoid extrapolating beyond these sources.
Prescriptions
P269190 (CBS 14221) contains multiple prescriptions. Specific ingredients and steps must be verified in the Civil editions before they are treated as primary evidence.
Ritual Language
The Ashmolean/Bodleian OECT 5 incantations and related tablets provide ritual vocabulary and framing. These texts may touch illness, protection, or purification, but they are not prescriptions.
Comparative Context Only
Later Akkadian and Neo‑Assyrian corpora clarify medical formula structures but do not provide Sumerian‑era evidence. They are used for comparison only.
Open Questions
- Do any Sumerian tablets explicitly describe a life‑giving drink or substance?
- Are any Sumerian medical tablets missing from CDLI’s current subgenre assignments?
- Which incantation formulas overlap with later medical procedures?
Evidence Files (Local)
research/sources/cdli-p269190.jsonresearch/sources/ebl-cbs-14221-rendered.htmlresearch/sources/cdli-p345800.jsonresearch/sources/cdli-p345801.jsonresearch/sources/cdli-p345802.jsonresearch/sources/cdli-p345803.jsonresearch/sources/cdli-p345804.jsonresearch/sources/cdli-p345805.jsonresearch/sources/ebl-bod-s-296-rendered.htmlresearch/sources/ebl-bod-s-297-rendered.htmlresearch/sources/ebl-bod-s-298-rendered.htmlresearch/sources/ebl-bod-s-299-rendered.htmlresearch/sources/ebl-bod-s-300-rendered.htmlresearch/sources/ebl-bod-s-301-rendered.html