Article

Réflexions sur les notions de sauvage et domestique en Mésopotamie à travers l'exemple du chien

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to see how the distinction wild/domestic, well attested in cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia, manifests itself in Sumero-Akkadian culture through the example of the dog. Indeed, the integration of animals in a conceptual scheme obeys to different rules according to the cultural systems concerned, allowing the development of a multitude of classification criteria. As the perfect domestic animal on the biological level, the dog is clearly associated to the anthropized world and, more generally, to society itself in Sumero-Akkadian texts from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BC. However, the study of Mesopotamian lexical lists also reveals that this animal was considered as belonging to the wild fauna. Through this work, the question will be to determine which elements may have contributed to exclude the dog from the category of domestic animals and to see on which scale those criteria might be transposed to other species. The example of the dog can then be the occasion to engage in a deeper reflection on the way of integrating different animal species in a symbolic interpretative framework, according to their morphological and behavioural characteristics, or yet the sort of interaction they have with human populations.

How to Cite:

Vilela, A., (2023) “Réflexions sur les notions de sauvage et domestique en Mésopotamie à travers l'exemple du chien”, Akkadica 144(1), 1–16.

Rights: © The author