Healing Goddess Research Articles

The Healing Goddess Gula as an Astral Goddess and Her Connection with the She-Goat and the Dog Constellations

Gula the healing goddess is one of the best-known goddesses of Ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest mentions of Gula date back to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. In the 2nd millennium BC the worship of Gula became widespread in Mesopotamia. Later on Gula becomes an astral goddess; she is associated with Lyra, one of the brightest constellations in the northern sky. This article discusses the astral aspects of the goddess Gula as a constellation and her connection with the Goat and the Dog constellations, located respectively in the modern Lyra and Hercules. The complicated mythological relationships that existed between Gula and these constellations changed with time. Gula was regarded as the goddess of the Goat constellation while the Dog was Gula’s sacred animal. The article reviews the main characteristics of Gula and the two above-mentioned constellations, reconstructed from cuneiform sources pertaining to different types and periods, particularly astral epithets associated with Gula and images on the glyptics and boundary stones (kudurru). The figures of the Gula, the Goat, and the Dog constellations are reconstructed. It is shown that, at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, of these three constellations only the Goat and the Dog were identified in the Mesopotamian sky. Gula acquired astral significance not before the second half of the 2nd millennium BC.

The Healing Goddess, Her Dogs and Physicians in Late Third Millennium BC Mesopotamia

AbstractThis article presents the earliest documented association between the healing goddess, dogs and physicians in Mesopotamia. This is achieved through mining all relevant administrative texts from the livestock archive at Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem) dated to the Ur III period and corroborating the information gathered with the few pertinent iconographic and archaeological attestations.

The Fate of a Healing Goddess: Ocular Pathologies, the Antonine Plague, and the Ancient Roman Cult of Bona Dea

The aim of this article is to offer a diachronic and dynamic contextualisation of the ancient Roman cult of Bona Dea, connecting its cognitive underpinnings with its healing dimension. Special attention is devoted to the ocular concerns attested in the epigraphic inventory. The decline of the presence of Bona Dea on the religious scene, attested by the 3rd century CE, is considered to be the multi-causal result of the long-lasting, ocular side-effects of smallpox in the aftermath of the so-called Antonine Plague, which interacted with the correlated and prolonged lack of positive reinforcement concerning symptom relief and cognitive feedback.

Healing Gods, Heroes and Rituals in the Graeco-Roman World

This editorial introduces the articles published within the OLH Special Collection, ‘Healing Gods, Heroes and Rituals in the Graeco-Roman World’. The first two articles in this collection interrogate the figures of specific healing gods. Olympia Panagiotidou’s article ‘Asclepius’ Myths and Healing Narratives: Counter-Intuitive Concepts and Cultural Expectations’ focuses on the curative features that defined the image of Asclepius, the most famous of the healing gods. The next article in the collection, ‘The Fate of a Healing Goddess: Ocular Pathologies, the Antonine Plague, and the Ancient Roman Cult of Bona Dea’ by Leonardo Ambasciano, interrogates the religious figure of another healing agent: the Italian goddess Bona Dea who was particularly venerated in Rome and in the region of Latium and whose cult reveals the way in which ancient Roman androcentric control over women was institutionalised through religious figures. The third article in the collection, Audrey Ferlut’s ‘Goddesses as Consorts of the Healing Gods in Gallia Belgica and the Germaniae: Forms of Cult and Ritual Practices’ considers the impact that cults dedicated to gods and goddesses had on populations in the wider area of the Roman Empire, focusing on the Northern provinces of the Western Roman Empire (Gallia Belgica and the Germaniae). The collection’s final article, ‘From Textual Reception to Textual Codification: Thessalos and the Quest for Authenticity’ by Spyros Piperakis, moves the discussion from the question of cult practices to ‘alternative’ healing therapies in antiquity. Piperakis deals with astrological medicine, one of many alternative therapeutic methods that became popular during the Hellenistic and Roman period. Taken together, the articles in ‘Healing Gods, Heroes and Rituals in the Graeco-Roman World’ demonstrate that we need to approach the study of ancient myths and cults within their socio-cultural context. These articles thus challenge traditionalist approaches to the history of religion and reveal the richness of interdisciplinary approaches in the twenty-first century: offering new paths of inquiry that could help us to extract new data and shape a new interdisciplinarity in the current and future research of the religions and cults of Antiquity.

Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: A Profile of the Healing Goddess

AbstractIn his introduction to Ancient Mesopotamia, A. L. Oppenheim expressed his doubts about the feasibility to write a systematic account of Mesopotamian religion (, p. 172; cf. ). Indeed, if we understand religion as the sum of individual, conceptual and social concepts and take into account the nature and the state of preservation of the sources, it becomes evident that any description must remain incomplete. This is also the case when portraying the figure of the Ancient Mesopotamian healing goddess or goddesses. As a matter of fact, five deities were associated with the domain of healing and merged together into principally one goddess. Though they are all presented in the following discussion, emphasis is laid on the specific character of the healing goddess.

AN INSCRIPTION FROM NORTHERN ITALY, THE ROMAN TEMPLE COMPLEX IN BATH AND MINERVA AS A HEALING GODDESS IN GALLO‐ROMAN RELIGION *

SummaryThis article is about a dedication to Minerva by a Roman officer, made in a healing sanctuary in northern Italy, fulfilling a vow he had taken in Britain(?) In both northern Italy and in Britain Minerva was sometimes venerated as a healing goddess, for example at the spa of Bath which had possibly been visited by the officer in search of a cure. It is argued that this cult originated in the equation of pre‐Roman healing goddesses who had similar functions to Minerva. The inscription is taken as a starting point for an investigation into the geographical distribution and form of the cult in general. A major aim of this compilation of evidence is to show that central aspects of the veneration of Minerva as a healing goddess which are only attested in single cases can be taken with caution as comparative examples for her cult in other sanctuaries such as Bath, thus giving (despite many uncertainties) a more complete and vivid picture of the complexity of the religious life there and an idea of the attitude of people towards the goddess and of their hopes and emotions.