The Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient Near East, pp. 579-596, 2023/04/12
Proceedings of the 64th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale and the 12th Melammu Symposium, University of Innsbruck, July 16‒20, 2018
This paper argues that the size, scope, and regularity of Mesopotamian ritual animal consumption makes it an apt phenomenon to compare with literature on the rise of the modern slaughterhouse and modern meat consumption. After demonstrating Mesopotamia’s uniqueness in this regard in the ancient world, it then shows how that uniqueness created a system of meat production that has modern-seeming characteristics in the origination of the animals, the constant turning over of stock, the anonymous bureaucratization of slaughter, and the use of meat as a commodity. Finally, it briefly gives three parallels one can draw between Mesopotamian and modern meat production and consumption.
