Esagil-kin-apli

Who is Esagil-kin-apli?

Esagil-kin-apli was the ummânū, or chief scholar, of Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina, 1067–1046 BC, as he appears on the Uruk List of Sages and Scholars listed beside him and is best known for his Diagnostic Handbook, Sakikkū, a medical treatise which uses symptoms to ascertain etiology, frequently supernatural, and prognosis, which became the received text during the first millennium.

He was a “prominent citizen of Borsippa” from a learned family as he was referred to as the “son” of Assalluḫi-mansum, the apkallu, or sage, of Hammurabi’s time, ca. 1792–1750 BC.