[THE BELIEF OF SACRIFICE AS A VOTIVE OFFERING IN THE CONTEXT OF HEALTH AT THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANATOLIA AND MESOPOTAMIA IN THE LIGHT OF ARCHEOLOGICAL FINDS].

Abstract

The human beings lived with hope and fears since the very first day of existence. The most instinctive fear, on the other hand, is the death, extinction, and slipping into eternity. Such fears of the human beings further brought along the concerns on life and, at this point, the human beings tended towards supernatural powers in accordance with matters such as overcoming death and manage to survive, which underlies his fears, in all cases that affects his health. As the medical facts with no describable reasons are mingled with remedies that predicate on belief during the times when no modem medicine was availab- le, the votive offerings on human life and the tributes and sacrifices offered to the divine powers worshipped represented an essential aspect of the life at that time. The fact that there is no study conducted up to the present on votive and sacrificial offerings, which are considered to be extremely substantial during the times when religion and medicine was co-practiced and generally treated as a part of worship elicited to establish the subject matter of this article study to be evaluation of sacrificial practices offered as votive offe- rings in the context of health with regard to the history of medicine. Therefore, our objective in this study is to evaluate the belief of votive and sacrificial offering with regard to history of medicine within the Phehistoric, Mesopotamia, Anatolia-Hittite and Ancient Greek cultures and to analyze and propound the evidences on the fact that the sacrifices offered on behalf of the people are actually practices in the context of health by employing the archeological and the scientific datas that also incorporates ancient references.