RAI 70: Book of Abstracts
Contents
- Keynote Lectures
- W01: City and Country in the Geography of Late Bronze Age Anatolia
- W02: E.L.A.M.: Elamite Languages, Arts and Material Cultures
- W03: Everyday Life in the Ur III Period
- W04: Botanical Heritage: The Role of Plants in Mesopotamian Daily Life
- W05: Letters – Beyond Editions
- W06: Redefining Social Complexity in the Late 4th millennium BC
- W07: Current Research on Mesopotamian Magic
- W08: Upper Mesopotamia in the 2nd and 1st Millennia BC: New Research and Perspectives
- W09: The Forgotten City of Kish: Local Perspectives
- W10: “Kings Born to Be Wild”: Current Research on Sumerian Royal Panegyrics
- W11: 100 Years of Nuzi: A Workshop Celebrating a Century of Discovery
- W12: Writing the Dawn of the Anthropocene
- W13: Society, Geography, and Chronology through Prosopography
- W15: Divination and Daily Life
- W16: Daily Mathematical Life in Mesopotamia
- W17: Local Power and Urban Institutions in Ancient Western Asia during the 2nd Millennium BCE
- W18: Everyday Life in the Late Babylonian Period
- W19: Intertextuality in Cuneiform Literature and Beyond
- W20: Cultural Memory in the Ancient Near East
- W21: Religion and Economy in Ancient Mesopotamia
- W22: Archaeology of Texts
- W23: Akkadian Linguistics
- W24: Daily Life in Uruk in the First Millennium BCE
- General Track
- Posters
Keynote Lectures
Housing, Personal Wealth, and the Ur III State
Recent archaeological research has made significant strides in examining wealth and inequality across the Ancient Near East from a diachronic perspective. However, the final centuries of the third millennium BCE have often been overlooked in these studies due to the lack of sufficiently consistent datasets. This paper addresses that gap by analyzing some quantitative data derived from textual sources to explore the factors influencing individual wealth and housing during this period. These factors include access to subsistence land, time allocated to state-imposed duties, required payments under specific circumstances, the intensity of state pressure to fulfill labor and material obligations, and the degree of state control over individuals’ lives and property. Together, these elements played a critical role in shaping everyday life and well-being.
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From Dawn to Dusk: The Tyranny of Time in the Babylonians’ Daily Life
While today we are all harassed by devices that encourage us to use time efficiently, it may seem that living without watches or clocks the ancient Babylonians were spared these hassles. But time-keeping was part of the earliest accounting system and in their detail developed to what may seem levels of absurdity. This paper will discuss how time was measured and what its effects were on people’s daily lives. It will also elaborate how time was inherently tied to labor organization and how changes in one led to changes in the other in early second millennium Babylonia.
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Growing Up Imperial: Raising the Next Generation of Empire in 1st Millennium BCE Mesopotamia
Analyses of the forms and functions of the empires in Mesopotamia during the 1st millennium BCE typically focus on the operational roles of their kings, officials, and bureaucrats. Yet the success or failure of the imperial mission did not rely solely on top-down governance, but to a great extent on the empire’s ability to instill and perpetuate its norms and ideologies, particularly among its power-holding elites. These elites, largely comprising urban men serving the state as officials and administrators but also including royal family members, were socialized from their earliest years into the empire’s customs, cultural expectations, and socio-political hierarchies. Moreover, for the empire to achieve long term success, it was essential to transmit these imperial structures and values intergenerationally, so that the next cohort of powerbrokers were raised as active stakeholders in the imperial mission. This lecture explores some of these processes of upbringing and socialization, asking how people were raised within the expectations and worldviews of empire and to what effect.
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General Track
Everyday Life of Neo-Assyrian Soldiers in Peacetime (734-617 BCE.).
The aim of this paper is to analyze the daily life of Assyrian soldiers outside of warfare, in a civilian context, during the first millennium BCE (8th-7th centuries). The archives discovered at Nineveh and other cities like Dur-katlimmu have yielded a substantial corpus of cuneiform tablets belonging to soldiers, particularly related to soldiers of high ranks as central figures.
These documents, dating from the reigns of Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BCE) to Sîn-šar-iškun (626-612 BCE), and includes at least 212 contracts. These contracts encompass a range of activities in different sectors, providing valuable insights into the daily civil activities of Assyrian soldiers, not only in Nineveh, the last capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, but also in the entire empire, reaching Al-Arish in Egypt. I will examine these records to demonstrate that Assyrian soldiers were more than simply warriors; they were also social and economic actors within the broader community.
Through an examination of their transactions, this study focuses on the soldiers' daily involvement in various economic sectors, including agriculture (acquisition and management of land), real estate (property purchase), the slave trade, money lending, and the leasing of assets.
Beyond these financial transactions, the study also illuminates the social aspect. A prosopographical approach is employed to analyze the interactions of military personnel with diverse members of society, including the king, superiors, comrades, servants, family members, neighbors, members of the social elite, and others.
Furthermore, the study also focuses on the social status of the soldier, through the analysis of his involvement in other civil affairs, such as acting as witnesses in legal proceedings, and participating in administrative and judicial functions as judges, among other roles.
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Teaching and Learning in the House of the Āšipu
In 1969, a Deutsche Archäologische Institut team uncovered the remains of an ancient house with a large private archive in the southeastern corner of Uruk. Further investigation of the house and the tablets discovered there revealed that the house had been occupied by two families with the same profession. From the mid-fifth to early fourth century BCE, members of the Šangu-Ninurta clan lived in the house. In the mid-fourth century BCE, the house was reoccupied by the Ekur-zakir clan. Members of both clans worked as āšipu, a type of medical practitioner who used his knowledge of incantations and omens to drive away illnesses and perform purifications. Certain features of one of the rooms of the “House of the Āšipu” and the assemblage of finds excavated there indicate that members of the Šangu-Ninurta and Ekur-zakir clans also instructed junior scribes in āšipūtu. In this paper, I use the archives of the Šangu-Ninurta and Ekur-zakir clans to investigate what it meant to be an āšipu in the late Achaemenid and early Hellenistic periods. What professional knowledge was required, and how was that knowledge protected and transmitted to future generations of āšipu? How should the changing role of astrological and astronomical knowledge in āšipūtu be understood? In what ways did contemporary political and social pressures shape the careers of members of the Šangu-Ninurta and Ekur-zakir clans? Drawing on methodologies of microhistory and the history of knowledge, I situate the intellectual history of a particular profession within the social history of Achaemenid and Hellenistic Uruk.
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Bēl Adê ša Šarri Anāku – The Man Who Had Taken an Oath of the King
The oath of allegiance sworn by the ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to political actors who recognised his authority served as an important instrument of power. It ensured either the loyalty of a vassal state or the succession to the throne that the ruler had planned. In the 8th-7th centuries BC, this form of oath was called adê, or the king’s adê (adê ša šarri). While the existing literature on the Neo-Assyrian oath has primarily focused on its role in the context of treaties between states, an analysis of the texts on the adê reveals that, in addition to its function as a treaty, the oath played a pivotal role in the structure and functioning of the Assyrian administration. It appears that a considerable number of individuals within the imperial administrative hierarchy participated in the oath-taking ceremony with the king. My paper focuses on the notable impact it had on their daily responsibilities and social standing. Being in an oath relationship with the king was a marker of rank, and even private documents often make mention of the fact that one of the participants was a bēl adê, a man who had taken an oath. Furthermore, in the official correspondence of the empire, it was also a powerful argument that if one was a bēl adê, it was repeatedly referenced by members of the administration at various levels.
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Deities and Festivals in Early Dynastic Zabalam and KI.AN
An in-depth study devoted to the pantheon of the Early Dynastic Umma region is so far lacking. Recently, there has been a constant influx of published - chiefly administrative - texts from this area. So, there is a need for interpretational work concerning its deities, their organization, and the religious festivals held in their honor. Among the newly published material are several texts that deal with cultic events in the towns of Zabalam and AN.KI, both important locations in the Umma region during the Early Dynastic period. The paper offers a view of the yearly cycle of these events in Zabalam and AN.KI, attempts to illuminate religious practices (e.g., offerings of various substances, cultic processions) and thereafter aims to reconstruct the network of deities in the pantheon in the frame of this cultic calendar. The study of the pantheon in the context of festivals is instrumental, as it was during festivals when the roles, tasks, and family relations of the Götterwelt were exemplified. The results are gained from work done during the first quarter of a two-year post-doctoral research project focusing on the pre-Ur III pantheon of the Umma city-state.
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The Measurement of Time in Everyday Life during the Old Babylonian Period
Calendars and the measurement of time serve as invaluable tools for understanding the everyday life of ancient communities. Specifically, during the Old Babylonian period, various calendrical systems provide crucial insights into religious festivals, cults, as well as economic and agricultural activities. There is also a strong connection between timekeeping and military events. By analyzing a selection of Old Babylonian texts from different areas, this paper will explore how the measurement of time can reveal connections to everyday life, with a specific emphasis on military, agricultural and economic activities.
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Daily Water Management at Larsa in the early 2nd Millennium BC
In the Near East, water has always been a fundamental element in the development of human societies and a daily preoccupation of populations and their leaders, as evidenced by the numerous administrative, legal and epistolary texts, as well as royal inscriptions and year names concerning it. For the peoples of southern Mesopotamia, water management was of considerable importance. Whether for irrigating farmland, transporting goods or supplying drinking water to people living in cities, the digging and maintenance of canals was a constant preoccupation, from the widest canal diverting water from the Tigris or Euphrates to the smallest gullies supplying fields and houses.
Recent archaeological investigations on the tell Senkereh (ancient Larsa) and its surroundings have completely renewed our knowledge of man's involvement in the design and layout of the hydrographic network of one of the great capitals of Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium. Geophysical prospecting, supplemented by field surveys and excavations of key points in the intra-urban hydrographic network, have shown what modern methods of archaeological research can achieve. The large number of archival documents from this period, from all over Amorite Mesopotamia, from the kingdom of Mari to that of Larsa, via Babylonia, put words to the field data and gave them a new consistency, anchoring the present-day remains in the quotidian life of the inhabitants of the time, almost 4000 years ago.
This contribution aims to shed light on an important aspect of daily life in Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian period, while demonstrating the value of interdisciplinarity in our recent research. Epigraphy and historical source analysis complement archaeological data. Conversely, data from the field is used to give meaning to the cuneiform texts we study, with disciplines constantly enriching each other in an ongoing dialogue.
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The Institution of Child Support in the Ancient Near East and Its Implications for Women's Status and Rights in a Patriarchal Society
In many cultures, a significant gap exists between biological and legal fatherhood. In Roman law, for instance, a child was considered the legal offspring of a father only if born within a lawful marriage. Moreover, such marriages were strictly regulated—for example, slaves were legally barred from marrying free citizens. As a result, many children had no legally recognized father, leaving their mothers solely responsible for their upbringing and financial support.
By contrast, the legal framework of the Ancient Near East operated under a different principle. While certain distinctions—primarily regarding inheritance—existed between children born to a primary wife and those born within other forms of unions, legal fatherhood was recognized in all cases where paternity could be reasonably presumed. Consequently, there was no fundamental gap between biological and legal fatherhood.
This principle was particularly relevant to child support obligations following parental separation—a matter of immense practical significance. In a recent study (Child Custody in the Ancient Near East, Shveka 2024), I demonstrated that, contrary to previous assumptions, the prevailing norm in cases of divorce or separation was that the mother retained custody of the children. In every such case, the law ensured her right to receive child support from the father, regardless of her legal status—whether she was a primary wife, a secondary wife, a concubine, a female slave, or even a prostitute. Moreover, in many instances, the law prioritized this obligation over the father’s personal interests.
This legal framework had far-reaching implications for women's status. Despite the patriarchal nature of Ancient Near Eastern societies, the enforcement of child support obligations contributed to a comparatively stronger position for women, affording them greater rights than those available in many other patriarchal societies throughout history.
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The Politics of Silence: Experiencing the First Decades of Persian Rule in Babylonia (c. 539–500 BCE)
Herodotus was perhaps the first, but certainly not the last, historian to suggest that the fall of Babylon to the Persians (539 BCE) happened so swiftly that many Babylonians barely noticed it. Today, most Assyriologists agree that the Persian takeover had little to no impact on the daily lives of ordinary people. In this lecture, I will argue that this view overlooks the role of silence as a form of political communication by the Persians. I will explore how Babylonian audiences experienced silence during the early years of Persian rule and how they could have interpreted its meaning.
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A Baby on Fire: How Išum Got His Name
CT 15 5–6, an Old-Babylonian tablet of unknown provenance, speaks of the origins of the god Išum, the divine night watchman: Ninlil bore him to her grandson Šamaš, set him on fire, and left him in the street. We learn of these events from words Ištar, whom we find fostering the newborn in the temple Ekur, addresses to Enlil. This paper argues that Ninlil’s lighting of Išum in CT 15 5–6 and his subsequent fostering by Ištar constitute an etiology for his name: Ištar, finding a baby on fire, named him Išum—a masculine singular noun derived from Akkadian išātum, “fire.” The paper then brings forward a variety of sources—Middle-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and biblical—to argue that Ištar’s naming of Išum is rooted in a Mesopotamian, and more broadly ancient Near Eastern, naming practice whereby foundlings were given names having to do with the circumstances in which they were found. CT 15 5–6, it is therefore argued, is a mythologization of everyday life in the ancient Near East.
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A Fine Balance: Shifts and Ambiguities in the Mesopotamian Exorcist’s Ritual Speech
One of the defining features of the Mesopotamian exorcist (āšipu/mašmaššu) was the power of his words. Previous discussions of the exorcist’s ritual speech have mostly focused on his verbal legitimation strategies, pointing out that the expert drew on divine authorization to perform his craft, even to the extent of identifying his words with divine words and himself with the god Marduk/Asalluḫi. However, I argue that the exorcist’s speech was able to mediate the presence of various agents in the ritual and shift from one to another as needed. The exorcist could lend his voice to different entities, including but not limited to the gods.
Although the exorcist could mediate divine speech or, more generally, divine presence to his clients, he could also mediate his clients’ concerns to the gods, speak for them, and represent them. Additionally, he could present himself as a mere human servant, meticulously performing his ritual tasks. These complementary tendencies reveal constant shifts in the exorcist’s self-presentation that straddled a fine balance between the human and the divine.
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Material Composition of Different Types of Private Households in Old Babylonian Period
Based on the written sources, we can distinguish at least four different types of private households in the Old Babylonian period, not only by the size of the houses, but also by the extent of different types of immovable property (arable land, gardens, urban plots) and other assets such as slaves. Based on the size of the houses, these household types can also be identified from archaeological remains, thus linking archaeological and written sources.
The documents that also list household items, above all inheritance contracts and gift documents, show different patterns in the material composition of household types. It is very clear how the background for commensality and feasting is expanding as household size increases. Although, unfortunately, we do not have division of inheritance contracts with a clear archival context and a longer list of objects, certain trends are nevertheless clearly discernible.
The aim of the lecture is to present the material composition of households of different sizes in the form of models. These models will show how, as households grow in size, their material culture becomes more diverse and their dependence on other specialised households increases. The density of the social network is increased by these very factors.
They can also provide more precise data for social history research that investigates inequalities in wealth distribution. We probably know most prices of objects from the Old Babylonian period, so that the wealth-value index that has been constructed so far from grave goods or simply from house sizes can be more reliably calculated. In many cases, it is possible to estimate the value of an entire household in this period.
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Daily Life on the Excavations in Babylon (1899–1917)
The 18 years of excavation under the direction of the architect Robert Koldewey began on 26 March 1899 and ended on 7 March 1917 due to the First World War. The work was only interrupted twice for longer periods, from 7 April to 23 June 1905 for negotiations with the Ottoman authorities, and from 14 October 1915 to 2 January 1916 because of the presence of Allied troops.
The paper discusses the hierarchically organised social relationships and the interdependencies of the excavation. The starting point are the instructions for the Babylon expedition written by Robert Koldewey in his role as excavation director, which were modified several times during the course of the work. In addition to the postulated regulatory framework, Koldewey's ambivalent relationship with the participating Assyriologists (B. Meißner, E. Lindl, F.H. Weißbach) plays an important role here, which has so far received little scholarly attention.
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From School Bench to Temple Management. The lives of Nuska-nīšu and His Friends.
Nuska-nīšu, son of Ilšu-ibbišu, is a prominent temple official in the temple of Nuska in Nippur between Samsuiluna 13 and 28. He owns terms in the offices of overseer of the temple, of doorkeeper, of pašīšum priest, of lu2-niĝ2-dab5-ba and of buršuma. Interestingly, the colophon of a fragmentary school text identifies its junior scribe as “Nuska-nīšu, son of the overseer of the Nuska-temple”. The name Nuska-nīšu, albeit without patronymic or profession, also appears repeatedly on the lists of pupils receiving tablets in the e2 um-mi-a. Several factors indicate that these three contexts concern one and the same person.
In this talk, I will examine the prosopographic parallels between the lists of school attendants – which are hard to identify by lack of patronymics and professions – and the legal documents from Old Babylonian Nippur. Many of pupils of the e2 um-mi-a appear to become temple officials in later life, some of them directly interacting with Nuska-nīšu, and others well-known from other dossiers concerning the ownership of temple offices.
Thus, I will demonstrate how Nuska-nīšu’s schoolmates appearing in the e2 um-mi-a lists later become his peers in the temples of Old Babylonian Nippur.
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Narrating One’s Own Experience: Health, Illness, and Disability in Ego-Documents in Ancient Mesopotamia
This study explores how experiences of health, illness, and disability are expressed in cuneiform texts through ego-documents in ancient Mesopotamia. Ego-documents, written in the first-person (I), are crucial historical sources that reveal individuals' inner worlds, life experiences, and how they positioned themselves within a societal context. This study will examine how fragile bodies are transformed into powerful narratives through examples of cuneiform documents from various periods.
Texts such as Ludlul bēl nēmeqi present illness and healing processes not merely as physical pain or the quest for recovery, but as complex emotional experiences shaped by anger towards the gods and hopes for healing. The protagonist Šubši-mešre-šakkan goes beyond a personal outpouring; it illustrates how these experiences intersect with cultural norms, how social identities and moral values are shaped, and how religious beliefs are essential for making sense of the struggle for survival.
The Letter-prayer of Inannaka to Nintinuga, dating from the Old Babylonian period, tells of a woman’s process of coping with a foot injury, offering a personal prayer to the healing goddess Nintinuga. This document reveals the impact of disability on daily life and highlights how health and socio-cultural norms are intricately interwoven in personal experiences.
Cuneiform documents do not limit the ideal of physical and cognitive competence to male representations alone. The narratives of female characters also idealize bodily integrity.
Adad-guppi’s autobiographical text presents her physical and mental health experiences in a powerful first-person narrative, demonstrating the profound impact of these experiences on an individual's quality of life and psychological state. It contributes to our understanding of normative body perception through the lenses of daily life practices and the interplay between mental and physical integrity.
Ego-documents, as intersections of identity formation, social structures, and individual experiences, encourage reflection on how individuals define themselves.
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From the Early Years of the Royal Treasure Archive of Esaĝdana-Nibru
The thirty-three administrative documents in the present publication only represent a part of the clandestine finds from Puzriš-Dagān, which have been confiscated in the past years and are now kept in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. Regarding their contents, the documents can be situated in the well-known archival context of Puzriš-Dagān. The texts of the present volume provide further evidence for the early Ur III archives on treasures and crafts. They document various transactions of gold and silver, semi-precious stones, weapons, furniture, and leather objects.
The dates of the newly published texts fall between the years Šulgi 31 and Šulgi 43/02, and the city named in all documents is Esaĝdana Nibru. (e₂-saĝ-da-na nibruki), “House at (the End of) a Mile from Nippur” is the older name for Puzriš-Dagān. The distance of the site of Drehem from Nippur corresponds quite well to the length of a dana (or danna), the Sumerian “mile” of 10.8 km. In the course of Šulgi’s economic and tax reforms, The year date referred to the building of Puzriš-Dagān as a “house of Šulgi” (e₂ dsul-ge) including the complex of palace and temples which may be identified with the buildings on the terrace on the south-eastern side of the site . Although texts from the royal administration use the new and official name Puzriš-Dagān, texts from the provincial archives of Umma and Ĝirsu continue to call it (E)saĝdana. The identity of Esaĝdana with the site of Drehem was confirmed with the find of a tablet excavated there by the expedition of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage directed by Ali Obaid Shalgham in 2007 and identified as written “in E[saĝdana Nibru]”.
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Everyday Inequality in First Millennium Babylonia
Inequality is a seemingly inescapable aspect of daily life, and this was no less true for the Babylonians: access to resources directly affected living conditions. Using selected family case studies, this paper presents some results of a project exploring the connection between inheritance and inequality in Babylonia during the first millennium BC. The focus is on the transmission of wealth from one generation to the next via three mechanisms: inheritance, dowry, and gift giving. The paper also explores ways of analysing and quantifying the data we have collected.
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Mapping Ancient Mesopotamian Sacred Space
In this talk, I will present findings from the *Mesopotamian Material Religion* (MeMaRe) project, which uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to explore sacred spaces in Mesopotamia (3000–539 BCE). I will demonstrate how GIS mapping reveals spatial patterns in temples, shrines, public spaces, and ancestral sites, offering insights into ancient religious landscapes. Employing theoretical frameworks from Mircea Eliade’s concept of hierophany and Jonathan Z. Smith’s ritual-centered approach, I will discuss how sacred spaces were constructed, experienced, and transformed. Using GIS, I will present preliminary spatial analyses across micro (individual site practices), meso (intra-site spatial patterns), and macro (regional distributions) scales. This multi-scalar approach reveals shifts in sacred space distribution and their connections to broader social and political dynamics.
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To What Extent did Salinity Contribute to the Decline of Empires in Southern Mesopotamia?
The primary evidence for salinization during Mesopotamian times can be derived from the analysis of ancient texts. For instance, saline ground parcels were mentioned as remaining uncultivated due to salinization. Another example is the transition at the onset of the Akkadian Period from primarily cultivating wheat to almost exclusively growing the more salt-tolerant barley in the alluvial plain, which has been proposed as a response to increasing soil salinity.
Nevertheless, no geological evidence in soil or sediment sections indicates an increase in soil or water salinity in the floodplain. Therefore, it could be argued that, in a worst-case scenario, unsustainable irrigation practices and agricultural salinization may impact specific areas rather than the entire floodplain. It is geologically improbable for the whole floodplain of southern Mesopotamia, or significant portions of it, to have been saline to such an extent that it would lead to widespread abandonment of farms and cities. Some regions might experience salinity issues due to inadequate water management; however, this can not last for long as salts dissolve during subsequent flooding stages.
Consequently, if we want to only deal with natural causes that might have led to civilization's fall in southern Mesopotamia, then we should exclude salinity and can only think about the change of the river courses that led to flooding an area and turning another into a desert. The geological record shows many examples of that.
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Banqueting in Ancient Ugarit
Humanity has always been fond of good food and drinks. Each significative event, like a marriage or a funeral, has frequently been accompanied by a banquet, where fine dishes and alcoholic beverages play an important part. Banqueting has therefore always occupied a prominent place in human’s daily life.
This is so today but it was also the case in Antiquity. Ancient Near Eastern textual and iconographical sources give us information on how ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians thought of banquets and confirm that banqueting was not a human privilege. The gods too enjoyed many banquets, where large quantities of food and drinks were consumed, and important decisions were made.
In the coastal town of Ugarit too, banqueting must have been an important part of life, as the Ugaritic texts, dating from the 14th and 13th centuries BCE, frequently mention different types of banquets. This paper will examine these different types of banqueting. It will start with a lexicological study of the five Ugaritic words connected with banquets. Next it will discuss to what extent the banquets were religious or secular activities. The role of alcoholic beverages will shortly be touched upon.
As can be expected, the main sources for the lecture are the various texts drafted in the Ugaritic language, but when necessary or useful, Akkadian texts, iconographical and archaeological sources will also be included in the discussion.
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Everyday Aramaic in the Neo-Assyrian Empire
The vast bulk of the surviving Neo-Assyrian textual corpus is dominated by varieties of Akkadian. But this was not the everyday language of many of the people who lived in and around the Neo-Assyrian state. As we know from different sources, the Aramaic language gradually became ever more deeply entrenched in the Assyrian world. Even so, the nature of our evidence makes it easy to overlook the role of Aramaic in everyday life. Surviving Aramaic material is generally difficult to read, terse, and confined to mundane genres like contracts and labels. The result is that Aramaic evidence languishes on the margins of Assyriology, where its existence is noted but its implications and extent remain unaddressed. Over the next five years, the ARAMAIZATION ERC project will review the evidence for vernacular Aramaic in the Neo-Assyrian empire and reconstruct the language ecology that enabled the rise of written Aramaic. This paper outlines the project’s research plan and charts a new path forward that intends to do justice to everyday Aramaic in the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
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The People of Kanesh among Their River and Spring Goddesses during the MBA Period
The many functions of rivers and wells for the daily life of the people of Kanesh will be analysed and the probable impact of these in their thoughts and beliefs will be proposed. The Sarimsakli river passed through the lower town settlement of Kanesh during the Old Assyrian period. The river with the old name Humatum was probably more substantial than the river today. Nearby Kanesh, the Massarantiya river flows to the Lowerland and then to the Black Sea. The wells of Kanesh also are mentioned in the Old Assyrian texts. The river and the wells were of utmost importance to the daily life of the people of Kanesh. In their belief the river and wells were habituated by goddesses, who have to be treated respectfully and be cared for. Old Assyrian texts mention river ordeals in which the guilt of accused was examined. Several Hittite texts show that the river goddess judged, but that she did not punish the guilty. The ruler decided after the ordeal whether a (death) sentence had to be carried out. Many MBA Anatolian rituals are connected with the banks of rivers. The “Words of Water and the Words of Clay” were used for purification and healing. A river could provide contact with foreign peoples and exchange of goods. But the river also often was a way to maintain contact with related clans. In their belief the rivers and wells were an entrance to the underworld. They were connected to underground rivers that flowed to or from the sea. The rivers and the banks had a great impact on the experience of the relationship with divine natural forces.
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Rediscovered in Babylon: A Letter from Bēl-Ibni to the Assyrian King
This paper presents a newly identified letter from Bēl-ibni, Ashurbanipal’s commander-in-chief in the Sealand, to the Assyrian king. While Bēl-ibni is known from numerous letters found in Nineveh, this letter was discovered in Babylon. During my work on the GoviB project, I identified it in an old excavation photograph taken by Robert Koldewey’s team in the 1910s. Although the tablet’s current whereabouts remain unknown, and the text is fragmentary and difficult to decipher from the photographs, preliminary analysis suggests it relates to one of Ashurbanipal’s campaigns against Ummanaldašu (Ḫumban-ḫaltaš III).
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The Role of First-Millenium Mesopotamian Scribes During Wartime
Mesopotamian scribes serve as the “human eyes” that have allowed modern day scholars to get a glimpse of the everyday life in the Ancient Near East. On top of their administrative and social obligations, an important – and often overlooked – scribal task was the role they played during war times. It is logical to imagine that extensive kingdoms, as those found in ancient Mesopotamia, needed bureaucracy to maintain a functioning empire. Such bureaucracy must have indeed been needed the most when an empire went to war – and in such a situation the scribes had a pivotal role in the preparation and carrying out of the war, as well as in its aftermath. Textual, pictographic, and archaeological evidence give us an insight into the tasks scribes carried out during the war and can be divided into three general sections: before, during, and after the war. As focus for my study, I have looked specifically at the scribes during the first millennium, though in coming months I hope to expand my studies to evidence from earlier millennia, when available.
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The Last Ēntu Princess in Ur: En-nigaldi-Nanna
During 554 — 553 BCE the sixth Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus consecrated one of his daughters as an ēntu-priestess in Ur, giving to her a new name — En-nigaldi-Nanna. The consecration recreated an ancient temple tradition and at the same time it was used by the ruler with some political intentions. How the written sources and archaeological evidence describe the event? What was the political context of this — at first glance, pure cultic act? What we know about the noble priestess? The present paper is an attempt to answer these questions.
All available sources on the issue are synchronistic, belong to cuneiform tradition and can be divided in two groups. The first group consists of different passages from royal inscriptions while the second group is presented by one historical-literary text, the so called “Royal Chronicle”. The most informative source is the cylinder inscription YBC 2182 (Nabonidus no. 34), probably from Ur, composed on this occasion.
The consecration was part of a wider process of royal activities attested in five consecutive episodes: divine sign (lunar eclipse) and its interpretation, restoration of ancient rituals based on old inscriptions, the consecration itself, building works within the “sacred precinct” in Ur, multiplication of the offerings to the local shrines and giving a privileged status to their priesthood by the king. The princess herself has not an active role in the written narrative, because the cultic act, not her person, was the object of description. En-nigaldi-Nanna’s activities as high-priestess are poorly attested. Some archaeological discoveries suppose that in addition to her religious duties she had her own scribal circle within the residence Egipar. The consecration and the new ēntu were used by Nabonidus as instruments for the legitimation of his power and his personal devotion to the Moon god, as result of a family tradition.
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King of the Kings and "Charisma of the Kingdom" in Assyria and Achaemenid Empires
The Assyrian and Achaemenid empires legitimized their rule and maintained their vast empires by using the title "King of Kings" and cultivating the "charisma of the kingdom." However, the specific ways in which they did so differed significantly. The Assyrians relied more on military might and fear, while the Achaemenids emphasized royal grandeur, justice, religious legitimacy, and a more inclusive approach to governance.
In the article, I will present new views on the "charisma of the kingdom" as an element of the right to legitimate power. The paper will outline the concepts of the ideal ruler in the Assyrian and Achaemenid empires, the "khvarna," as a symbol of legitimate royal power, emphasizing the military force and imperial ideology of the King of the Kings.
My paper will delve into the nature of power and legitimacy in two of the Ancient Near Eastern greatest empires.
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Task Management and Coordination in the Neo-Assyrian Letters
Task management and coordination are common topics in the Neo-Assyrian everyday court correspondence. The paper aims to study letters and administrative texts that show us different aspects of Assyrian management, such as task prioritization, deadline setting, resource procurement, and labor and time organization needed for the proper daily meeting of the state's needs. This communication includes socially and professionally diverse groups such as governors, temple staff, craftsmen, and artisans. At the top, the king was usually indicated as the ultimate authority. Special attention will be paid to the vocabulary of the documents. It can provide valuable insights into hierarchy and the standardization of communication in actions and projects. Among the studied cases are the process of production of divine statues, as well as facilities and building construction - for example, the building of a bridge and a weir in text SAA 15 156. Other proper cases from the plentiful Assyrian archives will also be studied.
Methodologically I will try to relate the everyday working relationships between people and groups in the texts to modern management theories such as coordination theory and the critical-path method. Thus the paper will try to define the importance of routine proceedings and stress the creative approaches when attested. For example, letter 01 158 is an example of a strict execution of orders. Ṭab-šar-Aššur – a person who held important positions during Sargon’s reign is instructed from the palace to cut, load, and bring to Nineveh 150 basalt steps. His answer is simple and formally follows the question, confirming that the resources are heading to their destination. In 01 056, however, the same person has to improvise in order to complete the assigned tasks, motivated by his responsibility (pūtuhu).
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Some Old Babylonian Seals and Seal-Impressions from Tell Ḥarmal (Ancient Šaduppûm)
Through the large number of texts from Šaduppûm (ca. 3000 written artifacts), these seals and seal impressions are precious jewels of knowledge in the Šaduppûm Collection. Alongside rare historical finds such as stelae and statues, these artifacts form a nearly continuous chain of smaller but invaluable evidence for studying the history, art, religion, and epigraphy of the region. Such archaeological and historical insights significantly aid in the chronological and geographical classification of seals. Dated seals and seal impressions on dated tablets have served as primary and valuable reference points. In this article, we will provide information about their definition and the period to which they belong. To determine their cultural significance, relevant details are presented by comparing them with other examples and similar items. The seals studied in this paper show signs of abrasion, with some deterioration caused by extensive use and scraping. The cylinder seals of this study represent the Akkadian and Old Babylonian seal forms. Šaduppûm cylinder seals are made of stone or clay. Some of them bear the name of the ruler of their time or just the owner’s name; others have the personal name of the scribe, and another group is of the type with personal name or profession. Most of the seal impressions depict a worshipper in the presence of an enthroned king or God.
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Sense and Sensibility: The Life of the House in Mesopotamia
This paper looks at how houses have been planned and managed over time, and how they have been perceived. Ancient architects strove to build houses that were multifunctional, comfortable and had separate spaces. Moreover, the house was conceived as a living entity, as archaeology and texts underline. The house has a beginning, a maturity and an end. It also has senses, like a living being, and under its roof it includes the living and the dead. Present, past and future are brought together in the highly symbolic building that is the house.
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Legal Change in Everyday Life in the Late Bronze Age
Life in society is regulated by complex societal and legal rules. In the ancient Near East, the latter usually took the form of customary law, i.e. of customs accepted as legal requirements, whose violation was subject to punishment and/or compensation. Those rules, deeply embedded in the very tissue of the society, were conservative by nature. To be altered, they would need either a direct ruling by the king, or a decisive change in the established practice. However, for its effectiveness, such a change would have to be meaningful and inconspicuous at the same time, so as to avoid punishment for breaking the law or simply falling in court, while still achieving its intended goal.
Royal interventions, beyond those made in the ruler’s judicial capacity, were few and far between. Therefore, law in Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia was mostly shaped by ordinary people according to their needs and to the requirements of their daily life, and legal change would have usually occurred by altering the practice. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways these changes were carried out; in other words, to analyze the tools used to modify and transform customary rules.
The need for change arose due to typical life events, such as marriages, adoptions, lack of heirs etc. Someone (an ingenious interested party? an inventive scribe?) would come up with the idea how to protect one’s daughter from the greed of her paternal uncles or how to allow her to continue the family cult, normally reserved for the sons. Then, seeing that the solution worked, someone else would use it, and the process of change would start. The most creative examples thereof date from the Late Bronze Age, from sites such as Emar, Ekalte, or Nuzi, but similar attempts are also present in Mesopotamia proper.
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Diplomacy and Daily Life: Hittite-Assyrian Rivalry and the Realities of Imperial Competition
This paper examines how the Hittites sought to counter Middle Assyrian expansion during the Late Bronze Age by promoting a weakened Kassite Babylon as Mesopotamia’s preeminent power. In doing so, the Hittites systematically undermined Assyrian claims to Great King status—a diplomatic rank exclusively claimed by first-tier powers—while artificially elevating Kassite Babylon's international standing. Rather than analyzing diplomatic texts in isolation, this study integrates textual and material cultural evidence to evaluate how Hittite-Assyrian great power competition shaped daily life in contested regions, particularly Upper Mesopotamia. By relating diplomatic maneuvering to lived realities, this study offers new insights into both statecraft and its practical implications in Late Bronze Age Mesopotamia. These findings illuminate how imperial competition directly impacted local communities, economic activities, and social organization, revealing the intimate connection between high politics and everyday life.
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The Policy of Heart. Everyday Activities as Metaphors for Mental Processes in Old Babylonian Letters
In her article Der oikomorphe Mensch (2012), Annette Zgoll convincingly demonstrated that, in Sumero-Akkadian literature, the human being is often conceptualized as a house or habitation that is protected or attacked, visited and left, penetrated, occupied or inhabited by numinous forces. The textual passages quoted in support of this view are taken from incantations, (incantation-)prayers and scholarly commentaries. Zgoll admits, however, that Mesopotamian conceptions of personhood were manyfold and changed over time. Based on conceptual metaphor theory and related cognitive approaches, the present contribution investigates the conceptualizations of human self in non-religious genres, specifically, metaphorical conceptualizations of heart in Old Babylonian letters. A preliminary result of my investigation is that the conceptual metaphor THE SELF IS A HOUSE is neither restricted to religious contexts nor necessarily implies the idea of a “porous self” (C. Taylor). W 20473, the letter of Anam, the ruler of Uruk, to Sînmuballiṭ, the king of Babylon, may serve as example of a text in which social and economic activities within an extended household (such as negotiating, offering a meal or showing one’s belongings to guests, or considering an economic contract and its financial obligations) are mapped onto mental processes related to decision-making, conflict resolution and political interaction between the sender and the addressee and associated with the heart (libbu) as one’s “inner self”.
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"The World that the Girl Saw:" Women, Children, and War during the Old Babylonian Period
The publication of Amélie Kuhrt's work "Women and War" (2001), which examined female perspectives during military conflicts in ancient Near Eastern cultures, established a foundation for subsequent research. While scholars such as Philippe Clancier (2014: 19–36), Paul A. Kruger (2014: 147–176), and Nele Ziegler (2014: 885–907) have contributed valuable insights to this field, contemporary investigations predominantly focus on the Neo-Assyrian and later periods. Furthermore, the substantial growth of gender-oriented research within Assyriological studies demands an updated analytical framework to comprehend this historical phenomenon.
This investigation delves into the relationships between warfare and vulnerable populations, focusing on women and children during the Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000–1600 BCE). The theoretical framework synthesizes Siniša Malešević's (2010) sociological approaches to warfare with Cynthia Enloe's (2000) feminist analysis of militarization. Laura Mulvey's (1975) conceptualization of the "male gaze" provides an additional analytical tool for analyzing the sources. This interdisciplinary approach enables a nuanced examination of how military conflicts shaped social dynamics and gender relations in ancient Mesopotamian society.
Through examination of Old Babylonian correspondence, specifically from Lower Mesopotamian archives, alongside sections 28–31 of Hammurabi's Code and section 30 of the Laws of Ešnunna, this study employs the established theoretical framework to reconstruct conventional parameters of warfare analysis. The investigation reveals how military conflicts transformed domestic spheres and social structures. Moving beyond traditional battlefield narratives, this research illuminates the lived experiences and agency of women and children within the masculinized domain of ancient Near Eastern warfare, while examining their roles in sustaining these societal dynamics.
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Traversing Boundaries between Living and Deceased in Daily Assyrian Life
Death and daily life were inextricably linked in the Assyrian Empire (c. 1350–612 BCE), reflected in how the living engaged with the deceased and maintained connections across the boundary between life and the afterlife. Beliefs about the afterlife in Mesopotamia emphasized the influence of the dead on the living, necessitating both physical proximity and careful management of boundaries to prevent unwanted interactions. In Assyria, continuing mortuary care brought death into intimate proximity with daily existence, often incorporating burial spaces within domestic settings, such as under-floor graves in backrooms of houses. These practices not only served to honor and connect with ancestors but also reinforced metaphysical and physical boundaries, requiring living participants to mediate interactions with the deceased. While extramural cemeteries also existed, the integration of burials into specifically domestic spaces highlights the complex ways Assyrians balanced their relationships with the dead as part of everyday life. This paper explores the varied forms of mortuary culture in the Assyrian core using a combination of textual evidence, mortuary remains, and spatial patterning of burials. I particularly examine the role of burial placement in integrating the deceased as ancestors while still maintaining distinctions between the worlds of the living and the dead.
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Writing Boards in the Neo-Assyrian Period: Functions, Categories, and the Question of Aramaic
Writing boards (lēʾu) were an essential tool for ancient scribes. The functions of writing boards are primarily known from second-hand references, with a few surviving examples from Nimrud. This study reviews the references to writing boards to establish their functions, categorization and languages written on them. Letters mentioning writing boards display three primary functions: accounting, recording scholarly texts, and even letters. In modern scholarship, writing boards are often referred to as a possible medium for writing Aramaic, but the cuneiform record does not make explicit references to this phenomenon.
Writing boards were categorized based on physical characteristics and language. It is a long established fact that writing boards could have multiple ‘leaves’ and were distinguished based on the number of boards, often translated as ‘diptych’, ‘triptych’, or ‘polytych’. However, writing boards were also classified linguistically. In letters, writing boards are referred to as Assyrian (lēʾu aššurûti) and Babylonian (lēʾu akkaduti). While there is no explicit category for Aramaic writing boards, the use of linguistic categorizations is context-dependent. These categories are used only in reference to writing boards containing scholarly texts. The absence of an explicit Aramaic category suggests that Aramaic writing boards may have existed but were not formally distinguished in the sources. Given the attested Aramaic documents in the Neo-Assyrian period, the appropriate contents of Aramaic writing boards would most likely have been administrative texts.
This overview of the functions of writing boards provides a more nuanced view of the Neo-Assyrian administration, particularly in their use for writing ledgers of rations, people, and goods. While their role in both accounting and scholarly writing is clear, the absence of direct evidence for Aramaic writing boards highlights gaps in documentation and categorization. While they may have existed, they were not explicitly distinguished.
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Aspects of Everyday Life in an Assyrian Provincial Capital: Results from the Yasin Tepe Archaeological Project, Iraqi Kurdistan
Since 2016, Yasin Tepe Archaeological Project, conducted by Chubu University, Japan, has been excavating the site of Yasin Tepe which can be assumed as an Assyrian provincial city in the western Zagros piedmont. The site has so far revealed multi-facetted aspects of everyday life of people living in an Assyrian provincial city. In this paper, we intended to provide archaeological evidence of people’s life including burial, dwelling, food production, craftsmanship, and transport. Though these analyses we can view some aspects of everyday life of people in Iraqi Kurdistan during the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. There were at least two types of social class at Yasin Tepe: elite and commoner. We intended to mention some aspects of these two classes. We also conducted archaeological and geophysical surveys around Yasin Tepe which we were able to reconstruct some aspects of rural lifestyle around the city. The landscape which Yasin Tepe stands is unique in Mesopotamian landscape which holds abundant water sources. We want to demonstrate that how this water-rich landscape, which we assumed it was also available during the Assyrian period, affected the people’s life.
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The Guv’nor – Life and Death of Aššur-Nāṣir, Bēl Pāḫete of Mardama
Imagine you are a young man of some 20 years in the Middle Assyrian Empire, perhaps during the 13th century BCE, and your father gets you a job as a district governor within the state administration. From now on, your task is to organise public life in a provincial capital.
You have to recruit and organise the workforce and ensure the well-being and safety of your administrative unit. You will also have to earn a living, start a family and deal with your father-in-law from now on.
This is the situation of a certain Aššur-nāṣir, son of Iddin-Marduk, when he took office in the city of Mardama/modern Bassetki towards the end of the reign of Shalmaneser I (1263-1234 BCE). Hundreds of administrative documents and letters reflect his daily duties and tasks and provide an insight into the life of a Middle Assyrian chief administrator in turbulent times.
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The Merchants of Babylon
The primary sources of information on trade during the Kassite period predominantly originate from regions outside Babylonia, most notably the Amarna letters from Egypt. This presentation will explore the unpublished archive of a Babylonian merchant, Sîn-uballiṭ (Archive M5), which offers a significant complement as the texts were excavated in Babylon. Dating to the final years of the Kassite dynasty (1183–1157 BCE), this unique corpus provides invaluable insights into the merchant's activities, including the establishment of business partnerships, loan agreements and repayments, and internal record-keeping. The texts illuminate the geographic scope of trade networks extending from Hatti to Lullubû, the exchange of goods such as precious metals, copper, and textiles, and the underlying social structures that facilitated these commercial interactions.
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Concept(ion) of Time According to the Hittite Überlieferung – Lexical and Philological Basis
The (in)famous characteristic of the dating and chronological system in the Hittite Empire is its absence. There are no indications of comparable texts, such as the king lists or eponym lists, found in the neighboring Mesopotamia, and we have no information about the duration of any particular Hittite kings’ reign. For this reason, our basic timeline depends on external sources that verify synchronisms with other countries. Although attempts have been made to establish fixed points for an absolute chronology using various scientific methods – such as dendrochronology, C14 dating, or observations of astronomical phenomena – considerable uncertainties remain. Nonetheless, the vocabulary concerning units of time (day, month, year, season), as well as sporadic mentions of month or year counting, can be found in Hittite texts.
Since the Hittite Empire spanned a large territory and had a complex society, the absence of such a chronological framework is indeed surprising. So far, attention has primarily focused on chronology as a historical issue, but a philological study of the Hittite concept of time and their management of the past has yet to be undertaken. The question remains: how the Hittites themselves understood the phenomenon of “time”? How did they perceive it, and how they structure it for themselves? My presentation aims to compile and provide the necessary lexical and philological foundations for an in-depth analysis.
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Feeding the Dead. The Archaeological Materiality of kispu(m) in Neo-Assyrian Burials
In the Neo-Assyrian conception, the afterworld was a dark, silent and barren place. Therefore, the deceased were in need of food offerings during and even after the burial. This so-called kispu(m) has a long tradition in many Near Eastern cultures but received little examination for specific times and regions. Researchers also disagree on the content and receivers of the kispu(m). This study juxtaposes the written sources of Neo-Assyrian context with the material culture in burials of the Neo-Assyrian empire. It examines what food and which vessels were connected with funerary offerings as well as how regular were offerings given into burials after the funeral. Through a comparative analysis of the archaeological remains, vessels used for funerary rituals can be distinguished from personal possessions or gifts. The vessels can then be brought in relation to both funerary practices and lists of containers used for certain food & drinks known from contemporaneous texts. This results in the allocation of functions and names to specific NA vessel types used in burials as well as what kind of provisions were part of the kispu(m) at that time.
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House-Born Slaves in Sumer
This paper presents the first comprehensive synthesis of data on house-born slaves (ama(a-)-tu / emedud(a)) in third-millennium BC southern Mesopotamia and advances three key arguments.
First, sources sometimes distinguish house-born slaves from those of other origins, such as purchased locals and foreigners. Some rulers even depict themselves in their narratives as house-born slaves rather than merely “slaves” of the gods. This distinction reflects a significant social reality: house-born slaves enjoyed an elevated status and preferential treatment within Sumerian private households. Born to enslaved mothers within the household, they grew up alongside the master’s children and formed close bonds with the family. As a result, Sumerian literary sources portray them as particularly loyal and unsuitable for sale.
Second, drawing on contemporary Sumerian and later Babylonian data, as well as comparisons with Roman house-born slaves, this paper explores a complex question: who fathered house-born slaves? While masters could permit slaves to form informal unions and have children, thereby increasing their household labour force, Sumerian literary sources also hint at a socially condemned yet widespread practice of masters using female slaves for sexual gratification, which resulted in offspring.
Finally, house-born dependents were not confined to private households but were also present in palace and temple organisations. Particularly notable is the case of the Ekur temple in Nippur during Naram-Suen’s reign, which maintained a distinct group of self-reproducing house-born dependents, recorded separately from purchased locals and donated captives from Subartum. This phenomenon underscores that Sumerian temple households mirrored the structural patterns of private households.
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Who Met in the Emunus of Girsu? Activities in a Sumerian Redistributive Centre
Administrative documents provide abundant data concerning daily activities performed by men and women at various places, their interactions and their handling of goods from reeds and wood to wool and silver. This paper concentrates on the most informative collection from Presargonic Sumer, the tablets issued by the organisation of Paranamtara and Sasa, the wives of the last Presargonic rulers of Lagash, Lugalanda and Urukagina (Irienimgena). The subscripts of the texts locate various transactions and activities within the Emunus building, a building complex that kept its name "Female House" even after the organisation was renamed “House of Bau”. This allows a precise local perspective on the people who came to the Emunus regularly or exceptionally, and on their activities. What such a centre as the Emunus may have looked like is suggested by archaeological evidence. The localisation of administrative procedures in an actual building may lead to further observations on the interaction between overseers and workers, men and women, and humans and animals, one may also consider the sounds and smells that characterised the Emunus building.
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Unpublished Seal Impressions (Bulls) from the Iraqi Museum
This research sheds light on a group of unpublished seal impressions known in latin as “ balla”, which are baked clay pieces with a perforated hole for hanging, they were also known as delivery receipts that were hung on the doors of stocks and jars. The bulls are formed in different shapes, including triangular or axe-shaped, spherical, square, rectangular, polygonal, and pyramidal with four faces. The appearanceof the jar was not a coincidence or in vain, but rather it performed important tasks in economic affairs. The quantities and weight of the materials that were kept inside the jars were written on it cuneiform writing, and it was also sealed with one or more seals for the responsible persons and merchants who owned those materials. This also shows religious and natural scenes on the surface of the town, which cast their shadows on our knowledge of the ages to which this town dates back and provided as with information about the artistic and religious aspects of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia. This is what prompted us to study a group of tablets dating back to the Akkadian and Ur III eras, as well as to study the names that appeared on those editions.
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Akkadian Plant-Related Loanwords in Rabbinic Hebrew: A Case of Inner-Semitic Lexical Interference
While the presence of Akkadian loanwords in Biblical Hebrew has long been recognised and extensively studied, comparatively little attention has been paid to the traces left by Akkadian in a more recent stage of the Hebrew language, Rabbinic Hebrew. Rabbinic Hebrew developed at a time when Akkadian had long ceased to be a living language, which is why Akkadian words were not transferred directly from Akkadian to Hebrew; rather, they entered Rabbinic Hebrew through the mediation of Aramaic, which, due to the intense Akkadian-Aramaic interference that had occurred in previous centuries, constituted a large reservoir of Akkadian vocabulary.
The identification of Akkadian loanwords within the Hebrew lexicon poses significant challenges: since Akkadian and Hebrew belong to the same linguistic family, it is often difficult to ascertain whether the phonetic and semantic similarity between two terms is due to borrowing or, rather, to the fact that they are cognates, descending from the same Semitic root.
The purpose of my paper is to address the methodological problems related to the identification of inner-Semitic loans, focusing on a specific case, that of Akkadian plant-related terms (phytonyms, fruit names and agricultural technical terms) attested in Rabbinic Hebrew. In the case of botanical terms, the reconstruction of the borrowing process is particularly complex for several reasons: firstly, a significant portion of Akkadian botanical terminology can itself be classified as borrowed, as Akkadian inherited it from Sumerian; secondly, plant names frequently belong to the category of so-called Kulturwörter, i.e. words attested across multiple linguistic families and a wide geographical area, thus complicating the determination of their precise origin. In the case of agricultural technical terms, linguistic considerations will be supplemented by a brief discussion of the agricultural practices associated with the loanwords.
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DUB “KAR 228” and ÉN “Shamash 6”: Averting “Seizure of the Chest” and Defining the Akkadian Shuila-Corpus
Since 2012, the Corpus of Akkadian Shuila Prayers online (CASPo) has collected, transliterated, and translated tablets bearing Akkadian shuila-prayers, texts typically identified via the appearance of the word šu-íl-lá in the rubric of at least one textual witness. CASPo cast its net broadly and inclusively as it compiled its catalog of tablets, a process amplified substantially in recent years by the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) project’s Fragmentarium. With more than 90% of its catalog transliterated, CASPo has entered a stage in the project that requires refining the classification of its 340 textual witnesses by prayer and making decisions about which prayers (of more than 120 in the preliminary catalog) should be included among the editions to be hosted on eBL. In my presentation, I give a brief overview of the corpus and the attested rubrics. I then examine the text and rubric of KAR 228, the best witness to the incantation-prayer known as Shamash 6, as a point of entry for thinking about classificatory outliers, that is, the witnesses bearing an unusual or expanded rubric and witnesses of the same prayer that bear different rubrics. In keeping with the conference theme, KAR 228 provides a unique insight into the quotidian anxieties surrounding personal relationships as the named supplicant attempts to remove the perceived evil of “the seizure of an oath” (ṣibit māmīti) and “the seizure of the chest” (ṣibit tulî) that someone in his community has afflicted upon him and which has announced itself in a dream. The paper offers an interpretation of this unique text while also providing a refined justification for what comprises the Akkadian shuila-prayer corpus—at least, for the purposes of the CASPo project.
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Sentiment Analysis for Hittite Emotional Contexts
This paper addresses an experimental approach to sentiment analysis on the basis of the Hittite festival texts. To our knowledge, this is the first application of such methods to Hittite linguistic material for uncovering emotional tones and revealing the emotional landscape of religious practices. Insights into the performative and psychological dimensions of rituals, that can be provided by this approach, are often overlooked in purely philological studies. Traditional historical and philological methods rely heavily on manual annotation and interpretation, which are time-consuming and subjective. Sentiment analysis, by contrast, offers a systematic and scalable way to analyze large corpora of texts. It can identify, for example, recurring clusters of positive or negative sentiment in relation to specific deities, rituals, or socio-political contexts. This method can also highlight shifts in emotional tone in a ritual, revealing nuances in religious attitudes that traditional approaches might miss.
We mine data from the already digitized Hittite texts by scholars at the computer centers of the University Mainz and the University Würzburg (TLHdig), and parsed by E.Yavasan, that have been processed into a structured format suitable for computational analysis. The experiment starts with the formation of a sentiment-bearing terms lexicon, informed by linguistic, cultural, and religious studies of the Hittite language. Combining lexicon-based, machine learning methods, and deep learning methods, including large language models' fine-tuning, is particularly effective for a low-resource language like Hittite.
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Inter-Annotator Agreement Analysis: Creating a Consistent OCR Dataset
Annotations are important for machine readable texts, it can for example be linguistic information or image annotations. This paper deals with the latter. In my project, high quality data is necessary for training a Machine Learning (ML) model to read images of cuneiform texts. An ML model does not understand right from wrong, but it relies on consistent data to deliver consistent results. As a ground truth test set is impossible in our case, understanding the quality of the dataset is hinged on the consistency between annotators.
Four Assyriologists have annotated individual signs on the same high-quality images of Old Babylonian economical tablets from Nippur and Dur-Abiešuḫ. All sign annotations are polygonal, i.e. have multiple edges, and they are linked to a transliteration. Three of the annotators have delivered image annotation data before, whereas the fourth is a novice annotator.
With simple coding tools I can extract annotations from various tablet visualizations and the polygonal shapes themselves. This data allows for analyses and highlighting of inconsistencies, i.e. annotations that overlap less than the mean. Additionally, the data can be used to study paleography.
The results of my work qualify the quality of the image annotation dataset, both to better understand the results of the ML models and to ensure its usability for other research teams once it is published. These results also provide insight into the reading of cuneiform texts.
My talk will present the process of gathering data on annotator consistency, how to analyze it and lastly what it might tell us. Data quality is essential for all parts of research and how to analyze it is a valuable tool to verify and improve research processes. It is also a hope that presenting my agreement analysis will encourage other research groups to include similar methodologies.
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The Leipzig Akkadian Dictionary Project
The Leipzig Akkadian Dictionary (LAD) project at the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig aims to create a new, up-to-date digital online dictionary of Akkadian.
Our knowledge of the Akkadian language has improved considerably over the course of the last 70 years. The existing dictionaries, most notably the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and von Soden's Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, are increasingly outdated. Numerous cuneiform texts have been published since their completion, containing new words and facilitating more detailed and precise descriptions of known words.
The LAD will collect the vocabulary of Akkadian in its entirety. It is a reference dictionary that not only translates the words into English, German, French, and Arabic, but also documents their contexts, uses, and etymologies. The existing print dictionaries will be digitized and integrated into LAD. Links will lead to glossaries and indices of other online projects. The digital publication is based on a database structure and allows the vocabulary to be analyzed one corpus at a time rather than alphabetically.
The small team of researchers lead by Michael P. Streck officially commenced working on LAD at the beginning of his year. In this paper we will present the scope and aims of this ambitious 17-year project, its structure and form of presentation, and some of the underlying principles of Akkadian lexicography.
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Copying Vocabulary as a Priest: the Intellectual Historical Aspect of the Emesal Vocabulary Tablets
As a specific register of Sumerian, Emesal is preserved and restricted in use to the direct speech of goddesses and women in certain types of literary texts (Schretter, 1990). The opinions of scholars, with respect to Emesal, have varied exceedingly over the course of the past decades, and no definitive consensus appears to have been formed as to what Emesal is (Whittaker, 2002; Rubio, 2011; Garcia-Ventura, 2017). Recent research has revolved around the cultic importance, the sociolinguistic function, and the intellectual history of the Emesal register. Among these issues, the Emesal Vocabulary series (MSL IV) should play a non-neglectable role.
Emesal Vocabulary lexical lists seem to have circulated from an early standardized corpus (Veldhuis, 2014). The found recensions differ from each other in minor features, with no traces of the Assyrian integration or regional localization, nor traces of the Late-Babylonian divine syncretism or cultic revival (Leung, 2023).
How did these scholarly priests, i.e. the kalûs behind the texts who also performed Emesal prayers, shape their scholarship with the Emesal Vocabulary corpus? Was the Emesal Vocabulary series ever possibly used in scribal training or was the series merely a heritage of the priesthood? Could the Emesal Vocabulary series serve as a sort of index to other Emesal liturgical genres? This lecture aims to analyze the intellectual aspect of the Emesal Vocabulary series, by showing the correspondence between the Emesal Vocabulary lexical lists and some other Mesopotamian lexical lists, as well as other genres that use Emesal.
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Seal Carving – Interplay of Art and Mathematics.
This presentation explores the preliminary findings of research on the aesthetics of Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian cylinder seals (from British Museum Collection), examined through a mathematical perspective. The study investigates whether mathematical principles played a role in the design of these artifacts by analyzing their proportions and geometrization measures using specialized graphic software. By delving into the structural organization of the seals, this research seeks to determine whether a discernible and standardized pattern can be identified in their iconographic composition. Beyond the visual analysis, this study also aims to reconstruct the cognitive and technological processes that guided ancient Mesopotamian seal-carvers. Were these artisans consciously applying mathematical concepts? To address these questions, the presentation will showcase image analyses conducted in FrescoAcrobat, a program that enables precise examination of compositional structures. Additionally, it will explore potential connections between Old Babylonian mathematical strategies and the layout of cylinder seals, considering how principles of measurement, symmetry, and proportionality may have influenced their design.
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Conditional Clauses in Hittite Laws and Omens
The Hittite Laws (CTH §291-292) and Omen (CTH §531-560) texts share some linguistic and textual similarities (e.g., Riemschneider 1970:21; Gordin 2015:31; Hoffner & Melchert 2024:517). While both have a generally formulaic appearance and an apparently clear function, they also show considerable syntactic complexity and are a particularly important source for evidence about Hittite conditional clauses (Hoffner & Melchert 2024:557). Furthermore, the language of both Hittite Law and Omen texts is influenced by Akkadian models (e.g., Sternemann 1965:262; Zorman 2017:255-260; Riemschneider 1970:1-14), and the connection between the genres is also recognised in the Mesopotamian texts (e.g., Guinan 2014:113, Rochberg 2016:37-38). However, Akkadian Omen texts are well-attested at Hattuša, including on bilingual tablets alongside their Hittite translations (Giusfredi & Pisaniello 2023:233-239), but no copies of Akkadian Laws have been found. In this paper, I will consider some grammatical and structural aspects of the conditional sentences in the Hittite Laws and Omen texts, including word order in the protasis, asyndeton in the apodosis, and repetition and omission in additional and alternative conditions. I will suggest that some of these features may be genre-specific, shaped by the particular scribal context and textual traditions.
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“That Silver Cannot Be Detected.” (And It Still Cannot Today!)
The quote in the title above comes from a tablet (K 7942+), found in the library of king Assurbanipal, preserving technical (chemical) procedures that involved metals. The intention behind the comment is clear: follow these instructions and you will obtain a kind of silver that will deceive everybody!
In a masterly work published in 1966, Leo Oppenheim identified in those instructions some of the same methods and concerns typical of the Greek alchemical tradition, a tradition at the origins of which were four dyeing crafts: the dyeing of base substances to obtain gold, silver, precious stones and purple wool. Although new information later emerged to support the connection, the idea that these records may be part of the early history of the same tradition was never fully adopted.
In this talk we will first examine and contextualize what was still missing at the time of those early studies. Building upon these, additional evidence will then be presented that was obtained by combining a traditional textual approach with modern chemical experimentation in the lab. Implications of the findings will also be discussed.
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Innana as a Representation of the Planet Venus in the Old Babylonian Hymn Iddin-Dagan A
The goddess Innana has been studied primarily through the lens of two of her spheres of action : war and sexuality. However, a fundamental aspect of the goddess lies in her identification with the planet Venus.
The Old Babylonian hymn Iddin-Dagan A is a key source for this analysis, as it is specifically dedicated to Innana-Venus, in its doxology. Furthermore, the structure of the composition is particularly noteworthy, as the text consists of a praise of Innana-Venus, interspersed with the ceremony of the "Sacred Marriage", a ritual in which Innana is generally recognised as the goddess of sexuality.
The aim of this paper is to examine the epithets referring to Innana in this hymn in order to understand how she is conceptualised as Venus. This could also help us to better understand the structure of the text with the inclusion of the "Sacred Marriage". I will show that a certain continuity in the epithets ties this passage more closely to the text than previously assumed.
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Broad-Scale Patterns in the Distribution of Ethnic Names in the Neo-Assyrian Oracc Corpus
We present the results of an investigation into the broad-scale distribution of ethnic names in first millennium Neo-Assyrian texts from Oracc. The aim of the investigation is to go beyond a manual investigation of one or a hand-full of such terms such as Aramāyu (as has been done in the past), using instead automated methods to consider all such terms as a class where broad-scale patterns in the usage and form emerge. We use the Neo-Assyrian Oracc corpus for our survey because it is fairly large, consisting of texts from a wide variety of genres written over a wide span of time.
The investigation reveals the highly uneven distribution of ethnic terms in the corpus as well as the different functions they often play in different genres or time periods. A qualitative increase in the number and uses of ethnic names occurs with the Sargonid rulers, although this may partially be due to the accidents of source preservation. Despite the large number of ethnic terms that appear in the corpus overall, only a small number appear with great frequency and seem to be richly elaborated semantically.
In addition, the investigation reveals a fair amount of variability in the use of determiners that accompany various ethnic names, with the choice often depending on grammatical context as well as whether the name traditionally signaled a group of people or a geographical area.
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Lipit Eshtar Historical Text
A New Version of Lipit Eshtar Historical Text in the Iraq Museum
In the mid-nineties of the last century, the Iraq Museum acquired an artifact, which was confiscated from a person in the city of Hillah, Babylon Governorate, the articat made of basalt stone, irregular in shape, Its hight 40 cm, bearing the museum number (IM. 142767) , the text is written with a cuneiform inscription, arranged in ten columns, six of which are on one side of the piece, and four others on the other side of it. The total number of lines included in the inscription is nearly 400 lines, noting that the columns are not equal in length. The text related to the king Lipit-Ishtar, the fifth king of the Isin dynasty (1934-1924 BC.).
The first part of the text included a poem of praise (A) (Hymn) for king Lipit-Ishtar, which include the columns 1-5, while the columns 6-10 included part of king Lipit-Ishtar's law, which is specifically the conclusion of the law (Epilogue). The ancient known text of the hymn or the Poem, and the epilogue of Lipit-Ishtar law, were written on a clay tablet, or a group of clay tablets, but this new text was found on a stone fragment, and this is the first fragment of a hymn to be found on a stone. The text has been written in the Old Babylonia standard signs. The research will include a study of the text found on the fragment, and a comparison with the two ancient texts of the hymn and the epilogue of the law, in addition, we will highlight on the historical background of the king Lipit-Ishtar and his historical texts, with a proposal for the nature of the fragment and its origins.
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Written and Oral Memory: Cultural Transmission between Conservation and Manipulation of Original Contents
In the beginning it was the sound, then the sign to express the concept evoked by the words. In a time and space different from culture to culture, the introduction of writing has made it possible to transmit messages to those who do not physically occupy the same space as the speaker, considerably broadening their range of action. The transition from orality to written text implies, as noted by numerous scholars (Ong, 1982; Archi, 2008; Delnero, 2021 and 2024 among others) that words and compositional forms can no longer change in relation to the audience but can be "manipulated" by those who concretely translate the “volatile” word into a written text fixed on the available writing support and into the chosen language.
If on the one hand the memory of oral stories is, thanks to writing, handed over to future generations, on the other the written text loses the direct link with the context that generated it, making interpolations, substitutions and cancellations possible.
The transfer of cultural heritage to another system, both linguistic and technological, responds to needs, sometimes urgent: the conquest of power by allophones, the need to move written texts onto previously non-existent technological supports.
Memory can be modified all the more easily the less the transformed contents are rooted in the culture that produced them; ritual formulas, prayers, traditional and popular songs are much more persistent and resistant to being modified or manipulated. In light of these considerations and methodological premises, I would like to present a critical study of the Balbal Lubigu Lubigu Lubigu (ETCSL Dumuzi-Inana B), which due to the frequency of words in EME.SAL and the specific occasion on which it was performed, can be counted among the most "conservative" written texts that more rigorously reflect the culture that originated them.
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The 'Mistress of Animals' in Luristan Bronzes: A Semiotic Approach to Reinterpreting Gendered Visual Narratives in Iron Age Luristan Art
The so-called “Luristan Bronzes,” a distinctive collection of metal artifacts dating from ca. 1300 to 700 BCE, originate from the present-day provinces of Lorestān and Ilām in western Iran. These artifacts depict highly stylized figures of people and animals. A distinct feature of Luristan iconography is the prominent depiction of women in the “Mistress of Animals” scenes. Unlike the rare representation of women in contemporary Southwest Asian art, Luristan iconography frequently portrays them in combat and symbolic interactions with animals, underscoring their significance. These artifacts, primarily from burial and sanctuary contexts, provide insight into beliefs surrounding life, death, and social order.
This study employs a semiotic framework to analyze the visual language of Luristan Bronzes, focusing on female depictions in compositional scenes. Through posture, spatial positioning, and symbolic attributes such as horned headdresses, spiral motifs, and exaggerated anatomical features, themes of authority, fertility, protection, and cosmic balance emerge. Contrary to androcentric interpretations of power, these representations suggest that women in Luristan held roles as protectors, mediators of cosmic order, and warriors— positions traditionally ascribed to men. By situating Luristan Bronzes within a broader ancient Southwest Asian context, this study highlights their distinct representation of gender and power, particularly in contrast to Elamite, Neo-Elamite, and Neo-Assyrian traditions. The motif of the "mistress of animals," emphasizing female dominance, reflects a cultural narrative recognizing women’s significance both physically and cosmologically. By decoding the bronzes' symbolic language, this research contributes to gender archaeology, iconography, and Southwest Asian studies, demonstrating how visual culture actively constructs and negotiates power dynamics. Ultimately, it offers a nuanced perspective on women’s agency in shaping socio-cultural dynamics in the Iron Age society of Luristan.
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Building the House: Analyzing Housing Measures in a New Old Babylonian Document from Hammurabi’s Reign
This paper presents the publication of a previously unknown Old Babylonian contract, dating to the Hammurabi's reign, the king of Babylonia. The document is housed in the Slemani (Sulaymaniyah) Museum in Iraqi Kurdistan. The tablet's catalogue number is SM.041650. The contract is inscribed on both the obverse and reverse of a single-column tablet and includes the stamps of a cylinder seal on the lower and right edges. The provenance of the tablet is unknown, but it was acquired by the museum on 22 December 2008. The text consists of 26 lines, most of which are well-preserved. The scribe used a neat, medium-sized hand, producing clear and well-formed signs.
The article provides an overview of the contract, which involves multiple individuals rather than just two parties, as is common in many Old Babylonian contracts. The document details a discussion among various individuals regarding the construction of houses for different people, specifying the sizes and locations of these houses. The contract is dated to the 37th year of Hammurabi's reign. Included in the article are a copy, transliteration, and translation of the cuneiform text, along with a commentary on the housing measures during the Old Babylonian period in Babylonia. Additionally, the article examines the personal names mentioned in the contract and provides details on its stamps cylinder seal.
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W01: City and Country in the Geography of Late Bronze Age Anatolia
Organizers: Giulia Torri (giulia.torri@unifi.it), Federico Giusfredi (federico.giusfredi@univr.it)
What Defines a City in Hittite Anatolia?
The Hittite cuneiform sources mention approximately 2000 toponyms that refer to different settlements in Late Bronze Age Anatolia alone. Interestingly, from an emic, Hittite, perspective, no basic terminological distinction between them existed: what we would categorise as cities, towns and villages were all identified as URU, translated traditionally as “city”. One could well argue that places such as İnandık Tepe or Hüseyindede, which archaeologists describe as “mansions”, not proper settlements, were also referred to as URU in the Hittite texts, exactly the same way as the extensive, imposing urban centers as Boǧazköy/Ḫattuša or Ortaköy/Šapinuwa.
Therefore, reconstructing the urban vs. the rural landscapes of the Hittite kingdom is, from the outset, a complex and challenging task that necessitates integrating various types of evidence. This paper examines the material and written data from the Late Bronze Age that can improve our understanding of the distribution, hierarchy and typology of Anatolian settlements. This includes the structure of some written compositions referring to conquests of the Hittite kings, Hittite local cults and organisation of state festivals; the use (or deliberate ommision) of geographical identifiers (KUR, URU etc.); administrative terms and topographical features that marked the urban and rural landscapes; and evidence on new foundations of settlements.
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From Durmitta to Tapikka: The Northern Districts and Their Resources
According to the “city – non city” dualism in Hittite Anatolia, the proposed paper aims at reconsidering the districts of Durmitta and Tapikka in Bronze Age Anatolia in order to focus on the local resources and their management. Since the northern route Durmitta – Tapikka was already existing and vibrant in the Old Assyrian Colony period, this paper will take into consideration the geographical features of these districts as well as their natural resources (mountains, rivers, and other places of sourcing of raw materials) in relation to and in dependence on the Hittite capital Hattusa.
Project SORMHA “Supply of Resources and their Management in Hittite Anatolia”
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Between the Wild and the Walled: Sacred and Ritual Landscapes Beyond the City
Archaeological investigations in Hittite Anatolia have revealed a range of settlements, from major urban centers to smaller towns and rural agricultural establishments. Textual sources further attest to a vast number of places of human habitation, many classified under the determinative URU—which we conventionally translate as “town” or “city” but does not itself distinguish size or complexity—thereby indicating a wide spectrum of settlement types across Hittite Anatolia. These settlements functioned as nodes within multiple, overlapping networks—cultural regions, administrative districts, political territories, and trade routes—where movement played a central role in sustaining connectivity.
The city was neither a fixed space nor an isolated entity; it also represented a living community whose identities, socio-political connections, and economic activities extended beyond its walls. As such, cities were not static—their connections to the surrounding landscapes were shaped through continuous movement and interaction. Communities were tied to their landscapes through myriad taskscapes created by those engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, trade, administration, and security. These activities required movement across space, linking cities, other settlements, and the wild landscapes beyond.
This paper follows one of these paths between the walled and the wild: rituals. Many rituals recorded in the Hittite archives unfolded across extended spatial landscapes over multiple days, requiring practitioners to move beyond the city. Some were explicitly tied to liminal settings, such as borderlands, where the act of traversal was integral to the ritual process. This paper investigates rituals that shaped sacred and ritual taskscapes, demonstrating how ritual movement inscribed meaning onto landscapes and reinforced the city's connections to the spaces beyond its walls.
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A New Look at the System of ‘Regional Palaces’ in the Hittite Administrative Network
Recent philological and archaeological research has shed light on the complex hierarchical organization of the Hittite administrative network and its diachronic changes, shaped by the empire’s expanding territorial domain and environmental diversity. Building on these advancements, I will offer a re-evaluation of the so-called system of "regional palaces," which appears to have remained relatively stable throughout the Hittite period. I will investigate the possible distinction between actual regional palaces (É.GAL uruGN) and town halls representing local institutions in Hattusa (É uruGN). I will then propose that this distinction reflects a long term core-periphery dichotomy that influenced in various forms the Hittite political landscape in Anatolia. Finally, I will highlight the potential correlation between the É.GAL/É duplication of local institutions and Hittite sealing practices, particularly regarding the use of multiple seals by Hittite officials and dignitaries.
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The Wild Gods of Hittite Anatolia
The duality of city and country in Bronze Age Anatolia reflects a conception of the world in which cities represent a safe haven of order in a chaotic universe. This distinction between the urban and the rural is evident not only in the realms of politics, social order, and commerce, but in religion as well. Many Hittite deities were identified with the specific location of their cultic center by means of a geographical epithet. These divine entities, like their mortal servants, enjoyed the sustenance, comfort, and stability that a structured society provides. On the other hand, the Hittites also recognized the divinity of numerous natural features, such as mountains and rivers, and they venerated several deities who were qualified with the epithet gimraš, “of the country,” or with its logographic equivalents, ṢĒRI and LÍL. Analogous epithets are attested as part of Hurrian, Luwian, and Ugaritic theonyms, and deities associated with the open steppe can also be found in cuneiform sources from Syria and Mesopotamia. In his article “The City and the Country in Ḫatti,” Gary Beckman defined the semantic domain of gimra- as encompassing the entire area outside of human habitation, including cultivated land, the field of battle, and the desolate wilderness. This paper pursues the theme of wild gods, identifying the nuances of these divine epithets and investigating their significance within their respective cultic and cultural contexts. It argues that Ištar of the Field, a Hittite deity of foreign origin, is to be understood as a martial goddess, but that this epithet also describes native Anatolian protective deities who were associated with the countryside. This study thus contrasts the Anatolian and Mesopotamian attitudes towards the wilderness and the divine beings thought to reside there.
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W02: E.L.A.M.: Elamite Languages, Arts and Material Cultures
Organizers: Katrien De Graef (katrien.degraef@ugent.be), Mirko Surdi (mirko.surdi@ugent.be) Elynn Gorris (elynn.gorris@uclouvain.be), Jan Tavernier (jan.tavernier@uclouvain.be)
From Archaeological Myth to Tangible Evidence: What If We Finally Characterized a Proto-Elamite Culture?
At the end of the 4th millennium BCE, numerous sites in Iran appear to be linked by the sharing of common material assemblages, considered as evidence of the existence of a common culture known as proto-Elamite. Yet, defining this culture remains ambiguous and subject to ongoing debate, to such an extent that the term “proto-Elamite culture” is today discarded in favor of the deliberately vague “proto-Elamite phenomenon”.
A clearer understanding arises from the study of specific categories of material. The stylistic, typological and iconographic specificities of precious crafts, particularly glyptic productions, reveal pre-established norms and codes that were developed and shared over nearly 200 years. This likely reflects a solid organizational structure. These artifacts also highlight strong concepts and an imaginary shared by Iranian societies. By cataloging common practices and productions, we aim to propose a more refined definition of a « proto-Elamite culture », suggesting the emergence of a cohesive social and potentially political entity in Iran.
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Studying Graphic Variations: A New Online Database for Linear Elamite
Project VariGraph, based at Liège University since late 2023 under the direction of Stéphane Pollis and Laurent Colonna d’Istria, aims to study graphic variations in the three most ancient writing systems in the world: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mesopotamian cuneiform, and Proto-Iranian writing, including its early (Proto-Elamite) and later (Linear Elamite) stages. The Iranian component of the project began in late 2023 under the supervision of François Desset.
The primary objective of the project is to analyze (and decipher) sequences in Proto-Elamite tablets that likely record anthroponyms. A key challenge lies in understanding graphic variations and determining whether two signs are allographs of the same grapheme or represent distinct graphemes. To tackle this issue, the project proposed beginning with a more focused and well-documented corpus: the Linear Elamite texts.
Linear Elamite is a writing system attested in southeastern Iran, dating from at least 2300 to 1880 BCE. Recent discoveries suggest that it represents the later stage of the much older Proto-Elamite tablets (3300–3000 BCE). Its decipherment has revealed that it is a purely phonetic writing system—an alpha-syllabary organized around a phonetic grid comprising 5 vowels, 12 consonants, and 60 syllabic values. The 45 known texts written in this script are in the Elamite language, greatly enhancing our understanding of the earliest attested phase of this isolated language.
Derived from the Thot Sign List (https://thotsignlist.org/), established in 2015, the Linear Elamite database was created in 2024 and updated through mid-2025. This database, which contains more than 2,000 tokens documented in 45 inscriptions to date, facilitates the study of graphic variations across parameters such as geography, time period, and material. It also includes linguistic data, such as transliteration, transcription, glosses, and translations in English, French, and Persian.
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A Bridge between Susa and Anshan: A Newly Discovered Bronze Vessel from the Sukkalmah Period
This paper presents the preliminary results of our study of a recently discovered bronze inscribed vessel from the village of Shahniz, located in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, southwest Iran. Currently housed at the Yasuj Ethnography Museum, the vessel measures 39 cm in diameter, stands 9 cm high, and weighs 1.93 kg.
The vessel bears a 12-line Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform inscription referencing Temti-halki, sukkalmah of Elam and Šimaški, sister’s son of Šilhaha and beloved brother of Kurigugu, dating to the latter part of the sukkalmah period (ca. 1650–1600 BCE). This inscription diverges from known royal inscriptions of Temti-halki and introduces two previously unattested figures: Atta-menra-halki, a teppir, and his wife, Kuriwulma.
Our study focuses on three key aspects:
(1) the philological and historical significance of the inscription and its named individuals,
(2) the vessel’s potential function as a ritual wash basin,
(3) the archaeological implications of its discovery in Shahniz, situated within the Zagros mountain range, between lowland Khuzestan and highland Fars, in proximity to notable Elamite sites like the Lamā Cemetery.
Through this analysis, we situate the artefact within the broader geopolitical landscape of the sukkalmah regime, shedding light on the intricate communication networks between its main urban centres, Susa in Khuzestan and Anshan in Fars.
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Mesopotamian Lexical Lists, Elamite-Wise
Exemplars of Mesopotamian school texts were found in Shush (Susa) and Haft Tappeh in Khuzestan (southern Iran). While following the Mesopotamian tradition (being exemplars of Silbenalphabet A, Syllabary A, etc.), they are the result of a process of adaptation and interpretation that we can qualify as culturally Elamite. Another exemplar of Syllabary A was found in Nineveh (Hallock 1949 in JNES 8), but shows late Elamite sign forms and changes in the sign choice. The paper builds on this evidence in order to integrate it in the relevant studies on Elamite cuneiform culture (using intensively Akkadian language) and Elamite language orthography (in linear and cuneiform writing systems) and phonology of the past twenty years.
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“They Greet Me and I Reply in Elamite”. Building an Elamite Lemma Base and Tracing Linguistic Evolution
This paper presents preliminary results of the ongoing Elamite lemma base project. The project started within the framework of the Ancient Language Processing working group of the DANES network.
The project aims to enhance the study of the Elamite language through digital tools, specifically by creating a lemma base and a digital corpus of texts. The project began by formatting the entries from the Hinz and Koch wordlist into an Excel file. Each entry was then analysed and assigned a root, translation, and grammatical categorisation to create a lemma base that aims to develop language and Ancient Near Eastern studies. Its effectiveness has been tested through case studies, including the evolution of word bases over time (spelling, meaning, context), the creation of adjectives, and the role of Persian suffixes in Achaemenid Elamite. These studies have allowed us to trace the development of Elamite linguistics, determine the absence of adjectival roots, and confirm that Achaemenid Elamite is a pidgin language. Additionally, QID links, sourced from Wikidata, have been applied to the senses of the entries of the lemma base to connect them with words in other languages that share similar meanings. This procedure is important for languages like Elamite that have not yet been categorised within a linguistic group. The results presented here offer just a glimpse of the potential insights that will emerge once the digital resources are fully developed.
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From Susa to the Louvre-Lens Museum: Rediscovering and Reconstructing the EKI 54 Stele of Šilak Inšušinak
In 1905, archaeologist Jacques de Morgan and his team discovered an imposing stele in Susa, Iran, bearing on its both sides an inscription in the name of the Elamite king Šilak Inšušinak (1150-1120 BC). This cuneiform text, one of the longest known in the Elamite language, was first published in 1911 by Vincent Scheil, based on the stele's stamping made in the field shortly after its discovery. This was fortunate, as the stele, carved from soft stone whose surface was gradually flaking off, was badly damaged during transport to Paris : it arrived at the Louvre in 1912, shattered into over 350 fragments of varying size, thickness and weight.
While the inscription continued to attract the attention of scholars and epigraphists, the stele itself – as a physical object – was completely forgotten for over a century. In 2019, as part of the collections assessment of the Louvre’s Near Eastern Antiquities Department, its many fragments, scattered in different locations, were rediscovered and identified at the museum. This marked the start of an ambitious and unprecedented restoration project which was completed, after 5 years, in Fall 2024. As a result, this important historical document is now presented to the public for the first time, currently at the Louvre-Lens Museum before heading back to the galleries of the parisian museum in the coming years.
This paper will tell the eventful story of this monument, from its creation in Elam at the end of the 2nd millenium BC to its arrival in Paris in early 20th century and its recent reconstruction in the Louvre's conservation laboratory, thanks also to unpublished archives and photographs. It will also shed new light on the text itself, which for the first time can be completely re-analyzed and re-assessed on the basis of the original inscription.
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Philological Notes on "Day" in Elamite
Thinking everyday life in Elam involves an investigation on how the Elamites conceived the very idea of a "day", more exactly on how they named it. There are actually two words concomitantly attested in the Elamite language to designate daytime ; "nan" and "šatme". The aim of this contribution is to analyse the various contexts in which those terms appear and to define more precisely their sense, the differentiation of meaning they imply, and the logic behind their use.
Another inquiry concerns the verbal root "na-" ("to speak, to declare") which seems to be related with "nan". As previous propositions such as Bork's "spricht Heil aus" or Hinz's "guten Tag" seem highly unsatisfying, a reassess of this correlation is in order. It appears also that the name Nahhunte (the Elamite sun-god) includes the root "na-" (cf. the variant spelling "na-an-hu-un-de").
Frequently associated with "bel" ("year" in Elamite) in the Meso-Elamite corpus, "nan" is also used in administrative Achaemenid tablets with the divine determinative AN, conferring it thus a numinous dimension projected in divine or cosmic time. On the other hand, "šatme" is specifically used in tandem with "šutme" ("night") and depict the momentum of daytime rather than the vivid energy empowered by the sunlight.
This latter conception of daytime did not apparently gain the popularity of its counterpart. In the Achaemenid period "šut(me)" is used with "nan", and "šatme" disappeared from our sources. It is also clear form the composite forms in which "nan" is inserted ("nanme", "na(n)ma", na(n)zir", etc.) that it reflects a living usage, by opposition with "šatme" which is more literate.
This work is carried out in the context of the Achaemenid Elamite Dictionary project, currently in progress under the aegis of the Sarikhani Center for Elamite Studies at the EPHE (Paris), funded by the Sarikhani Foundation.
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Floating from the Rivers to the Marshes: Nautical Infrastructure in Elam
Despite the lack of nautical terminology in Elamite and even Old Persian language, the rivers and marshes of Susiana were an intrinsic part of the Elamite transportation network. Thanks to interregional exchange, Mesopotamian documentation gives us a limited insight into the natural changes of Elam’s nautical landscape and its infrastructure during the 3 millennia of the Elamite kingdom. This paper will focus on the nautical infrastructure during the 1st millennium BC, going from pontoon bridges in the marshes to the quays of Susa, that facilitated the circulation of people and goods.
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Susa in Transitions
The vital and prosperous center of Elam, Susa, underwent several prominent captures and conquests during its long-time existence. Though, subsequent phases of explicit destruction and raze to the ground aftermath the conquest, occur far later in diverse emperor narratives. Equally prominent are several glorious comebacks of Susa in written traditions. Susa was a permanent attraction for rulers of various early kingdoms between Lowland Mesopotamia and Highland Fars, a permanent active agent in the long history of Elam and following Assyrian and Achaemenid empires. Finally, the return of the early Achaemenid rulers established royal ancestry of Susa, and the site sustained historic importance for more than 2000 years, hard-fought, re-vitalized, defeated, memorized, glorified. Major player in the game are the elites, and military. But what does this mean for the urban and hinterland population? How is the citizen reality reflected in the archaeological contexts, in comparison to the overall dominating royal narratives?
How can archaeologists measure the effects of struggle and revenge, reconstruction and conquests in daily life of workers, farmers, craftsmen that populated and feed the city, its temples and palaces and elites? This contribution aims the archaeological contextualization and historic perception of the citizens during the not so glory but difficult periods, of Susa, the periods of transitions, in particular during the 1st millennium BCE.
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W03: Everyday Life in the Ur III Period
Organizers: Sergio Alivernini (alivernini@orient.cas.cz), Steven Garfinkle (garfins@wwu.edu), Palmiro Notizia (palmiro.notizia@unibo.it)
Praise to Nin-Ildum, the Princely Carpenter! An Early Mesopotamian God in the Neosumerian Documentation
The carpenter-god Nin-Ildum is attested in one of the Early Dynastic za3-me hymns and in several god lists, most notably from Fara and Abu Ṣalabiḫ, as well as from later periods. This deity also appears in the third millennium administrative documentation, both as a theonym and as a theophoric element in onomastics, particularly in the region of Umma.
M. A. Powell first discussed this deity in the context of local cults at Presargonic Zabalam (OrNS 45, 1976). In their entry in RlA 9 (1998–2001, s.v. Nin-duluma), M. Krebernik and A. Cavigneaux further elaborated on the reading and the role of this distinctive god in Early Mesopotamia.
This presentation seeks to contribute new insights into the figure and cult of Nin-Ildum in the region of Umma by analyzing the currently available Neosumerian documentation, thus updating the interpretation of this Early Mesopotamian god within his local context.
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"Wealth is Far Away, Poverty is Near" (SP 1.15): Portraying Ur III Poverty and Abundance in Terms of Purchasing Power
One of the most-impactful experiences in the lives of many Ur III inhabitants must have been the bleak prospect of hardship, seeing their supplies of barley dwindle. While most of the poorly compensated menials and every slave faced this calamity perpetually, several citizen families dreaded the final weeks before harvest. Of course, these conditions were not endured by all equally. This presentation explores how differently various families in the Ur III period experienced economic hardship and abundance in everyday life. To obtain a proxy for Ur III incomes and the purchasing-power distribution, we take the metric economic stratification according to the Presargonic organization at Ĝirsu called Emunus/Emi and feed it with Ur III income levels from Umma. Combining these income data from various economic and social strata with information on basic dietary needs, typical pre-industrial consumer-basket compositions, as well as the extensive Ur III price data from merchant balanced accounts and sale documents makes it possible to construct a consumer basket for every chosen representative of each stratum. These consumer baskets demonstrate how a third of families struggled to afford any basic necessities from their regularly paid barley and wool. The baskets of the middle third could be filled with supplementary food and clothing, but the accumulation of sufficient wealth for infrequent major purchases, such as livestock and housing, was arduous. The wealthiest third was less prone to restrain their consumption on a daily basis, and its upper echelon could acquire exquisite luxuries far beyond the grasp of everyone else.
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Central Authority, Local Practices: Labour and Production in Ur III Ceramic Workshop at Logardan, Iraqi Kurdistan
Although written documentation from the Ur III period depicts a labour-intensive and highly centralised economic system, the organisation of everyday pottery production activities has long remained elusive in archaeological evidence. At the site of Logardan in Iraqi Kurdistan, the recent discovery of a large workshop with dozens of kilns excavated over several hundred square meters offers new insights into the organisation of this mundane craft. Located in a boundary zone between the empire’s northern edge and the Lullubum territory, this extensive production site featured working areas equipped with complex firing systems and a wide variety of tools used to manufacture ceramic material related to the Southern Mesopotamian koiné. The analysis of the production infrastructures and the spatial distribution of pottery types and techniques has been conducted as the first step towards a comprehensive understanding of the workshop’s internal operation and management. The preliminary results suggest that the Logardan workshop was integrated into the Ur III network under a coordinated hierarchy. Yet, the groups of potters operating there maintained significant autonomy in managing their daily tasks.
By combining fresh archaeological evidence with textual sources, this paper reassesses labour organisation in Ur III ceramic production, adopting a bottom-up and fringe perspective. The Logardan case study, with its rare viewpoint from the empire’s margins, reveals the complex interplay between the central authority’s mechanisms and the local communities’ practices in one of the earliest examples of state-controlled economies.
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Seasonality, Hiring, and Gendered Labor at Garšana
Though the administration of the aristocratic Ur III estate of Garšana produced a wide variety of administrative documents, the daily worker rosters are of particular interest due to their contribution to our understanding of day-to-day life on such an estate and the seasonal and gendered makeup of the labor force. Most basically, these texts record the source and number of workers and their assigned tasks for the day in question. In a period where conscripted labor was ubiquitous, this archive is notable for the preponderance of hired workers and the presence of female workers performing hard manual labor, often as brick haulers. Additionally, the daily worker rosters at Garšana offer highly granular data during the final years of Šu-Suen’s rule, with as many as half of the texts for certain months surviving. This allows for employing basic statistical modelling to estimate the total size of the workforce throughout the year and examine how construction work at Garšana followed a clear seasonal rhythm. While offering no definitive answer on the topic, possibilities for the source(s) of large numbers of female laborers for hire are explored. The texts demonstrate that, in the case of the estate at Garšana, the surrounding area possessed a labor pool large enough to draw in hundreds of individuals, primarily women, on an ad hoc basis for temporary employment within seasonal constraints.
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Labor, Slave and Children: Sales of Persons in Ur III Dynasty
This paper aims to do a comprehensive investigation for the sales of persons including labor, slave and children in Ur III Dynasty, based on hundreds of the Neo-Sumerian contracts and court records. This issue has already been close attention in previous studies, such as FAOS 17 (Steinkeller 1989), OIP 104 (Gelb, Steinkeller and Whiting 1989), Cullertson 2008, Molina 2008, Garfinkle 2012, Alivernini 2013, Verderame 2018, Notizia 2019, and so forth, on which this study is based. However, with more and more newly published data and unpublished texts known, many questions have not been completely solved as follows. Some conclusions and ideas could be either changed or re-interpreted. How many types are on the sales of persons? Is there the fixed formula of the sale documents? How much is a sold person in sale documents? What identification are the buyers and sellers? What is the purpose or usage of the bought person? The case studies are not only to sell oneself but also to sell family members (either selling children by their parents, or selling parents by their children, or selling siblings by themselves). This study will firstly collect all related cuneiform documents (mostly contracts and court records), edit them into FileMaker database, and analyze all data to draw some conclusions. Through answering above-mentioned questions, the author tries to explore the human sale market (if it exists), reveals the slavery, employment system and family kinship in the Ur III Dynasty. Finally, this paper compares the relationship between the human sale contracts in this dynasty and its former and later periods.
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Through the Keyhole: Exploring Daily Life in Ur III through Ditila Texts
Reconstructing daily life from about 4,000 years ago is not an easy task. This study aims to do this by analyzing the corpus of ditila—legal texts from the period. While these texts are not descriptive chronicles, but rather administrative instruments for dealing with social issues, they provide a broad insight into the dynamics of the society at the time, revealing its values, norms, and social structures.
Unfortunately, prosopographical research does not always clarify the identities of the individuals involved in these proceedings. Nonetheless, the ditilas useful information regarding social groupes and household dynamics, economic and labor practices, and the legal and administrative framework of the time.
This study focuses on several aspects of daily life, including the support systems within social groups, the economic strategies employed by households, and the central administration's role in restoring social balance, as it often intervened to resolve disputes. The purpose of this work is to show that, despite their administrative nature, the ditila corpus provide an extraordinary opportunity to peek through the keyhole at everyday life during the Third Dinasty of Ur.
Through their analysis, not only do conflicts and their resolutions come to light, but so do the underlying cultural and normative foundations that shaped the society of Ur III. These texts portray a complex interplay of social, economic, and legal practices, illustrating how the people of that era navigated their daily lives within the framework of larger society
systems. The ditilas are thus key sources for understanding Ur III's life experiences and organizational principles.
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A Day in the Life of the Ur III Political Economy
The study of the early political economy in Mesopotamia has received sustained scholarly attention because of the wealth and variety of the surviving administrative sources from early states like the Third Dynasty of Ur (2112-2204 BC), but many larger questions remain. What were the goals of such administrators? How did their work not only organize patterns of production and consumption, but also catalyze incipient state institutions? In this contribution, I will seek answers to these questions by reconstructing a day in the life of this early Mesopotamian kingdom from the perspective of the state’s economic administrators.
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Duplicated Works (gaba-ri) of Scribes in Ur III Period
During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the numerous scribes within administrative institutions played a crucial role in the kingdom's governance. To ensure the accuracy of every income or expenditure, scribes not only recorded transactions as they occurred but also periodically reviewed and consolidated previously recorded amounts. Through repeated writing and calculations, the administrative institutions were able to monitor transactions effectively, thereby supporting effective governance by the rulers. Among Ur III documents, many are almost exact copies of one another, providing evidence of the scribes' duplicated work. The purpose of creating such copies or extracts, known as "duplicates," was to maintain records of the same transaction in multiple locations. Primarily, a record was kept at the site of the transaction, while a secondary copy was sent to the central administration (whether provincial or state, such as at Ur), where they were ultimately stored in pisan dub-ba "tablet baskets.". Storing both the original tablet and its copy or extract together made it easier to tally accounts.Summary accounts are a common type of record in documents from the Ur III period. Although accounts were compiled based on information from the accumulated texts, the number of tablets involved was rarely mentioned. In addition to the term gaba-ri N(-kam) “it’s a copy of N (sealed tablets)”, we also observe two other expressions: kišib-bi N “its tablets N” and im-bi N “its clay (tablets) N”.
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The Šabras and the Bureaus of Animal Husbandry in Ur during the Ur III Period
The šabras, the chief temple administrators of Ur during the Ur III period, held extensive responsibilities that encompassed numerous sectors of the economy. The focus of the present paper is on one particular function of the šabras in Ur: their management of cattle and flocks. While their role in sustaining the temple cult and their contributions to the bala system have been well established, less is known about the structure of the bureaus they oversaw, and the officers who worked under them. The daily tasks of the offices dealing with animal husbandry is also somewhat obscure. This paper aims to reconstruct these bureaus, which were responsible for the management of cattle and flocks in the city of Ur. The deliveries of animals and animal products are also examined, which include the tasks of the administrators, and the storehouses and institutes involved in these transactions. In Ur, most of the preserved texts date from the reign of Ibbi-Suen, and a central figure of this investigation is the relatively lesser-known šabra, Daya, who is attested in the late Ur III economy in the city of Ur during this period. This presentation will also explore his duties, family, and career.
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Not Only Beer: The Multifaceted Role of Fermentation in Ancient Mesopotamian Food Preservation in the Third Millennium BCE
Fermentation played a vital role in ancient Mesopotamian society, extending far beyond the production of beer, which is often emphasized in the secondary literature. This paper highlights the diverse applications of fermentation in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly focusing on its use in food preservation and processing, which was essential for managing resources in the region’s peculiar climate. Cuneiform administrative sources of the second half of the third millennium BCE coupled with specific archaeological findings reveal that fermentation was employed not only to brew beer but also to preserve fish, dairy, and fruits. The controlled breakdown of sugars and proteins through fermentation provided the ancient Mesopotamian society with extended food shelf life, enhanced nutritional value, and inevitably unique flavours. This analysis explores how fermentation techniques reflected both practical responses to environmental challenges and cultural changes in diet, cultic practices and social context. By integrating textual, archaeological and iconographic evidence with a biochemical approach, this research offers a more comprehensive view of Mesopotamian culinary practices and their role in sustaining early urban societies.
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The Use, Recycling, and Everyday Importance of Bitumen in Ur III Southern Mesopotamia
The presentation will discuss the use and recycling of bitumen in Southern Mesopotamia during the Ur III period (c. 2100–2000 BCE), focusing on its role in everyday life and the practical implications of its progressive degradation through reuse. Bitumen, a crucial material in ancient Mesopotamian society, was imported over long distances—from Madga, along the Euphrates River, in the West and from centers located in the Great Elam in the East—and widely utilized in construction, boat-building, and as a protective coating for various items. Bitumen was extremely important in Southern Mesopotamia, given the reliance on locally available materials for construction, such as reed and clay. Due to its durability and waterproofing qualities, bitumen was indispensable in daily activities, from securing structures and boats against water damage to coating storage vessels. However, bitumen’s performance declined with repeated recycling, as essential organic compounds diminished with each reuse, affecting its effectiveness. By combining evidence from archaeological findings and written sources, this research will explore the lifecycle of bitumen in Southern Mesopotamian society. This interdisciplinary approach seeks to reveal how bitumen recycling impacted daily life and contributed to the adaptive reuse strategies characteristic of Ur III Mesopotamia, reflecting a pragmatic approach to resource scarcity and preservation.
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(Mostly) Business as Usual – Daily Life in Eshnunna's Palace of the Rulers
The Palace of the Rulers at Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar in the Diyala Region) represents the only comprehensively excavated governor’s palace dating to the Ur III period. Built around 2,070 BC during the reign of Shulgi it remained the seat of an Ur III governor until 2,026 BC, when Eshnunna’s gained its independence from Ur. Associated with this building were 149 tablets from the Ur III period of mostly administrative nature. Though clearly accounting for only a small sample of the palace’s archival records they form a unique dataset as an administrative text corpus from an Ur III government institution that was not only retrieved during excavations but also in association with its functional context. While generally providing little information regarding historical events that shaped the city’s fortune during the Ur III period they allow for detailed insights into the daily life within an Ur III administrative center, revealing the names of key protagonists in its operation and the interactions between them. The majority of texts, found in the palace area itself and dating to the reigns of Shulgi and Amar-Suen, are juxtaposed by later texts from the Shusin Temple, a subsequent add-on to the palace built for Ur III’s deified ruler. Dating to the reigns of Shusin and Ibbi-Sin some of them record day-to-day transactions that were never transferred to summary accounts, thus foreshadowing the immanent end of Ur III’s overlordship over Eshnunna. Of particular interest are daily accounts from the temple’s cella that reflect the last month of its operation (Ibbi-Sin year 2 month VIII), thus providing a tantalizing glimpse into day-to-day activities pertaining to the cult to the deified king before its demise.
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Ayakala, a Problem of Seals and Dates
One in ten tablets of the Umma archive are sealed by the same man, Ayakalla. The seven seals he used during his career show a pattern that Bergamini compared to the Roman cursus honorem, namely how seal design reflects the owner’s career/status.
I will consider two questions based on his seals and the tablets he sealed:
1. When a man got a new seal, what happened to the old one?
2. What does the date on a tablet refer to?
Anyone living today is likely to assume the date on the tablet meant “today’s date” since that is how we think nowadays. If that is what the 21st century BC scribes thought as well, then, over his 32 year career, when Ayakala got a new seal, the old one disappeared; but occasionally he had two, and then he had one again.
One such occasion causes the conundrum that led to Waetzoldt’s “coregency” idea: according to tablet dates, Ayakala started using a servant seal of Šu-Suen in AS 7, whereas Amar-Suena didn’t die until AS 8/vii or so. The logical alternative, as Waetzoldt noted, is that tablets were backdated.
I will evaluate two hypotheses:
1. When a man got a new seal, the old seal was permanently retired.
2. Tablet dates usually refer to a date pretty close to “today’s date” but could be backdated (probably not by more than a year or two).
A few clear cases of backdating have been noted over the years, but no one knows why or how often tablets were backdated. If my hypotheses are supported, then the seal and the “date” are both valid chronological indicators, and discrepancies between seal and date will allow us to identify tablets that are definitely backdated, which is essential if we hope to understand why tablets were backdated.
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W04: Botanical Heritage: The Role of Plants in Mesopotamian Daily Life
Organizer: Gioele Zisa (gioele.zisa@uniroma1.it)
Folk Taxonomies in a Society with Writing – the Sumerian Framework for Organizing Plant Labels from a Cognitive Perspective
It has suggested that in most traditional societies, “a very considerable part of the vocabulary—often the largest single terminological field—will relate to plants.” There is also considerable agreement that folk biologies in various societies are structured in similar ways and provide matrixes for classifying items in the world around them. Here, I offer some thought on how one can think about the structure of the Sumerian plant lexicon as it was expressed in the formalized setting of written language. The presentation will be informed with perspectives from cognitively oriented ethnology and linguistics, focusing on the recursive relationship between theory and written semiotics.
Understanding the principles of labeling plant taxa in formal constructs helps to understand differences between narrow species and generic uses and how to account for how words can be understood as occurring in both functions. Pedagogical word lists fixed lexical knowledge and organization from a specific period only to be utilized for centuries, often without significant changes, freezing lexical sets. Oral interpretation may have tempered some anachronisms, but that will obviously remain inaccessible forever. It must be stressed that this setting for these was primarily urban, and therefore one must allow for a certain degree of interference and a lack of pragmatic knowledge.
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Aromatics in Neo-Babylonian Temples
This paper looks at the evidence – mostly from the archives or Ebabbar and Eanna – for priestly families who safeguard and develop traditional lore related to the manufacture and use of aromatic ointments, ‘soaps’ and incense mixtures. The technical vocabulary referring to the botanical ingredients is largely dependent on lexical and other textual traditions reaching back to the third millennium, but some innovations reflecting the contemporary economic environment can be recognized, too.
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Ancient Near Eastern Practices in Viticulture par Images. A View from the Palace
In the Ancient Near East, the grapevine cultivation, known from the Late Neolithic period onwards, has always characterised the landscape of specific regions (southern Levant, for example). The cuneiform texts and archaeobotanical evidence (pollen, chrcoal, seed/fruit and other botanical remains), in fact, allowed to identify those areas not only favourable to this horticultural crop by climate, soil, temperature, sun exposition and ventilation (Syro-anatolian region, Euphrates valley) but also destined for wine production. However, little has been discussed yet about agricultural practices, also due to scarcity of data. Nevertheless, for the 1st millennium BCE, the Assyrian reliefs, offering a large repertoire of landscape settings, could provide some clues relating to plantation practices for grapevine, growth habit and maintining of this food crop (Vitis maritae, alberello method, pruning technique), through the adoption of farming techniques still in use today and based on the experiential knowledge and locally available resources and traditional approaches.
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Plants as Persons: First Millennium Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Botany
This study explores the personification of plants in first-millennium Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between spoken words, ritual actions, and the symbolic attributes of plants. In magical texts, plants are not portrayed as passive ingredients but as active agents endowed with human-like qualities such as speech, intentionality, and the ability to confront and neutralize malevolent forces. Incantations frequently address plants directly in the second person, invoking their divine origins and highlighting their dual connection to the heavens and the underworld, symbolized through their roots and branches.
Key examples, including the ‘it-heals-thousand-(sicknesses)’ and the ‘wood-of-release,’ demonstrate how plants’ protective and restorative powers are amplified through etymology, poetic descriptions, and associations with deities. This personification enhances the efficacy of rituals, transforming plants into mediators between humans and the divine, capable of countering harm caused by witchcraft.
By examining the agency and intentionality attributed to plants, as well as their connections to divine realms and sacred geographies in poetic invocations, this study reveals a Mesopotamian worldview where human and non-human actors are deeply intertwined in a cosmic network.
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The ‘Scape-Palm’? Ritual Use and Symbolism of a Plant from Mesopotamian Daily Life
This paper examines the symbolism of the date-palm, an important plant in Mesopotamian daily life, in parts of the anti-demon ritual Udug-ḫul. The ritual actions involving the date-palm are described in a mythological framework: first, the date-palm’s purity and strength is praised, then its fronds are given by the divine gardener to Enki and Asalluḫi, who bind them to the patient’s head and limbs respectively. The actions are ostensibly similar to those usually performed on ‘scapegoats’ in various rituals, including in Udug-ḫul, which allow the animals to take on the patient’s fate and die in their stead.
The date-palm, however, does not appear to function as a substitute for the patient. Instead, this part of the ritual works in the opposite direction, with the patient taking on particular qualities of the date-palm. These qualities, which in daily life made the date-palm a valued agricultural product, provide in the ritual context symbolism for protecting the patient from evil forces. In this case, it is the tree’s proverbial strength and ability to withstand winds (also used as a metaphor for evil), but the date-palm was also frequently exploited in ritual contexts for its fertility or inherent purity.
Another tree, the tamarisk, is often paired with the date-palm in ritual contexts, providing its own symbolism, but also reflecting an agricultural reality, since the two trees were often grown together. Thus, elements of lived agricultural and botanical experience from daily life are elevated to a cosmic level, with the gods not only taking on the usual role of exorcist but also that of gardener. This paper thus provides a case study of the power of plants, especially in ritual contexts, to act as a point of connection between the cosmic-mythological realm and the everyday experiences of humans, providing symbols that translate into ritual efficacy.
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Radiation and Synthesis: The Rosette as a Symbol of Neo-Assyrian Political Theology
From the very inception of Mesopotamian civilization, the flower has occupied a significant position within its symbolic system. The humble wildflowers scattered across the fields of Western Asia—such as chrysanthemums, daisies, and cosmos—were refined into a type of motif we now refer to as the “rosette.” While the exact plant that inspired this pattern remains uncertain, modern scholars generally agree that its visual resemblance links it to Ishtar (Inanna), the goddess of Venus.
However, this interpretation fails to address a new phenomenon observable in the palace reliefs of the Neo-Assyrian period—various variations of the rosette motif are scattered across different contexts, from crowns and garments to jewelry and weapons. Divine symbols, by nature, often carry unique iconographic significance. Therefore, this proliferation, repetition, and intentional arrangement reflect a novel visual language, indicating a new conceptual approach to imagery.
The rapid expansion of the empire brought about significant political changes, which, in turn, fostered a political theology emphasizing universality and sovereignty. While the gods of Mesopotamia continued to reside in their temples, the worship of the principal deity had markedly surpassed that of other gods. Under the influence of this monolatristic ideology, the rosette, which once represented a specific deity, became synthesized, transforming into a symbol of universal and sovereign divinity.
This floral motif’s elevation to the most sacred emblem of the Assyrian Empire was due not only to its profound historical significance but also to its radiating structural design. The radiative pattern emphasized the dispersion from a central point outward, while also suggesting convergence from the periphery to the center. Otherwise, the circular form further implied a sense of wholeness. Thus, the rosette encapsulates a political theology: a sacred power structure that is universal, radiative, and centripetal, with the vitality inherent in plant life subtly interwoven into its meaning.
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The Circulation of Plants and Plant Products in Upper Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian Period
The corpus of letters and administrative texts from the Old Babylonian period provides a valuable source for understanding the demand and circulation of plant species in ancient Mesopotamia. Analyzing these tablets allows for the identification of plant species and products that were particularly sought after, while also offering insight into the networks of exchange that underpinned them. These exchanges occur on different scales—local, regional, and interregional—and reveal the diversity of actors involved, both in initiating the demands and in fulfilling them.
The study of the circulation of plants through epigraphic documents from various sites in Upper Mesopotamia highlights not only the intra-regional dynamics but also connections with neighboring regions, such as the Levantine world. The latter, thanks to its distinct climate and ecosystem, supplied exotic species that were highly valued in Upper Mesopotamia. These exchanges involved a variety of goods—seeds, fruits, cuttings, whole or cut trunks, and even trees intended for transplantation. This paper will focus on these exchange networks while addressing the practical aspects of supply (difficulties in acquisition, botanical considerations, transportation methods, etc.). It will also examine the nature of these demands, revealing the multiple and practical uses of these plants in the daily life of the inhabitants of Upper Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BCE.
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Long Distance Trade's Contribution to Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Case of Exotic Plants, Animals and Stones in Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine and Magic
Ancient Mesopotamians employed a wide variety of plants, animals and minerals for prophylactic and healing purposes. It has long been known, from direct evidence in the Universal Word list series, that certain exotic woods and stones were imported. Just about any stone you care to name will have had to be imported, but hard wood and certain medicinal substances such as myrrh, bdellium and asa foetida had to come from abroad. What is just beginning to be appreciated is the sheer volume of trade in exotica in the Neo-Assyrian period, well beyond the paltry annual tribute, and from places that Assyrians never conquered. Also interesting is the extent to which ancient Mesopotamians knew what they were buying. This paper will be a brief survey of what is known on this subject. Highlights will include just how many things myrrh was used for in ancient Mesopotamian medicine, a survey of snakes, many of them Indian, whose skins could be used for leather as well as medicine and last, but not least, a portrait of an Assyrian royal harem seen from the perspective of exotic stones many of which can be identified with the help of an Assyrian composition known as “The Nature of Stones”.
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The Ṣarbatu-Tree in Mesopotamian Therapeutic and Cultural Contexts
Recent studies have shown that the analysis of Mesopotamian medicine has been enriched by adopting an emic perspective, prioritizing indigenous concepts and interpretations over external frameworks. This approach enhances the understanding of materia medica within Mesopotamian therapeutic, symbolic, and epistemological contexts.
This paper explores the ṣarbatu-tree, identified as the poplar (Populus alba L.), to illustrate these dynamics. Ṣarbatu occupies a prominent role in Mesopotamian texts, as evidenced by its depiction in the myth “Inanna and Shukaletuda”, where the goddess Ištar is said to have found respite beneath this tree, thereby establishing its sacred association. Similarly, in the disputation poem “The Series of the Poplar”, the ṣarbatu competes with the ash tree (martû) to assert its superiority through its diverse uses, including regulating water flow, crafting tools, and serving in construction and rituals. In Medical texts, the ṣarbatu’s therapeutic properties are well-documented, with resin, charcoal, and leaves playing a key role in remedies for various ailments, including puerperal fever (treated via vaginal insertion of a tampon made with ṣarbatu charcoal) and alluttu-disease, a condition specific to women. Its use in dam construction tools, such as hoe handles and sluices, metaphorically associates ṣarbatu with water regulation. This notion is particularly relevant in the context of medical incantations, where disorders involving bodily fluids are likened to overflowing rivers or canals, reflecting the metaphorical underpinnings of Mesopotamian medicine. The applications of ṣarbatu in medical texts exemplify the epistemological significance of this tree, uniting physical utility, cultural context, and therapeutic meaning. By examining ṣarbatu within its native epistemological framework, this study reveals its centrality in Mesopotamian medicine, culture, and symbolism. Adopting an emic perspective illuminates the deeper connections between botanical knowledge, therapeutic practices, and cultural identity, demonstrating the richness and complexity of Mesopotamian approaches to health and the natural world.
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W05: Letters – Beyond Editions
Organizers: Sara Manasterska (sara.manasterska@ori.uni-heidelberg.de), Mustafa Djabellaoui (phicantien@gmail.com)
La vie dynamique des lettres : une compréhension des stratégies discursives des femmes paléo-assyriennes
À l’époque paléo-assyrienne, les réseaux de sociabilité se construisent selon la trame des relations commerciales et familiales. La mobilisation de la langue dans les lettres cunéiformes, matérialisée dans les tablettes d’argile, était essentielle au fonctionnement de ces réseaux. Ces lettres étaient constamment échangées pour organiser les stratégies commerciales, pour atténuer la perception de la distance et pour préserver le contact dans un contexte de grande mobilité. Cependant, elles ne doivent pas être simplement considérées comme un véhicule de transmission des messages. Les lettres font partie intégrante des réseaux et, par conséquent, elles sont vivantes. Elles prennent toute leur signification dans le "in between" des dynamiques relationnelles et au cours des interactions des réseaux dans lesquelles elles circulent (Ingold, 2016 ; 2021). Dans ce sens, indépendamment du degré d’intentionnalité intégré au discours matérialisé dans l’argile, il y a une limite à la prévisibilité de l’effet d’une lettre sur un destinataire. Dans le cas des lettres paléo-assyriennes, il est possible de remarquer que les femmes, sensibles à l’instabilité de leurs messages, ont adopté des stratégies linguistiques très spécifiques afin de renforcer l’efficacité de leurs appels et de leurs demandes. Cette communication vise à comprendre, en tenant compte du contexte social de circulation et de préparation d’une lettre, comment les femmes des familles marchandes ont mobilisé le langage et quelles ont été les limites de leur action par rapport à la vie dynamique des lettres.
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The Civility of Old Assyrian Letters
Face has for a long time been the central concept in politeness research, and linguistically, politeness would have to be expressed as something “extra” in order to be analysed. Informed by Émile Durkheim’s sociology, Mervyn Horgan has recently proposed to shift from politeness to civility, and from face to ritual, that is the norms of everyday interactions (Horgan 2021, “Sacred civility? An alternative conceptual architecture informed by cultural sociology”, in Journal of Politeness Research 17.1, 9-33). Applying this concept, the present paper investigates Old Assyrian letters regarding their particular normalness (to violently paraphrase Clifford Geertz) in the face of civility. What can we learn about Old Assyrian society from viewing the standards of letter writing through the lens of civility, and what about (in)civility from breaches of standard language use?
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Exchanges and Expectations: Tracing the Forms of Reciprocity in Akkadian Letters
The aim of this paper is to consider forms of reciprocal exchanges in the epistolographic institutional corpora from the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE and what information they provide about social relations in Ancient Near Eastern societies, as well as the meaning of reciprocity depending on factors such as social distance and power.
Even though oral transmission remained a significant factor in most areas of social activity, writing accompanied the people of the Assyria and Babylon for millennia and it is through writing that we can follow their business transactions, administrative and managerial preoccupations, political engagements, and religious activities. Epistolographic assemblages in their original findspots typically only preserve one side of an exchange, individual letters constituting merely a single link in a longer chain. Nonetheless, as senders also referred to previous links in the chain, quoted large parts of directly preceding letter(s) wholesale or referred to it in a more oblique manner, larger sections of exchanges are not entirely hidden from curious modern eyes.
It is by tracing these exchanges in letters from institutional context in the first millennium BCE Assyria and Babylonia – with some contrasting examples from older periods – that I wish to illustrate how social relations are encoded in Akkadian epistolography. Reciprocity can be conceptualised differently depending on social expectations which often remain unstated. By comparing what can be gleaned indirectly whenever exchanges of goods and favours are involved on the basis of means of persuasion involved, I wish to present a more profound understanding of social relations as they are preserved in letter corpora.
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Old Babylonian Letters: Social Context and Daily Life
The Old Babylonian period is rightly associated with the intensification and widespread use of writing. Letter-writing had become so common that scribes of the time believed writing had been invented primarily for long-distance communication. The corpus of Old Babylonian letters is therefore a unique resource for those interested in the daily life of the Mesopotamians. Through them, we gain an understanding of the portion of the population that made writing their own and learn more about their activities, needs, joys, and concerns. Most were sent by and/or addressed to men. The latter represent more than 80% of identified senders and addressees. This figure obviously does not reflect demographic reality, but rather reveals an important aspect of epistolary practice, namely that letters were mainly exchanged in a professional context. Men held important positions that required information exchange: they were ministers, officers, diviners, city mayors, merchants, etc. The socio-professional context gains added significance as it crucially determined the conditions for accessing writing. For instance, we know that the king, his entourage, and his officials had professional scribes, as well as workers specialized in transporting mail, at their service. This lecture will explore the use of letter-writing within the palace, temples, and cities, while considering the role of women in each. It will offer a clearer picture of who resorted to letter-writing during the Old Babylonian period, the main reasons why they wrote to each other, and how they proceeded to write their letters and have them arrive to their senders.
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Nippur in the Provincial Network according to Kassite Period Letters
This study explores the role of Kassite period Nippurean letters, which facilitated the functioning of provincial and supraregional governance, as fundamental instruments of administration. Drawing on the corpus of letters excavated at Nippur, this study investigates how written correspondence served to document a wide array of administrative, political, and some commercial activities. The Nippur letters provide crucial insights into the internal workings of provincial administration, while also shedding light on the broader interprovincial networks that connected Nippur to other regions across the Kassite kingdom. Through a close analysis of the epistolary conventions and linguistic strategies employed in these letters, this paper will demonstrate how they reveal a hierarchical “chain of command” embedded in the administrative processes. By situating these findings within the broader context of Kassite governance, this paper contributes to our understanding of the dynamics that shaped the province of Nippur and its role within the wider Kassite state.
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Placing the Archive of Idadda in the Amarna Chronology
The archaeological excavation at the palace of Qatna retrieved the so-called archive of Idadda, published by Thomas Richter in 2013. The findspot of these tablets suggests that they had not been formally stored when the palace was destroyed, indicating that the matters they mention were ongoing at the time of the city's fall, during the time period covered by the Amarna letters. Five of these tablets are diplomatic texts capable of providing valuable new insights into the political landscape of the Orontes valley during the period covered by the Amarna letters.
This presentation will discuss the placement of the Idadda archive within the chronological framework of the Amarna period, by cross referencing the information coming from both archives and the Hittite sources, allowing for a broader reconstruction of historical events and interactions between Qatna and other powers of the time.
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Rakbû as Diplomatic Envoys: A Study of Mounted Messengers in Royal Inscriptions from Shalmaneser III to Assurbanipal
The Assyrian Empire maintained a sophisticated system of royal communication that included several categories of messengers. These included the mār šipri ("messenger"), the kalliu ("express messenger") who carried urgent messages via relay system, and the (ša) qurbūte ("royal confidant"), among others.
In this paper, I examine the rakbû ("mounted messenger"), analyzing their roles, the types of messages they conveyed, and the relationships between their senders and recipients. The rakbû appear predominantly in Assyrian royal inscriptions dating from the reigns of Shalmaneser III to Assurbanipal. They served as envoys who performed various diplomatic functions: conducting well-being inquiries, requesting military assistance, delivering tribute payments, presenting audience gifts, performing acts of obeisance, submitting to superior powers, and establishing treaties and peace agreements.
The royal inscriptions of Assurbanipal describe both the reactions of people along the borders and the communication challenges that arose when they encountered a mounted messenger. The inscriptions occasionally use rakbû and mār šipri interchangeably, which may explain the absence of rakbû in the Assyrian royal correspondence and administrative documents. While foreign kings primarily dispatched mounted messengers to Assyrian rulers, they occasionally served as intermediaries between foreign rulers themselves.
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Tracing Individual Trajectories in Cuneiform Correspondence: The Case of Babylonian Letters from Nippur (8th Century BCE)
This paper explores how individual identities and trajectories are reflected in Babylonian letters from Nippur, dating from the 8th century BCE. It is through this corpus that a unique window has been opened into the personal and professional lives of Arameans and Chaldeans, showing how they navigated social hierarchies, articulated their roles, and negotiated relationships within their communities.
An analysis of this correspondence examines pivotal moments – such as requests for assistance, disputes, and declarations of loyalty – that illuminate the dynamics of personal agency and social expectations. Besides tracing individual trajectory, these letters provide a glimpse into the social framework and power structures of Nippur in the 8th century.
Furthermore, this paper examines the interplay between identity and otherness in these texts. Several subtle markers of individuality are evident in the letters, including linguistic choices, naming practices, and references to kinship, as well as the negotiation of identity during interactions with foreign entities or during periods of displacement. These elements highlight the fluidity and complexity of personal identities in a culturally diverse Babylonian environment.
By focusing on this specific corpus, this communication aims to contribute to the broader methodological discourse on tracing individuality in ancient correspondence. It seeks to demonstrate how the Babylonian letters from Nippur offer valuable insights into identity construction, negotiation, and expression in the ancient Near East.
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Letters, Lists, Legal Texts, and Lentils: Un-matched Evidence for the Study of Ancient Daily Life
Assyriologists often note that cuneiform documents reveal much more about the lives of “elites” than of common people, but a comparison with other fields of ancient history reveals that the ancient Middle East is unique in the extent to which the daily lives of individuals from many walks of life can be examined. This paper will provide a context for the historiography of daily life in the ancient Middle East, by exploring comparable work in some other regions of the ancient world. It will also examine the types of evidence on which these studies have been based, and varied approaches taken by their authors.
While archaeology reveals a great deal about ancient societies and economies in all places, the Middle East is the only region where the everyday lives of ancient common people—in one of the earliest urban cultures, no less—can be studied in numerous texts as well as in material remains. Letters between common people provide a unique source for this, but the lists, legal texts (contracts and court cases), and lentils (and other school texts) of my title are equally valuable. Whereas such documents rarely survive from places and times where scribes generally wrote on organic materials, cuneiform tablets include hundreds of thousands of names, along with details of rations, work assignments, hiring conditions, loans taken, family crises, relationships, and so on, as the submissions to this meeting reflect. Unfortunately, the richness of cuneiform documentation and the sophistication of Assyriological studies of daily life have been largely invisible to scholars in other fields of history. In a time of budget cuts and departmental downsizing, it behooves us to make a strong case for this unique feature of our field and all that it can contribute to the understanding of global history, particularly of the ancient world.
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W06: Redefining Social Complexity in the Late 4th millennium BC
Organizers: Massimo Maiocchi (massimo.maiocchi@unive.it), Kathryn Kelley (kathryn.kelley@unb.ca)
Approaching Social Complexity in the Late Fourth Millennium BCE
This paper examines current perspectives on the emergence of social complexity in the fourth millennium BCE, with particular emphasis on the role of scribes during the Uruk IV-III periods. The idea that urbanization led to an ever-increasing complexity in human interactions is of course very pervasive in scholarly discussions. However, despite its centrality to modern research, the term "complexity" is rarely defined with precision. In many studies, it remains a vague, catch-all concept that obscures rather than clarifies historical reconstructions. The primary objective of this paper is to establish a robust methodological foundation for analyzing complexity in the proto-literate period. Specifically, it seeks to integrate the concept of social complexity within the broader framework of complexity studies to enhance clarity, eliminate ambiguities, and prevent terminological misapplication. As a case study, the paper also explores the applicability of the complexity framework to the study of early scribal life and its role within the urban phenomenon.
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Learning How to Write at the Dawn of History
The emergence of writing in southern Mesopotamia around 3300 BCE and its increasing use as a tool for recording and storing information marked a turning point in the managerial tasks of urban societies, such as that of Uruk. Several information technologies—tokens, bullae, and seals—existed beforehand, but their function was limited to specific economic tasks, such as tracking the movement of goods and ownership. These tools alone were insufficient for recording complex information. While it cannot be ruled out that perishable recording methods also existed, it was undoubtedly the proto-cuneiform writing system that fundamentally transformed early Uruk society.
The precise origins of this writing system, as well as the individuals responsible for its creation, management, standardization, and instruction, remain obscure and can only be hypothesized. Was it the "Priest-King" who approved the signs, or was their development overseen by an institution or committee? The presence of numerous exercise tablets containing short extracts of word lists raises further questions: Who taught young pupils, and where? How was writing disseminated, and more importantly, how was it accepted by emerging administrative structures? These questions can only be answered to a limited extent.
This talk will focus particularly on the process of learning to write in early Uruk society and its relationship to, and impact on, the administrative use of writing at the time.
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On Fruits and Firstlings during the Archaic Period
Cultivation of perennial tree crops can be seen as parallel to craft specialisation such as metallurgy and textiles in driving the development of urban centres and shaping the administrative structures that accompanied the early urbanization, representing a secondary agricultural revolution that marked a novel approach to land use and long-term investment. The significance of fruit tree cultivation during the archaic period emerges particularly from evidence indicating that cultivated fruits were incorporated into the cultic system and played a prominent role in the relational network among cities. After a brief overview on the evidence for fruit and fruit cultivation in the archaic written corpus, the presentation here proposed will focus on the “share on firstlings” attested in the archaic list Lu A (l. 83: NESAG2 ZAG), as an emblematic activity of the professional GAL.ZAG (l. 82), and possibly in economic documents (NESAG2), suggesting that at that time it might have been a provision of fruit and other produce tied to the worship of Inanna of Uruk. Furthermore, the presentation will take into consideration the documents originated outside Uruk bearing the “city seal”, which mostly deal with fruits and might have documented provisions collected on behalf of Inanna of Uruk
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Revisiting the Late Uruk Rosters: Subcases and Subordination in the UKKIN-based Materials
The subordinate staff lists in proto-cuneiform (MSVO 1, 112 and IM 73409,2; see generally Johnson 2016: 186-196) provide us with the key point of contact between the UKKIN list (aka the Archaic Officials List or ArO) and the bicameral orthographies that describe elite “feast distributions” in the Late Uruk period (chiefly based on diacritically enriched forms of SILA3 and UKKIN). The best example of such a mediating roster is W 14804,a+, which ostensibly presents the two hierarchical levels of an UKKIN “institution,” with enumerations of staff in lower-level offices on the obverse, but an enumeration of EN.TUR “junior” staff members for each of the higher-level offices on the reverse. Crucially, each of the higher-level offices on the reverse corresponds to an entry in the UKKIN list. But a quite different UKKIN-based roster appears in W 14777,c, with each column (rather than line or case) corresponding to an entry in the UKKIN list—many columns headed by two individuals—with a subsequent cascade of lower-level EN.TUR offices distinguished into BA and GI, as we move down the column. These intersecting matrices of lines and sub-cases represent one of our most important pieces of evidence for elite social structures in Late Uruk Mesopotamia, but can we interpret the obverse and reverse of W 14804,a+ in simple hierarchical terms? Does the sub-casing in the columns of W 14777,c really encode bureau-internal hierarchical differences? This talk will re-examine hierarchical interpretations of these two rosters and seek to identify analogous moments of possible subordination in the proto-cuneiform textual record.
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Contextualizing CUSAS 1: 18 – A Roster of the Unprovenanced Late Uruk Administration?
Among the Late Uruk accounts, there is a group of approximately 1,000 unprovenanced texts, most of which surfaced during the 1990s and early 2000s.
They are on average better preserved than others, and exhibit features unattested in other Late Uruk corpora such as unusual layouts and administrative qualifications — offering us an opportunity to better understand the earliest phase of cuneiform writing. To study the environment in which they were written though, we must first find a way to organize this haphazard collection of texts into dossiers and archives.
In my presentation, I approach this problem from a statistical angle: through applying the TF/IDF method to measure similarity among accounts, I identified several clusters of texts featuring similar groups of economic agents. In the largest cluster, one text emerged as especially important — CUSAS 1: 18, a personnel list — allowing me to delineate and connect several sections of the economy documented in the unprovenanced texts.
In this talk, I will present the current stage of the archive assembly, with a visualization of the identified account clusters — a tentative “topography” of this administration, illustrating the interconnections among the groups of texts — and discuss how CUSAS 1: 18 reflects this in its structure. I will also address the refinement of this method and outline the next steps in this exploratory study.
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The Structure of Administration in Susa
It has long been noted that the proto-Elamite script (c. 3100–2900 BC) lacks a lexical tradition, and it has been suggested that this failure to establish a formal scribal education tradition goes hand-in-hand with the failure of proto-Elamite to take hold in the third millennium and develop into a multi-purpose writing system. This talk shows that there is in fact one example of a non-accounting text that shares some features with some early Mesopotamian lexical genres. The large and well-preserved tablet MDP 26, 71 is a list of administrative units and officials that offers a partial map of Susian administration. Recently acquired images of the text, housed in the National Museum of Iran, allow us to correct important errors in the much earlier line art, to produce an accurate new copy and offer the first study of this important text. Comparison with administrative tablets reveals how the identities mapped in MDP 26 71 operate within different spheres of proto-Elamite administrative activity. MDP 26 71 thus provides a glimpse of the shape of Susian society and helps us to theorize about the nature of the social experiment underlying the short-lived proto-Elamite writing system.
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The Social Organisation of the Early-Migrating Grandparents and the Struggle to Manage a “Writingless Urbanisation”. A Perspective between the Zagros Piedmont and Southern Mesopotamia
Southern Mesopotamia saw the appearance of the first information technologies at the end of the 4th millennium BCE. But all cultural traits usually associated with this stage of social complexity already existed in the Trans-Tigridian region several centuries earlier, at the very beginning of the spread of the so-called Uruk Phenomenon. Recent data from the French Archaeological Mission in the Qara Dagh (FarMQaD), together with other international expeditions to Iraqi Kurdistan, offer an articulate and fresh picture of the encounter between local and allogeneic communities, but also of the internal organisation and differentiation of the society characterised by the Uruk material cultural complex and its early administrative system (bullae, cretulae, seals, tokens, numerical tablets, etc.). This paper aims to culturally and chronologically contextualise the evidence from the sites of Girdi Qala, Girdi Qala North, and Logardan, with their monumental buildings, large-scale craft production, and extensive food redistribution areas. The Uruk diffusion in the Trans-Tigridian region took place very early and was characterised by a specific and out-of-pace evolutionary rhythm compared with other regions. But it appears entirely coherent with the rest of the south-Mesopotamian cultural sphere in terms of labour organisation, reallocation of food resources, and integration of new administrative techniques into the management effort of an increasingly sophisticated society. Once compared with the Euphrates and Khabur basin areas, and especially with recent data from southern sites such as Tell al-‘Uwaili or Rejibah, the Uruk presence and organisational mechanisms in the Trans-Tigridian region seem to be a consistent step on the path towards the south-Mesopotamian first “urbanisation”.
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Central Zagros and Proto- Historic Seal and Sealings from Mahidasht Plain; Evidence from an Administrative Center along the High Road
Seals and sealings are direct evidence of economic complexities and indispensable clues for the administrative and political institutions that produced them. Archaeologists not only examine these artifacts using iconographic analyses, comparative chronologies and cultural interactions, but they also discuss them in terms of their variety, nature and function.
The Mahidasht region, as a vital cultural sphere on the Great Khorasan High Road, is one of the crucial geographical and cultural regions that have yielded some substantial evidence of these economic and political complexities. Environmental potentials and geographical significance of Mahidasht, which is the largest plain among the intermountain valleys and plains of the Central Zagros which lies along several communication routes, developed as a strategic area in regional and interregional trade over the course of the third millennium BCE. In 2023 and 2024, excavations at Tapeh Tyalineh, led to find more than 6000 seal impressions. The findings will study here in terms of style and iconography in order to date the corpus of administrative artifacts. Tyalineh corpus of clay sealings comprises amazing and varied evidence of late prehistoric administrative technology providing us with clues of an unknown bureaucratic institution in western Iran. The corpus includes door sealings, jar sealings, oval slabs (test rolling), jar stoppers a few of which bearing seal impressions, clay lumps, clay disks, clay figurines, and several geometric clay tokens. The evidence of Tyalineh, combined with that from Godin Tapeh can serve as proxies of a society and an economy involved in interregional commercial interactions. Further the administrative technology attested not only at Tyalineh but also at Chogha Maran and Dehsavar, indicates that there was a well-established administrative and economic institutions existing along the Khorasan High Road in the Central Zagros during the Early Bronze Age.
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Tracing Human Mobility and Cultural Interactions in Transcaucasia, Southeastern Arabia, and Zagros Mountains during the Bronze Age and Iron Age
This study analyses some archaeological contexts from Transcaucasia, Southeastern Arabia, and Zagros Mountains. The research focuses on iconography, burial practices, and material culture to identify human mobility patterns throughout Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Key examples include spread and interaction of Kura-Araxes and Maykop pottery, bronze artifacts linking Caucasus and Luristan, and funerary parallels contexts possibly connecting Transcaucasia and Southeastern Arabia through the Zagros Mountain frontier.
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W07: Current Research on Mesopotamian Magic
Organizers: Nicholas M. Gill (nicholas.gill@unive.it), Genevieve Le Ban (genevieve.leban@mq.edu.au)
Casting the First Spell: Early Evidence on Witchcraft in the ED III
The Early Dynastic III period (ED III) of Sumer (c. 2600-2350 BCE) offers a unique window into the social, religious, and cultural practices through the development of cuneiform texts. Amongst the rich corpus from this period, intriguing evidence emerges of very early representations of ‘witchcraft’ that have previously been set aside in preference for more tangible and concrete evidence in later periods. This paper seeks to discuss early textual sources and provide insights into the beliefs, practices, and social roles connected to magical manipulation in Sumer’s ED III period.
The administrative, lexical, and incantation texts analysed feature: ritual specialists such as the išib or maš-maš professionals; specific deities such as Ningirim or Enki; and the prescribed actions used to influence divine or malevolent forces. The ED III references can be situated within the broader Mesopotamian tradition, by noting continuities and transformations in magical practices that are apparent in later periods. Through this evidence, we can trace the cultural diffusion of ‘witchcraft’ in different city states, and discuss whether there is a change in societal attitudes towards ‘witchcraft’.
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Snakes, Nets, and Cords: A New Interpretation of an Old Spell
Although incantations first began to be inscribed upon clay in southern Mesopotamia during the third millennium, the largest collection of early tablets bearing magical recitations was excavated from Ebla. As is characteristic of the early incantation corpus, the incantations at Ebla are not bound by language. While many of the incantations found at Ebla are impressed in a syllabic orthography of Sumerian that prioritizes the pronunciation of the recitation over its written meaning, others contain Semitic languages believed to reflect Eblaite and other local or southern Mesopotamian languages. Due to the difficult orthography of the Sumerian texts and the obscure vocabulary of the Semitic compositions, it can be challenging to discern the language of a given incantation, let alone comprehend its contents. While their enigmatic orthography and elusive contents present significant impediments to their interpretation, recent advances in the understanding of early incantations provide new avenues to analyze these magical spells. This contribution reevaluates the language of an incantation from third millennium Ebla, offers a novel interpretation of its language, and presents a new edition of the composition drawing upon ongoing research in early Mesopotamian incantations.
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Formal Poetics of the Old Babylonian Love Incantations
As demonstrated in various studies, the Old Babylonian love incantations are a rich source of poetic features, incorporating elaborate imagery, metaphors, and similes. This research attempts further inquiry into their poetic structure by analyzing metrical, strophic, and compositional techniques. The examined corpus consists of over a dozen texts, forming a distinct yet diverse group.
The study of its formal poetics begins by defining the poetic line and examining its internal characteristics, including the number of metrical units and syllables, and adherence to the clausula accadica rule. Next, the analysis focuses on the strophic and stanzaic organization, considering syntax, parallelism constructions, and the meaning of poetic lines, alongside derived metrical observations. The data is statistically represented to enhance clarity. Finally, the research explores the compositional elements of the Old Babylonian love incantations. It identifies two prominent components: the “premise” for the magical action and the “magical formula”. Each component is further subdivided and analyzed in detail.
It is acknowledged that the study of Akkadian poetry remains relatively tentative. Nonetheless, this research, building upon previous studies of the Akkadian magic and poetry, provides a deeper understanding of poetic formation and the overall structure of the incantations.
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Seven Times Seven Sages: The Apkallu Tradition in the Bīt Mēseri Ritual
The Babylonian ritual "House of Enclosure" (Bīt mēseri) for the protection of a house and its inhabitants against harmful demons includes the deployment of seven groups of seven primeval sages (aqpkallu) who are asked to fight the demons and purify the patient from all evil that is affecting him. The paper will discuss the ritual set-up of figurines and paintings that represent these sages and consider the Sumerian incantations with which they are addressed during the ritual's performance in the light of the narrative traditions associated with these sages of Enki and Ea more widely. The paper will form part of the Workshop for Current Research on Mesopotamian Magic.
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Who Does What, with What, and to Whom?
Mesopotamian ritual series are often provided with Ritual Tablets – guides to the performance of the ceremony in which the incantations, ritual actions, and roles of the participants are described in order. Drawing on Ritual Tablets for several series, but with a particular focus on Šurpu, this talk will examine who says what in the performance of a Mesopotamian ritual. It will benefit from a newly identified copy of the Šurpu Ritual Tablet, recently discovered by the speaker, which fills in many of the gaps in our knowledge of the ceremony.
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What Kind of Magic Spell to Use? Mechanisms of Magic within the Bīt Rimki Ritual
The Bīt rimki (“bathhouse”) is one of the most important royal rituals of first millennium Assyria and Babylonia. It was performed specifically for the king to purify and protect him from various kinds of evil. The length of the performance, the many different versions of the ritual, and the number of prayers recited (up to 90) make the Bīt rimki one of the most complex Mesopotamian rituals to understand.
One main question arises at this point: Why so many incantations and ritual actions in a single ritual? The answer that will be explored here is that different ritual actions and incantations used different mechanisms of magic to achieve the desired ritual effect. This paper attempts to describe all the magic mechanisms and efficacy strategies that were used in this complex ritual. We will see how these strategies all complemented each other to deliver the king from all possible evils.
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Lugal-Namtar: The Contours of a Little-Known Bilingual Incantation Text
The corpus of first millennium incantation and ritual texts includes many well-known compositions, such as Maqlû, Šurpu, Udug-hul, and Lamaštu. Many of these texts have been edited and the subject of analytic studies, but there are other important incantation texts which have escaped the scrutiny of modern scholars. One such text is the Sumero-Akkadian bilingual composition Lugal-Namtar. Although portions of the text were edited by Ebeling in 1953 (under the title of “Gattung II”), very little has been done on it since then. This author is in the process of editing Lugal-Namtar—along with the rest of the so-called zi–pa3 incantations—and this talk will present what has now been reconstructed of the text of Lugal-Namtar, the structure and function of the composition, and its place in the first millennium BCE bilingual corpus. Despite the fact that it is still very fragmentary, Lugal-Namtar shows much promise as a primary source for Mesopotamian demonology. It should be considered among the major texts of the exorcistic corpus used in first millennium Babylonia and Assyria.
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‘Ointments, Fumigations and Amulet Bags Against Evil Lamashtu’: An analysis of an Unpublished Neo-Babylonian Tablet
Healing procedures against Lamashtu or diseases related to this harmful demon are widely attested among the medical-magical Babylonian tablets from the Neo-, and Late Babylonian period but the comprehensive analysis of these texts has not yet been carried out. My presentation summarize the corpus of the ritual texts known in Assyriological literature firstly, then, I present an unpublished new text kept in the collection of Babylonian tablets in the British Museum belonging to this corpus. The second part of my presentation will focus not only the content of the tablet but i also discuss parallels and the context of the procedures preserved in this new text.
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Eṭel Lilî, Ardat Lilî: One Ritual or Many?
The bilingual incantation series ŋuruš líl-lá ki-sikil líl-lá – largely preserved on 1st millennium BCE manuscripts – deals with the demons Eṭel Lilî and Ardat Lilî, literally “the Young Man of Lilû” and “the Young Woman of Lilû”.
Its fragmentary state makes the series difficult to reconstruct and even more difficult to interpret. By tracing the series’ structure, the proposed paper will examine the purpose of the series. Are we dealing with a single cohesive ritual that was meant to heal a patient from an illness, or is the series a compilation of related rituals? Discussing what is known and assumed about the two Lilû demons, and drawing on references to Eṭel and Ardat Lilî in contemporary text catalogues and other incantations, the paper will explore the case that we are dealing with a single ritual. This will be weighed against the option that we are dealing with a group of small rituals, compiled in a “canonical” series because of their shared theme.
ŋuruš líl-lá ki-sikil líl-lá is particularly interesting because the Lilû demons are one of the few clearly discernible ancient demon groupings: demons that all belong to the category “Lilû,” but are distinguished from one another by age and/or gender, and discussed separately as well as collectively. Understanding the ritual or rituals that dealt with Eṭel and Ardat Lilî therefore promises to further our understanding of the Lilû group as a whole — and thereby our understanding of how the corpus of ancient Mesopotamian ritual texts, āšipūtu, systematised demons.
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"Let the Tongues of Those Days be Removed from Your Bodies”: The Classification and Semantic Extension of Body Part Terms in Hittite Rituals
The performance of a ritual is both an inherently physical act, and an attempt to grapple with abstract concepts and forces outside of the human body. Body parts terms occur frequently in Hittite rituals, both in reference to cuts of meat or physical parts of a human body, and employed in metaphors whereby the human body can become a model to explore other semantic domains. Body part terms can be classified as UZU ‘flesh’, but the assignment of a word to this category depends on the type of body part, the context in which it occurs, and the level of visceral physicality that it represents.
This paper will examine how body parts such as the tongue and hands can move through different levels of physicality and abstraction in the course of a ritual, and how this allows the ritual practitioner to materialise and expel negative forces. The tongue and the hand are two of the most commonly attested body parts, but they are rarely classified as ‘flesh’, possibly because they are regularly used metaphorically to embody the products of these parts, i.e. words and actions. In turn, harmful words and actions can be represented in a ritual by hand or tongue models made of clay, dough or wax, which can then be easily manipulated and destroyed, thus removing impurities from the minds and bodies of the patients.
I will analyse the shades of meaning expressed by body part terms in rituals such as The Ritual of Maštigga Against Evil Tongues and assess how the frequent semantic extension of certain body parts effects their classification. By centring the body and observing how words for body parts can be extended beyond the physical, we can gain a deeper understanding of the conceptual role of certain body parts in Hittite ritual practice.
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Medicine and Magic Across Borders: The Rubricated Akkadian Manuscripts from Ḫattuša
The paper analyses a corpus of fourteen magico-medical Akkadian manuscripts from Ḫattuša dated to the 13th century BCE, almost all catalogued as “Akkadian magical fragments.” These texts, most of which have been edited for the first time as part of the author’s ongoing dissertation project, share a rare layout format when compared to the majority of Akkadian medical texts from the Hittite capital: that is, they present a practical organisation of the protasis of the prescription in a fashion that is reminiscent of rubrics or bullet points. This layout is primarily associated with medical recipes, but the manuscripts also contained incantations and magical rituals. The way these elements are embedded within the texts reflects the interplay between format and content, highlighting the role of textual organisation in shaping the transmission of knowledge. Due to its rareness in the Hittite context, this conspicuous, rubricated layout points to a foreign origin of the manuscripts and/or of the scribes who wrote or compiled them. Consequently, comparisons with Mesopotamian texts with the same layout format are drawn to assess the influence of Mesopotamian medical and magical practices in the Hittite environment and to evaluate a possible provenance of the texts and/or of the scribes who compiled them. These comparisons show how a focus on formal and material aspects of therapeutical cuneiform tablets―including their layout and textual organisation―can shed new light on the circulation of magico-medical knowledge between Mesopotamian and Ḫatti in the Late Bronze Age.
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The Gods of Magic: The Role of the Gods in Akkadian and Greek Incantations
While recent decades have seen a sharp increase in the academic awareness of the interconnected nature of the eastern Mediterranean in antiquity, many questions remain about the circulation of scholarly knowledge throughout its basin. Whereas striking similarities between Mesopotamian and Greek magical incantations from various periods have been identified, it remains uncertain if these similarities are the result of direct borrowing from specific Mesopotamian compositions. This contribution builds upon the growing scholarship on the connections between Greek and Mesopotamian magical incantations and focuses on the role of the gods in the two traditions. Through a close examination of the roles of Aphrodite and Ištar in the love charms and of the gods of night and fire in the anti-witchcraft incantations, this paper assesses whether the role of specific gods in the incantations is consistent with their attributes known from mythology and cult in both the Greek and the Mesopotamian tradition. By offering a new explanation for the similarities in Greek and Mesopotamian incantations that does not rely on direct textual borrowing, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the modalities of contact and intellectual exchange between the Greek and Mesopotamian cultural spheres in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age.
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W08: Upper Mesopotamia in the 2nd and 1st Millennia BC: New Research and Perspectives
Organizers: Vérène Chalendar (verene.chalendar@gmail.com), Francesca Nebiolo (francesca.nebiolo@college-de-france.fr / nebiolofrancesca@gmail.com)
Introduction: Upper Mesopotamian Projects and Tools. An Overview on PCEHM and the New ARCHIBAB
In recent decades, the growing scholarly interest in Northern Mesopotamia has given rise to important archaeological fieldwork and epigraphic studies, stimulating renewed perspectives on the historical and cultural developments of the region. Within this dynamic research environment, the French ANR project Pouvoir et Culture Écrite en Mésopotamie au XVIIIe siècle av. J.-C. (PCEHM) aims to investigate the relationship between the emergence of complex writing practices and the articulation of political power in the early second millennium BCE, with particular attention to the Mari region and its surroundings. This project positions itself within a fertile historiographical trajectory and contributes to the broader reassessment of Upper Mesopotamian societies by combining textual analysis, political history, and digital tools. At the heart of PCEHM lies the question of how political agendas may have shaped the evolution and diffusion of writing, and how, reciprocally, writing systems functioned as instruments of political and administrative control. PCEHM also benefits from and actively contributes to the long-standing ARCHIBAB project, which reached a major turning point in early 2025. By presenting these two interrelated projects, this introductory paper outlines the scientific framework of the workshop and sets the stage for a series of case studies and methodological reflections on the documentation and interpretation of Upper Mesopotamian corpora.
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Scribal Tradition and Dialectology in the Middle Euphrates Valley during the 19th Century (End of the Šakkanakku Period)
During the reign of Yaḫdun-Lîm, the first Amorite king of Mari, a reform of the writing system was initiated (c. 1810 BC), leading to the abandonment of the local writing tradition and its dialect. To this day, this tradition from the end of the Šakkanakku period in Mari (mid-19th century) is documented by texts found at Mari, Terqa and Tutul. While the Mari documentation consists of administrative and accounting records from the palace offices, the Terqa documents are private. As for the Tuttul texts, they are among the last to be written according to the Euphrates scribal tradition, as atthe same time the new system from the Central Mesopotamian tradition seems to have been used at Mari.
The aim of this talk is to summarize our current knowledge of the scribal tradition and dialect of the Middle Euphrates valley based on these different corpora, and to present some new findings and thinkings on this Euphrates scribal tradition at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
This presentation on the scribal tradition and dialect elements will serve as an introduction to the following paper, which focuses on the study "Accounting in the Mari Palace at the end of the Šakkanakku period (mid-19th century BC) for the management of flour and bread".
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Bookkeeping at the Mari Palace during the end of the Šakkanakku Period (Mid 19th Century BC) for the Management of Flour and Bread
Ancient administrative and accounting practices played a crucial role in the development of ancient civilizations, providing the foundation for organized resource management. Using clay tablets and cuneiform script, among other methods, bookkeeping in Mesopotamia tracked complex economic activities. The administrative texts from the palace of Mari, dating to the end of the Šakkanakku period (mid 19th centurie BC) and comprising 1927 texts, more than 1350 of which remain unpublished, provide valuable insight into the record-keeping and resource management techniques of that time. Over 260 of these texts, issued from four offices within the palace, are directly linked to the management of flour and bread. These texts, produced by the << Bakehouse >> E2 NINDA-SUM, the << Housekeeper >> MUNUS-AGRIG, and two other offices headed by Eštar-lā’I and Zanabum, illustrate the technical and material dimension, detailing how records were created, documented and stored. They highlight the intricate systems developed for resource allocation and the crucial role of administrative efficiency in sustaining the palace’s economy. By examining these records, we aim to understand the bureaucratic processes that facilitated the circulation of flour and bread in the palace and attempt to reconstruct the social context surrounding these practices. Furthermore, this research enhances our comprehension of the interconnectedness between administrative functions and daily life in the palace of Mari, illustrating how economic activities were embedded within broader societal structures.
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La vie quotidienne dans le royaume de Haute-Mésopotamie (18e siècle av. J.-C.)
Le Royaume de Haute-Mésopotamie, bâti par Samsi-Addu, représente un moment clé dans l'histoire de la première moitié du IIe millénaire, où un vaste territoire fut unifié sous un seul pouvoir pendant une trentaine d’années, alors que la région était habituellement morcelée politiquement et que la population était structurée tribalement. Ces trente années furent exceptionnelles – du moins selon l’élite du Royaume de Haute-Mésopotamie.
Dans une lettre à sa mère, Yasmah-Addu, le roi de Mari insistait sur le fait que les distances et les barrières culturelles seraient sans importance à l'intérieur du vaste Royaume de Haute-Mésopotamie. Il argumentait : “Un messager (d'Aššur) qui vient ici, est-ce qu'il est mécontent ? N'est-ce pas comme s'il allait dans sa propre ville ? Il n'est pas du tout mécontent (de venir ici) !”
Qu'est-ce qui justifiait cette impression des sujets du roi Samsi-Addu de se sentir “chez eux”, quelle que soit la province ou la ville où ils se trouvaient ? La communication essaie de retracer quelques-uns des mécanismes culturels mis en place à l’époque de Samsi-Addu, qui avaient un impact sur la vie quotidienne des habitants.
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Revisiting the Chronology of Išme-Dagān’s Yaʾilānum-Campaign
Both the Stele of Dāduša and the Louvre Stele of Samsī-Addu report on the siege and conquest of the city of Qabrâ. Reading the respective narratives against each other and supplementing them with historical information extracted from letters mainly of the Samsī-Addu dynasty furthers the development of a relative chronology for Išme-Dagān’s campaign against the Yaʾilānum people located on the Upper Zāb. The available material makes it possible to date the corresponding events within a tight time frame of 19 days only, immediately preceding the proper siege of Qabrâ. The chronological approach brings along some minor implications about the geography of the Upper Eastern Tigridian area. At the same time, a hitherto overseen line in the Stele of Dāduša sheds a contrastive light on the ideological construction of geography in that monument’s military narrative. Besides its chronological considerations, the talk will address the political relations between the kingdom of Ešnunna and the polity of the Yaʾilānum under their leader Mār-Addu and propose a new idea about their nature and eventual dissolution by the middle of the last month of the eponymy year of Asqudum. Finally, and in consequence of the former, a new, or rather, additional interpretation of the Stele of Dāduša within the framework of memory culture at Old Babylonian Ešnunna will be suggested.
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L'affaire Yarim-Addu : la confiscation d'une archive au début du règne de Zimri-Lim
Parmi les milliers de tablettes retrouvées par André Parrot dans le palais de Mari, environ 200 relèvent de la catégorie des textes juridiques, dont la moitié sont encore en cours d'étude. Ils peuvent être regroupés en lots, dont certains sont clairement des archives familiales : leur présence dans le palais interroge. On voudrait montrer dans quelles conditions les tablettes de Yarim-Addu et de son fils Yatur-Hal, originaires d'Appan, furent transférées à Mari au début du règne de Zimri-Lim.
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Tabatum and Its Surroundings during the Early Hana Period
This paper examines the political and social situation in the Middle and Lower Euphrates region during the late 18th century BCE, following the fall of Mari to Hammurabi of Babylon. It incorporates updated information from dozens of Old Babylonian cuneiform texts originating from late 18th-century Tell Taban—both published and unpublished—as well as texts from Terqa and Harradum. The study explores the emergence and state formation of the kingdom commonly referred to as "the Kingdom of the Land of Hana," along with the local social order in the city of Tabatum (modern Tell Taban), which was part of that kingdom's domain. Particular attention is given to the landscape, local calendars, administration, tribal connections, onomastics, and prosopographical issues.
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Upper Mesopotamia during the “Dark Age” in the Second Millennium BCE
The publication of the Labarna letter and the Ḫabiru prism by Mirjo Salvini in the 1990s provided a first glimpse into a period known as the "Dark Age" due to large gaps in the historical records. Both cuneiform texts belong to the archive of King Tunip-Teššup of Tigunani, a contemporary of Ḫattušili I, ruler of the Old Hittite Kingdom (ca. 1650–1620 BCE). This archive’s largely unpublished documents and letters not only provide new insights into the nature of the kingdom of Tigunani, but also into the sociopolitical structure of Upper Mesopotamia at the transition between the Old Assyrian kingdom of Šamši-Adad I and the beginning of the Mittani Empire.
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ChatGPT and Emar: A Galactic Guide to Building a Prosopography Over the Christmas Holidays
Building a prosopography is one of the most tedious tasks in the humanities, and populating databases can take years. Until recently, only a few scholars trained in programming languages were able to extract data from textual sources in a semi-automatic way. Now, AI enables anyone to bypass years of programming training and build a prosopography in a fraction of the time.
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Defining Upper-Mesopotamia through the Assyrian Royal Titulary
In the 14th century BC, Assyria emerged as one of the great powers of the Ancient Near East after being liberated from Mittanian rule before conquering its remnant. Therefore, the land of Aššur began to rule from the 13th century onward over what is nowadays labelled as “Upper-Mesopotamia.” This expression is often used by specialists to designate the Assyrian realm, by opposition to the southern Babylonian kingdom, and by extension referring to their main ideological, cultural or religious characteristics. However, this way of referring to the Assyrian land is purely based on geographical data and may not reflect the way the monarchs and the official discourse they promote thought of their realm. Thus, we need to consider if the label “Upper-Mesopotamia” is relevant to use when studying the land of Aššur, its history or its ideology. This paper aims to investigate the way the Assyrian kings conceived their rule over the various scales of their dominion: the Assyrian heartland, seat of their power, their kingdom, the māt Aššur, and the neighbouring lands over which they detained authority, be it nominal or formal. To do so, a thorough study of the Assyrian royal titulary, more specifically their numerous titles claiming rulership over different territories and states, will be delivered. It will enable us to try to determine what were the views of the Assyrian on their territory, its homogeneity and if there was a consciousness of belonging to a specific region of the Ancient Near East. It will also permit us to analyse the role played by the integration of other Upper-Mesopotamia territories in the Assyrian kingdom. By doing so, this study hopes to delve into the ideological conception of conquests and the use of royal titles in order to better understand the place of Assyria in its geographical context.
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From Calah to Guzan. Assyrian Cultural Overlaps in the Tell Fekheriyeh Inscription.
The bilingual inscription from Tell Fekheriyeh (RIMA 2, 389-390; KAI 309) has been attracting much attention of Aramaic researchers for decades, taking rather for granted its Akkadian part as a typical Neo-Assyrian epigraphic text and so neglecting its uniqueness and stylistic diversity. As observed by the first editors, the opening of the dedicatory text is identical to other Assyrian royal inscriptions from 9th–8th century BCE and, as noticed by other scholars, its conclusive part presents a clumsy translation from non-Akkadian sources. The paper will provide a detailed analysis of the Assyrian text of the inscription in the context of MA and NA epigraphy. A mixed nature of the TF cuneiform text is proven by the formulae which resemble to building inscriptions from Calah (Kalḫu), to some well-known SB literary expressions, to later NA magical-medical incantations, to archaic minor votive inscriptions from the Kassite period, to particular Assyrian epistolographic terms, etc. The inscription in its stylistic variety reflects on both a wide-range training of the Assyrian scribes, engaged by the local Guzan authorities, and a miscellaneous character of the Upper Mesopotamia region with an evident tendency to get closer to Assyrian prestige culture and lifestyle.
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W09: The Forgotten City of Kish: Local Perspectives
Organizer: Eleanor Robson (e.robson@ucl.ac.uk)
The Kish Project: Online Translation of Cuneiform Texts into Arabic and Persian-Methods and Challenges
The Kish project represents a groundbreaking initiative in the online translation of cuneiform texts into Arabic and Persian. I joined this project as a postdoctoral researcher in November 2021. Using Nisaba, a cuneiform editor, I worked in London and Oxford to create an open-access multilingual catalogue and edition of cuneiform tablets from Kish. My focus was on tablets housed in the Ashmolean Museum, which include official and personal letters, administrative documents, literary works, and school exercises dating from the third to the first millennia BC.
The project's aim is to translate these texts into English, Arabic, and Persian. In my talk, I will discuss the methods I used and the challenges I faced in the online translation of Akkadian and Sumerian texts into Arabic and Persian. These challenges include:
1. Accurately rendering personal names and technical terms using Arabic and Persian scripts
2. Developing techniques to represent precise pronunciations of names and words
3. Navigating the complexities of translating ancient texts into Arabic and Persian
This project represents a significant step in making ancient Mesopotamian texts accessible to a broader audience, particularly in the Middle East. I will share insights from my experience.
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Baghdad's Antiquities Dealers and Cuneiform Tablets from Kish
When Kish began to be excavated by the French archaeologist Henri de Genouillac in 1911-1912, cuneiform tablets from Tell Uhaymir were already in circulation since 1910 through antiquities dealers based in Baghdad and Paris, showing that the site was being explored by local teams since late 1910 at least. Archaeological artefacts from Kish also continued to be offered for sale by dealers after de Genouillac's departure, and up to 1935, two years after the official end of the OFME (Oxford and Field Museum Expedition) mission. Again, proof that archaeological activities continued locally. Based on correspondence between antiquities dealers and museum curators, this presentation will delve into who was involved in trading cuneiform tablets and ancient artworks from Kish, to reconstruct a timeline of explorations of the site led by Iraqis.
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Terracotta from Ancient Kish
Investigation, excavations results and pertinent academic studies have shown the significance of the city of Kish from its geographical, religious and political aspects. The archaeological excavations results in Kish city encompassed a variety in architecture and different artifacts, one of them were the terracotta.
In this paper we will try to shed light on general features that include artistic characteristics, themes, contents, and different iconography, as they reflect through their artistic representation an aspect of the traditions and some daily religious and secular activities that were prevalent during a certain era or time period within the civilizational sequence witnessed by the city of Kish. We will briefly discuss various examples of terracotta dating back to the ages and civilized periods which were witnessed by the city of Kish, taking into consideration their importance in terms of artistic characteristics as well as their various themes, and the purposes for which they were made.
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Clay and Its Uses in Ancient and Modern Iraq
For millennia, clay has played a fundamental role in Iraq's history, and today it still holds a special place. To present how this material continues to be used in Iraq, this discussion will begin by introducing the different ways in which clay was used to build palaces, temples and private homes based on archaeological evidence, with a focus on ancient earthen buildings at Kish such as the temple of Ishtar. Then, I will present how clay is used today, from the manner in which this material is made and prepared taking into account the challenges of climate change, to examining the constructions themselves, such as residential homes, and gardens.
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The Forgotten Workers of Kish: The Daily Life of Archaeological Labour in Early 20th-Century Hillah
What was the experience of excavation like for Iraqi archaeological workers in the first decades of the 20th century? Although they rarely left records themselves, the accounts of European and Americans fieldworkers are often unintentionally revealing, and we can contextualise them within broader studies of colonial attitudes and infrastructures of control in Ottoman and Mandate Iraq. As historian Zeynep Çelik (2016) showed in her sensitive study of archaeological labour in the late nineteenth-century Ottoman empire, through “reading against the grain” it is indeed possible to “dismantle the lopsided assumptions and disrupt the position of the Western archaeologists deemed in charge”.
At first, it is tempting to categorise Iraqi fieldworkers as “doubly invisible” technicians, in the terminology of sociologist Steven Shapin (1989): largely invisible to those who employed them, and therefore also to posterity, as if there were “no persons involved in the production of science but the stipulated authors”. However, as I shall argue on the basis of research conducted for the Nahrein Network, in the case of Kish, while Western archaeologists were increasingly reticent about their large teams and their expertise in official reports, their colleagues in anthropology rendered many of those same men all too visible in academic publication.
How, therefore, should we balance our duty as a discipline to recover the often brutalising experience of the adults and children whose effort and skills generated the material evidence on which we still depend, while treating them with dignity and respect? These are not easy questions to answer, but they certainly deserve to be asked.
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W10: “Kings Born to Be Wild”: Current Research on Sumerian Royal Panegyrics
Organizers: Luděk Vacín (lvacin@uni-muenster.de), Aviya Fraenkel (aviyaf@mail.tau.ac.il)
Discussion in Lieu of an Introduction: On the Fortunes of an Incipit List (YBC 3654)
Recent decades have witnessed a turn from unquestioned acceptance of an Ur III dating of literary compositions extolling the kings of Ur, and thereby also from the well described dependence of panegyrics for the rulers of Isin and Larsa on those of Sulgi, in favour of the hypothesis that Sumerian royal panegyrics at large were the products of Old Babylonian school milieu. Considering the lack of Ur III manuscripts of texts glorifying the kings of that dynasty, this point of view is well justified. By extension, it has been suggested that those texts may even have been composed in Akkadian by Old Babylonian scribes and then translated into Sumerian. Since the ensuing debate has hitherto oscillated between the extremes of presumed Ur III “originals” and Old Babylonian “emulations” created from scratch, we believe that a free discussion of this topic will provide the most pertinent launch of the workshop. Actually, there seems to be no way of getting around the issue of authenticity that will continue to be pungent for future research on the genre in general, even if it may eventually remain unresolved. As a preface and stimulus for the discussion, a brief interpretation of an inconspicuous tablet will be offered: a list of incipits of numerous royal panegyrics, including Sulgi A. The incipit list YBC 3654 may in fact be called an epitome of many a salient point inherent to the on-going search for the date of composition of Ur III royal panegyrics, like palaeography, orthography, text layout, or specific grammatical elements.
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“Hymns from Days Gone By, Ancient Things of Old”: The Textualization of Ur III Liturgies in the Old Babylonian Period
“Hymns from days gone by, ancient things of old, the tigis and zamzams of my predecessors—I never had them recited falsely, I did not reject them. […] Those things that had fallen from the hand, I ‘attached to the hand’ of the office of the musician.” So boasts Šulgi in a royal panegyric detailing his patronage of the musical arts, using rhetoric to be imitated several generations later by Išme-Dagan of Isin. Both kings, in their royal praise, indicate that the duties of a good king include not only ensuring the faithful preservation of the hymns of his predecessors, but also maintaining the continued performance of these hymns in temple cult.
The textual record of the Old Babylonian period confirms that Šulgi’s cultic hymns were, in fact, remembered by the musicians of subsequent dynasties. Numerous hymns to deities involving Šulgi and other Ur III kings were committed to writing on tablets belonging to the realm of liturgical praxis—as opposed to that of scribal education—alongside other liturgical pieces. This paper will, first, explore the implications of these Old Babylonian manuscripts with regard to Šulgi’s legacy under later rulers. It will then, secondly, reexamine Šulgi’s own claims of sponsorship of the royal cult of his predecessors.
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Music and the Public Image of Kings in Ancient Mesopotamia. Reflections on Sulgi B & C and Išmē-Dagān A+V
The kings Sulgi of Ur and Išmē-Dagān of Isin claimed to be excellent musicians in several of their hymns of (self) praise (Sulgi B: 154–174; Sulgi C: B 75–92; Išmē-Dagān A+V: 367–377). Scholarly attention has typically focused on the references to musical instruments and songs in these texts. However, a closer look at the verbs modifying the technical terms in these excerpts may reveal interesting information about which musical contents were relevant for Mesopotamian rulers and how they should have been learned.
For example, the expected verbs to describe the action of singing (e.g., ser3 “to sing”) or playing musical instruments (e.g., šu … tag and du12, both “to play”) are never used. On the contrary, the most frequently used verbs are those that allude to theoretical skills perhaps in addition to practical knowledge of these songs and instruments (zu “to know”, in addition to ša3 … dab5 “to understand the essentials,” even šu … gid2 “to accept”).
It is argued here that the use of these knowledge verbs could be intentional. By emphasizing musical knowledge over pure practice, Sulgi and Išmē-Dagān would easily stand out from the other musicians of their kingdoms, who, among others, tended to be illiterate. At the same time, the kings would not lose prestige among their subjects for their efforts to master music, perhaps in order to have a privileged perspective on the rituals and ceremonies in which music was used.
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“I Swing My Arms Like a Dove”: Techniques of Running in the Hymns of Šulgi
Technique – the way a particular community believes a skill should be executed – can offer insight into the lineage and performance of knowledge. Though the body is often taken to be the site of unconscious and non-discursive knowledge, technique provides a means through which we can access an active and discursive relationship to the body. Crucially, techniques of the body are often not simply passively received but are explicitly instructed and recalled. This paper examines these conceptual components of technique, as well as how its articulation might be consciously leveraged and performed to demonstrate mastery. As a case study, it looks at Šulgi’s hymns of self-praise in which he describes his running prowess, as well as the reception of these descriptions over a century later by Išme-Dagan. Through the lens of technique these texts highlight a conscious and discursive relationship to the body, one which is often elided in ancient studies.
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Šulgi H: Three Hymns of Plenty
In this contribution, I will present the latest research on the royal hymn(s) known as Šulgi H, previously edited by S. H. Langdon in 1914. It actually includes three separate compositions. H1 is a prayer to Ninlil who is asked to intercede on Šulgi’s behalf with Enlil and is mainly of grammatical interest for its frequent use of the modal prefix {ši}. H2 is badly damaged but may be a hymn to Enki, possibly on the occasion of Šulgi’s coronation. H3, which takes up the reverse of the tablet, describes festivities relating to the autumnal Akitu festival in Ur, potentially involving the presentation of war booty to Nanna. Afterwards, Šulgi embarks on a journey to several other cities, in each of which he performs a ritual sowing for the respective city god. H3 displays strong intertextual links with other compositions, particularly the Temple Hymns and ROM 910x209.494, both of which contain essentially the same sequence of cities as H3. There are also clear parallels to rituals described in other texts, most clearly Ur-Namma C and Copper and Silver. H3 can thus be clearly situated in a ritual context. Isin-period parallels suggest that the ritual, with alterations, was still practised after the end of the Ur III period.
The connecting link between H1, H2 and H3 appears to be a thematic focus on Šulgi’s role as provider of plenty. In H1, while the actual prayer is missing, the invocation describes Ninlil as the embodiment of agricultural plenty. H2 invokes ‘years of plenty’ as part of its praise of Šulgi. In H3, meanwhile, the king himself is shown engaging in ritualised agricultural labour. While each hymn undoubtedly had its own distinct ritual context, these thematic associations may have caused the scribe of Ni 2275 to combine them on a single tablet.
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From the Cattle Pen to the Horned Starry Sky ‒ Everyday Life of a Royal Metaphor
The king as a bull is a common and familiar metaphor for the power of the king and the monarchy in the Ancient Near East. Within the royal hymnology of Šulgi, the second king of the Ur III dynasty, the bull achieved a unique status as the central and most comprehensive metaphor, reflecting the widest range of aspects of the personality of the divine king.
My lecture will follow the development and transformation of the single metaphor, from the moment of its arrival in the poetic world when a bull-calf is born in the cattle pen to its bovine parents (and even before that), throughout its reactions to various situations while moving between the poetic units of a single hymn, and finally at the peak of its power, when at the end of its earthly days it ascends and appears as a star of bright horn-rays shining from the sky.
During the lecture I wish to bring to the fore the main aspects of the bull metaphor within the hymns of Šulgi. I will refer to the wealth of details used in the poetic description, which includes reference to a variety of zoological species, all members of the cattle family, the bull’s body parts, colors and appearance, its various movements and gestures, the behavior of the individuals and the herd, and more. A variety of realistic situations from the natural world in which the supremacy of the bull is revealed, which represents the supremacy of Šulgi in royal daily life, will be examined as well. Finally, I would like to discuss the methodological role of the poetic metaphor in shaping the ideal character of Šulgi within the world that his royal hymns create.
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“diĝir šà-ne-ša4-a enim ma-ab-ĝar-ra” or “Divina Favente Clemencia”: Prolegomenon to a Comparative Perspective on Sumerian and Medieval Court Literature
In contrast to Mesopotamian and medieval literary disputations, the potential of comparing Sumerian royal literature with relevant medieval texts has to my knowledge merely been touched upon, yet not pursued any further, even though comparison has a rightful place in many fields of research. Looking for analogies and making comparisons belongs to the basic cognitive operations of the human mind and its fundamental epistemic tools. The presentation will address this avenue of research to open a new interdisciplinary perspective on Sumerian royal panegyrics. Since both text corpora selected for the case study were designed to promote “sacred kingship” in fundamentally religious contexts, the present approach will be informed by recent methodological developments in Religious Studies, the “new comparativism” of William Paden (New Patterns for Comparative Religion, 2016), and the vindication of the comparative method “to produce responsible comparative studies” by Oliver Freiberger (Considering Comparison, 2019). Highlighting some illustrative parallels to the Sulgi compositions in (auto)biographic texts praising a medieval European ruler, the talk will proceed to show that it is possible to isolate four key structural components of royal self-representation in both text groups, while the broader context of the medieval sources reveals that Medievalists have always dealt with basically the same issues of authenticity, transmission history/manuscript tradition, social setting, and purpose of relevant texts as Sumerologists do. Salient questions like “how do we know that the king wrote the text himself if there is no signed (and sealed) manuscript and all extant text witnesses were written after his death?” or “is it possible that a vernacular version is primary, i.e., earlier than the Latin text?” will sound very familiar to scholars working on the Sulgi panegyrics, while the answers from Medieval Studies may prove instructive for future work on Sumerian royal literature and vice versa.
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W11: 100 Years of Nuzi: A Workshop Celebrating a Century of Discovery
Organizer: Jeanette C. Fincke (jeanette.fincke@ori.uni-heidelberg.de)
Hurrian Lexicon with Akkadian Morphemes and Vice Versa: Language Interference in the Nuzi Texts
During the second millennium BC, Akkadian spread beyond its traditional boundaries and came in contact with various languages spoken throughout the Near East. As the surviving tablets show, Akkadian was also used outside the heart of Mesopotamia, in the so-called peripheries, where it was written down by scribes who did not have Akkadian as their mother tongue. The Akkadian dialects written in these regions, generally assumed to show influences from different substrate languages, are grouped under the name of Peripheral Akkadian. Their use as spoken languages is hotly debated. One of these dialects is commonly known today as Hurro-Akkadian, and it can be broadly defined as an Akkadian dialect that shows influences of the Hurrian language at all levels. This dialect is attested in a number of sites throughout the Near East, including Yorghan Tepe (ancient Nuzi).
A common trait of Nuzi texts is the appearance of Hurrian words embedded in the Akkadian text. However, more intricate phenomena are also attested, such as the combination of Hurrian lexicon and Akkadian morphological elements, and vice versa. For instance, Hurrian nouns can be often found with Akkadian suffixed possessive pronouns. Similarly, the attachment of Hurrian derivational suffixes to Akkadian nouns is a well-attested strategy to create new lexicon. The rich epigraphic material from Yorghan Tepe provides us with a significant number of examples that bear witness to the dynamism of Nuzi Akkadian. This paper analyses examples in which Nuzi scribes mixed Hurrian and Akkadian lexicon and morphological elements. Taking also into account the evidence from other sites where Hurro-Akkadian is attested, this paper discusses what this evidence can tell us about the sociolinguistic landscape of ancient Nuzi.
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A New Derivational Suffix in the Hurro-Akkadian of Nuzi
This paper explores the possibility that the ending -ve, frequently appearing on nominal lexemes in the Nuzi texts, may represent a new Hurrian derivational suffix. Traditionally, it has been interpreted as the genitive case marker -ve, but this analysis appears to fail in a number of instances. A closer look at the grammar of the Nuzi texts reveals a set of sentences where analysing -ve as the genitive is excluded by the syntax of the clause. Furthermore, several Nuzi lexemes appear to have derivational suffixes following the presumed case marker (e.g. tuḫšivaḫḫe, amarvumme), a situation prohibited by the rules of Hurrian grammar, but easily amendable, if the said marker is reinterpreted as derivational. A similar violation of grammar is observed when the words ending in -ve display a plural in -na (e.g. tudivena, tavarrivena), whereas the normal genitive plural in Nuzi is -ašfe. Finally, introducing the derivational suffix -ve also solves the riddle of why Hurrian loanwords into Akkadian sometimes appear to display the genitive ending (e.g. tabarribu, ḫinzuribu). After establishing the existence of the suffix, some attention will be devoted to discussion of its form (-ve, -ive or -ibbe) and function. This inquiry underlines how the plentiful textual material from Nuzi enriches our knowledge of Hurrian, allowing us to further clarify the grammar of this little understood language.
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Beyond Sealing Practices in the ISAC Teḫip-Tilla Archive
This paper presents a year-long effort to capture the ISAC tablets with Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), especially the tablets published from the Teḫip-tilla archive. The RTI images contribute to the extensive work on this collection of tablets in Chicago first discovered and published by Dr. Edward Chiera and continued by others such as Dr. Ernest Lacheman, and Dr. Maynard Maidman. The paper itself discusses the role of lighting and angle in the comprehension of not only the text but the image as well in regard to the texts found in the Teḫip-tilla archive from the Northwestern Suburbs in area T at Nuzi. This paper explores the sealing practices of the Teḫip-tilla archive and adds to a more comprehensive understanding of the sealing practices in Nuzi, complementing Dr. Diana Stein’s work with the Temple Precinct Texts and the Šilwa-Teššup archive. While Dr. Edith Porada closely examined the impressions from the tablets, the practice of sealing itself has little literature for this archive. The paper not only adds to the lack of discussion on sealing practices, but it suggests some networks of people with seals in the archive. In the network, the paper discusses the seals and individuals who appear to be among the best connected and represented as well as those who are among the worst to suggest some ideas on the daily interactions of Nuzi in the Late Bronze Age. Overall, the paper looks beyond just a discussion of the positioning and orientation of the sealings. It examines the importance of sealing and potential future studies we can perform using the sealings found on tablets from the past.
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Nuzi Mischwesen: Random or Not?
In the history of ancient Near Eastern art and archaeology, nowhere do we find such an abundance of hybrid creatures as on Mittanian seals and seal impressions from Late Bronze Age Syro-Mesopotamia. Some of these fantastic beings consist entirely of animal species, while others are therianthropic. Many have wings, several appear to be unique, and exact duplicates are rare. So great is the number and diversity of Mittanian period Mischwesen that some scholars have wondered whether we can classify them at all, let alone attempt an explanation. Closer inspection of the hybrid figures on sealed tablets from Arrapha (modern Kirkuk) on the eastern frontier of Mittani, however, reveals signs of a system driving the chaos. From details of seal use and design to universal techniques of performance and transformation, this paper contextualizes the Nuzi iconography and suggests that it offers a brief glimpse into personal expressions of altered states before the process of codification begins once more and the language of this experience is reduced to a standardized formula by an increasingly centralized Middle Assyrian state.
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The “Queen’s Barley” Management
The present paper focuses on a batch of around twenty tablets in which operations carried out on the “queen’s barley” are recorded. The documents with known provenience were discovered in room R49 in the eastern section of the Nuzi palace, defined as a service area. The documents studied reveal various situations related to the management of the “queen’s barley”. Some of the textual occurrences give evidence that it was transported from Nuzi to different places in the kingdom. As to its use, this barley was allocated to cover the expenses of the queens of Al-ilāni and Nuzi, as well as the staff of the various palaces in the kingdom. It was also used for religious expenditure (“to the gods”), as well as for horses and guards among other. Given the quantities involved, it would seem that the “queen’s barley” was a resource shared between the various queens of the kingdom of Arraphe. The stocks seem to have been sufficiently large to allow withdrawals to be made for other purposes, not necessarily linked to the households of the various queens of the kingdom, such as troop supply and food self-sufficiency in threatened localities in time of war.
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Nuzi Tablets from the Louvre Museum
The Musée de Louvre holds some 70 tablets and fragments of tablets discovered at the sites of Nuzi (Yorghan Tepe) and Arraphe (Kirkuk). The documents were found by clandestine excavators at the end of the 19th century, prior to the regular excavations at Nuzi directed by E. Chiera in 1925.
These tablets and fragments have all been published. However, as most of the publications are old, we have decided to return to this file, concentrating on the tablets probably from Nuzi, those from Arraphe having been studied by K. Grosz in 1988 and collated by G. Wilhelm in 1995.
Recent research has shed some new light on the tablets from the clandestine excavations, and in particular on where they were found. These tablets, dispersed among various museums and private collections, have gradually been published, giving us a better overview of this group and allowing us to link some of them with the tablets of the Louvre.
The aim is to present an update of the collations that we have made, using specific examples, and to propose hypotheses as to whether certain tablets belong to well-identified archives in the Nuzi corpus, such as that of the « House of Tehip-Tilla ». This approach has enabled us to make a few connections between the tablets in the Louvre and tablets in other museums.
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The Nuzi Texts of the Vorderasiatisches Museum
Between 1891 and 1924, cuneiform tablets with a distinct appearance and personal names in an unknown language appeared on the antiquities market in Baghdad. The tablets were acquired by various museums and collections in Europe (Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Leiden, Leipzig, Geneva, London, Moscow, Paris, Rouen, St. Petersburg; former collections: Bachmann, Meissner; private collections: Serota, Ligabue), Iraq (Baghdad), and the United States (Ann Arbor, MI; Berkeley, CA; New Haven, CT; Philadelphia, PA). They were originally discovered in two locations: Yorghan Tepe, which was subsequently excavated and identified as ancient Nuzi, and present-day Kirkūk (ancient Arrapḫe), where all known tablets emerged following two landslides at the edge of the mound, around 1911–1912 and in 1922.
As the original findspots of these tablets were lost during their sale and most lack specific markings identifying their provenance, these widely scattered tablets should be regarded and studied as a coherent group. For the majority of these tablets, those from Nuzi can only be distinguished from those originating in Arrapḫe through the analysis of personal names.
In my presentation, I shall provide an overview of the Nuzi texts housed in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, the vast majority of which remain unpublished.
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The Use of Databases for Nuzi Texts: New Projects and Resources
The last decades have seen an explosion of digital and online resources exploiting cuneiform sources: CDLI, ORACC, Archibab, etc. However, none of them have fully integrated the thousands of texts from Nuzi and the kingdom of Arraphe, dating from the Late Bronze Age. The intention of this contribution is to present a new project, which collects results from previous ones. Basically, the objective of this new project is twofold. On the one hand, to review part of the documentation from official excavations in Yorghan Tepe, published or unpublished, preserved in the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. On the other hand, to integrate all this material into an online database, publicly available, which also interacts with other Late Bronze Age corpora, most notably Alalakh, Emar, or Amarna. It will be shown how the tool has been built, and what possibilities it yields for the particularities of Nuzi texts. The work with texts in the museum will also be presented, and how even the worst preserved fragments can be of great interest in the reconstruction of the past of Nuzi.
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W12: Writing the Dawn of the Anthropocene
Organizers: Christie Carr (christie_carr@brown.edu), Émilie Pagé-Perron, Rune Rattenborg
Atra-hasis and Contemporary Historical Debates
Over the last decade, ancient Iraq has become a testing ground for sweeping claims about the direction of human history. While books such as Graeber and Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything (2021), Scott’s Against the Grain (2017), Puchner’s Literature for a Changing Planet (2022), and Harari’s Sapiens (2014) make widely different claims, they have one thing in common: they all treat ancient Iraq as central to their argument. Since ancient Iraq witnessed the earliest known emergence of large-scale cities, states, and social hierarchies, it has become a contemporary analogue to the “state of nature” discussed by Hobbes and Rousseau. In most of these books—Wengrow and Graeber being a notable exception—the origin of settled society is depicted as a trap that led humankind from a free nomadic lifestyle down the path of oppression, slavery, and sickness, eventually culminating in catastrophic climate change. In keeping with the prejudices that Western culture inherited from Greek and Biblical sources, Babylon is treated in these studies as the eternal Other, the original Orient, the source of all evil—including the evils of settled society. It is equally remarkable that these books do not engage with Babylonian sources in any kind of depth. If ancient Iraq is to be a battle-ground for competing claims about power, oppression, and climate change, the least we can do is listen to what the Babylonians themselves thought about these topics. I first sketch out the ongoing trend of treating ancient Iraq as a testing ground for larger historical claims, and then present a Babylonian perspective on labor, a topic that is central to, but undertheorized by, the contributions to this trend. I argue that Atra-hasis presents a sustained and sophisticated set of reflections on labor and its relation to class war, historical development, and climate change.
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Human-Environment Interactions at the Dawn of the Anthropocene: A Case Study of Third-Millennium Fisheries in South-Western Asia
Recent studies have emphasised the importance of integrating ecological and environmental research with archaeological data to understand long-term trends in anthropogenic changes and their effects on the environment (e.g. Boivin et al 2016; Izzo et al 2016; Rick and Erlandson 2008; Erlandson and Braje 2013). In this paper, we explore how cuneiform documents from ancient Iraq can additionally provide some of the earliest written insights into human-environment interactions, looking particularly at the impact of human activities on aquatic ecosystems and fish populations. Fish are ecological indicators of an ecosystem's health (Izzo et al 2016). Modern studies have demonstrated that fishing practices and alterations to water systems can significantly affect fish populations, species diversity, size distribution, and migratory behaviours (Bosch et al 2021; Jawad 2003; Rick and Erlandson 2008; Yousefi et al 2020). Beyond fishing, other anthropogenic factors such as flooding and drought, exacerbated by deforestation/devegetation, and changes in irrigation systems, have been shown to negatively impact fish habitats and populations (Jawad 2003). The wealth of textual data related to fisheries in the 3rd millennium BC, particularly from the Early Dynastic (2900-2350 BC) and Ur III (2100-2000 BC) periods, presents an opportunity to investigate the anthropogenic impacts on fish and their habitat in southern Iraq during this era. By combining traditional close reading of cuneiform texts with a quantitative approach to fish transactions recorded in the corpus, and additionally comparing results to existing research in the archaeological and environmental fields, we seek to investigate cuneiform evidence of human impacts on fish populations caused by overfishing and ecological changes to the aquatic environment, while also identifying any patterns of human adaptation to the evolving ecosystems and biodiversity with which they interacted.
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Rational Living: Quantifying Human Subsistence at the Interface of Landscape and Political Economy in the Middle Bronze Age Jazīrah
Structured approaches to administrative cuneiform texts hold the potential to tap into an immense pool of quantitative data on the material conditions of individual and community at the dawn of written history. As such, this enormous corpus can provide unique insights on the rise of the Anthropocene, revealing details on the interplay between natural environment and early complex societies that can hardly be found anywhere else in ancient history. To achieve this, we are required to rethink not just the broader historical context of our sources, but also the methods applied to their study.
The present paper traces the interplay of environment and social organisation in the Bronze Age dry-farming plains of Iraq and Syria as seen from the administrative records of six political economies. Using a structured approach to the standardisation and interpretation of data derived from ca. 1,500 cuneiform texts, I explore the strategies, opportunities, and constraints evident in the production and consumption of agricultural goods within the palatial estate. This approach works to underscore how emergent social entities, namely the ‘great organisations’ of the Bronze Age cuneiform world, are defined not just by cultural tradition or social behavior, but are also tangible products of a specific encounter between landscape and community, nature and culture.
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Cultic Reeds: Marshlands in Ritual Incantations
How was the natural environment perceived in Ancient Mesopotamian rituals? In various ceremonies, temporary shrines constructed from reeds and other natural materials created sacred spaces that extended beyond temples and city borders. This paper focuses on reeds—one of the most commonly used materials—and the marshes from which they originated, examining their significance as reflected in the so-called Kultmittelbeschwörungen. Through an analysis of these texts, the paper explores how aspects of nature, particularly wetlands, were framed in ritual contexts, while also considering their intersection with process of raw material production.
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Atrahasis and the Anthropocene
What would Mesopotamians contribute to the contemporary discourse on the Anthropocene? What sounds like an entirely speculative question is not as speculative as we might think at first. In fact, the Epic of Atrahasis can be read against the backdrop of the modern discourse, as a reflection on impact of human activity on a global scale. It indicates that the ancient people were already aware of their (negative) influence on the environment.
The talk creates a kind of dialogue between ancient views as expressed by the epic and the contemporary world. To do so, I will take an emic approach to the epic. This will lead to productive parallels, such as the problem of emissions (noise // CO2) destabilizing the environment (catastrophes, tipping points, …). Thus, Atrahasis can be read as an ancient version of the famous book Limits to Growth (1974) by the Club of Rome. How can these parallels help us to better understand the ancient epic, its modern relevance, and the baselines of the Anthropocene?
But there is more: The shift from a human-centered to a theoi-centric view fundamentally changes the nature of humanity. According to the epic, humans are a divine creation to do the gods’ work. Suddenly we find ourselves in the same place as robots and AI in the modern world. This leads us to Peter Haff’s notion of the Technosphere, as an emerging Earth system alongside the existing ones (atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere). Haff explores the shifting power relations and complex entanglements between creator and creation. Very similar relationships between humans and gods are at the heart of the Epic of Atrahasis.
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Sennacherib among the Ecologists?
No other Assyrian monarch before him has so substantially tried to alter landscape and environment. In a unique blend of technical obsession and theologically laden ideological notions, Sennacherib is credited with an unprecedented attempt to radically change the ecological framework of the Assyrian Heartland by creating a complex system of canals. Less studied however are his astonishing remarks about the logistical incompetence of earlier kings with its devastating results for resources and nature. Against the backdrop of a fresh and thorough source-critical examination of Sennacheribs Inscriptions, the different implications of his claims are investigated. They provide an unique opportunity to study to what extent in Neo-Assyrian times human actions profoundly and lastingly changed and potentially even destroyed ecological systems. An attempt will be made to reconstruct Sennacheribs own perspective as far as it found expression in cuneiform texts accompanied by final reflections about the potential and the limits for using these findings when studying the proposed concept of an Anthropocene.
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W13: Society, Geography, and Chronology through Prosopography
Organizer: Elisabetta Cianfanelli (e.cianfanelli@unifi.it)
Dāriš-Libūr: A Steward, a Courtier and Perhaps an Eminence Grise at the Mari Court
With over 250 mentions in the Mari archives, Dāriš-libūr is one of the most prominent officials at the Mari court in the reign of Zimri-Lim (c. 1774-1761 BC). He participates in hundreds of administrative transactions, gives orders to the palace's powerful intendant Mukannišum, and, most importantly, keeps the stock of the Chamber of Barbers (bīt gallābī), which contained the king's personal jewellery, garments, ceremonial weapons and tableware, but also all kinds of household utensils and, apparently, a horse. At the same time, we know surprisingly little about his pedigree and career (which has never been studied in detail). His title is unknown. He serves Zimri-Lim from the very beginning of the reign, but, unlike many other officials, is never mentioned in Yasmah-Addu's times. He bears an Akkadian Beamtenname at an Amorite court, and so did his father. A daughter of Zimri-Lim addresses him in a letter as her superior. In this talk, we will sum up what we know about him and, on his example, ponder over a few questions about the origins, status and responsibilities of Mesopotamian courtiers.
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Prosopography in Context: Some Data on the Ebla Carpenters
The carpenter is one of the most frequently mentioned professions in the Ebla texts from the Palace G Archives (dating to the 24th century BC). In both published texts and references to unpublished ones, the Sumerian term for carpenter, nagar, appears over a hundred times, always within administrative contexts. Since the personal names of some of these carpenters are known, they are particularly well-suited for prosopographical study. Moreover, the analysis is enriched by considering unnamed craftsmen, who are often mentioned in groups interacting with the Palace. To present the most up-to-date social and geographical data on this craft in Ebla, it is necessary to broaden the prosopographical analysis to encompass the contexts in which the carpenters are recorded. In doing so, this paper also aims to offer reflections that could be applied to other craft categories.
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When the Troops Stayed: A Prosopography of the Late Old Babylonian Fortress of Dūr-Abiešuḫ
This paper presents the first complete prosopography of the Late Old Babylonian Fortress of Dūr-Abiešuḫ, located in central Babylonia. Consisting of nearly a thousand unique individuals across more than 300 published texts and roughly 100 years, the corpus of Dūr-Abiešuḫ presents a snapshot of the social lives of individuals on the border between Babylon and the First Sealand Dynasty in a time of continual conflict and danger.
The corpus of Dūr-Abiešuḫ illustrates the daily activities within the fortress and provides evidence of the interactions of individuals from many different professions and spheres of influence, including generals and their soldiers, prebendaries, diviners, herdsmen, priests, and others. By focusing on individuals’ occupations and using digital tools like social network analysis, it is possible to examine the social structure and hierarchy of this fortress, and how the many people – witnessed within its related corpus – interacted and were shaped by their political-historical context. It also provides new evidence on individuals known from other corpora, such as the well-documented scribe turned abi ṣābim, Utul-Ištar.
Furthermore, such a prosopography and network analysis sheds new light on various occupations within the fortress environment, clarifying the social function of some professions and questioning the roles of others. It also opens a new avenue to answer various questions on the archival status of the Dūr-Abiešuḫ texts.
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Brewers in Kassite Babylonia (14th-13th cent. BC): A Prosopographic Analysis of the Archive of Dūr-Enlilē
Beer held a central role in the ancient Near East, as evidenced by archaeological and textual sources. It was integral to daily diets, distributed as rations, and offered to deities, embodying both sustenance and social connection since the dawn of civilization. Institutions allocated significant resources for its production and supervised the activities of brewers, key figures in this sector. While the production of beer and the role of brewers have been extensively studied across various historical periods, these topics remain underexplored for Kassite Babylonia, despite the period’s rich documentation. This leaves important questions regarding resource management and the activities of brewers unanswered.
This paper presents findings from a prosopographic analysis of brewers attested in Kassite-period documents from an institutional archive likely based in Dūr-Enlilē, a center under Nippur’s economic influence. The research stems from the “Kassite Prosopographic Records” project at the University of Turin and employs a method combining textual analysis, data visualization, and Social Network Analysis. This approach has revealed key insights into the activities of brewers during the Kassite period and outlines characteristics of their professional roles.
While limited to a portion of the Kassite textual corpus, these findings provide a valuable foundation for broader investigations into the management of resources and the production of fermented beverages in Kassite Babylonia. They also highlight the potential of prosopographic and network-based methods for uncovering new perspectives on economic and social history.
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A Prosopographical Study of Gud-ti, Šar-mi-lu, and Zu2-ša-bir: Three Foreigners involved in Ebla’s Gold Supply
This paper examines the roles of three foreigners, Gud-ti, Šar-mi-lu, and Zu2-ša-bir, in the supply of gold to Ebla. Operating within a vast network of prominent gold suppliers, these individuals were active across multiple locations, including Armi, one of Ebla’s key sources of gold. By examining their activities, this study sheds light on their contributions to Ebla’s commercial networks and their broader economic and social integration within Ebla society.
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Observations on Early Old Babylonian Theophoric Names
This talk will survey the occurrence of deities in ca. 4000 different personal names from the Early Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000-1800 BCE). Which deities were the most popular and which were not so popular? Based on these personal names, can we say anything meaningful about these deities' character or attributes? Finally, what do the personal names reveal about Old Babylonian beliefs and society?
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W15: Divination and Daily Life
Organizers: Mary Frazer (mary.frazer@lmu.de), Aino Hätinen (aino.haetinen@lmu.de), Saki Kikuchi (s.kikuchi@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Synchronizing Empire: Hemerologies and Assyrian Influence on Local Administrative Practices
During its heyday under the Sargonid kings, the Assyrian Empire exercised direct control over some seventy provinces, each headed by a governor appointed by the monarch. While the Assyrian heartland has yielded many legal documents from this period, written on clay using the cuneiform script and Assyrian language, so too have multiple provincial centres. These include Dur-Katlimmu, Burmarina, Guzana, Huzirina, Ma’allanate and Marqasu. The impressive uniformity of these documents across such a wide area, which employed standard formats, structures and clauses, can be used as an argument for a high degree of integration of these provinces into the Assyrian administrative system and adherence to Assyrian customs, despite the empire's diversity.
A key question, however, is the degree to which local bureaucracies and groups conformed to Assyrian legal and cultural norms more broadly. Such norms include the use of hemerology—calendrical divination that classified days as favorable or unfavorable and assessed their suitability for particular activities. A previous study of hemerologies and private legal texts from the Assyrian heartland revealed a strong correlation between favorable dates and the timing of legal and economic transactions, suggesting widespread respect for calendrical auspiciousness in central Assyrian cities. However, deviations from these norms have been observed in legal documents involving foreign communities, raising questions about the influence of non-Assyrian cultural traditions and their integration into the broader Assyrian governance system.
This paper examines this practice in the western provinces of the empire by analyzing the hemerological favorability of dates in local legal texts. This approach offers a nuanced perspective on the cultural integration of local actors within the Assyrian imperial system, shedding new light on the balance between administrative standardization and regional diversity. This analysis will contribute to our understanding of the interplay between divination practices and everyday governance in the Assyrian provincial system.
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Military Aspects of Everyday Life. The Animals in War Divination.
Divination practices formed an integral part of Mesopotamian culture, shaping the daily lives and decision-making processes of its people. Among the various methods employed to interpret divine will, the observation of animal behavior and physical characteristics played a crucial role. This paper explores the multifaceted practice of divination from animal omens and its significance in the socio-religious and military frameworks of ancient Mesopotamia.
Drawing on an extensive corpus of cuneiform texts, first of all the renowned omen series Šumma Ālu ina Mēlê Šakin (‘If a City Is Set on a Height’) and Šumma Izbu, my presentation examines the appearance of certain animals and the peculiar actions of domesticated livestock. The portents of many of these omens concern the implications of unusual and not so unusual domestic life, cultic activity, and sickness but many concerns military activities.
The Šumma Ālu series, which remained popular until the end of the cuneiform era, provides a comprehensive collection of omens addressing various aspects of life, including warfare. The series includes specific sections on animal omens that were instrumental in guiding military decisions.
This paper aims to contribute to ongoing discussions in the fields of Social Anthropology, Religious Studies, and Ancient History by shedding light on the ways in which divination from animal omens was intricately woven into the fabric of both every day and military life in Mesopotamia. It underscores the profound connection between humans and animals in the ancient world as mediators of divine communication.
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Secrets of the Liver and Secrets of Men: An Old Babylonian Extispicy Report and Its Historical Context
My paper deals with a previously unpublished Old Babylonian letter in which an extispicy report is embedded. Although the letter is unaddressed, its acquisition history and contents allow for identifying a likely historical context and thus observing the daily use of divination in decision-making.
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Bird Divination and Evidence for an Omen Collection Šumma Iṣṣūru
While divination with sheep is widely attested there are only few texts concerning bird divination or ornithoscopy. New evidence comes from Tell Bakr Awa in the Shahrizor plain in Northern Iraq. The small but diverse text corpus from this site dates to the Late Bronze Age, approximately to the 15th century BC. It contains tablets with omens concerning the entrails of a bird and a fragment of a hitherto unknown text that starts with the words “If you offer a bird” (šumma iṣṣūra ina karābīka) describing the appearance or behavior of the bird in the hand of the diviner. The new texts will be analyzed and compared with the already known material concerning bird divination as well as with the omen collection šumma immeru. The question is raised as to whether or not birds were used as objects for divination as a cheap, everyday alternative to sheep for everyone.
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Fortune-Telling Revisited
The so-called “Fortune-telling Text” (Reiner, JNES 19), also known as “Rituals to Obtain a purussû” (Butler, AOAT 256), is a collection of instructions for impetrated divination involving incubation as well as the observation of shooting stars and the movements of an ox. While these divination techniques are linked to the better-known practices of oneiromancy as well as terrestrial and astrological omens, they serve here as simple methods of communicating with the divine to obtain a decision regarding everyday concerns, such as an individual’s health or the success of an undertaking. This paper will revisit the “Fortune-telling Text”, focusing especially on the geographical distribution of its manuscripts, and its connections to other forms of divination practiced in private households.
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Countering Bad Omens as an Ordinary Man: Everyday Rituals in Šumma Ālu
Šumma ālu contains thousands of omens that could be observed in daily life. With many of these omens predicting disaster, the threat of danger seems to have loomed at every turn. While the negative outcome of an omen could be countered by performing the appropriate Namburbi ritual, this required bringing in a specialist. Luckily, there were also less elaborate ways to protect oneself. Ordinary people could avoid the negative consequences of many an omen by carrying out a simple ritual themselves. This paper will discuss the evidence for such rituals found in Šumma ālu and examine their practicability in everyday life.
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Exploring the Excerpt Tablets of Šumma Ālu: The Special Case of the Nishu Tablets
The divinatory series Šumma ālu played a crucial role in Mesopotamian omen literature, touching on many practical issues of everyday life. Among its excerpt tablets, the nishū stand out for different reasons, such as the practice of adding supplementary omens on the tablet’s edges at different stages of the writing process. This talk will examine the unique features shared by these manuscripts and discuss their colophons. Furthermore, I will present the newly reconstructed second nishu, which offers new insights into the relationship between Šumma ālu and Iqqur īpuš and the reconstruction of both series.
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Evidence of Scholarly Interaction in Colophons from Nineveh
Research into the lived realities of the past often relies on archival texts, such as letters or legal documents. In contrast, “canonical” tablets rarely provide direct insight into the contexts of their creation and use. This challenge is often compounded by the limited study of their archaeological contexts, particularly for tablets recovered from older excavations. A prime example is the extensive corpus of “canonical” tablets from Nineveh, including numerous divinatory texts, which have profoundly shaped our understanding of ancient Mesopotamian textual culture. However, given the prevailing anonymity of writing in the Ancient Near East, little is known about the social world of their creation, the identities of their scribes and owners, or the purposes these tablets served.
Paratextual elements, especially colophons, offer valuable insights into these questions. Some colophons reveal details about the production of these tablets, suggesting collaboration among scholars from different professional backgrounds, including those in divinatory fields. For example, they refer to scribes alongside tablet owners, collaboratively written texts, texts created for the training of apprentices, tablets copied from originals from ancestors or other named individuals with titles, or formulas indicating transmission of knowledge from father to son. Additionally, colophons provide information about professions, careers, and the intended purposes of the tablets. These brief notes hint at a dynamic and collaborative scholarly exchange.
This paper aims to investigate such evidence in divinatory texts from Nineveh. By examining these traces, it seeks to shed light on the lived realities and collaborative frameworks that underpinned their creation.
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Copying Mesopotamian Omen Texts in Hattusa
Roughly 300 Akkadian and Hittite fragments of Omen texts survive from the Hittite capital Hattuša. Divination was one of several possible career paths for an advanced Mesopotamian scribal student, but the role and standing of Mesopotamian divinatory texts in Hattusa are still obscure. The talk will focus on paratextual information such as colophons and tablet layout, translation and transmission peculiarities, and mistakes to collect hints as to what role such texts played for a Hittite scribe.
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The Babylonian Oracle Procedure: Theory and Practice
The oracle procedure played a central role in the processes of decision making in Ancient Babylonia. This procedure’s focus was the oracle-question, to which an answer was obtained in context of a ceremony, during which the organs of a sheep were examined. Since this answer was highly valued and understood as a divine decision, the study of the inner organs of sheep was considered as an important domain of expertise among scholars of the time. Their intellectual effort in the field resulted in an extensive amount of theoretical literature on the subject, most prominent of which was the encyclopedic collection of extispicy-omens, Bārûtu. The entries in this collection were phrased in the šumma-conditional sentence, with a description of a particular phenomenon in the animal’s organ at its protasis, complemented by a speculation about implications of such phenomenon on the human sphere. For example, an entry from the third chapter of the series states: “If a ‘drawing’ is stretched from the centre of the top of the ‘presence’ and a ‘weapon’ follows it, a leader will leave the country.” Statements of this type face the modern reader with a paradox. Reports of extispicy, like modeled oracle questions show us that, as rule, the oracle query focused on providing a clear-cut positive or negative answer to a yes/no question, to which apodoses of the above cited entry, formally speaking, provide no answer. This paper aims to tackle this problem by seeking to offer some explanation as for how the very general statements in omen-apodoses were applied in the field when addressing a specific yes/no questions during an ad hoc oracle procedure. A solution to this paradox can also offer an example for how an ancient society made use of theoretical knowledge, found in manuals, when addressing a problem of every-day life.
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The Bilingual Astrological Omens and Their Significance for the Use of Divination in Daily Life
This presentation draws on the author’s dissertation, which explores a collection of bilingual divinatory texts from the first millennium BCE, known as bilingual omens. These omens have been previously referenced only in footnotes and book reviews, owing to the lack of a documented Sumerian divination tradition. The dissertation accomplishes an almost complete reconstruction of these omens, categorizing them into four distinct groups: astrological, behavioral, diagnostic, and commentaries. The commentaries incorporate sumerianizing interpretations and unique Sumerian-Akkadian equivalences exclusive to the bilingual omens.
Focusing on the astrological bilingual omens, this presentation will demonstrate that these texts are integral to the main Enuma Anu Enlil (EAE) series while simultaneously maintaining an independent tradition. This finding supports the hypothesis that Mesopotamian scholars sought to trace the Sumerian origins of astrological omens. Upon identifying these “Sumerian” omens within EAE, scholars produced separate bilingual tablets supplemented with commentaries to present these omens as ancient.
The implications of this research suggest that the astrological omens, as part of ašipu lore, were utilized to assert their Sumerian antiquity, positioning them as older than extispicy—the dominant divination method associated with the barû, which relied solely on mythological Sumerian texts for their origins. The bilingual omens, together with other astrological texts such as the bilingual introductions of EAE and Astrolab B, laid the groundwork for the advancement of astrological divination, which became the most prevalent divinatory practice in subsequent periods. Consequently, the corpora of bilingual omens became central to the competition for dominance in royal court divination between ašipūtu and barûtu. This shift significantly influenced divination practices and daily life in ancient Mesopotamia, establishing astrological omens as the leading divination method for both experts and laypeople until the decline of cuneiform culture and beyond.
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Planetary Conceptualization in Mesopotamian Celestial Divination: Insights from the First Half of the First Millennium BCE
Celestial divination played a central role in the scholarly tradition of first-millennium BCE Mesopotamia. This practice involved interpreting the night sky as a system of mantic phenomena believed to reflect the divine will. Cuneiform texts reveal collections of celestial omens, and reports in which Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian scholars documented celestial phenomena, identified ominous signs, and provided corresponding interpretations. Stars, constellations, and planets – each described with various names and behaviors – were linked to prognostications concerning earthly affairs.
From the eighth to seventh centuries BCE, an intensified focus on the five planets visible to the naked eye – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn – is evident in both reports and an extensive corpus of commentaries. Observations of these planets became so central that many omens were adjusted to align with the most frequent planetary conjunctions.
This contribution examines key aspects of how planets were conceptualized in Mesopotamian thought, with an emphasis on the first half of the first millennium BCE. Planets’ names, attributes, and associations with elements of religion, medicine, warfare, and agriculture are explored with an intertextual approach. In many instances, it will be demonstrated how certain features of planetary conceptualization can be traced back well before the first millennium BCE.
Through a heuristic description, this contribution highlights how the conceptualization of the five planets reflects the Mesopotamian worldview, which was strongly based on analogical reasoning. Drawing on preliminary results from a DFG-funded project I am conducting in Berlin, hosted by the ERC project “ZODIAC – Ancient Astral Science in Transformation,” it incorporates examples from cuneiform literary and divinatory texts to illustrate how divination influenced – and was influenced by – scholarly understandings of health, agriculture, fate, and governance.
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“Venus as a Boy”: The Gender of the Planet Venus in the Mesopotamian Divinatory Tradition
The goddess Ishtar has long been recognized for her dual, often contradictory nature, with one aspect of that duality being her possession of conventionally masculine as well as feminine traits. The astral manifestation of Ishtar—the planet Venus—figures in this complexity, as it is sometimes described in the divinatory literature as explicitly male or female. This paper posits a new explanation for the omens describing the gender of the planet Venus in first millennium BCE scholarship by reanalyzing the omens that describe the gender of Venus or detail gendered attributes, such as being bearded. Notions of a male and female Venus in Enūma Anu Enlil can be explained by reference to a tradition pairing a deified representation of Venus, Ninsianna, with the male deity Kabta, most likely her astral consort. This tradition is attested from at least as early as the Old Babylonian period and evidenced from cylinder seals, god lists, and celestial divinatory texts. The relationship between Ninsianna and Kabta can thus be understood as a source for the idea that the planet Venus could be male or female, depending on its appearance as an evening or morning star.
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New Perspectives on the Socio-Institutional Context of the Ephemerides
The focus of this presentation is the colophons of the ephemerides which are attested during the second half of the first millennium BC and form a component of the subject of my PhD research. These astronomical texts, which were discovered exclusively in Babylon and Uruk, are called tērsītu or arû. These documents record the course of the stars in the sky and belong to the field of predictive mathematical astronomy.
The colophons identify both the writers and the owners of the tablets, who were specialists of astronomy and astrology (ṭupšar Enūma Anu Enlil), but also other professionals such as exorcists (āšipu) and lamenting priests (kalû). All of them were linked to traditional Mesopotamian institutions: the Esagil in Babylon and the Bīt Reš in Uruk.
It is thus clear that ephemerides were a part of the material available to the writers of astrological and ritual texts.
This study raises two fundamental questions: Why the ephemerides were produced and used by scholars of various disciplines? What kind of relationship can be established between these theorical astronomy tablets and other types of texts?
After a brief definition of the ephemerides and colophons, I will introduce the scribes of these colophons to shed light on the professional network of scholars who wrote, owned, and used these texts.
Then, I will present some texts related to these individuals. These texts cover mainly the ephemerides, but also a range of other textual sources, including administrative, scientific and divinatory texts. The present study will also allow me to shed light on the material conditions of archiving through a study of the archaeological distribution of these texts.
This study will finally propose hypotheses on the meaning, uses and functions of the ephemerides.
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Language and the Divinatory Interpretation of Human Sexuality
Even a person’s sexual desires and practices were within the scope of divinatory concern. Tablets 103 and 104 of šumma ālu describe over 100 sex acts and their interpretations. The processes of interpretation in divination have been widely discussed, and various paradigms offered to deconstruct them. However, human sexual behaviour omens present scholars with an added complication – as humans interpret omens, is the interpretation of their own behaviour an act of regulation? What frameworks of interpretation were used in regard to sexuality? Our reliance on omen texts for our understandings of this may be the key. Across the disciplines of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and queer theory, the theoretical principle that sexuality is linguistically and discursively constructed is widely recognised – that is, that language is accepted as the basis of sexuality. Additionally, as the Mesopotamian world was constructed through divine signs, the study of divine-linguistic signs is all the more appropriate. Though it at first appears to be a simple list of conditional statements, the language used in šumma ālu is complex, with its polyvalency deliberately and knowledgably utilised by the divinatory scribes. This theoretical principle can then offer an apt methodological tool to deciphering the interpretative logics of the human sexual behaviour omens and how sexuality was constructed through divinatory discourse.
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W16: Daily Mathematical Life in Mesopotamia
Organizers: Robert Middeke-Conlin (middeke-conlin@gea.mpg.de), Carlos Gonçalves (bgcarlos@usp.br)
Brewing the Numbers: Mathematical Knowledge Exhibited by Brewers in the Old Babylonian Period
Beer and the art of brewing were important components of Mesopotamian culture. Today, they are visible in the administrative record, literary record, and material culture throughout the region’s history and into its prehistory, in so far as material culture is concerned. The brewers workshop is particularly well represented in texts dating to the the Old Babylonian period throughout mesopotamia. We know much on the technology of brewing. We can speak of the brewer’s role in the temple, political, and local culture as well. Finally, administering this craft has been explored in a series of studies, from temple prebends of Ur to the craft workshops at Mari. But what of the mathematics involved in all of this? What mathematical knowledge did the brewer hold? How well could the brewer quantify this craft? Did his knowledge extend beyond the brewer’s trade?
This presentation will examine the mathematical knowledge exhibited by the brewer in daily life. Focus will be on the Old Babylonian period. While emphasis will be on texts from the town of Lagaba, evidence will be brought from throughout Mesopotamia from this period. This presentation will answer, “How was the brewing craft quantified?” and, “What was the daily mathematical life of the brewer?”
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‘To Whom Else but Me Would You Send Only 1 Mina 10 Shekels for 6 Textiles?’ Women and Accounts in the Old Assyrian Texts
In addition to their domestic duties, Assyrian women were fully involved in long-distance trade between Aššur and Anatolia. They produced textiles for export and were paid in return. They lent silver at interest to both women and men, and sometimes to members of their families, and invested in trade by buying goods or investing gold and silver into joint-stock companies. These women were therefore required to keep accounts, and sometimes demanded their due, like true businesswomen. By analysing letters sent and received by women, as well as various documents, we will attempt to examine the involvement of women in accounting and the variety of calculations they carried out.
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Errors in Mesopotamian Astronomical Tables
With the invention of the uniform zodiac in the 5th century BCE in Mesopotamia, a new genre of astronomical predictions emerged: mathematical astronomy. Instead of relying on observation only, it had become possible to predict the movement of the planets through computation, indicating their position along the ecliptic in the zodiacal coordinate system. Starting from a given planetary position, the date and position for the next occurrence of the studied planetary phenomenon could be obtained by application of an algorithm. The results of these computations were archived in planetary tables on cuneiform tablets. Procedure texts described to the well-trained astronomer how to apply these algorithms.
The planetary algorithms are computationally straightforward, yet many different types of errors appear. Some of these errors are primarily textual, such as copying errors resulting from similarity between numerals and the accidental copying of signs from a nearby position in the table. Other errors are more mathematical, such as positional errors, carrying out addition instead of subtraction or vice versa, omission of a computational step, lookup errors and calendrical errors. These types of errors have been identified before, but they have not yet been systematically analysed.
This talk explores how well the Babylonian astronomers were able to use their mathematical skills to perform the necessary calculations in their day-to-day life. At which point did their quantitative abilities falter? What mechanisms were in place to prevent or repair the errors they could make? Which stages in the computational process were the most error prone? Through questions like these, more light will be shed on the content and complexity of the day-to-day computations the Babylonian astronomers were dealing with.
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A House of 24 Square Meters Plus a Few Square Centimeters (2/3 Sar 15 Še). The Practical Mathematics Exhibited by Old Babylonian Real-Estate Contracts.
In a few but representative Old Babylonian house purchase contracts, the surface of the property being bought is presented as a large component (like 2/3 sar) plus an almost negligible surface (like 15 še, that is, the size of a leaf of A4 paper). Why such a composition of two clearly disproportionate components (15 še is 480 times smaller than 2/3 sar) would make sense in a contract? Was this the arithmetical result of some form of calculation, such as in an inheritance division? Or does it reflect a pusuit of accuracy? Could it even be a demonstration of measurement virtuosity? Perhaps it merely served to prevent future litigation? This paper intends to explore the reasons behind this phenomenon and the metrological knowledge that underpins it.
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The Babylonians and Pi
Many researchers have explored how the Old Babylonians estimated pi (approximating it roughly as 3 and more accurately as 3 1/8). However, a more intriguing question is how the ratios of diameter-to-circumference and area-to-circumference-squared were known to be constant and related. In a recent paper, I hypothesised how these facts were known, noting that pi-related constants were a common trait across Mesopotamia. This raises the question: how widely were these constants applied in daily life?
i) Metrological tables linking circular circumference to area suggest practical use.
ii) Circular structures like grain silos, ovens, and wells required pi for brick calculations, as seen in problem text BM85194.
iii) Beer ingredient measurements in per-volume and per-circular-vessel units hint at an understanding of circumference-to-volume relationships.
iv) BM C.263 (the Arc Tablet) provides circular arc dimensions without redundant measures, implying awareness of the relationship between diameter, circumference, and area. The stated rope length could also have been calculated using pi.
v) The bariga, a cylindrical measuring vessel made of reeds, would require pi for accurate construction. Smaller measuring containers would need pi to ensure their capacity was the relevant proportion of the bariga.
vi) Architectural coefficients for circular structures exist, but did architects understand the underlying concepts of circle ratios?
Many additional questions arise: Did Babylonians know how much area a circular seal impression covered? With much Old Babylonian jewellery being circular or semi-circular, was the relationship between area and length of side understood to be constant and used to calculate the required amount of precious metal needed to construct the jewellery?
In this talk, I explore evidence addressing these questions while discussing many that remain unanswered.
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Capacity Units and Administrative Practices: The Calculation of Rubbû in Middle Babylonian Texts
Middle Babylonian administrative texts provide important insights into the use of various capacity units in the management of resources. This paper focuses specifically on the term rubbû, commonly translated as "increase" or "additional amount," and its role in economic and resource management practices. While rubbû was previously known only from a limited number of attestations in the Nippur corpus, the evidence from Dūr-Enlilē has greatly expanded its frequency and usage, particularly in texts documenting stored crops and the expenditures of cereals. These new occurrences are pivotal in enhancing our understanding of how the rubbû was calculated and applied within the broader framework of administrative practices. By examining these texts, we will explore not only the specific methods of calculation but also the broader socio-economic implications of the rubbû as an essential administrative device in the management of agricultural resources.
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The Mathematically Sublime in Mesopotamian Sources
The discourse about the sublime has its origins in Περì Ὕψους (On the Sublime), a first- or third-century Greek fragment attributed to “Longinus.” Apparently unknown in antiquity, as it is not referenced in any extant sources, the manuscript came to light in 1554. However, it aroused little critical interest until Boileau translated it into French in 1674. Boileau's Preface led to the treatise’s putative subject, hypsos, being translated in most languages on the basis of the Latin “sublime.” The term quickly acquired currency in literary criticism of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In Mesopotamian literature, we do not have a similar source. Yet if, with this text in hand, we read the Mesopotamian sources with Longinus’ glasses, we will be amazed at how much our Mesopotamian sources say about the “sublime.” My paper summarizes my research findings and shares many of the insights that we can extract directly from cuneiform sources, including literary texts and mathematical texts, that suggest a category of the mathematically sublime. In the Mesopotamian sources, mathematical estimations of objects are mathematically sublime (i.e., they are ultimately aesthetic) because measurements require a primary or fundamental aesthetic measure; otherwise, the measurements would be entirely abstract and detached from reality.
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Daily Numeracy at Mari: From Sexagesimal at School to Centesimal in the Palace
In the Old Babylonian period, numeracy was not confined to scribes but permeated various social groups, including the ruling class, clergy, administrators, merchants, and even private individuals. These groups have likely followed at least the elementary level of the ‘classic’ curriculum attested throughout Mesopotamia at that time, where both Sumerian and mathematics were taught. However, unpublished elementary-level mathematical texts from Chantier K reveal a striking discrepancy between formal education and the practical mathematical needs of palace life.
While school instruction focused on the southern metrological system and the sexagesimal system, administrative practices within the palace relied on the local metrological system and for some practices on a centesimal system, which was notably absent from elementary education. This suggests that palace scribes acquired these systems informally—either at home or through peer learning. Such findings improve our understanding of how mathematical knowledge circulated beyond institutional settings and played a role in daily life.
Moreover, the local use of centesimal-based riddles raises intriguing questions about the interplay between formal mathematical training and cultural practices. Could these riddles reflect an advanced-stage pedagogy that built upon early sexagesimal education? The over 50 ‘mathematical rough works’ on buns discovered at Mari’s Chantier K, which include geometric progressions, hint at a dynamic learning environment where practical and theoretical mathematics intersected in unexpected ways.
By examining these mathematical traces, this study sheds new light on the ways in which numeracy shaped daily interactions, professional training, and knowledge transmission in Mari, offering a richer perspective on the lived experience of mathematics in the ancient city.
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W17: Local Power and Urban Institutions in Ancient Western Asia during the 2nd Millennium BCE
Organizers: Morgane Pique (morgane.pique@univ-lille.fr), Elliott Lairie (elliott.lairie@univ-lille.fr)
New Data on Balmunamḫe of Larsa and His Bītum
Balmunamḫe, son of Sîn-nūr-mātim, has been the subject of a continuous research that started in the 1910s with the first publications of texts from Old Babylonian Larsa and goes on till this day due to the discovery and publication of new texts (legal and administrative documents, royal, business and private letters).
After a brief overview of the history of research on Balmunamḫe, we will focus on a group of ten letters that were published in the last 17 years: four of them, housed in the Hermitage Museum, were first edited by N. Kozyreva in 2008 and are currently being studied by B. Alexandrov for a reedition (Erm. 15058, 15059, 15230, 15233); three letters concerning Balmunamḫe were published in 2009 (YOS 15 20, 22, 67); in 2018 two more letters from the Schøyen collection were published by A. George (CUSAS 36 152, 198); finally, a letter from the Yale Babylonian Collection was published recently (YBC 7566, NABU 2024/102).
The following questions will be addressed: can we be sure that the protagonist in all these letters is Balmunamḫe I, son of Sîn-nūr-mātim, and not his grandson Balmunamḫe II, son of Iddin-Ea, or some other namesake? If so, what kind of authority did he, according to the letters, exercise in Larsa and beyond? And what do the letters tell us about the institution (bītum) of Balmunamḫe?
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Judges of Mari (in the Early 2nd Millenium BCE): Relations between an Urban Institution, the King and the People
The Archives Royales de Mari (ARM) constitute a valuable source for the study of the relationship between urban institutions and the monarchy in the early 2nd millennium BC. This corpus of documents provides insight into the dynamics of the kingdom's administration, particularly the interconnections between its legal and political structures.
Within this organisational structure, the judges (dayyânum in Akkadian, di.ku5 in Sumerian) held a prominent position. Their role was to address the routine legal issues that arose, thereby enabling the sovereign to concentrate on the broader aspects of governance. However, judges and senior officials were required to report directly to the king on their legal activities, requesting his intervention in cases that were particularly complex or controversial. Indeed, some sources indicate that judges frequently acted as intermediaries between the monarch and the population, as well as a filter in legal cases that were likely to have political implications.
In the execution of their duties, the judges appeared to act on behalf of the sovereign, thereby embodying his authority in the day-to-day administration of justice. It seems reasonable to posit that these magistrates, through their decisions and the application of the law, contributed to the maintenance of social order and the cohesion of the kingdom of Mari. It seems probable that these same judges were also responsible for interpreting the legal and customary corpus in Mari, in order to apply it to the specific situations they faced.
The objective of this communication is to elucidate the pivotal role of judges in the legal and political system of the Mari kingdom by analysing the Archives Royales de Mari. The aim is to illustrate the significance of the administration of justice in the governance of the kingdom.
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Urban Institutions as Venues: Substance, Affect, and Expression in Old Babylonian Letters
The purposes, processes, and personnel of local institutions in Mesopotamia are often accounted for in positive, functional terms. The kinds of problems and disputes they resolved, their powers to sanction and reward, and the roles of their officers are commonly explained in terms of purpose-built rules designed for optimal regulative outcomes. This paper will review disputes and institutional process as represented in Old Babylonian letters. These give us the points of view of jurists, disputants, and appellants which tell us something about the intent and agency of individuals and sometimes the groups to which they belonged. What do the socio-emotional dimensions of legal and administrative conflict tell us about institutional venues as sites of contestation and resolution? I take two critical approaches. First, I examine the interests of multiple urban communities as constitutive of justice made effective partly by group participation, bargaining, and buy-in. Second, I look at affective and status language to illustrate how and why emotion and personal reputation were considered aspects relevant for both institutions to adjudicate/mediate and important enough for letters to report on. The paper seeks to open a view of urban institutions as venues not so much engineered to accomplish statutory compliance or other abstract standards of justice, but rather to formalize, mitigate, and diffuse social competition and conflict.
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W18: Everyday Life in the Late Babylonian Period
Organizers: Céline Debourse (cdebourse@fas.harvard.edu), Kathryn Stevens (kathryn.stevens@ccc.ox.ac.uk)
Where is the Greek Temple in Babylon?
First, a few words will be spent on the release of R.J. van der Spek, Irving L. Finkel, Reinhard Pirngruber, and Kathryn Stevens, Babylonian Chronographic Texts from the Hellenistic Period, WAW 44 (Atlanta: SBL 2025), which was the motivation to organize this session.
It is a well-known fact that since Alexander the Great Greek immigrants lived in the city of Babylon. Archaeologically their presence is visible thanks to the excavated theatre, a palaestra, various objects and Greek inscriptions. From Babylonian texts we know people with Greek names or with double names, Greek and Babylonian. In the second century BC these Greeks (some perhaps Hellenized Babylonians) got a privileged position as registered citizens (politai) with their own institutions: an assembly, a council of elders (peliganes), a governor (pāḫātu = epistatēs) and a gymnasium, even a Stoic school. So it was possible to have a Greek way of life. But what about a Greek religious way of life? Where is the Greek temple?
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Being Greek in Hellenistic Babylon
After the conquest of the Achaemenid empire by Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Seleucid kingdom Greek culture spread over Babylonia more intensively than before and Greco-Macedonians settled in the newly conquered territories. As for Babylon, the attestations of the presence of Greeks or, more correctly, bearers of Greek culture are limited. A theatre in Greek style and the existence of a Greek polis are the most appealing testimonies. The recent editions of chronicles dating from the Hellenistic period have added important new evidence.
The question of daily life of “Greeks” in Babylon during the Hellenistic period has not been treated systematically so far. In this paper I would like to re-examine the extant evidence (cuneiform and classical sources as well as the archaeological material) and, for a better understanding, compare the situation in Babylon with other cities in the Seleucid empire.
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The Polis of Babylon Revisited
The Babylonian Astronomical Diaries and Chronicles of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC attest to a group called puliṭe/puliṭānu in the city of Babylon. The Akkadian term is obviously from Greek politai 'citizens' and the sources describe them as a community of Greeks (Yawanāya) distinct from the 'Babylonians' (Bābilāya) under the šatammu of the Esagila. These people are commonly mentioned along with the 'governor of Babylon' (pāḫāt Bābili) in the formula pāḫāt Bābili u puliṭē ša ina Bābili. As Sciandra observes, the Diaries show that the governor and the citizens superseded the šatammu and the Babylonians as the major recipients of royal correspondence. Clancier and Monerie argued that the phenomenon implies a transfer of power and the 'poliadisation' of Babylon, which made it a 'polis'. However, their studies failed to present a clear and consistent definition of 'polis', whose applicability was questioned by scholars such as van der Spek.
This paper aims to give a more refined account of the status of the citizens and their impact on the social and institutional landscape of Hellenistic Babylon. By comparing the formula mentioned above and the extant Seleukid and Parthian royal letters in Greek to the cities they founded, I argue that the former is a reproduction of the greeting formula in the latter, from which we can safely deduce that the citizens enjoyed the polis status in the eyes of the central authorities and the pāḫātu was the official called epistates in Greek. Therefore, the community of the puliṭe was actually a special form of Hellenistic royal foundation, which would be recognised as a polis by the contemporaries despite the lack of a new city like Antioch or Seleukeia-on-Tigris.
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Growing up at Seleucia on the Tigris
From the American and Italian excavations of Seleucia on the Tigris come around 11.000 terracotta, more than 200 bone, and around 120 stone figurines that form an impressive repertoire of iconographies, motives, and styles. With their varied subjects, they embody a world in miniature, thus having the potential to shed light on several aspects of daily life.
By focusing on children representations, this paper will attempt to investigate the place of children within the multi-cultural context of Seleucia on the Tigris.
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Reframing Hellenistic Uruk: the Archives
Uruk is amongst the oldest and most famous cities of Babylonia, having been the object of German-Iraqi excavations since the beginning of last century. There is, however, still much we do not know about its history and even more that we do not really understand, even if we believe we do. The aim of this paper is to shed some further light on the (social) history of Hellenistic Uruk by making public some of the results of a doctoral dissertation being undertaken at the Universities of Münster and Vienna.
Our first step in this process is a detailed study of Uruk’s Hellenistic archives, making up the largest known corpus of legal texts from Hellenistic Babylonia and the Seleukid empire. Such research may seem superfluous, as the communis opinio is that we understand the essence of the Urukean source material, but our comprehension has in fact been superficial at best. By combining archaeological, textual, and historical date, we reconsider Uruk’s archives and reframe them in their socio-cultural context, mindful of the limits of our sources and with an open perspective to what once lay beyond. In this way, we are not only able to better comprehend the Urukean source material, but we also gain an important insight into the functioning of its main sanctuaries, both socially and spatially.
This in turn allows us to briefly delve into the social networks of some of Uruk’s inhabitants. In tracing the histories of select families over close to two of cuneiform culture’s final centuries, we are forced to confront our assumptions of what it meant to be Urukean and we are permitted to strike at the heart of Late Babylonian history, for behind politics, economies, texts, scripts and cults are always people and the relations that define them.
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Women in Late Babylonian Esagil
Women feature prominently in the cuneiform documentation from Late Babylonian Esagil (484–90 BCE), in stark contrast to the preceding centuries when they remain largely invisible in the Babylonian temple households. In this talk, I pay closer attention to this arguable increase in female agency and mobility in Late Babylonian Babylon, showing how women were hired as independent labor forces, gained increasing autonomy in business transactions, and took up more prominent roles in the cultic sphere. A better understanding of these new roles for women, I go on to demonstrate, not only sheds more light on the daily functioning of the broader temple household, but also tells us a lot about Babylonian society under foreign imperial rule.
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Was Late Babylonian Religion Invented?
Brian K. Pennington’s seminal Was Hinduism Invented? and related scholarship have argued that the category of “Hinduism” emerged neither solely from Orientalist projections nor from continuous Brahmin tradition. Rather, modern Hinduism as such resulted from local Indian elites and European agents struggling both against and in tandem with one another to categorize and control the heterogenous and lived cultic traditions practiced, mostly by “non-elites,” across the subcontinent. Such a model, this paper contends, is useful for analyzing the religious landscape of Late Babylonia. Taking Uruk’s near-monolatrous shift from Ištar to Anu and Berossus' Marduk-centric Babyloniaca as case studies, this paper argues that the changes and canonizations of Late Babylonian religion should be conceptualized not solely as "Achaemenid/Seleucid vs. Babylonian" but as a complex dialogue between priestly elites and imperial agents to render legible the bewildering array of "everyday" cultic activities practiced by "regular" Babylonians.
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Festivals and Celebrations in Hellenistic Babylonia
Drawing in particular on the Late Babylonian Chronicles and Astronomical Diaries, this paper will examine reports about festivals and celebrations in Babylonia during the reigns of Alexander and his successors, and under the Seleucid and Parthian dynasty. I will consider the question of whether these reports indicate specific events, or whether some or all of them should be taken simply as stereotypical expressions of a positive state of affairs in Babylon or Babylonia. In cases where such celebrations, or positive states, seem to be associated with visits or actions of the Seleucid or Parthian kings or their representatives, I will discuss what this suggests about royal policy, and about relations between the foreign dynasties and the local population, during the last few centuries BCE.
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The Performance of the ‘Exaltation of Ištar’ in Hellenistic Uruk
The Sumerian-Akkadian composition Egi maḫ ušuni ira (modern Exaltation of Ištar) narrates the elevation of Innana-Ishtar to the most powerful deity in the Mesopotamian pantheon by the decisions of Anu, Enlil and Ea. Tablet III of the epic deals with the goddess's exaltation to the position of Queen of Heaven and Mistress of Uruk by the order of the sky-god Anu and has been transmitted exclusively by Late Babylonian manuscripts from Uruk and Nippur. Based on recent evidence, it is now clear that this tablet was used as an Emesal-šuʾila prayer in the the 1st millennium BC. We know that such prayers were specifically recited by lamentation priests (kalû) in processions during the course of the New Year festivals. My purpose is to demonstrate the performance of this text during such celebrations in Seleucid Uruk (and possibly in Neo-Babylonian Babylon and Neo-Assyrian Niniveh). An analytical comparison between Hellenistic ritual tablets and commentaries and the text of Egimaḫ III reveals that the composition was recited during a procession of Ištar (and most probably also of Anu and Antu) in Uruk. Furthermore, one of the manuscripts provides insights into the recitation technique of this prayer.
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Praying for a Change: Recitative Literature in the Scholarly Archives of LB Uruk
In LB Uruk, several significant religious innovations occured as a result of scholarly reflection, including the elevation of Anu to the head of the civic pantheon and the astralization of religion. However technical were the devices by which the Urukean scholars achieved such innovations, they did so in ways that extended beyond their own tablets, and this led to observable changes in religion within the city. Certainly, one of the strategies to promote these changes was publicly performed ritual, such as the revised New Year’s Festival with Anu at its center, but the spoken elements of ritual also played a role (Krul 2018). In this paper, I will focus on how recitative literature—prayers, hymns, and incantations—contributed to the transformation of religious life in Uruk during the late first millennium. These innovations were not separate from the professional identities claimed by the scholars themselves, and so my examples will draw from the archives belonging to the two known scribal professions at Uruk: kalûtu and āšipūtu. Competing incantation traditions in Aramaic, as well as a diminishing network of scholarship beyond the walls of Uruk led to more interplay between the two fields of scholarship. Within these archives, the scholars of either kalûtu or āšipūtu were conversant with material in the other discipline, destablizing distinctions between the two. There was an effort to portray their professions as belonging to the traditions of deep antiquity, whether by collecting ancient exemplars into new and innovate arrangements, or by creating new compositions in the style of older forms. At Uruk, cuneiform scholars used prayers, hymns, and incantations as a vehicle for promoting the theological and scholarly innovations of the scribal workshop, and as a point of interaction with the broader public.
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How Personal Do the Stars Get When ‘A Child Is Born’?
The political and cultural changes that took place during the final centuries of cuneiform culture were reflected in the practice of celestial divination. During the Neo-Assyrian period, celestial divination reached its peak with the creation of Enuma Anu Enlil, a series that contained every possible (and impossible) conditional statement used to predict the future of the king and the kingdom. This tradition began to evolve around the time of the Persian conquest in 539 BCE, when the loss of royal patronage saw the end of native Babylonian kingship. By the end of the 5th century BCE, new branches of astral science emerged—mathematical astronomy and personal astrology. The art of celestial divination, once aimed at rulers, shifted its focus on individuals, with celestial events now being mathematically predictable. Texts such as horoscopes and compendia of nativity omens provided predictions for the future of a child born under certain astronomical conditions.
This shift in the target audience of celestial consultation allows for a reflection on the actual nature of individual-focused Babylonian astrology. In this paper, I will examine the "personal turn" in late Babylonian astrology. I will first show how individualized were the apodoses/predictions, which share similarities with hemerologies and other divinatory series (Sachs, Rochberg). My main focus, however, will be the protases, which stem from very precise moments, expressed by astronomical conditions. Lastly, since the majority of astrological texts originate from Babylon and Uruk, I will compare these two cities' differing approaches to individuality and, when possible, different astrological "schools" within a single city.
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W19: Intertextuality in Cuneiform Literature and Beyond
Organizers: Nikita Artemov (Nikita.Artemov@ruhr-uni-bochum.de), Johannes Bach (johannes.bach@gmx.net), Selena Wisnom (lsw14@le.ac.uk)
Ex Negativo Definitions and the Pedagogical Power of Parody
This paper investigates the pedagogical and ‘genre’-defining functions of parody in Sumerian literature from the Old Babylonian period. Building on the observation that Sumerian moralizing and didactic literature prefers to define ideals not directly but through an exaggerated illustration of the exact opposite, I argue that parodic subversion allows insights into which thematic and formal aspects Babylonian scholars and poets considered characteristic of certain text types. Thus, while straight-forward Sumero-Babylonian poetics may not exist in the written tradition, parodic texts could teach how (not) to write a given text. By way of a case study, I analyze parodical elements in the Sumerian mock hymn The Evil Mouth, a learned text occasionally used in advanced scribal training, to see what poetic lessons about different Sumerian text types it may have taught aspiring literati in the Old Babylonian period – and what it can teach us.
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Intertextuality without Allusion? Reading the Stock Phrases in the Old Babylonian Scribal Curriculum as a Form of Latent Poetics
This paper takes as its premise that the stock, recurring phrases that we as scholars track across Sumerian literary texts would likely have been noticed by some of their ancient readers as well. It builds on past scholarship that situates Sumerian literature within the Old Babylonian scribal educational context to analyze instances of shared language among texts and consider what resonances these may have had in the minds of the students who studied them. How do these recurring images move between contexts, usages, and genres, and from the literal to the figurative? And do these phrases, which represent not direct allusions or quotations so much as the reuse of a set of shared motifs and images, work to bind texts together in any significant way? To try to answer these questions, the paper centers on the two Lugalbanda stories, two separate but closely connected texts, then moving outward to consider links to the related Enmerkar poems and beyond to other texts from the curricular context. It argues that, whatever the context in which these shared motifs arose, in their curricular reception they could have served as an implicit guide to figurative language, and to the cultivation of a literary sensibility.
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Mythological Narrative in Anatolia: Hurrite-Hittite-Greek
The Hurro-Hittite so-called "Kumarbi Cycle" includes "Song of Emergence" (CTH 344), "Song of LAMMA" (CTH 343), "Song of Silver" (364), "Song of Hedammu" (CTH 348), and "Song of Ullikummi" (CTH 345). It serves as a cornerstone for understanding poetic traditions in Hittite literature. This paper addresses the challenges of identifying and analyzing its connections with the Greek epic, focusing on comparisons of meter and poetic language between Hittite and Greek epics. It is well-established that certain mythological themes in the Hurro-Hittite epics resemble those in Hesiod’s "Theogony," and further discussion is warranted. This paper suggests a shared mythological tradition that may have been transmitted through Hurrian intermediaries, influencing both Hittite and Greek mythologies. Such a transmission could have been facilitated by the cultural exchanges that characterized the Eastern Mediterranean during this period.
Detailed analysis of Hittite poetic lines, – including repetitions, assonances, and syntactic irregularities, such as word order, – is compared to examples of Hurrian metre, demonstrating that Mesopotamian (Akkadian) poetic tradition through Hurrian mediation was significantly reworked and reconsidered by Hittite narrators and scribes. The results emphasize the need for nuanced methodologies in reconstructing the poetic forms of fragmented cuneiform texts, but it is the only way to advance our understanding of their place within the broader literary traditions of the ancient world.
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When a Text Branches Out: Tree and Plant Lists in Akkadian Literature
Intertextuality between Mesopotamian lexical texts and literary compositions is well attested, though often difficult to identify. Determining the direction of influence—whether lexical lists shaped literary texts or vice versa—remains a complex issue. However, what clearly emerges is that scribes engaged with lexical traditions in ways that extended beyond mere cataloging, integrating them into literary discourse.
These identifiable cases offer valuable insights into the transmission of literary works, elucidating how they were shaped and adapted across different regions and scribal traditions, and reveal the educational background of the scribes who composed them. Further, lexical material in literature often intertwines with poetic techniques, notably enumeration and merism, to enhance both structure and meaning.
This paper examines one particularly revealing example: the recurrence of specific terms for trees and plants in the so-called Šar Tamhāri from Amarna, a narrative concerning Sargon’s conquest of Anatolian Purušhanda. Set against the backdrop of the use of lexical lists in Mesopotamian belles lettres, an intertextual investigation of this Amarna text provides clues concerning its history of transmission and strengthens the notion that it would have originally been composed in Mesopotamia.
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Torrents of Blood: Intertextuality and Environmental Crisis in Ancient Narrative
In several works of Near Eastern literature, rivers are described flowing with blood instead of water. In Sumerian myths such as Inana and Shukaletuda, and the Egyptian story of the Book of the Heavenly Cow, blood-red tides could reflect cosmic disorder and environmental precarity.
The most famous literary river flowing with blood is inarguably the Nile during the biblical plague of Exodus. Yet despite the widespread fame of this literary event, it is far from unique, as originally noted by Kramer (1949). Indeed, in works of ancient literature, water turns into blood from the Tigris to the Tiber.
This paper takes an intertextual approach to consider imagery involving blood in the water in literature from the ancient Near East, and how this imagery is used in differing narrative contexts. The textual transformation of fluids, from water into blood, is presented with a collective impact that extends throughout the human community in each story. Additionally, non-human animals and plants are negatively impacted by the rivers of blood. The catastrophic environmental consequences of transmuted waterways are shown to frequently stem from divine discord or punishment, following human action.
Despite generic and cultural differences, narratives of water turning into blood reflect the interconnectedness of human endeavours, environmental health, and cosmic order, and how individual actions can have overwhelming collective consequences. While untainted water sources could function as the lifeblood of ancient communities (Scurlock, 2022), the literary imagery of water turning into blood shows how polluted rivers could instead symbolise their collapse.
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‘Like the Finest Oil’ – Erra and Egalkura
This paper argues for an intertextual connection between the Poem of Erra and Ishum and the Egalkura texts – rituals to be used by courtiers before entering the palace.
The phrase ‘pleased him like the finest oil’ turns up in two places in the Poem of Erra. It is used to describe Erra’s reaction to first the speech of the Seven, agitating him to go to war (I.93), and then again at IV.129 at the end of Ishum’s long barrage of persuasion aimed at getting Erra to relent. It is thus used at two key junctures of the narrative – at the beginning of Erra’s rampage, and at the end, framing the destruction neatly. Yet it is a curious simile. I have previously argued that it means that the speech pleases Erra as a high quality offering would. But intertextual resonances with Egalkura reveal another dimension as well.
In the Egalkura rituals, courtiers anoint themselves with finest oil before entering the palace. They do so to prepare themselves to appease the wrath of the king, and turn his anger into a pleasant mood. The contexts are parallel, for in both cases in Erra he is listening to the speech of lower ranking characters aiming to persuade him to their desired course of action. This paper will explore the significance of this new intertextual link and what it reveals about Erra as a poem in the context of Babylonian scholarship and court life.
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W20: Cultural Memory in the Ancient Near East
Organizer: Zachary Rubin (zachmrubin@gmail.com)
The Chastisement of Mothers: Understanding Biblical Chastisement (Gen 3:16) in Light of Sources from Mesopotamia and Greece
Being a mother in the Hebrew Bible is not reduced to the famous chastisement related to the account of human creation in Gen 2–3, when God Adōnay Elōhîm says to the woman: “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Gen 3:16, NRS). Indeed, whether one thinks of the matriarchs, Sarah, Rachel, Rebekka or Samuel’s mother, Anna, many stories stage the joys and sorrows of motherhood, the responsibilities also of the woman-mother. However, the account of the origins, through its reception in the Greek and Christian Bibles (as shown in the translation here of the NRS), inculcates a vision of the mother as well as of the woman that has had a lasting impact on our cultures.
The purpose of this contribution is to revisit the Hebrew biblical text as it emerged in a scribal culture nourished by Mesopotamian and also Greek influences. The analysis takes into account both Mesopotamian sources, the myth of Atraḫasīs, and Greek sources, Hesiod and Plato. It shows that if many literary and cultural parallels may be drawn between Atraḫasīs and the biblical text, justifying the idea of cultural memory relating to human and female creation, yet the chastisement is best explained from a Greek point of view. Biblical human creation has accordingly been recontextualized. It is therefore in a historical and comparative approach that the subject is explored, the aim being to demonstrate how biblical texts written over a long period of time during the first millennium BCE are much better understood when they are analysed in their process of composition, influences, recontextualization, and transmission.
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Adapa’s Charter-Myth and Ancient Greek Mythical Healers
The mythology of Adapa represents a notable example of long-standing cultural memory in ancient Mesopotamia. Adapa, the protégé of the god of wisdom and magic, Enki/Ea, is the quintessential exorcist, healer, and semi-divine sage. Adapa's ‘charter-myth’, first attested in an Old Babylonian Sumerian poem, was transmitted and transformed down to the first millennium BCE, as evidenced by several variant versions of the story in Akkadian. The memory of Adapa was thus flexibly treasured in Mesopotamian cultural history. It is possible that his mythology also entered the cultural memory of peoples in the Eastern Mediterranean. While scholars have explored connections with Hebrew writings, this paper probes a comparison with ancient Greek charter-myths about healing and purification figures, such as Asclepius and Orpheus. This comparison examines two key aspects common to these Mesopotamian and Greek charter-myths, and how they were adapted across time to fit specific religious agendas: the divine judgment of the wonderworker, and his cosmic journey to heaven and the underworld.
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Cultural Memory and Failed Mythological Kingship
Enūma Eliš portrays Qingu as an improper and failed king: he is the counterpoint to Marduk as the proper and successful king par excellence. These mythological extremes of male kingship remained influential in shaping cultural memory in Mesopotamia until the late first millennium BCE. This paper explores depictions of Qingu with particular reference to cuneiform sources from Assyria in the Neo-Assyrian period. Tablets from the Assyrian heartland attest to Assyrian and Babylonian works mentioning Qingu that helped shape the cultural memory of this god.
Compositions mentioning or alluding to Qingu are very different in nature from Enūma Eliš. Rather than a long mythological narrative poem, these sources include royal inscriptions, hymns, cultic topographical works, ritual texts, and works interpreting ritual and the natural world.
The roles of Marduk as conqueror and Qingu as conquest in Enūma Eliš had great longevity but also evolved in response to different cultural contexts. In one Assyrianizing reinterpretation, Qingu became an analogue to a hostile Babylonian king. Qingu was worshipped in Babylon and, perhaps in emulation, in Assur. In rituals he occurs in the context of mouth-washing and canal-opening. In ritual expositions Qingu predominantly features as a conquest and was identified with sacrificial animals. The natural world was also interpreted in relation to Qingu as a military opponent. Divine syncretism contributed to varying portrayals of this god.
Thus, this case study explores how cultural memory in written sources combines persistence with adaptation.
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The Bible and the Ancient Near East as Cultural Memories
Before the rise of modernity between the 16th and 18th centuries, the ancient Near East was known and imagined in the West only through the stories from the Bible and depictions found in Classical (Greek and Roman) sources. In other words, the “ancient Near East” as a loosely coherent grouping of oriental traditions from an imaginative geography was in fact part of an ancient cultural memory that had been incorporated not only into the biblical traditions and stories but also as a necessary opposite in the crafting of the Graeco-Roman cultural tradition. After Napoleon Bonaparte’s military invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798-1801, the rediscovery of the so-called Middle East for the West meant also a reinscription of the Bible and the ancient Near East after essentially modernist perspectives (i.e., rationalism, secularism and historicism) into what constituted at that point the Western cultural tradition, thoroughly traversed by Christianity’s cultural traditions. The progressive practice of territorial exploration, archaeological excavation, philological decipherment and also visual depictions of human landscapes inherent to that rediscovery produced brand new knowledge through which to understand biblical and ancient Near Eastern traditions, a process in which the performance of (new) imaginative geographies of the region were fundamental. In effect, the modern reception and incorporation of biblical and Near Eastern traditions into Western civilization implied not only a new discovery of a past known only through a religious cultural memory (essentially textual), but also, and more relevant for this new understanding, a material and symbolic appropriation of such a past. This presentation explores the dynamic development, reception and transformation of the Bible and the ancient Near East as cultural memories within the crafting of the modern West’s cultural tradition about its own origins, and how in such a historical and cultural process identity and otherness were variously negotiated.
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Die Transformation des Schlangengottes des Susa Inšušinak ins dämonisierte Feinbild Zahhak in den persischen Quellen
In Verbindung mit dem Thema „Die Erinnerungen an den alten Nahen Osten in der modernen Gesellschaft“ behandele ich die Transformation und die Neuinterpretation der mythologischen Gestalten des Alten Orients in der klassischen persischen Literatur bis in die moderne Rezeption im Iran.
Als Beispiel fokussiere ich mich auf den elamischen Hauptgott des Susa Inšušinak im heutigen Khuzestan (Süd-Iran), wo die historische Bedeutung dieses Hauptgottes verankert war. Chronologisch betrachtet verlor der große mythologische Schlangengott abrupt ihre Stellung und deren Ikonographie in dieser Gegend nach der Machtübernahme des Darius I (522 v.Ch.). Es gibt keine Spur von der Ikonographie des Inšušinak in den vorhandenen Dokumenten, die aus Persepolis entdeckt worden sind. Hier stellt sich die Frage, warum die bedeutendste Gottheit des Elam, Inšušinak, in Persepolis spurlos verschwunden war, während eine andere wichtige Gottheit, Humban, in der Achämeniden-Zeit zu Auramazdā modelliert und geehrt wurde.
Die Abwesenheit des Inšušinak als geehrte Gottesgestalt sollte aber nicht bedeuten, dass die Erinnerung an den elamischen Schlangengott unter den iranischen Herrschenden in dieser Region gänzlich verloren gegangen war. Die Mythischen Gestalten können sich in Narrativen der Nachkommenden transformieren lassen. Im Fall von Inšušinak ist eine negative Umkehrung der mesopotamisch-elamischen Gottheit zu betrachten.
Diese dämonisierte Neugestaltung, genannt als Zahhak, ist als Feindbild der iranischen Könige und der iranischen Religion, im geographischen Kontext des Mesopotamiens und des Elam (allerdings mit anderen Toponymen) in den Texten der Zoroastrier in der Pahlewi-Sprache (aus der islamischen Zeit) dargestellt worden. Die Narrativen entstammen ursprünglich aus der Zeit der Sassaniden. Und daraus ist das Epos Zahhak vom persischen Dichter Ferdowsi (10.-11. Jahrhundert) entstanden. Ich werde diese Narration zum dämonischen Schlangengott im berühmten Werk Shahname im Vergleich zu Inšušinak im historischen Kontext des Alten Orients in Betracht ziehen und deren Neuinterpretation und Rezeption bis in die moderne Zeit hinein, folgen.
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The Experience of Memory of the Ancient Near East in Nineteenth Century Spain: An Approach through Plaster Casts
Plaster casts collections were one the most powerful and widespread mechanisms to construct, recreate, and preserve, a certain memory of Antiquity at the end of the nineteenth century. Not surprisingly, then, precisely at that time plans were made for the opening of a plaster cast museum in Spain, the Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas de Madrid (henceforth, MRAM). Among the exhibits from Antiquity, Greco-Roman pieces had a central and privileged position; but from the very beginning the MRAM sought to offer a more complete panorama by investing in a collection of plaster casts of Mesopotamian artefacts. This collection was a rarity in Spain, where the study of the Ancient Near East was conspicuous by its absence both in museums and in academia.
This communication offers a historiographical exploration of the shaping of this exceptional collection. This approach allows to emphasise the capacity for action of the international networks involved in launching the project. It also offers some clues to understand the prevalence of Assyria and the underrepresentation of Babylonia in this sample.
This historiographical exploration will be developed in three steps. First, I will discuss certain archival documents from the first years after the launch of the MRAM (1877–1879), before its official opening in 1881, which demonstrate that the acquisition of representative pieces from the ancient world beyond Greece and Rome was one of the key elements of the project. Second, I will describe the collection of plaster casts of Mesopotamian artefacts at the MRAM. Third, I will focus on the development of this collection until the opening of the museum’s Ancient Near Eastern and Archaic Greek art room in 1897, discussing the challenges and constraints the MRAM faced when trying to put together a set of Babylonian reproductions, of which only two were eventually incorporated into the collection.
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Remembering and Forgetting the Past in the Late Babylonian Period
Although the last attested cuneiform scholars in Babylon retained access to sources of their most distant memories, from fantastic stories of early kings to staid king lists and chronicles, it cannot be denied that the vast majority of these historical details disappeared along with cuneiform literacy. The few details that remained were either drawn from the imperial heydays of the first millennium BCE, or subsumed into folkloric narratives (e.g., Belus, Ninus and Semiramis, and Nimrod) that scarcely resemble their cuneiform-era inspirations. Even Berossos’s Babyloniaca paid little attention to the events between the time of myths and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian empire. Drawing from previous observations of cultural memory and Late Babylonian literature, this paper will explore the deterioration of the Mesopotamian historical record as a case study into the ways factual history was transformed into remembered history in the ancient world, and the ways it was experienced by different social circles (priestly vs. non-priestly). It proposes that for priestly and non-priestly circles alike, the cumulative ruptures altered perceptions on which events and places were truly foundational to their society. The period from creation to Tiglath-pileser III was nostalgically reimagined and effectively homogenized, such that all political, religious, and scholarly developments that had been received from that era no longer retained their original historical contexts. Such homogenization allowed the Babylonian priesthood to maintain a myth of unbroken cultural and civic continuity from the time of creation, especially against their rivals in Nippur and Uruk. However, it would have also denied any one person, event, or text from the pre-imperial period the formative power typically demanded of collective memory, or any cogent relationship with altered cityscape, except on the most superficial level.
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Lands Old and New: Cultural and Geographical Memory in the Sargon Geography
The Sargon Geography (VAT 8006//, BM 64382+) is one of the most fascinating geographical texts from the ancient Near East. Preserved in a Neo-Assyrian manuscript from the so-called House of the Exorcists at Ashur and a Neo-Babylonian manuscript of unknown provenance, the text catalogues the world-sweeping conquests of the legendary king Sargon of Akkad. While the Geography was initially considered an authentic (if exaggerated) depiction of Sargon’s domain, in recent decades it has been recast as a work of royal propaganda intended to elevate the achievements of Sargon II or other Neo-Assyrian kings. However, given the Geography’s discrepancies with the geographical priorities of the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and other imperial sources, I believe it is necessary to examine the text outside of the confines of imperial self-representation. By focusing on the Geography’s use of archaic toponyms, its elevation of the land of Akkad over rival territories like Subartu, its emphasis on fixed boundaries rather than endless expansion and its maintenance of cultural differences rather than treating subjects “as if they were Assyrians (or Akkadians),” I argue that the text represents a unique scholarly endeavor to draw upon the cultural memory of Mesopotamia to create a new depiction of empire, one focused on preserving traditional lands and kingdoms rather than absorbing them. In doing so, the Sargon Geography serves less as an idealized display of Neo-Assyrian royal power and more as a reminder to its kings and all other rulers that as great as their accomplishments might be, they cannot surpass those of Sargon of Akkad, the king who “conquered the totality of the land(s) under heaven” and measured their borders.
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Residential Property as Sites of Memory in Babylonia
In SAA 11, 153, five men dedicated to Bel are identified by their patronyms, grandfathers’ names, family names, and the locations of their paternal houses. All five men were members of prominent Babylonian families, and their paternal houses were located near major landmarks within Babylon, including the Esagil and important city gates. Neighborhoods and family residents have always provided a means to project social status in a hierarchical society. The urban gentry who dominated social and political life at Babylon and other Babylonian cities were not a hereditary aristocracy, and so had to project their status to their peers and inferiors alike in order to maintain their influence. Family names, civic and temple offices, education, and wealth were all instrumental in projecting status, but how might the paternal house have functioned as a site of memory that communicated the prominence of a family, shaping how people saw themselves and their place within society? SAA 11, 153 suggests an awareness of urban space and the location of important households on the part of the writer that presumably was shared across social strata and was part of everyday life in an urban setting. To address this question, the author will examine sales of urban land from Babylonia and the residential strategies of temple-affiliated families and draw comparative insights from studies of urban gentry in other historical period such as the senatorial families who resided on the Palatine Hill at Rome in the Republican period at Rome.
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Ancient Time Stamps: The “Distinction” of Architectural Alterations in Neo-Assyrian Thought
Clear instances of monumental art being recycled or inscriptions being usurped during Assyrian building works are relatively rare. However, those that do exist are characterised by an apparent lack of attempts to obscure this reuse from future generations. Erased inscriptions or reliefs are left partially intact, for example, or are left entirely un-erased, but flipped to face the wall. The result is that, while these alterations may not have been immediately visible while the building was in use, they would become clear and obvious during renovation works. One might at first glance assume that this represents of a lack of care for what future generations thought about the usurpation of the inscriptions and reliefs of past rulers. This paper will argue that this is not in fact the case. I argue that the clarity of this reuse to future renovators represents a conscious attempt to preserve the history of the building by stressing the “distinction” between alterations and earlier elements of the building, a concept which has parallels in modern building conservation. To demonstrate this point, I take the glazed brickwork from the courtyard of the Ashur Temple at Ashur as a case study. This jumbled assemblage of bricks is best understood as resulting from a rushed job to complete Sargon II’s work on the building following his death and in time for the coronation of his son, Sennacherib. Sennacherib later obscured these jumbled bricks from contemporary audiences by raising the level of the courtyard but left the bricks themselves in situ. In this fashion, future renovators might one day rediscover this reminder of Sargon’s death, despite this being a particularly shameful moment in Sargonid history.
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Crafts of Memory across Syro-Hittite Polities (1200-700 BCE)
The disappearance of the Hittite empire in the northern Levant and Anatolia in the 12th century BCE leads to geopolitical fragmentation of the formerly controlled territories. In these emerging Syro-Hittite polities, local elites transform major city centres through large-scale monumental projects: figurative reliefs, statues, and plazas create a stage for political performances, and are often accompanied by inscriptions in Anatolian Hieroglyphic, alphabetic and/or cuneiform scripts.
Aspects of Hittite monumentality and epigraphy are retained regardless of the earlier interactions with this imperial power; at the same time, long-standing local traditions persist alongside the emergence of North-West Semitic languages. This Syro-Hittite sphere is often understood through an assumed Aramean/Syrian/local versus Luwian/Hittite/foreign divide, but counter-canonical and trans-lingual features found across the record attest the coexistence of multiple languages and traditions in a post-imperial landscape of memory.
After mapping the available evidence for archives, scribes and other memory institutions, I trace continuities and breaks in the monumental and epigraphic traditions. Through a collective memory framework (A. and J. Assmann), I consider both diffuse, social dynamics and institutionalized memory strategies in order to better appreciate Syro-Hittite monumentality and epigraphy, between LBA legacies and IA innovations. By considering monuments as devices of ‘hard memory’ (A. Etkind), I argue for the existence of an ongoing ‘soft memory’ discourse of which monuments are the occasional crystallization. The result is a much more vivid and complex picture of cultural continuity, discontinuity and re-production than otherwise directly visible in the record, beyond preconceived notions of ethnolinguistic identity.
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W21: Religion and Economy in Ancient Mesopotamia
Organizers: Nicole Brisch (nicole.brisch@uni-hamburg.de), Steven Garfinkle (garfins@wwu.edu), Gina Konstantopoulos (gvkonsta@g.ucla.edu), Mike Kozuh (mikekozuh@gmail.com)
Gods and the Dead as Economic Agents at 19th Century Assur and Kaneš
Modern scholarship tends to approach the intersection of religion and economy through a materialist lens, which reifies “religion” and “economy” as separate spheres of human activity that may or may not overlap in diverse ways. Our ancient informants, however, did not share our categories; even more saliently, the evidence they left behind enunciates an “economy” shaped not only by human activity, but also by the active participation of gods, demons, and the dead.
This paper will use the text and material evidence from the Old Assyrian period at Assur and Kanesh as a test case for interrogating our scholarly assumptions about religion and economy in ancient Mesopotamia. For the Old Assyrian merchant community, economic realities were shaped by both human and non-human social agents, and human economic activity was regularly made in participation with, or in response to, the economic activity of the gods. In fact, most if not all the institutions that structured the economic life of the Assyrian community cannot be adequately understood without accounting for both human and notional non-human participation.
For example, the economic well-being of the household depended in large measure on the favor of the gods and dead ancestors, and maintaining those hierarchies required economic input at a number of levels. Merchants practiced trade with capital belonging to both humans and gods, creating networks of financial obligations that enmeshed together human and divine financial priorities. When prioritizing debts to pay off after the death of an individual, the heirs had to strategize how to appease both their human and divine creditors.
Ultimately, this paper will seek to describe an Old Assyrian ontological world in which all economic activity was experienced as happening within a fully integrated community of gods, demons, and both living and deceased humans.
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Forced Real Estate Sales in Babylonia (2000-1600 BCE)
Judging from the preponderance of cuneiform loan documents, many Babylonians were burdened with excessive debt. This was due in large part to the laws of inheritance. In northern and central Babylonia, tradition dictated that a deceased landowner’s field was divided among the heirs. As holdings became increasingly fragmented over time, the resulting parcel became too small to support a family, and the landowner found it necessary to borrow barley a few months before the next harvest (at 33% interest) to make up for the shortfall. A poor harvest only exacerbated the family’s plight. As interest kept accruing, eventually the debt became impossible to repay, and the landowner was forced to sell his land and/or his home at a “bargain-basement” price to appease his creditor.
This talk will focus on identifying forced sales of fields, orchards, and houses in Babylonia during the Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian (OB) period (2004-1595 BCE) and discuss what happened to these unfortunate sellers afterwards. Rulers such as Rim-Sin, Hammu-rabi, and Samsu-iluna attempted to restore economic balance through the issuance of a royal decree remitting private debt. The second part of the talk will cover the ramifications of these decrees, which provided the debtor with temporary relief but failed to address the root cause of the problem.
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“When Alive and Well”: Debt Flexibility in Old Babylonian Temple Loans
Temple loans were a distinctive feature of the economic and religious landscape of Old Babylonian Mesopotamia. Issued by temples in the name of their deities, these loans predominantly involved barley and silver, although rare references to other commodities, such as gold or sesame, also appear. They served as tools for financial support to individuals in need and as mechanisms for generating temple revenue, embedding divine authority within economic transactions. The dual nature of these loans—both as practical financial tools and as symbolic affirmations of divine authority—underscores the centrality of temples in managing resources and maintaining societal order. This paper focuses on repayment formulas that reflect the flexibility of temple loans, particularly the balṭu-šalmu clause—“when alive and well”—which allowed debt repayment to be deferred until the debtor’s circumstances improved, particularly in terms of financial stability. Similar formulas include ūm ina qatīšū kaspum ibaššû (“when the silver is available in his hand”), ūm kaspam immarā (“when they (f.) see the silver”), and ūm Šamaš kaspam ubbalaššum (“when Šamaš will bring the silver to him”), among others. Found chiefly in texts from the Diyala region and Sippar, these clauses highlight the adaptive nature of temple loans to accommodate the diverse circumstances of debtors.
The current corpus of Old Babylonian temple loans includes over 520 texts, providing a rich dataset for understanding these practices. By examining both published and unpublished contracts, this study investigates how these flexible repayment terms balanced economic pragmatism with the ideological goals of reinforcing the temple’s central role. These repayment clauses offer unique insights into the intertwining of financial strategies and religious authority in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia.
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Food for the Gods: Regular Offerings During the Reign of the Third Dynasty of Ur
One of the most extensively documented categories of offerings during the reign of the Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III, c. 2112–2004 BCE) are the sa2-du11 (akk. satukku) offerings, made for the regular maintenance of the gods. This paper investigates the goods most commonly used as part of these offerings, focusing on the patterns in their distribution and their association with specific deities.
The analysis is based on the documentary texts from the Ur III corpus relating to the sa2-du11 offerings, including data from the best-documented administrative centers of the period. The study aims to identify the types of goods—such as barley, livestock, and other products—that appear most prominently as regular offerings. In doing so, it highlights key patterns, such as which goods were most frequently allocated to particular deities and how these allocations varied across regions and contexts, but also addresses the personnel involved and the underlying administrative structures.
This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the interplay between economic systems and religious practices in the ancient Near East. It also aims to shed light on the administrative processes underlying the allocation, delivery, and redistribution of offerings, providing new insights into the organization and priorities of the Ur III central and provincial administration and on local and state religion in a broader sense.
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When the Gods Don’t Eat: Gaps and Empty Spaces in Offering Lists
Offering lists from Nippur dating to the Old Babylonian period show the distribution of food offerings to the main gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon, as well as the redistribution of these food offerings to the human actors involved in the daily food offerings. During the Old Babylonian period, scribes began using tabular formatting to better administer the distribution of these offerings. In this contribution, I will discuss the meaning of empty spaces on the tablets that are related to the administration of food offerings. Does an empty space signify that a god went hungry and that one thus risked incurring the wrath of a god? Or are these empty spaces related to the scribal practices of temple administration?
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Prebendary Gardeners in I Millennium BCE Babylonian Temples
In I millennium BCE Babylonian temples, date production for divine meals seems to have been in the hands of a group of people called in Akkadian rab-banê. Within the temple economy, the rab-banê formed a special group of date producers, for their gardens were associated with a prebend, and the yields were exclusively destined for the meals of the gods. Cuneiform documents from the archives of the Ebabbar temple from Sippar, dated to the 7th-6th centuries BCE, provide valuable information on two generations of these prebendary gardeners and on the origins, size and location of their orchards. In this paper I would like to discuss the integration of these farmers into the temple economy, the legal status of their gardens, their interaction with the temple authorities, and the relationship of the garden plots with the crown domains located in the immediate vicinity of the temple lands. In addition, among the temple documents, a unique group of texts records the measurements of the plots with so much detail that it has been possible not only to reconstruct the location of all the gardens but also to improve our knowledge on the topography of the Sippar area in the period.
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The Gods to Pay. Širkū Dedication as Religious-Economic Compromise
Even though significant scholarly endeavours in the field of 'Economics of Religion’ have been devoted to the use of economic theory to understand religious phenomena, this line of research is still underrepresented in ANE studies, not least because of the blurriness of such categories in ancient social and cultural systems. This paper will attempt to foray into this area by looking at širkus, a class of unfree oblates dependent from the temples and employed in the temple economic activities, mainly in menial tasks like agricultural work, crafts, and livestock, mostly attested in archival documentation from the ‘long 6th century’ BCE.
In the last two decades, scholarship about širkūtu has stepped away from an oversimplified idea of širkus as chattel slaves or serfs and sketched a more complex picture encompassing a wide range of different socio-economic conditions. Nonetheless, from an emic perspective širkūtu was first and foremost religiously perceived as a bond between a širku and one deity, defined by an act of dedication to that deity. For this reason, širkūtu as a status involves individuals in both their capacity of economic and religious agents at the same time, and thus provides an ideal setting to explore the intersection and the dynamics of the coexistence of the two dimensions of homo religious and economicus in the Mesopotamian world.
In particular, this paper will address a set of documents (e.g., YOS 6 154; 7 174; CT 56 610) in which the act of dedication yielding the condition of širkūtu appears to be the result of an individual’s deliberate choice (usually nonself-directed) in circumstances of financial constraints. This evidence will be re-examined within the theoretical framework of behavioural economics and the concept of ‘bounded rationality’ in terms of suboptimal decisions trying to balance economic need, religious devotion, and social expectations.
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Changes to the Organisation of Livestock Management in Sippar
The economy of Babylonia in the 1st millennium BC has been the subject of consideration by many authors in recent years. Despite the numerous excellent publications on the subject, many aspects of this important issue still require further elaboration. A particular focus of this discussion will be the relationship between the palace and the temple, and the influence of the palace on the temple, leading to changes in the organisation of the latter. The purpose of this presentation is to examine the changes in the organisation of the Ebabbar temple located in the city of Sippar in the 1st millennium BC. Numerous indications suggest that, under the influence of the palace administration, the temple made a significant decision to alter the management of the temple herds at the onset of the reign of Darius I.
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A By-Product of the Religious Economy in the First Millennium BC
This paper aims to explore a by-product of the animal economy of the major Babylonian temples of the first millennium BC: animal carcasses. More specifically, it focuses on the robust documentary regime generated by the disposal of animals that died before their predetermined use. In most cases this means animals that died before they were sacrificed in temple rituals.
After a brief overview, I attempt to address a deceptively simple question: why was this operation so well documented? Explanations based in practicality or utility are difficult to substantiate. For example, while an animal carcass indeed has a limited “shelf life” and therefore might require an immediate textual witness to its disposal, it is difficult to find other documentary regimes that respond to similar situations in the same way. Moreover, other animal management operations deal with that particular situation in explicitly non-textual ways.
Rather, using New Accounting Theory, I will argue that this documentary regime was less a matter of expediency than of visibility. Proper accounting procedure creates an air of legitimacy, in effect advertising that operations are taking place in an open, systematic fashion. For these animal carcasses, procedure of this sort was particularly important. These were animals that had otherwise passed basic purity tests (e.g., no blemishes or the like) and were awaiting ritual slaughter in the temple’s fattening pens. By disposing of dead and unfit animals in a systematic way, the temple then publicly affirmed the status of that those animals that remained to continue to the next step of ritual slaughter. In other words, meticulous documentation of the disposal of animal carcass might have served as a form of institutional publicity, showing that there were procedures in place to assure that the remaining animals destined for sacrifice were healthy, thereby demonstrating the temple’s commitment to ritual integrity.
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The Economics of New Year Rituals: Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters
The New Year rituals celebrated by successive empires in the first millennium BCE are often described as central to theology and governance. Accounts of these rituals include processions, reenactments of cosmic battles, cultic picnics, sacred marriages, feasts, banquets, and assemblies of gods. While these vivid descriptions highlight the rituals' theological and political significance, research on debt cancellation mechanisms has paved the way for an exploration of their economic dimensions. This paper builds on that work and examines how the ritual was intertwined with multi-form economic phenomena that affected the broader socio-political structure.
Drawing on recent developments in the sociology and anthropology of religion, as well as fiscal sociology and political anthropology, I argue that these theories invite us to expand the scope of sources we consider in our investigations of the rituals. They encourage us to incorporate, alongside traditional ritual and mythological texts, shepherding contracts, accounting records, labor contracts, debt notes, price records, and land sale contracts.
My central argument is that the seasonality of agriculture and animal husbandry—two fundamental pillars of the Mesopotamian economy—created periodic fluctuations in the social structure and polarization of social relations. These rituals sought to address this imbalance and instability not only through rhetorical devices but also through concrete policies, which aimed to restore—or at least promise to restore—balance during turbulent times. The true threat to rulers lay not in organized resistance from the poor, but in the growing difficulty of maintaining control over local elites who had amassed too much economic and political capital. Ultimately, I argue that the New Year rituals were a fiscal exercise in power balancing, a bridge over troubled waters.
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W22: Archaeology of Texts
Organizers: Ludovica Bertolini (ludovica.bertolini@ff.cuni.cz), František Válek (frantisek.valek@ff.cuni.cz)
Elementary Sign Lists in the Western Periphery in the Late Bronze Age
Among the Mesopotamian lexical lists found at Ugarit, Hattusha, Emar, and other sites in the Western Periphery in the Late Bronze Age are sign lists and syllabaries, like Tu-ta-ti, Syllable Alphabet A, Syllabary A (Sa), that were copied in the same and earlier periods in Mesopotamia as elementary writing exercises. In contrast to the more advanced lists and scholarly texts, these earlier lists have received considerably less attention. In this paper, the transmission and function, and what role, if any, elementary lists from Mesopotamia played in scribal training in Syria, Anatolia, and the Levant, will be considered.
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The Transmission of Mesopotamian Lexical Lists in the Late Bronze Age: A Comparative Analysis
The dissemination of Mesopotamian lexical traditions across the ancient Near East represents a key aspect of cultural transmission during the Late Bronze Age. Among these traditions, lexical lists played a fundamental role in the intellectual landscape of scribal communities, functioning both as pedagogical tools and as repositories of linguistic and cultural knowledge. This paper examines the transmission and adaptation of Mesopotamian lexical lists in three major centers outside Mesopotamia: Emar, Ugarit, and Hattuša.
Building upon my previous research on the transmission of the Lú=ša list in Emar and Ugarit, this study broadens the scope by incorporating the corpus from Hattuša, the Hittite capital. The Lú=ša list has been chosen as a case study to illustrate broader patterns of lexical transmission. By analyzing the formal and content-related variations among the lexical manuscripts from these three sites, I seek to identify patterns of textual adaptation and transmission. Furthermore, I will compare these texts with their Mesopotamian antecedents and contemporary sources to discern possible trends in the perception and treatment of lexical traditions beyond their place of origin. This study represents a preliminary step in a larger research project, with the potential for future inclusion of additional lexical lists.
This investigation tentatively explores the mechanisms through which lexical texts were transmitted, adapted, and integrated into local scholarly traditions. While definitive conclusions may be elusive, the study aims to shed light on the possible role of scribal networks in shaping the movement of intellectual traditions across different linguistic and cultural landscapes. By considering the intersections between technological transmission, linguistic diffusion, and literary adaptation, this paper contributes to a broader discussion on the dynamics of cultural exchange in the Late Bronze Age Near East.
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Towards the Nature of the “Red-Dots Notation” in the Amarna Recensions of the “Adapa and the Southwind” (EA 356) and the “Nergal and Ereškigal” (EA 357).
This study analyzes the so-called “red-dots notation” found in two Amarna tablets containing the Akkadian poems “Adapa and the Southwind” and “Nergal and Ereškigal”. It is well established that the practice of using red (or black) ink dots originates from Egypt. While red dots appear in a wide range of Egyptian texts, they are most commonly attested in poetic works, where they are thought to mark the ends of poetic lines (“Verspunkte”). The Amarna recensions of the "Adapa and the Southwind" and the "Nergal and Ereškigal" present a unique case of red dots being applied to a non-Egyptian composition.
Rather early in the history of the research it became evident that the principles governing red-dots notation in these two Amarna tablets differ significantly from standard Egyptian practice, as the dots never indicate the end of a verse. This study builds on Sh. Izre’el’s hypothesis, according to which in the Amarna tablets the red-dots notation was used to mark the minimal elements of Akkadian metrical structures — phonetic words. The key argument is supported by a systematic comparison between the red-dots notation in the Amarna tablets and the notation found in manuscripts of the "Babylonian Theodicy", which is attested as metrical and serves as a foundational source for modern understandings of Akkadian metrics. Additional insights are derived from an internal metrical analysis of the Amarna poems.
Possible instances of circumstantial influence of the Egyptian metrics on the Akkadian metrics are discussed within the context of “Sitz im Leben” of the Amarna recensions of the "Adapa and the Southwind" and the "Nergal and Ereškigal". Finally, the significance of these two Amarna tablets for further research on Akkadian metrics and formal poetics is evaluated.
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Investigating the Origin and Context of the Amarna Salutation Formula
The Amarna letters, exchanged between the rulers of Great Powers of Egypt, the Hittite Empire, Babylonia, Mittani, and Assyria, as well as Alashiya and Arzawa, are notable for their highly elaborate and detailed salutation formulae. These elaborate epistolary conventions represent a significant innovation in Akkadian diplomatic correspondence. But what do these elaborate greetings truly signify, and what is their historical and cultural background? Where can we trace the origins of this epistolary tradition?
In my talk, I will undertake a comprehensive analysis of the Amarna salutation formulae, exploring their usage, and tracing their roots. This investigation will situate the salutation formulae within the broader context of diplomatic correspondence of the time and examine their connections to other genres and traditions. By examining the historical, cultural, and political milieu in which these letters were crafted, I aim to uncover the origins and evolution of these unique diplomatic expressions.
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The Prostration Formula in Late Bronze Age Letters: Transmission, Innovation, and Resistance
The prostration formula is an optional element found in the greeting formula of letters written in Akkadian cuneiform in which a subordinate writes to a superior. In this formula, which is found throughout Assyria, Syria, and the Levant during the Late Bronze Age, a subordinate states that they have fallen at the superior’s feet. In the first half of this paper, I argue that the inclusion of the prostration formula in Akkadian cuneiform letters was most likely an innovation of Western scribes. In the second half of the paper, I look at some case studies from the Amarna letters to suggest that the prostration formula may, paradoxically, have functioned on occasion as a site of resistance.
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A Rediscovered Stele Fragment from the Assyrian ‘Dark Age’
On 25th March 1910, Walter Andrae unearthed an inscribed stele fragment while excavating within a Parthian debris layer above the Aššur Temple at the city of Aššur (Qalˁa Širqāṭ, Iraq). Ever since, this object has evaded all academic scrutiny, and its present whereabouts are unclear. Nonetheless, a surviving excavation photograph permits the study of this lost artifact and its inscription.
The fragment proves to be the lower-left quarter of a monumental basalt stele, containing the first half of the final 18 lines of an Assyrian royal inscription. Its sign forms, orthography, and phraseology point to the late Middle or very early Neo-Assyrian periods, but its atypical contents defy immediate ascription to one king or another. These include the conclusion of a conquest and a description of its monumental commemoration, but also what seems to be further political information, and an unusual series of curses and blessings.
In this talk, what is known of the stele fragment and its archaeological context will be surveyed, and a philological edition of its inscription presented. From the resultant historical and epigraphic information, an ascription to a particular king will be assailed, and a preliminary historical contextualisation presented. Finally, building on the stele’s object history and find context, the question as to why so little textual documentation for the Assyrian ‘Dark age’ exists will be revisited.
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Motifs of Drought in Ugaritic Narratives
The talk addresses the motifs of drought as they appear in Ugaritic narratives, namely the Baˁlu Cycle, Epic of Aqhatu, and Epic of Kirtu. It argues that the recurring character of these motifs may indicate that the author(s) of these compositions could have reacted to the environmental challenges that occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The talk sets the relevant narrative passages within the broader cultural, political, and environmental milieu of Ugarit and of the Late Bronze Age world in general. It is argued that although the author(s) might have well been inspired by existing literary lore (such as Atraḫasīs or Hittite myths of disappearing deities), the climate change, droughts, and consequent food shortages underline the social relevancy of recounting such stories. The Ugaritic narratives are discussed in perspective of the theory of social myths, directing our attention to the social relevancy of myths and intentions of social actors. In this case, the social impact might have been in pondering a variety of cosmological meanings and causes to address the challenges and boost social and political resilience of the Kingdom of Ugarit.
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The Evolution of the Flood Story in the Gilgamesh Epic: A View from Syria
The evolution of the Flood Story in the Gilgamesh Epic remains largely unknown. It is certain that the Standard Babylonian (SB) version of the epic incorporated elements from the early second-millennium Flood Story Atram-hasis and/or the Sumerian tale of Ziusudra. Yet, Old and Middle Babylonian versions of the Flood from the Gilgamesh Epic are missing. This absence of earlier evidence for the Flood story from the Gilgamesh Epic is conspicuous. It has even led to the mistaken inference that the Flood Story was not originally part of early Akkadian versions of the Gilgamesh Epic. This paper argues that RS 94.2953, a fragment of a Flood Story from Ugarit, provides a second-millennium BC example of the Flood Story within a version of the Gilgamesh Epic. Moreover, it compares the fragmentary Flood account from RS 94.2953 with that known from the SB Gilgamesh Epic and offers suggestions for how the Flood narrative evolved within the epic.
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On the Archaeology of the „Siege Tablets“ Hoard from Nippur
Review of the archaeological context of the Ninurta-uballit hoard, containing the famous „Siege Tablets“ from Nippur, published by A. L. Oppenheim, shows that it was not contemporary or not even nearly contemporary to the time when the great gate was closed.
Unpublished archival material is presented as well as recent observations on trench TA from 2021 (Nippur Season 21, led by Abbas Alizadeh) are shared.
In combination, a more reliable dating is presented, taking into consideration a more holistic approach.
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W23: Akkadian Linguistics
Organizers: Eran Cohen (cohen.Eran@mail.huji.ac.il), Pat-El Na'ama (npatel@austin.utexas.edu)
Decoding Morphology, Defining Semantics: A New (and Simple!) Manual to the Akkadian Verb
This paper presents a new, complete, and coherent analysis of Akkadian verbal-derivational morphology with which it is possible to reliably predict which roots and event types may derive which patterns in which functions.
Recent formal linguistic analyses of Semitic verbs (see among others Doron 2003; Arbaoui 2010; Kastner 2020) deconstruct the templates into multiple morphemes, each containing (independent) semantic content. In Akkadian, too, I show that each morpheme productive in the verbal system can be precisely defined, morphologically and semantically. I build a system in which one may predict with accuracy which event types (Levin 1993) derive which G, D, or Š verbs, as well as how secondary derivations such as t- and n-stems affect the structures they are derived into.
I argue that the difference between D and Š patterns lies in a., their causation-type, and b., their aspectual entailment and consequence on direct objects. Thereby, D stems encode direct causation with objects undergoing an ongoing change-of-state by syntactically adding an AGENT-causer. Š stems encode indirect causation by syntactically adding a CAUSER-causer; they entail punctual change-of-state or causation events (‘perfective aspect on objects’). Which verbs derive only D causatives, only Š causatives, or both, can further be predicted by a root’s predisposition for internal change (Bentley 2023): Events differ in terms of whether or not they require external/internal causation.
Defining D stems as aspectually durative/imperfective may not only explain their factitive (direct) causation type, but it also provides an event-structural source (Krifka 1998; Tovena 2011) for the intensive and pluractional interpretations the pattern shows (Kouwenberg 1997; 2010). Agentive-transitive verbs such as palāšu ‘perforate’ syntactically and semantically block the introduction of a direct causer AGENT in D stems, instead ‘increasing’ agentivity through intensity or pluractionality. They can only be causativised through the Š stem by addition of a CAUSER.
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The Transformation of the Assyrian Conjunction Ammar
In the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian, a particle (ana) mala, and later ammar, functions initially as an adverbial expression with some uses traditionally categorized as indefinite relative or a conjunction. We argue that the use of ammar changes from a flexible adverbializer in Old Assyrian, with a range of meanings and varied syntax to a more restricted, but still common, relative marker in Neo-Assyrian, with probable precedence in Middle Assyrian. It comes to overlap significantly with the general relative marker ša.
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Genitival Constructions in Akkadian Literary Texts
This paper, which sits at the juncture of grammatical and stylistic studies, investigates genitival constructions in Babylonian literary texts. As is well known, these can be expressed in multiple ways: bīt awīlim, bītu ša awīlim, ša awīlim bīssu, awīlu bīssu, bīssu ša awīlim, etc. But how do these different ways of expressing what is more or less the same idea distribute across different poetic compositions, and why? Do compositions favour certain constructions over others? Are there any constructions that only appear in one composition (among the compositions of my corpus)?
My corpus includes: Old Babylonian and Standard Babylonian Gilgameš, Enūma Eliš, Atrahasis, the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, the Great Prayer to Šamaš, Marduk’s Address to the Demons, and the Old Babylonian Hymns. This makes it possible to test for different variables: ‘hymno-epic’ vs non-hymno-epic, second millennium vs first millennium, narrative vs direct speech, etc.
Building on the work of Arkhipov and Loesov, I will argue (a) that compositions have individual preferences which are not determined by grammar, furnishing a new vantage point from which to describe individual poetic style in Akkadian; (b) certain constructions are linked to semantic fields or even individual words (i.e. follow grammatical patterns or trends); (c) that these norms can be subverted for poetic effect.
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The Syntax of Direct Reported Discourse in Old Babylonian
Direct reported discourse (DRD) in everyday Old Babylonian is both fundamental and ubiquitous. The exponents of DRD have been given some attention in GAG and the Akkadian dictionaries. The diachronic development of the particle(s) enma /umma has been studied by several scholars (Hasselbach 2005, Kouwenberg 2012, Kogan & Krebernik 2021), and so was the synchronic function of the particle =mi (Kraus 1976, Wasserman 2012). The grammaticalization process of the construction is described in Deutscher (2000: 66–91). The most comprehensive description of the quotative (but for Old Assyrian) is found in Kouwenberg 2017.
The aim of this paper is to examine the way quotation in OB actually works, looking at quotative constructions: presenting the strategies in which DRD segments occur (inside and outside the clause), explaining the syntactic difference between them as well as the way in which they are integrated into the text. The individual components of each strategy and the interaction among them are examined; the exponents umma x=ma and ummāmi are contrasted, their less-obvious functions are discussed; the impact of various verb types on the entire quotative construction is considered as well. Moreover, the quote is occasionally found in somewhat unexpected environments (e.g., inside a ša clause which imparts the content of a tablet), or directly interconnected with a preceding verb (for instance, ešmē=ma «…»), or occurs entirely unmarked. An attempt is made to explain these cases within the framework devised for the more common cases.
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“Inheritance” or “Grant”? A Reassessment of the Semantics of Akkadian Naḫālum and Niḫlatum in Light of Comparative West Semitic Evidence for the Cognate Root √NḤL
The Akkadian lexemes, naḫālum and niḫlatum, have long been recognised by Assyriologists as West Semitic loanwords derived from the Central Semitic triconsonantal root √NḤL. Attested a total of approximately twenty-five times, mostly in the Old Babylonian legal and epistolary corpora from Mari, both of them have been attributed, throughout historiography, with a semantic value pertaining to the domain of inheritance. These translations were deeply rooted in the understanding of their Biblical Hebrew cognates, nɔḥal “to inherit” and naḥălɔh “inheritance”, which have been compared with both of the Akkadian terms in question since their discovery. My paper will instead attempt to demonstrate that these similar translations of the Akkadian terms are in fact misunderstandings of their use within the texts, and do not take into account comprehensively enough the rest of the epigraphic West Semitic evidence. Indeed, this comparative evidence supports a different viewpoint on the Akkadian lexemes. According to the use of cognate terms in West Semitic inscriptions, in particular those from Ancient South Arabia, these lexemes, such as nḥl, were indeed used to express the semantic domain of granting possession, especially land given by kings to vassals.
After presenting a survey of the historiography of this question, I will propose a comparative analysis of the use of the lexemes between some Mari Old Babylonian texts and Ancient South Arabian inscriptions attesting the cognate lexemes derived from √NḤL. Then, I will balance the √NḤL evidence with the some occurrences of another West Semitic root pertaining to patrimonial inheritance, the root √WRṮ. Finally, I will conclude considering the semantics of the Semitic root √NḤL as expressing a “grant” from a king to his vassal, of possessions which could be transmitted afterwards by way of inheritance.
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The Difficulties that Assyriologists Face in Distinguishing between the Zet (Z) and Ṣāde (Ṣ) Sounds in Cuneiform Records
Assyriologists face difficulties in reading signs that contain the sounds Z and Ṣ in some records. This paper aims to address the challenges in distinguishing and interpreting the sounds of zet (z) and ṣāde (ṣ) in cuneiform records, and to determine which sound is more likely to appear in various words. The issue is not related to the Sumerian language, which does not include the sound ṣāde (ṣ) in its system as it primarily uses light sounds. There is a misconception among some Assyriologists that ancient Mesopotamian scribes could not differentiate between the sounds of zet (z) and ṣāde (ṣ) without context. It appears that these Assyriologists did not make the necessary effort to compare these words with common Semitic words found in ancient literature. The significance of this research lies in identifying discrepancies in many words in cuneiform writing across different periods and locations. It was observed that the sound ṣāde (ṣ) and its cuneiform symbols are more prevalent in Assyrian dialect texts compared to Babylonian dialect texts, as both dialects belong to the Akkadian language. The sound ṣāde (ṣ) does not exist in the Sumerian language, which uses the light sound zet (z).
The paper explores various types of personal names, theophoric names, toponyms, tribe names, linguistic words, plant and animal names, etc.
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New Etymological Insights into Eblaite Vocabulary
During the past five years, an intensive research into the Eblaite lexical list (Vocabolario di Ebla) but, above all, the so-called "Chancery texts" has allowed the speaker to detect a substantial number of "new" (that is, not recognized by the previous scholarship) Eblaite lexemes. These findings provide precious insights into the history of East Semitic vocabulary, but are also of paramount importance for our understanding of the Proto-Semitic lexical features. The paper is intended to share with its audience a number of such new lexemes with their possible parallels from other Semitic languages, particularly Hebrew and Ugaritic.
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Language Contact and (Re)-Creation: The Case of Achaemenid Babylonian
This presentation provides an overview of Achaemenid Babylonian (AB), an artificial dialect used in the royal inscriptions of the Persian-Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC). AB is characterized by atypical linguistic features that diverge from contemporary first-millennium Babylonian. Grammatical studies on AB remain a desideratum, and its linguistic background is still not fully understood.
Several distinctive features of AB can be explained through language contact with Old Persian, Aramaic, Elamite, and Standard Babylonian. This presentation examines the morphology and syntax of the dialect, analyzing its variant features and the explaining the contact situation that shaped them. A preliminary analysis of the AB text corpus (~ 60 texts) suggests that the scribes who composed these texts had some knowledge of both colloquial and literary Babylonian but borrowed extensively from Old Persian and Aramaic.
Although AB was a deliberately constructed language used exclusively for royal representation, it provides a unique case study of language mixing between Semitic and Indo-European languages in Mesopotamia. This presentation contributes to grammatical studies of first-millennium BCE Babylonian and deepens our understanding of language contact in the Achaemenid period, when Babylonian went "international" one last time before its decline at the turn of the millennium
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The Rare Stems in the Akkadian Language: A Comparative Study with Arabic Language
In addition to the G, D, Š, and N stems (and their -t- and -tan forms) a number of other verbal stems are attested; each is of limited or rare occurrence.
(a) The ŠD Stem
In form the ŠD stem combines the features of both the Š and the D, namely, a prefixed š and doubled middle radical. For most roots the occurrence of the ŠD stem is restricted to literary texts, where it may replace either the D or the Š stem, apparently for poetic effect.
Infinitive: šuparrusum
Durative: ušparras
Participle: mušparrisum
Preterit: šparris
(b) The Nt Stem
An Nt stem probably occurs for a few verbs, mostly in later dialects; OB examples are rare. Attested forms of the Nt are identical to corresponding Ntn forms (Durative forms are not attested). The meaning is reciprocal in some cases, such as the Nt of emēdum 'to join one another'; separative in the Nt of the N verb of motion naprušum 'to fly', Nt 'to fly away', Ntn 'to fly around' (the separative Gt for G verbs of motion); similar to the Gt in the Nt of zakārurm ('to speak').
(c) The R Stem
A few verbs occur in a stem in which the third radical is reduplicated, called the R stem. As in the N, the prefixes of finite forms are those of the G verb (i-, ta-, a-, ni-). The following paradigm may be pieced together from attested forms of this stem:
Infinitive: parusisum , as in šaḫururum
later purassusum, as in šuḫarrurum
Durative: iprassas, as in išbarrar.
Perfect: iptarsas, as in ittamšaš (root n-m-š)
Preterite: iprasis, as in išqalil
Imperative: (šuqammim)
Participle:
V. Adj.: parussum (also pari/u usisum)
V.Adj.+3ms: parus (also parusis, parusus)
+ 3fs: parussat
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W24: Daily Life in Uruk in the First Millennium BCE
Organizers: Johannes Hackl, Michael Jursa (michael.jursa@univie.ac.at), Małgorzata Sandowicz
Narrating Daily Life in 6th Century Uruk
The paper investigates the potential, and the challenges, including the methodological
challenges, of attempting a narrative reconstruction of daily routines and lived experiences in the setting of Eanna in the long sixth century.
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Daily Life and Clothing of Eanna Temple Personnel in the Sixth Century BCE
While the Eanna temple archives provide substantial documentation in cuneiform regarding textiles and garments for divine statues, the texts concerning the attire of sanctuary personnel—ranging from dependent workers to priests—remain comparatively limited. Nevertheless, through the synthesis of evidence from private and institutional archives of Uruk, comparative data from other Babylonian temples, and iconographic sources, it becomes possible to reconstruct, at least partially, the material characteristics, forms, decorative elements, and colors of everyday garments. This study will present an analysis of the available evidence, with an emphasis on delineating between source-based information and hypotheses. The investigation will focus on two case studies concerning the reconstruction of the attire of a female temple-dependent engaged in weaving activities and a priest performing divine service within the Eanna temple complex. This research aims to contribute to the creation of animated films about daily life in the Eanna temple, designed for public engagement and dissemination.
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The Širku and the Olfactory Landscape of Eanna: A Sensory Approach to the Study of Food in the Context of Cultic Offerings
The history of sensitivities and micro-history provide valuable tools for reconstructing the daily lives of actors often overlooked in the Mesopotamian institutions. Drawing inspiration from the works of Alain Corbin and the Odeuropa project, this paper explores the olfactory universe of the širku, the temple workers of Eanna responsible for preparing offerings to the gods. Rather than focusing on perfume and incense, which are frequently discussed in studies on ancient scents, we aim to reconstruct the olfactory atmosphere produced by the offerings made to the gods, as perceived by these cultic workers.
After presenting the available sources from the Eanna archive, we will attempt to reconstruct the sensory dynamics that shaped the work of some širkus: What aromas emanated from the raw materials used in offerings—oils, grains, meats, fish, fermented products? How did cooking, fermentation, grinding, and storage alter these scents? We will also examine the symbolic status of smells: were some perceived as pure or impure? Could scent serve as a quality criterion for offerings accepted by the gods?
By studying the temple spaces through a sensory lens, we seek to understand the hierarchy of smells among different areas. How did these scents structure the daily lives of the širku, both individually and collectively? By integrating textual and archaeological data, this research aims to reintroduce olfaction into the study of cultic offerings and to offer a new perspective on the work of the largely anonymous workers that sustained the Eanna of Uruk in the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid period.
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Reconstructing and Narrating Daily Life in Sixth-Century Uruk: Nighttime
Most accounts of everyday life in Mesopotamia focus on daytime routines. This is unsurprising, given the rhythm of life in Mesopotamian cities and villages and, inevitably, the resulting scarcity of references to nocturnal activities in cuneiform sources. In reality, many Babylonians and Assyrians continued their daily routines well after dusk. This paper presents narratives of the nighttime dealings of various social groups in sixth-century Uruk. Priests, in addition to performing nightly rituals such as the night vigil (bayātu), used the nighttime hours for various tasks, including astronomical observation, the preparation of the sacrificial meal, and keeping time to ensure the timely opening of the gates in the early morning. For outcasts, villains, and criminals, the cover of the darkness offered an ideal setting for their wretched activities. Our paper will reveal that occasionally, the ways of priests and criminals crossed under the Urukean night sky.
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Moving in and around Eanna
Beyond the cellae and main courtyards, which served as the primary venues for cultic activities, the Eanna temple complex and its surroundings were bustling with craftsmen, workers, and officials—whether temple personnel, state or city functionaries, or passersby. Additionally, goods of various kinds moved in and out of the temple storehouses, contributing to the daily hustle and bustle. Some of these transactions left behind a clay trail now known to us as the Eanna archive. This contribution explores key movements of goods and people within this dynamic setting.
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Širkū in Motion – Reconstructing and Narrating Daily Life in Sixth Century Uruk
From the perspective of a dedicated slave girl entering the household of Eanna, this paper reconstructs scenes of daily life in public space that uncover potential movements of Urukean oblates. Spatial movement may be visibly restricted or expanded according to work activities that require access to certain temple premises, excursions to other city districts or even longer stays in the countryside. Economic prosperity or poverty might be exhibited by the behaviour and appearance of individual members of the širku-community, and gossip about social upward or downward mobility would be audible amongst workers as well as in gathering places. Passing by, our protagonist would catch scraps of conversations, ranging from tales about detained criminals to business accomplishments to love stories, that would stir mixed emotions in her: Which fields of action could open up here for a woman, and for a branded zakîtu on top of that? Would she have more or less freedom of choice and movement than in her former life as chattel-slave? The narrative approach to these questions will be based on archival material from the Eanna temple and supplemented by other sixth century sources.
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Posters
Cuneiform Corpora in the Korp Concordance Service
A sizeable corpus of digitized and linguistically annotated texts is a prerequisite for many quantitative research approaches and a great help for qualitative philological work. Although large resources for cuneiform languages exist, performing searches and analyzing the results simultaneously is still somewhat challenging, since the resources are hosted on different services.
We aim to solve this issue by using Korp, a concordance tool hosted by the Language Bank of Finland that allows combining large texts resources with rich metadata into harmonized collections of texts. It allows advanced search functions such as finding co-occurrences and conditioned searches. Korp offers also built-in means for generating statistics from the search results and plotting search results on a map based on texts' provenance
We present a snapshot of texts from Oracc (the whole data as of November 2024) combined with 6,000 first-millennium Babylonian texts from Achemenet, János Everling’s legacy data, Levavi (Administrative Epistolography) and Waerzeggers (Marduk-rēmanni) and provide our text collection with full lemmatization, part-of-speech tagging and geographical coordinate data, as well as cross-corpus metadata harmonization, including but not limited to labels for text genres, provenances and time periods. In addition, all the texts have been linked to existing online resources (e.g. Achemenet, CDLI and Oracc), enabling users to locate their Korp search results from the original online resources.
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Channels, Pipes & Soakaways. Drainage in Southern Mesopotamian Buildings of the Bronze and Iron Ages
While recent scholarship is increasingly able to answer questions about how water supply was managed in Mesopotamian cities, the topic of drainage has attracted considerably less academic interest. The last major study by Ms Hemker is from 1999; she offers an overview which drainage elements were common in the Ancient Near East, but doesn´t question the functions originally assigned to drained rooms by the excavators (who usually didn´t give much of an explanation for their interpretation). Her study should therefore be seen as an important milestone, but to make it clearer how drainage within buildings was actually used further questions need to be answered: How do the drained rooms actually look? Do they only appear in specific time periods or within specific buildings or are there no such restrictions? How trustworthy are the interpretations of early excavators? Based on the archaeological record, which room functions can be safely assigned, which are more speculative?
This study draws on material from the author’s ongoing doctoral research on Bronze and early Iron Age drainage systems in southern Mesopotamia. It follows up on findings presented as a lecture at the RAI in Leiden and a poster in Helsinki, which focused on the houses in Babylon-Merkes.
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The “Unusual” Calendar of Rim-Sin at Nippur
This PhD dissertation re-examines and re-assesses the “unusual dating system” under king Rim-Sin of Larsa. Kraus (1959) was the first to investigate the changes made to the Nippur calendar during the second half of Rim-Sin’s reign, but the understanding of this system remains incomplete to this day. Initially, it was explained as a combination of so-called “month-cycles” and “super-years”, yet many uncertainties remain within the explanations offered so far. The goal of this poster is to critically discuss previous explanations and reconstructions of this corpus, and suggest a new explanation based on the available data.
In addition to reconstructing the possible order of dates within this calendar, the aim is to break up the corpus into more manageable pieces to understand, whether all of the unusual dates at Nippur originated from a single system. In contrast to other cities, it was always assumed that Nippur only had a single unusual calendar. However, there are several problems with this reconstruction and assuming multiple unusual calendars would solve some of these problems.
In this context, there is also the question of which scribes made use of the “unusual dating system.” Are all of them really from just one central redistributive authority, as Robertson (1981) proposed, or is there a possibility that multiple institutions or entities used this system? I would therefore like to propose that multiple calendars existed, which likely also reflect different institutional contexts. The corpus can be dissected into categories based on content, and there appear to be correlations between different dating systems and these categories. If this can be verified, new views on the administrative structure of Nippur in the OB period can be drawn from this investigation.
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Music and Exchange: Becoming a Gala During the Ur III period
Throughout Near-Eastern History, lamentation priests played a significant role in the religious and cultural spheres of Mesopotamian society. The gala, within Sumerian contexts, are predominantly associated with lamentation rituals, tasked with soothing the hearts of angry deities by performing sacred hymns, often in Emesal. However, despite our understanding of the overall role played by the gala, they remain a somewhat enigmatic figure in day-to-day life in Mesopotamian society.
By focusing on the administrative documentation from the Ur III period, this study seeks to explore how the economic organisation behind gala initiation may highlight the socio-economic space occupied by lamentation singers. Through comparisons with other musical activities during the Ur III period, these analyses will also provide reflections on the interplay between designations of nar and gala, which are occasionally applied interchangeably to individuals and are therefore sometimes difficult to differentiate from one another. Overall, this research will contribute to a more complete understanding of how, within the context of the gala, music functioned not only as state or cult focussed practice but also as a medium of social and economic integration.
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Livelihood in Southwest of Iran Based on the Seal Impressions (Late 4th Millennium BCE.)
In both archaeological and modern geography, southwestern Iran includes Khuzestan and south of Ilam. Since archaeological data are the most important documented evidence of a people or civilization, seals and seal impressions hold a particularly significant place among them. The simple motifs on seals reflect many customs, beliefs, and social relations of a people. Additionally, their shape, material, and engraving techniques showcase the artistic expression of civilizations over centuries, aiding archaeologists in better understanding the past. In the second half of the 4th millennium BCE, with the expansion of societies and the specialization of professions, administrative techniques evolved, and seal impressions became more realistic compared to earlier periods. This phase, known as the Susa II or Uruk period, marks a shift in the function of seals. Unlike previous periods, the seal designs of this era played a role in cultural transmission, allowing people in other regions to gain insights into the livelihood and way of life in southwestern Iran. This study examines Elamite seals from a livelihood perspective, highlighting their significance as visual records of economic and social structures. The author suggests that this function of seals parallels the later human drive toward writing in antiquity and photography and journaling in modern times.
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Peter Damerow and the Max Planck Society
Have you ever wanted a look at the research notes of a colleague? Have you ever just wanted to know what they saw or thought, or those early drafts of a publication? Have you ever wondered how a discovery was made? This project can give you some of those insights.
The Project, Peter Damerow and the Max Planck Society, is devoted to cataloguing and making accessible the research carried out by the late researcher Peter Damerow during his tenure with the Max Planck Society. Dr. Damerow was an integral figure in this society, first at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, then at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin, which he helped found.
Peter was a vital figure in cognitive psychology, history of science, and in Assyriology where he was integral to the decipherment of proto-cuneiform, produced a model for the origin and development of numbers, and was a foundational figure in the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. His early death due to cancer in 2011 left much work unfinished, and many questions about his legacy unanswered. Peter also kept everything, files, computes, notes, books from his early years as a chemistry assistant in the 1960s to the end of his life at the Max Planck Institute. All of this will be made accessible to the interested researcher.
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