Turna Somel

Title:
Mesopotamian Divinatory Texts from Syria and Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age

University:
Philipps-Universität Marburg

Supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Nils P. Heeßel

Abstract:
Even as early as the late 3rd millennium BCE, there is evidence of divinatory practices in ancient Mesopotamia. A new text genre listing the meanings of omens appears during the first half of the 2. millennium BCE and attests to the continuous development of divinatory practices in Mesopotamia into the Hellenistic period. Furthermore, textual sources from neighbouring regions in the Near East dating to the Late Bronze Age (second half of the 2nd millennium BCE) demonstrate that this knowledge, and possibly the practices, were imported from Mesopotamia and existed parallel to local divinatory traditions, as hundreds of fragments have been found in Hattusa and Emar, and smaller numbers have been discovered in Alalah, Ugarit, Susa and Kabnak.

While the majority of the aforementioned fragments have already been edited, a comprehensive study treating this corpus of divinatory texts as a whole is needed. The aim of the present thesis is to study this corpus with a focus on the intellectual history of the Late Bronze Age. Of particular relevance are organisatory characteristics, hermeneutical strategies and areas of interest as documented in omen compendia, to be studied through a comparative perspective encompassing Hattusa and Emar, as well as Mesopotamian sites such as Assur, Babylon, and Nippur.

In addition to intellectual history, a major focus of this study is to document the process and effects of transmission and reception in the case of Hattusa and Emar, as well as to investigate whether (and how) the omen compendia were further developed within the local scribal communities. In the case of Hattusa, where translations of Akkadian omen compendia into Hittite are attested, a study of translation techniques is to be undertaken.

Contact:
somel@students.uni-marburg.de

Emily Zeran

Title:
Early Sumerian at Šuruppak: A Secure Palaeography of the Texts from the EDIIIa “Tablet House”

University:
Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena

Supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Manfred Krebernik

Abstract:
This PhD project treats in detail the 138 texts written on clay tablets which can be confirmed to have been found in association with the architectural remains of a certain building at the ancient city of Šuruppak (modern Tell Fāra, Iraq). In doing so, the potential, as well as the limits, of palaeographical studies on cuneiform tablets will be explored, and a new methodology for undertaking such studies will be outlined. The outcome of this study will be a new sign list (NLAK) for the Fāra Period, to replace the Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen of A. Deimel (1923). This new sign list will provide the readings/values of the cuneiform signs (as confirmed by statistical frequency) as well as a full commentary.

Defining a phase of script to the lifespan of one building will establish a “spine” around which other texts from Šuruppak may be grouped, in order to reconstruct the development of script (and its association with archaeological levels/areas) at this site. It is hoped that other such studies on early cuneiform corpora will one day be arranged alongside this in order to create a relative chronology of the (stylistic and linguistic) phases of cuneiform script between 3400-2300 BC. The envisioned “comprehensive palaeography” may also serve as the means by which the hundreds of cuneiform texts deriving from the art market may be re-contextualized.

Contact:
emily.zeran@uni-jena.de

Daniel Sánchez Muñoz

Title:
Analysis of two terms related with Music in Ancient Mesopotamia: nam-nar and nārūtu(m)

University:
University of Granada

Supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Antonio Martín Moreno (Professor of Musicology)

Abstract:
Sumerian and Akkadian texts show us a very rich musical terminology whose meaning, however, is not always pretty clear for scholars dealing with the Mesopotamian music. One of the most controversial terms is the Sumerian nam-nar together with its Akkadian equivalent nārūtu(m). Certainly, this term has been previously defined in many several and different ways, like “(professional) condition of the nar-musician”, “musicianship”, “art of the singing”, “hymnic music” even as “Music”.

In this PhD Project, we will try to prove that, even if the meaning of this couple of terms experimented some changes throughout the long Mesopotamian history (an evolution not previously kept in mind in the previous research), its main meaning was “Music” in a broad sense as sound art and social condition, like in our current concept of “Music”.

For that purpose, we will analyse all the mentions of these two terms in our current Mesopotamian textual documentation, having a group around 50 texts from the Second Dynasty of Lagash until the Late Hellenistic Period of many typologies: administrative, lexical and literary (with different subdivisions: myths, praise hymns and songs, literary letters, astronomical texts, etc.) Many of these texts (some of them recently published) had not been analysed in the previous comments of nam-nar/nārūtu(m), mainly based in the Old Babylonian textual evidence.

Those texts will be individually analysed in this project starting from own editions based in the consultation of current copies/photographs in addition to the consultation of the cuneiform manuscripts in their museums. Later, we precise the context of each mention of these terms by a philological/lexicographical study of the most relevant terms in that excerpt with a final commentary indicating what it might be the best definition for nam-nar/nārūtu(m) in this text.

To prove that the main meaning of these two terms is “Music” is highly relevant, since such type of term is not at all common in the past and current musical cultures of the world, which normally have terms for specific manifestations of the musical activity, like the singing, the instrumental music or some types of recitation which Western people might consider as “music”. Certainly, many of the current terms for “Music” derive, as a last resort, from the Greek mousike (even the Arabic al-musiqa!) However, some Greek texts show that Pythagoras learned “The Arithmetic, the Music (=mousike) and the other Mathematical disciplines” with the magicians from Babylonia (Iamblichus, Pythagora’s Life, 4, 19). In this sense, to have a Sumerian or Akkadian term for “Music” might explain also these Greek texts and, therefore, the evolution of our musical history.

This PhD Dissertation will be the first one in the history of my University. In order to prepare a good project, I have previously taken courses on Assyriology in Spain through the CEPOAT (= Centro de Estudios del Próximo Oriente y Antigüedad Tardía) with Drs. Josué and Daniel Justel, Bárbara Solans and Erica Couto. Concerning my international training, I have previously taken courses in Würzburg (with Prof. Dr. Daniel Schwemer, PD Claus Ambos, Dr. Greta van Buylaere, and Dr. Dahlia Shehata) and Leiden (with Dr. Bram Jagersma, Dr. Jan Gerrit Dercksen, and Dr. Melanie Gross) in addition to studying with Dr. Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel (Université de Strasbourg) through the Diplôme d’Université de Langues Anciennes (DULA).

George Heath-Whyte

Title: 
Bēl and Marduk in the First and Late-Second Millennium BC

University:
University of Cambridge

Supervisor:
Dr Selena Wisnom & Dr Martin Worthington

Abstract:
My PhD research focuses on the god Marduk, who came to be the head of the Babylonian pantheon by the 1st Millennium BC. If people have heard of any Mesopotamian god, then it is probably Marduk, yet despite this, there are still large gaps in our knowledge of him. One aspect of this deity that has received almost no attention is the divine name commonly said to be held by him: Bēl (“Lord”). My research seeks to understand the role of this alternate name of Marduk in Mesopotamian theology in the late-second Millennium and the first Millennium BC.

Contact:
grh36@cam.ac.uk

Welcome to PhD Research in Assyriology

Welcome to PhD Research in Assyriology! This site exists to promote the research being carried out by PhD students in the field of Assyriology. What’s that? It’s a broad term that covers all scholarly fields related to the study of the ancient Near East in the time of the cuneiform cultures. That means the time between the fourth millennium BCE and the first century AD, in the historical regions of Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant, Iran, and Anatolia. Assyriology includes the history, archaeology, and art history of the ancient Near East, as well as its languages: Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian), Hittite, Elamite, Hurrian, and others.

PhD Research in Assyriology is an initiative of the International Association for Assyriology (IAA). To find out more about “Assyriology”, the IAA, our annual conference (the “Rencontre” or “RAI”), or to hear the latest news, please visit the IAA website. If you like what we do, please consider joining the IAA. Your support helps us offer a range of prizes and awards to make life a little less difficult for students and early career scholars, and to celebrate their successes.