a link to the text to be discussed will be included in your registration confirmation email
The Primary Text Lab series, directed by Julia Lindenlaub, brings
together a panel of scholars to examine closely a single text from
different perspectives, in an open conversation on any aspect of its
interpretation.
The text in question for this event is known by a few names: Codex
Hammurabi, Hammurabi’s Stele, the Laws of Hammurabi. Regardless of what
we wish to call it, this object is often equated with the
socio-political reality of Old Babylonian Mesopotamia. First carved out
of diorite stone and presented to Shamash in the 18th century BCE, it
was taken as booty by the Elamite king Šutruk-Nahhunte in the 12th
century BCE and excavated by the French government 31 centuries later;
it remains today in the Louvre. Even though Hammurabi’s Stele is one of
the longest known singular texts from the ancient Near East, its context
is typically relegated to the world of law. But this is not the only
reason for its existence.
Come join us on May 7 to hear from a panel of international scholars
with an array of expertise about the luscious realities that are
overlooked when we leave texts to be defined by singular genres. We will
be examining the object’s prologue and epilogue – the bookends of this
collection of legal decisions – in order to tease out Hammurabi’s world
at large: its gods, identity, intertextuality, schooling, and
aesthetics.
Andrew Alberto Nicolas Deloucas, curator of this
text lab, is an Assyriologist focused on the first two thousand years of
cuneiform cultures (~3500-1500 BCE). His primary focus is on
socio-political history of the early Old Babylonian Period (~2000-1750
BCE), especially on interaction of polity and cult. He is a coordinator
of the Graduate Symposium in Ancient Near Eastern Studies as well as
Harvard University’s Methodologies in Egyptology and Mesopotamian
Studies. Outside of research, he teaches undergraduates about the wild
beauty of studying history and language.
Discussants
Pamela Barmash does research on biblical and ancient Near Eastern law and has published monographs on homicide (Homicide in the Biblical World, 2005) and on the Laws of Hammurabi (The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions,
2020). She also works on history and memory and has edited volumes on
the Exodus in the Jewish experience and on how the change of empires
affected ancient Israel. She also writes rabbinic responsa on
contemporary issues in Jewish communities.
Sophus Helle is a writer, translator, and cultural
historian, with a great passion for Babylonian poetry in general
and Gilgamesh in particular—his translation of Gilgamesh is coming out
in the Fall, and he is very excited. He is spending the spring lockdown
working on a book about Enheduana, the first known author. His other
interests include the emerging field of world philology (what if we
thought of philology not a series of siloed subdisciplines, but as a
global and trans-millennial endeavor?), the genre of epics, narrative,
gender, affect, reception, and much more besides.
M. Willis Monroe is managing editor of a database of
Religious History and teaches courses on the Ancient Near East in
Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies departments. His
research focuses on the history of religion and science in Mesopotamia.
With a particular concentration on astronomical and astrological texts
from cuneiform sources, his work highlights the role of textual format
and layout in constructing scholarly knowledge.
Moudhy Al-Rashid is a postdoctoral researcher in the
history of science and medicine. She has written for academic journals
and public outlets, including History Today, on diverse topics
in the history of the ancient Middle East. She serves on the management
committee of Nahrein, a project in sustainability and cultural heritage
in Iraq and neighbouring countries, and on the council of the British
Institute for the Study of Iraq.
Seth L. Sanders is a philologist studying the alchemy of language, religion, and politics in the ancient Near East. He is (co-)editor of Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures (2006); Cuneiform in Canaan (2006); Ancient Jewish Sciences and the History of Knowledge in Second Temple Literatures (2014); and How to Build a Sacred Text in the Ancient Near East (JANER) (2016), and author of The Invention of Hebrew (2009) and From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylon (2017). He is working on a book on ancient West Semitic linguistic genres and religious practice.
Have a primary text you’d like to discuss? Propose a Primary Text
Lab! Proposals from scholars at all stages, including graduate students,
are warmly welcome. See the Event Toolkit to get started!
The AWOL Index: The bibliographic data presented herein has been programmatically extracted from the content of AWOL - The Ancient World Online (ISSN 2156-2253) and formatted in accordance with a structured data model.
AWOL is a project of Charles E. Jones, Tombros Librarian for Classics and Humanities at the Pattee Library, Penn State University
AWOL began with a series of entries under the heading AWOL on the Ancient World Bloggers Group Blog. I moved it to its own space here beginning in 2009.
The primary focus of the project is notice and comment on open access material relating to the ancient world, but I will also include other kinds of networked information as it comes available.
The ancient world is conceived here as it is at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, my academic home at the time AWOL was launched. That is, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Pacific, from the beginnings of human habitation to the late antique / early Islamic period.
AWOL is the successor to Abzu, a guide to networked open access data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East and the Ancient Mediterranean world, founded at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago in 1994. Together they represent the longest sustained effort to map the development of open digital scholarship in any discipline.
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