2018-2019

This is a proficiency-based course designed to develop the linguistic skills necessary for personal day-to-day life. The course focuses on spoken rather than Standard written Arabic, and will therefore target primarily the oral/aural skills. Through the knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic and the introduction of colloquial vocabulary, expressions and grammar, the course will build the students' competence in spoken Arabic. Students will also be introduced to the Levantine culture of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine.

This sequence concentrates on the acquisition of speaking, reading, and aural skills in modern formal Arabic.

This sequence concentrates on the acquisition of speaking, reading, and aural skills in modern formal Arabic.

This sequence concentrates on the acquisition of speaking, reading, and aural skills in modern formal Arabic.

Treaties written in Akkadian are one of the oldest surviving witnesses of international law. Furthermore, those texts give an insight in the organization of international trade, the treatment of fugitives, and state organization. The curse – an integral part to protect the legal arrangements – give us furthermore information about religion, fears and believes, and forms of divine punishments. In this class we will read and discuss selected treaties from different periods of Mesopotamian history: we will start with Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian documents, read texts from the so-called “International Age”, and end with the Neo-Assyrian Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon.

Selected readings of Akkadian texts in the Standard Babylonian dialect of the 1st millennium BC.

This course is the second quarter of the annual introductory sequence to the Babylonian language and the Cuneiform script. Students will further explore the grammar of Babylonian in its Old Babylonian dialect (19th–16th c. BCE) and read ancient inscriptions (especially the Laws of Hammu-rabi) in the Old Babylonian monumental script. The reference grammar used for this course is John Huehnergard's A Grammar of Akkadian (third edition), 2011.

This class provides an introduction to the Babylonian language (Akkadian), a Semitic language spoken and written in Mesopotamia from 2250-50 BCE. The participants will be introduced to grammar of the Old Babylonian period (ca. 19th to 16th BCE) and learn how to read cuneiform script. The reference grammar used for this course is John Huehnergard's A Grammar of Akkadian (third edition).

This course is specifically aimed at students having completed the first year of Elementary Akkadian (AKKD 10101–10103), but can be taken by more advanced students as well. Building on the knowledge acquired in the Elementary sequence, this course will further explore the Standard Babylonian dialect and Neo-Assyrian Cuneiform scripts, through a detailed analysis of the Annals of king Sennacherib (704–681 BCE) as they are represented in the ‘Chicago Prism' acquired by J. H. Breasted in 1920 and currently on display in the Assyrian gallery of the Oriental Institute Museum. These include, among other military and building exploits of the king, his campaign to the Levant against Ezekiah, king of Judah — an episode also recounted in the Hebrew Bible (books of Second Kings, Isaiah and Chronicles) and Josephus' Judean Antiquities.

This course explores a variety of key issues in ancient narrative, by means of investigating the role of literature as history in the Erra Epic, features of orality or aurality such as verse, meter, and prosody in The Poor Man of Nippur, as well as the appropriation and reinterpretation of metaphors and other figurative imagery in Marduk's Address to the Demons and its ancient commentary.