AKKD

We will read a choice of legal and administrative texts from the Kassite period (1400-1150 BC), including contracts, tables, receipts and letters. You will get an introduction to the Middle Babylonian dialect of Akkadian and learn how to approach those genres. We will also read unpublished material from photos, casts, and original tablets.

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. They will also be introduced to the Old Babylonian cursive used in letters and the documents of everyday life.

This course is specifically aimed at students having completed the Introduction to Babylonian sequence (AKKD 10501–10503) but can be taken by more advanced students as well. Building on the knowledge acquired in the introductory sequence, this course will explore the Old Babylonian Literary dialect in Old Babylonian cursive script, as well as the Standard Babylonian dialect in Neo-Assyrian cuneiform script, through a selection of readings on Flood Narratives from OB Atra-hasis and the OB/SB Gilgamesh, the precursors to the story of Noah and the Flood in the Hebrew Bible.

In this course we will read Semitic texts from the ancient Syrian site of Ebla dating to the middle of the 24th century BCE. The texts consist of several genres, such as administrative texts, chancellery texts, and a few ritual texts and incantations. Special focus will be on the language used since the status of "Eblaite" and its position within the Semitic language family is still a matter of debate. We will further look at the broader linguistic an cultural context of the Eblaite material by comparing it to Mesopotamian texts from the same period.

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 explore the Standard Babylonian dialect and the Neo-Assyrian cuneiform script, 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), Herodotus' Histories and Josephus' Judean Antiquities.

Introduction to the grammar of Akkadian, specifically to the Old Babylonian dialect. The class covers the first half of the Old Babylonian grammar, an introduction to the cuneiform script, and easy translation exercises.

Students at the intermediate (with a minimum of one year of Akkadian) and advanced levels are introduced to first millennium BC Mesopotamian language, vocabulary, grammar, and social and political history through examination of Babylonian and Assyrian private letters and diplomatic correspondence.

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. They will also be introduced to the Old Babylonian cursive used in letters and the documents of everyday life.

This course explores a variety of key issues in ancient wisdom literature, through Akkadian readings in The Counsels of Wisdom, Advice to a Prince, Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, The Babylonian Theodicy, The Dialogue of Pessimism, among other compositions, as well as individual proverbs.

This course represents the third and final section in the introductory sequence to the ancient Babylonian language and script. Akkadian readings in a wide variety of divinatory cuneiform texts, including omens from extispicy, teratology, libanomancy, medical diagnosis, and lunar eclipses, among others. Students are graded based on their preparation and mastery of cuneiform script—Old Babylonian cursive, in particular—and Akkadian philology.