AKKD

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.

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.

More than 6000 cuneiform documents from a single Late Bronze Age site, ancient Nuzi, dating to a period of only about 150 years, yield unparalleled insights into everyday life in the ancient world. This course will use these resources to explore a series of legal and social phenomena, both private and public, including family/status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption), judicial process (trials, lawsuits), public corruption, political events, and more.

In this course, we will read Akkadian letters from the correspondence found at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt, that date to the 14th century BCE. We will read letters from various locations, including Babyonia, Assyria, Mitanni and Hatti, although the main focus of the class will be on the letters sent from Canaan. In all these corpora we will look at features that mark the language as different from core Babylonian and that reveal substrate influence from the native languages of the scribes.

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.

Akkadian readings of passages, mainly from the Babylonian Creation Epic (enuma elish) and the Babylonian Flood Story (Atrahasis), as well as from the Babylonian Theodicy, Gilgamesh, and the Myth of Seven Sages. Students are expected to master grammatical and narratival content, become familiar with the use of modern dictionaries and other Assyriological resources, and improve their proficiency in reading directly from Assyrian and Babylonian cursive cuneiform scripts.