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.

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.

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 introduces students to the Assyrian dialect of the early second millennium BCE, as witnessed in the archives of Assyrian merchants operating in the ancient city of Kaneš (modern Kültepe, Turkey). Students will read through a selection of letters, legal texts and administrative documents pertaining to the merchants' activities between Northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia. They will be exposed to the earliest known attestation of the Northern dialect of Akkadian, which differs sensibly from the contemporary Old Babylonian and later Standard Babylonian dialects that are introduced in elementary and intermediate Akkadian courses. Similarly, Old Assyrian cursive paleography has its own rules for sign shapes and values, with some marked differences with contemporary Old Babylonian. Knowledge of the Old Babylonian grammar and cursive cuneiform script are therefore required to take this course, and knowledge of Standard Babylonian and the associated scripts are highly recommended. Due to the restrictions in classroom availabilities imposed by the current pandemic, this course will be offered remotely via Zoom. Evaluation will be based on participation (30%), a midterm take-home exam (30%) and a final take-home exam (40%).

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.

In this class, we will read texts from the ancient Syrian site of Ebla, where thousands of texts dating to about the 24th century BCE were found. We will focus on those texts that were written in the local Semitic language, Eblaite, and discuss the grammar and orthography of these texts, especially in the light of how this language/dialect relates to Akkadian and other Semitic languages.

We will read highlights of the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic including the creation and taming of Enkidu, the fight in the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh and Ishtar, as well as the flood story. You will learn how to use advanced dictionaries and sign lists and to write score and composite editions of Mesopotamian literature.