AKKD

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.

This class is designed to provide an advanced grammar course focusing on syntactic topics for students who have intermediate or advanced knowledge of Akkadian. The class will read texts from different periods and genres to compare the treatment of certain syntactic structures.

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.

This course consists of readings in cuneiform texts on therapeutic prescriptions, incantations, and rituals, pharmacopoeia, the Diagnostic Handbook, medical commentaries, and medical astrology, along with scholarly articles on various ancient medical topics. 

Readings from the Code of Hammurapi, in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian.

This course consists of readings in cuneiform sources and scholarly literature on the classification of astronomical tablets, measurement of celestial time and space, invention of the zodiac, astronomical omen series and reports, the Mul-apin star compendium and astrolabes, astronomical diaries, goal year texts, horoscopes, and mathematical astronomy. 

The third quarter of the Elementary Akkadian sequence continues with the learning of the Akkadian language and the cuneiform script. As in the previous quarters, readings and exercises are from John Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian (3rd edition), Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011.

Intermediate Akkadian

The first two quarters of this sequence cover the elements of Babylonian grammar and the cuneiform writing system, with reading exercises in Old Babylonian texts (ca. 1900 to 1600 B.C.), such as the Laws of Hammurabi. The third quarter introduces Standard Babylonian, the literary language of ca. 1200 to 600 B.C., with readings in royal inscriptions and literary texts. Introduction to the grammar of Akkadian, specifically to the Old Babylonian dialect.