This study challenges the 19th-century nationalist assumptions that have informed modern views of Aramean peoplehood in the first half of the first millennium BCE. I revisit the cuneiform sources, which offer the bulk of the existing evidence on the earliest Arameans, and demonstrate that they conceive of Arameans not as a single coherent people,…[Read more]

Very brief overview of the parameters of demand and supply for cuneiform knowledge production.

Research into emotions is a developing field within Assyriology, and NLP tools for Akkadian texts offers new perspectives on the data. We use PMI-based word embeddings to explore the relationship between parts of the body and emotions. Using data downloaded from Oracc, we ask which parts of the body were semantically linked to emotions. We do this…[Read more]

Beards were part of a visual matrix of expressing masculinity during the NeoAssyrian period (ca. 934–612 BCE). But masculinity does not exist in isolation and interacts with other aspects of identity. I will examine the beard as an indicator of masculine status during the Neo-Assyrian period. This will be done through investigating the visual a…[Read more]

During the Neo-Assyrian period (approximately 934-612 BCE, based in modern Iraq) the annals and royal inscriptions of several kings mention women with a curious title: ‘Queen of the Arabs’. These women have been included in previous discussions regarding Assyrian interaction with the ‘Arabs’, but a full investigation into their roles as rulers…[Read more]

Assyrian imperialism is closely associated with the practice of mass deportation. This practice has been explained by recourse to many different motivations. But can we hope to pinpoint the logic informing deportation rather than merely identifying its advantages? This paper surveys the evidence of deportation in the Levant in the period 745–620 B…[Read more]

This paper aims to disambiguate the proper name “Seth” and its cognates or homonyms – perfect or imperfect – in texts from ancient Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterranean. It considers: (1) the Suteans, West Semitic Amorite/Aramean nomads who feature negatively in Mesopotamian records; (2) S(h)eth in the Hebrew bible, in which a dispara…[Read more]

Demons and monsters are inherently moveable creatures: from the late second millennium BCE onwards a number of demons and monsters migrate from their native Mesopotamian contexts, moving westward. Of course, these figures do not remain static throughout their journey, instead acquiring the characteristics of the different cultural contexts wherein…[Read more]

A short essay on the different forms of money used in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Translated into German by Julia Linke.

During the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE, the Nile’s Eastern Delta was supposedly the locale of truculent “shepherds” who were inimical to Egypt. These problematic herdsmen seem largely to have been refractions of foreign powers generated by independent etymological confusions, behind which lie the Hyksos and the Assyrians; however, the caric…[Read more]

Late Halaf female figurines of clay/pottery from northeastern Syria (Type LH.1A; 6th millennium BCE) have close parallels in predynastic Egyptian figurines (4th millennium BCE) in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The lack of provenance for the Egyptian statuettes – all of which were purchased – has long inhibited any comparison with the…[Read more]

Much of the surviving text of the Epic of Etana tells the story of an eagle and a snake. The eagle and snake are extraordinary creatures, and their story abounds with mythological subtext. This paper argues that the Neo-Assyrian recension of Etana was amended to include explicit references to the eagle and the snake by the names of their…[Read more]

Overview of demons and monsters in Mesopotamia, highlighting works in the Yale Babylonian Collection.

The iconography of the Horus cippus, an amulet popular in Egypt from the late Third Intermediate Period to Roman times (8th century BCE – 2nd century CE), is unexpectedly recapitulated in bronze “goddess plaques” of the 7-8th centuries CE made by Permian peoples – Finno-Ugric groups from the Ural region of northern Eurasia. The likely expla…[Read more]

Review of: Jan J. W. Lisman, Cosmogony, Theogony, and Anthropogeny in Sumerian Texts. Vol. 409 of Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. In Rosetta 18 (2015)

Review of: Michael B. Hundley, Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East, vol. 3 in Writings from the Ancient World Supplements. Bethesda: Society for Biblical Literature Publications, 2013. In Rosetta 20 (2017).

Study of inscribed Kassite cylinder seals held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Study of Old Babylonian Sumerian proverbs that speak on authority and how those same proverbs may subtly (or not quite so subtly) rebuke the king and established institutions of power.

A study of the nature of the udug and lama figures as seen in Mesopotamian (primarily Old Babylonian) incantations, as well as an overview of the nature of demons in Mesopotamia.