ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN LITERATURE

The course is part of the ancillary activities of the curriculum in Archaeology and Philology, Literatures and History of the MA in Ancient Civilisations: Literature, History and Archaeology; its goal is to help students developing their abilities, knowledge and methodology of the philology and literatures of the Ancient Near eastern world.
It aims at helping students to further develop their knowledge and mastery of the cuneiform sources written in Akkadian (reading, translation and contestualisation), and of the appropriate tools and methods necessary to produce a sample of an autonomous piece of research.

At the end of the course the student will have an in-depht knowledge of the tools and methods for the philological, grammatical, and historical analyis of the cuneiform text and will be able to apply it to the production of an original piece of research.

Elementary Akkadian (Assyriology) suggested, intermediate Akkadian (Sumero-Akkadian epigraphy) preferred.
Students with no previous knowledge of Akkadian are more than welcome to the course and will be able to take advantage of it anyway, with an ad hoc programme.

The poem of Erra
1. full reading in translation;
2. historical-literary contextualisation;
3. reading from the original of selected sections;
4. transliteration, transcription and translation
5. philogogical, epigraphical and grammatical problems of the cuneiform text;

Students are required to prepare the cuneiform text at home on a regular basis; they will also produce an original piece of research on a course-related topic that will be presented in class.

L. Cagni, L'Epopea di Erra. Roma, Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente, Studi Semitici 34, 1969.
L. Cagni, Das Erra-Epos Keilschrifttext, Roma, 1970.
F N.H. al-Rawi - J. A. Black, The Second Tablet of "Ishum and Erra", Iraq 51, 1989, pp. 111-122.
I. Marquez-Rowe, Erra en Montserrat, Aula Orientalis 15, 1997, pp. 55-61.

Tools and grammars
W. Von Soden, Grundriss der Akkadischen Grammatik, Roma 1995 (terza edizione)
J. Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, Winona Lake 2011 (terza edizione)
Fl. Malbran Labat, Manuel de langue akkadienne, Louvain-La Neuve 2001
The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary

More readings will be suggested in class.

Students who are not willing to attend classes please contact teacher in due time before the exam.

The evaluation process will take into account:
- students' proficiency in doing their homework and class participation
- the results obtained in producing a sample of autonomous research and presentino it to the public
- f2f exam on the main course topics.

classes will consist in seminars where the main topics and texts of the course will be discussed jointly by teacher and students.
Active participation is required at all times. Students will prepare and present a sample of their own research, on a topic to be agreed upon with the teacher.

Italian

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