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.

Title: "Ashurbanipal: a literate king? Reconstructing an Assyrian king's curriculum studiorum"
0) Introduction to the ANE's Literature
1) The Library of Ashurbanipal, between history, myth and archaeology
2) Structure, formation and make-up
3) Ashurbanipal: a literate king? The debate
4) Ashurbanipal: a literate king? reading from the original of sections of selected manuscripts from the Library
4a: colophons
4b: administrative texts
4c: letters
4d: the Royal inscription "London 4"
5) The king's librarians at work': digital projects and the Library of Ashurbanipal

Students are required to prepare the cuneiform texts at home on a regular basis and prepare selected readings for the classes; they will also take part in the digitisation project Liber focussing on the Library

Programma per studenti frequentanti:

Literature:
L. Verderame, Letterature dell'antica Mesopotamia, Milano 2016

Ashurbanipal & the Library:
E. Robson, "Reading the Libraries of Assyria and Babylonia", in J. König, K. Oikonomopolou, G. Woolf, Ancient Libraries, Cambridge, 2013: 38-56.
E. Frahm, "Keeping company with men of learning: the king as scholar", in K. Radner, E. Robson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Oxford, 2011: 508-532.
S. Zamazalová, "The Education of Neo-Assyrian Princes", in K. Radner and E. Robson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, Oxford, 2011: pp. 313–330
I. Finkel, "Ashurbanipal's Library: an overview" in K. Ryholt - G. Barjamovic, Libraries before Alexandria: Ancient Near Eastern Traditions, Oxford 2019: 367-389
J. Fincke, "The Babylonian Texts of Nineveh. Report on the British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project", AfO 50 (2003/2004): 111-149.
E. Frahm, "On Some Recently Published Late-Babylonian Copies of Royal Letters", in NABU 2005/2, nota 43: 43-46
R. Goldstein "Late Babylonian Letters on Collecting Tablets and Their Hellenistic Background—a Suggestion", in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 69/2 (2010): 199-207
A. Livingstone, “Ashurbanipal: literate or not?” in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 97 (2007): 98–118
S. Parpola, "The Royal Archives of Nineveh", in K. Veenhof (ed.), Cuneiform Archives and Libraries: Papers Read at the 30e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leiden, 4-8 July 1983. Leiden, 1986: 223-236
S. Parpola, "Assyrian Library Records", in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42/1 (1983): 1-29
S. Lieberman, "Canonical and Official Cuneiform Texts: Towards and Understanding of Ashurbanipal's Personal Tablet Collection" in Abusch T. et al, Lingering over Words: Studies in ANE Literature in Honour of W.L. Moran, Atlanta 1990: 305-336

Sources:
-- J. Novotny, Selected Royal Inscriptions of Assurbanipal (SAACT X), Winona Lake 2014: Text 18
-- http://oracc.org/saao/corpus/ (archivi)
-- http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/corpus/ (iscrizioni reali)
-- http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/ (Biblioteca)
-- http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/rlasb/ (colofoni)

Altre letture specifiche e i testi da analizzare (con relativa bibliografia) saranno indicati a lezione.

Strumenti e grammatiche
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 ( https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/assyrian-dictionary-oriental-institute-university-chicago-cad )

Letture facoltative e approfondimenti:

-- B. Foster, Akkadian Literature, in: C.S. Erlich, From an Antique Land. An introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature, Lanham 2009, 137-214.
-- J. Reade, Reallexikon der Assyriologie 9 (5/6), Berlin-New York, 2000, s.v. Ninive.
-- A. Cellerino, La storia delle ricerche, in C. Lippolis (a cura di), Ninive. Il palazzo senza eguali di Sennacherib, Milano, 2007: 25-35.
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
- 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.
Flipped classroom.
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

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development