SUMERO-AKKADIAN EPIGRAPHY

The course is part of the ancillary disciplines that make up the curriculum on Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean History of the BA Programme in History; it also offered for students of the BA in the Humanities and Cultural Heritage. It aims at providing students with an intermediate knowledge of the discipline and its methodology, of the writing system, epigraphy, language and grammar of Akkadian, reading from the original and understanding from an historical and linguistic point of view texts of intermediate difficulty, with a special focus on the materiality of writing and epgraphy. Depending on their personal engagement, students will acquire an intermediate knowledge of the phonology, morphology and sintax of the Akkadian language, and will be able to read and translate texts of a certain difficulty, directly from cuneiform. In addition they will have gained the ability to decode and contextualize the sources from an historical, ideological and literary perspective and will be able to use the main bibliographic (esp. digital) tools for the discipline.

At the end of the course students:
- will have gained an intermediate knowledge of the cuneiform writing system and its principles
- will have gained an intermediate knowledge of the grammar of the Akkadian language (phonology, morphology and syntax)
- will have basic knowledges of the methods and issues of sumero-akkadian epigraphy
- and will be able to apply such knowledge to the translation and analysis of different kind of texts in cuneiform on their own and in a group, using the right tools and resources as learnt and applied in class and preparing the texts for the class discussion, that are a necessary part of the final evaluation and of the discipline's knowledge building process.

Consider taking Assyriology beforehand.

Title: "Copying and copying again.... The Code of Hammurabi, from the Louvre stela to clay tablets"

1) Introduction to Sumero-Akkadian epigraphy
2) Writing medium and materials
3) The epigrapher at work
4) Tools and resources
5) Towards a definition of the Hammurabi's code
6) Laws written on stone: the Louvre stela and the fragments from Susa
7) Laws written on clay: the Hammurabi's code and its written tradition
8) Epigraphy and the Code of Hammurabi: layout, rubrics, series and extracts.
9) Reading, analysis and commentary of selected laws

Epigraphy:

a) J.E. Reade, The manufacture, evaluation and conservation of clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform: traditional problems and solutions, in IRAQ (2017) 79 163–202 [DOI:10.1017/irq.2016.10]
b) C. Michel, What about 3D Manuscripts? The Case of the Cuneiform Clay Tablets, in J.B. Quenzen (ed.) Exploring Written Artefacts. Objects, Methods, and Concepts, vol. 1: 89-114 [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753301-006 ]
c) notes and materials from the classes

Code of Hammurabi:
a) R. Borger, Babylonisch-Assyrische Lesestücke, Band 1, Roma 1979: pp. 2-50.
b) R. Borger, Babylonisch-Assyrische Lesestücke, Band 2, Roma 1979: pp. 286-314.
c) https://cdli.ucla.edu , nr. P464358
d) https://cdli.ucla.edu/dl/pdf/P464358.pdf
e) notes and materials from the classes

Suggested tool:
J. Oelsner, Der Kodex Ḫammu-rāpi. Textkritische Ausgabe und Übersetzung, Münster 2022

All students read:
-- R. Westbrook (ed.), A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law, vol. 1, Leiden-Boston 2003, pp. 361-430.
-- G.B. Lanfranchi, Il “Codice” di Hammurabi promulgazione di norme o celebrazione del buon regno?, Polemos 2/2007, pp. 133-146.
-- K. Wagensonner, Another Copy of the Laws of Hammurabi, RA 1 (2020): 1-14.
R. Hobson, Transforming Literature into Scripture : Texts As Cult Objects at Nineveh and Qumran, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014: pp. 62-74 [ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unive2-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1791002 ]

Working tools:
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

Dictionaries
-- A. George, J. Black, N. Postgate (eds.), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden 2000
-- The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (on-line: https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/assyrian-dictionary-oriental-institute-university-chicago-cad )

Sign lists
-- Fl.Malbran Labat, Manuel d'epigraphie akkadienne: signes, syllabaire, ideogrammes, 6 ed. o succ., Paris 1988 oppure:
-- R. Borger, Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1978

STUDENTS WHO DO NOT ATTEND CLASSES
Students who are planning to access the exam without attending classes are kindly requested to contact the teacher during office hours well in advance to the examination date, in order to build an individual program (Please note: program requests by e-mail are not accepted).

Learning abilities will be assessed by means of:
- online work discussion and assessment
- discussions & activities in class
- a final exam that will consist of an oral test including:
a) questions on the assigned readings
b) reading, tranliteration, transcription, translation and commentary of selected texts among those discussed in class.

More details will be offered to the students in class.

Students will be required to do their homework on a regular basis. Activities will be corrected and discussed in class.

Students will actively participate in the on-line classes, that will allow them to assess step by step the degree of their learning process and actively participate in building their own knowledge of the discipline.

Italian

Students are invited to attend the classes and to take an active part in them: in case they fail to do so, they are invited to ctc the teacher before accessing the exam.

Other courses in the same area, beside Assyriology and Sumero-akkadian Epigraphy include: History of the Ancient Near East; Phoenician-Punic Archaeology, Egyptology, Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Islamic Archaeology and Muslim art History, Art and Visual Culture of the Islamic World.

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development