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.

No prerequisite.

Elementary Akkadian (Assyriology) may be a plus and 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: "Mesopotamian Libraries in the 1st mill. BCE"
0) Introduction to ANE's Literature
1) The Library of Ashurbanipal
2) Libraries in Babylonia
3) Libraries: structure, formation and make-up
4) The contribution of rulers and scribes
5) Reconstructing the libraries: reading from the original of selected manuscripts
6) Libraries and digital projects ((Liber; eBL, Ashurbanipal Library Project)
Students are required to prepare the cuneiform texts at home on a regular basis and prepare selected readings for the classes if they know Akkadian; students who do not have previous knowledge of Akkadian will be asked to develop small research papers on the main topics of the course.

Literature (one of the following titles):
a) A. Lenzi, An Introduction to Akkadian Literature: Contexts and Content, Eisenbrauns 2019.
b) L. Verderame, Letterature dell'antica Mesopotamia, Milano 2016

Other readings:
E. Robson, "Reading the Libraries of Assyria and Babylonia", in J. König, K. Oikonomopolou, G. Woolf, Ancient Libraries, Cambridge, 2013: 38-56.
E. Robson, Ancient Knowledge Networks, London 2019 (pp. 1-148): open access: https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/125022
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.
I. Finkel, "Ashurbanipal's Library: an overview" in K. Ryholt - G. Barjamovic, Libraries before Alexandria: Ancient Near Eastern Traditions, Oxford 2019: 367-389

On-line resources:
-- http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/
-- http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/asbp/rlasb/

Further readings and sources discussed during the course.

Tools and grammars:
W. Von Soden, Grundriss der Akkadischen Grammatik, Roma 1995 (3rd ed)
J. Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, Winona Lake 2011 (3rd ed)
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 )

The evaluation process will take into account:
- students' proficiency in doing their homework and class participation (20%+20%)
- f2f exam on the main course topics (40%)

Classes will consist in seminars where the main topics and texts of the course will be discussed jointly by teacher and students.
Flipped classroom.

Italian

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