At the beginning of this year, the “Young Italian Researchers of History and Philology of the Ancient Near East” gathered for the second time (Mar Shiprim already published a report of their first meeting), to present the progress of their research and discuss the projects in which they are involved.
We thank Ludovica Bertolini, PhD student at the “Sapienza Università di Roma”, for this interesting report of those two days of meetings and conferences, which illustrate the liveliness of the many activities carried out by early career researchers in Italy.
On the 21st and 22nd of February, 2019, La Sapienza Università di Roma hosted the GRISeF (Giovani Ricercatori Italiani di Storia e Filologia – “Young Italian Researchers of History and Philology”) – previously GRIA (Giovani Ricercatori Italiani di Assiriologia – Young Italian Researchers of Assyriology) Conference. The organizing committee consisted of three PhD students of La Sapienza, Università di Roma, Ludovica Bertolini, Marinella Ceravolo, and Flavia Pacelli. The conference was organised with the support of two PhD Research Programmes available at La Sapienza on: Storia, Antropologia, Religioni (History, Anthropology, Religions) and Storia e Filologia del Mondo Antico (History and Philology of the Ancient World). The two academic programmes have also granted the funding needed for the organization of the whole event.
The organising committee is deeply thankful to the two above mentioned funding bodies as well as to the Coordinators of both Doctoral research areas, professors and researchers, who have happily agreed to present the keynote lectures and the final round table. We would also like to thank all speakers and attendees, who were present at the Conference.
The Conference included 14 papers, 4 keynote lectures and a final round table. The whole event was organized in 4 sessions and took place over a day and a half.
The first day, after the institutional welcoming address by Roberto Nicolai (Coordinator of the Philology and History of the Ancient World doctoral program) and Emmanuel Betta (Coordinator of the History, Anthropology and Religions doctoral program), the first keynote lecture was given by Franco D’Agostino who, in his speech, highlighted the need for cooperation between oriental disciplines.
The first session, The man between internal and external spatiality, began with the paper of Gioele Zisa (Università di Palermo). With his anthropological approach to Mesopotamian medical field, Zisa has drawn a critical analysis of the epigraphic data, and particularly, to the use of modern diachronic categories in the interpretation of the Mesopotamian study of the body and its clinical symptoms.
“A matter of Space: life in Mesopotamian domestic space between the end of the III and the II millennium BCE,” was delivered by Andrea Rebecca Marrocchi Savoi (La Sapienza Università di Roma). She has investigated the role of family members within the domestic context, applying both a philological and anthropological approach, including crucial archaeological evidence.
The first session ended with the paper of Francesca Minen (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) and Silvia Salin (Università degli Studi di Verona), entitled “The space of cure. Places of interaction between doctor and patient in ancient Mesopotamia”. In their joint paper, they, in accordance with other specialists, were able to argue not only that there were actually many different figures in charge of caring for the sick, but that they used to practice in different environmental situation such as: the sick’s bedroom, the roof of the patience’s house, banks of particular waterways, the desert, or temple structures.
The second session was titled Writing space: palaeography and epigraphy. The first speaker Armando Bramanti (Université de Genève), presented “Writing space management: palaeography and identity in the third millennium in Mesopotamia.” Bramanti showed how a diplomatic and palaeographic approach to the texts is able to provide new interesting information about the sources and those behind them.
The last paper, presented in the afternoon, was by Valerio Pisaniello (Università degli studi di Verona). His work is part of a project (PALaC) developed by the University of Verona. Starting by noting a symptomatic lack in the field, Pisaniello showed how he was able to fix a typology of returns, to then analyse, specifically, those cases in which the return of a line is marked by the so-called Glossenkeil. With his study, Pisaniello has finally demonstrated that the analysis of the use of Glossenkeil as a re-entry mark can help in the identification of the scribe.
Lucia Mori (Sapienza Università di Roma) closed the first day of conference with her keynote lecture, “Private and public space in the late Bronze Age Syria. Some reflections.”
Mori started her paper by giving a preliminary account of what the terms ‘public’ and ‘private’ mean, in the frame of concepts like “heritage” and “space”. In her paper, she showed how the concept of space has not been merely a monolithic idea but has been used to spread into different directions, drawing a distinction between private and public space, also with a vibrant range of shades in which the two opposite principle could merge. Mori also approached another important element, namely how the space – public or private – has affected the daily life of ancient human groups’ relationship with the sacred, the law and the administration.
Giovanna Matini (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) opened the second day of the conference with a talk entitled “The AMA project: a wholly Italian research,” where she gave a broad framework of the intense and fruitful experience held by Claudio Saporetti and his team in Rome. The results of the project were published by the editorial house Informatic@pplicata between December 2016 and April 2017.
The third session was named Space and the gods. Beatrice Baragli (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) presented her work, “A place in the sun (?): Light and darkness in Kiutu prayers and in Sumerian literature.” Baragli showed a sensitive care on an often-neglected aspect of the sun god Utu / Šamaš, namely, his nocturnal journey to the underworld and his relationship with the spirits of the dead. She also paid close attention to Sumerian terms (and possible Akkadian translations) and metaphors regarding light and darkness and the contexts in which they occur in the textual evidence.
“The vast land, you cross every day: the cycle of the sun in the Great Hymn to Šamaš” was the title of the paper presented by Geraldina Rozzi (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia). Rozzi’s paper offered an analysis of The Great Hymn to Šamaš of the I millennium BCE in its poetic and structural characteristics; the paper investigated the stylistic and rhetorical formulas used to describe and distinguish the divine and human space.
Francesca Nebiolo (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris) introduced the attendants to the Old Babylonian oaths, and particularly to those from Mari. With the paper entitled “Affirmatio religiosa, earthly management: those responsible for the oaths in mariote sources,” Nebiolo explained how a number of religious and political norms are included in oaths giving them social value, that, together with the rituals associated to it, give birth to a complex system in which both religious personnel and crown-officers are involved
A comparative approach characterized Bernardo Ballesteros’ (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) talk, entitled “Singing for the gods: comparative notes on Atra-ḫasīs and the Iliad of Homer”. With his classical background, Ballesteros intends to propose a reflection on the oral tradition and aural reception behind the two case studies mentioned here. He has brought his analysis to the critical study of the structure and the formulae of the two compositions.
The next speaker was Claus Ambos (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg), with a talk on “The concept of space from the ancient and modern point of view.”
In his lecture, Ambos presented the dichotomy of the approach to the notion of space in ancient and modern cultures in order to stimulate a discussion on the applicability of these new trends to the Ancient Near East.
The fourth session, Managing space: landscape and resources, began with the paper “The Tigri’s delta in the III millennium BCE.” by Edoardo Zanetti La Sapienza Università di Roma – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München). Zanetti offered a reflection on the importance of this ecological context in the everyday life of whose inhabitants, and he highlighted how the ancient course of the Tigris has been a fundamental communication route and the main water distributor in the region.
Regarding the administrative context, Sergio Alivernini (Orientální ústav, Akademie věd České republiky, Praha) presented a paper entitled “The temple households and the management of agricultural space: the case of the province of Ĝirsu / Lagaš at the end of the third millennium BCE.” In his talk, Alivernini provided an overview of the data concerning the network of temple households of the region as it appears from the administrative corpus dated to the Ur III period. He was able to detect the ancient techniques for measuring fields, as well as the dimensions and shapes of the allotments he has found within the texts. Moreover, Alivernini has detected and introduced the professional figures, linked to the bureaucratic machine, who were responsible for providing the central administration with all the information needed to collect the data they required.
Maddalena Diaco (LaSapienza Università di Roma) in her talk “The households in the IV millennium BCE Mesopotamia: administrative temple structure or private institutions?” provided the audience with an overview of the signs that take on the value of a building as they appear in the IV millennium script. Diaco also attempted to identify, within the city, private and public spaces, related to the temple, or to everyday life.
The last paper of the second day of the conference shifted focus from the textual evidence of the IV millennium BCE, to the visual arts of the I millennium BCE. Ludovico Portuese (Freie Universität Berlin) presented on “Imago imaginis. Engravings in the bas-reliefs of Aššurnasirpal II in Kalḫu.” Portuese’s paper focused on the peculiar recursion of geometric-floral motifs, mythical-symbolic scenes and narrative depictions in the engravings of the various rooms of the North-West Palace. Moreover, Portuese made a connection between the artistic apparatus of the bas-reliefs and the function of the rooms where they appear.
Coming back to the literary material, Lorenzo Verderame (Sapienza Università di Roma) in his lecture, “Urban space between harmony and chaos,” offered an overview of the ecological, ideological and sociological situations that have characterized the wide territory of Mesopotamia. The very focus of his contribution was the strong opposition between the cosmological order embodied in the city, dwelling of the city-god, and the chaotic unpredictability of the surrounding areas that belong to a qualitatively different domain.
Finally, special thanks go to Anna Maria Gloria Capomacchia (La Sapienza Università di Roma) who chaired the conclusive round table, in which all papers were commented again in order to sum up the conclusions and to encourage discussion not only between the speakers but also actively involving the auditors.
The very ending of the day saw the meeting of the GRISeF members. The discussion was chaired by the hosts of the conferences Ludovica Bertolini, Marinella Ceravolo and Flavia Pacelli, together with the founders of the GRISeF group, Francesca Minen and Silvia Salin. The topics presented by the group had been previously agreed on the Google group and were mainly related to the organization of any future events and the candidacy of the next hosting university.