Today we have the opportunity to know better the newly-appointed Director of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten: NINO). Willemijn Waal, who has been appointed for a period of 5 years starting from 1 January 2020, is university lecturer at Leiden University, specializing in Hittite Anatolia. She has kindly accepted to answer our questions about herself, the NINO’s past activities and future prospects, as well as her plans and hopes for activities to carry out during the five years of her Directorship. Enjoy the reading!
Please, tell us something about yourself!
My name is Willemijn Waal and I was born and raised in The Netherlands. My academic background is best described as hybrid; I hold an MA in Classical Languages and Anatolian languages (specialization Hittite), both from the University of Amsterdam. My dissertation dealt with the cuneiform tablet collections and record management of the Hittite Empire (1650-1180 BCE). Central to this research was the clay tablet as artefact and it involved a diplomatic study of the physical features of the tablets (size, shape, format, layout, etc.) and their relationship with the text genres written on them. Since my PhD, my research has mainly focused on the origins and materiality of writing, in particular the role of perishable writing materials. Scholars in the field of cuneiform studies are in the fortunate position that the cuneiform script was primarily written on the very durable material clay, which is why thousands of tablets have survived. The situation is quite different for other writing systems that were predominantly written down on ephemeral materials such as papyrus, leather and wood. Though such materials might sometimes survive in the favourable climate of Egypt, in regions like the Aegean and Anatolia they are irrefutably lost. In these cases, we have to rely on indirect evidence and/or chance finds, which only show us part of the picture. Recently, I have been working on the introduction of the alphabet to Greece, an event that is usually dated at the beginning of 8th century, when the first surviving inscriptions on pottery and rocks turn up. There is, however, compelling indirect evidence that suggests that the alphabet was already in use much earlier in the Aegean, written on perishable materials. I am further very much interested in literacy and orality in the ancient world, notably the links between classical and Near Eastern epic and literature. Since 2011, I have been working as a university lecturer for the BA program Ancient Near Eastern Studies and the MA program Classics and Ancient Civilizations at Leiden University.
The NINO library
And could you tell us something about the NINO, the recent changes and the future?
The NINO (Netherlands Institute for the Near East) was founded in 1939 as an independent institute with the objective to stimulate research relating to the ancient Near East. Its set-up is interdisciplinary, bringing together the archaeology, history, languages and cultures of the Levant, Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran.
The most recent volume of Achaemenid History published by NINO.
For many scholars, the NINO is probably best known for is superb open-shelf library with one of the most complete book collections on the ancient Near East, and its publications. These include two journals (Bibliotheca Orientalis and Anatolica) and several series (PIHANS, Achaemenid History, Egyptologische Uitgaven), which are published and distributed by Peeters Publishers in Leuven. Last but not least, the NINO houses several important collections, such as the De Liagre Böhl collection, consisting of some 3.000 clay tablets (Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian) and a smaller number of seals, bullae and other archeological objects. These objects were brought together by the Dutch Assyriologist Frans de Liagre Böhl in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Another formidable collection of the NINO are the ca. 20.000 photographs made by Frank Scholten during his travels in Palestina in the 1920’s. In addition, we have archival collections of various sorts.
In 2017 some important changes were made in the organization and structure of the NINO. The institute entered a close cooperation with the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and Leiden University, who are now the curators of the Böhl collection and the NINO library respectively. My predecessor Caroline Waerzeggers has done an amazing job in shaping the new ‘NINO 2.0’ and has developed some stimulating initiatives and new funding instruments. These include an annual NINO postdoctoral fellowship, which is aimed at scholars in their early career (up to 4 years after PhD). During their 2-year appointment at the NINO, they will get the change to carry out their own research, to organize a conference and to develop their teaching skills by designing a Research Master course. Other funding instruments include the NINO mobility grants, for incoming and outgoing scholars, and subsidies for conferences and archeological fieldwork in the ancient Near East. Another new initiative is the NINO visiting professorship, for which we invite an international scholar for a research stay at the NINO. This year, we had the honor of welcoming Dimitri Laboury as our first visiting professor, who unfortunately had to cut short his stay with us because of the COVID-19 situation. We hope he will be able to visit us again this autumn!
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| Two objects from the Liagre Böhl collection | |
Are there any ongoing projects?
A very exciting ongoing project is the digitization of the above-mentioned photographs of Frank Scholten (1881-1942), a Dutch ‘gentleman-scholar’ and amateur photographer who travelled in Palestine in 1921-1923. He published a number of these photos in two volume publication La Palestine illustrée (1929, with later editions in English, German, and Dutch). Unfortunately, he died before completing the other volumes he had planned and most of his photos were never published. This is regrettable, as the material is fascinating for a number of reasons. Sary Zananiri, who is working on the Scholten collection as a post-doc for the NINO and the NWO project Crossroads, has shown that the photos are a unique testimony of the rise of archaeology as an academic discipline and the growth of its popularisation by means of tourism. Unlike many European photographers of his time, Scholten was not only interested in the Biblical sites and monuments, but also in the communities living there. His photos give an interesting glimpse in the social dynamics of the various local people during the British Mandate.
A photograph taken by Frank Scholten
In cooperation with the University Library of Leiden, all Scholten photographs are currently being digitized with the aim to make them accessible online via the UBL digital collections. We hope to complete this project by next summer. As an appetizer, there is now a small exhibition of some of Scholten’s work at the National Museum of Antiquities, which will be on display till October.
What activities do you have planned for the near future and how can researchers, scholars, students and amateurs be informed about your initiatives and the activities of the NINO?
Unfortunately, the start of my term has been somewhat overshadowed by the COVID-19 crisis; all events planned for the spring had to be cancelled. Luckily, we have been able to postpone most of them and I look forward to the coming academic year, when they can hopefully take place. A big event at the beginning of November (6th-7th) will be the first annual NINO conference, organized by our postdoctoral fellow Lucy Bennison-Chapman. The theme of this conference is ‘Bookkeeping without writing; Early administrative technologies in context’ and it will bring together various specialists from different disciplines to discuss the use of non-literate systems of information storage in the ancient Near East. We hope it will be possible to welcome all international speakers in Leiden, if not, part of the conference will take place online. This and all other upcoming events will be announced on our website.
One item from the NINO collection of glass-slides
How will your personal research interests in Hittite Anatolia, materiality of writing, orality and literacy and cross-cultural contacts in the ancient Near East be reflected in your activities as Director of NINO?
The NINO supports and facilitates all types of research relating to the ancient Near East and this will remain unchanged. The directorship of the NINO is an appointment for 2 days a week, which means that I can devote the remaining time to my research and teaching. In the coming fall semester, I will be teaching a course on the Mycenaean World, which will bring together my various research interests; it will focus on the interactions between the Aegean and the Near East, the spread of literacy in the Late Bronze Age, and study the Homeric epics from an ancient near Eastern perspective, as they bear so many similarities with, e.g. the epic of Gilgamesh.