The University of Hamburg has not had a full professorial chair in Assyriology since 1999. But now, Cécile Michel and her PhD-student Wiebke Beyer are breathing new life into cuneiform studies in Hamburg. As President of the IAA, Michel shares her thought on the joys, potentials, and challenges of the Read more…
The spotlight falls on the University of Helsinki, where Saana Svärd and Aleksi Sahala tells us about a major new research centre, automated word analysis, a passion for methodology, a macabre motto, and the transformation of Assyriology in Finland. The students have always been wonderful and smart. I think it’s Read more…
Ahmed Kamil Mohammed, Expert at the Iraq Museum (currently Director), reports on the latest news in the struggle to protect, preserve, and rebuild ancient Iraqi heritage. The year 2017 has seen many and varied activities as part of this project: everything from visits by international scholars, meetings with UNESCO, and Read more…
For close to a decade, the Future of Babylon project has worked to conserve the archaeological remains of the most famous Mesopotamian city. As part of the World Monuments Fund, the project seeks to redress decades of neglect and damaging interventions during the 1980s. Jeff Allen reports on the project’s Read more…
A small but significant collection of cuneiform tablets lies in Moscow, in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The museum now brings news of many exciting initiatives, including the creation of an online, freely available database of cuneiform texts. High-resolution photography using a new computer technology has allowed for Read more…
The study of the Ancient Near East in Japan has marked an anniversary very much in the spirit of cuneiform cultures: the 60th installment of its research workshop, Sumer Kenkyu-kai. The anniversary was celebrated with due distinctions, including a massive chocolate cake and a cuneiform watch presented to the co-founder Read more…
Culled from the Agade mailing list for your convenience, here is a list of publications in the fields of Assyriology and Mesopotamian Archeology so far in the Spring of 2017. Please do write to us if we have overlooked a publication, or if anything should be added to the list! Read more…
At the end of July this year, Assyriologists from all over the world will be travelling to Marburg to take part in the 63rd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. The conference itself will be an exciting array of papers and posters, focusing on the interplay between past, present, and future. But what Read more…
The excavation of Tell Zurghul, ancient Nigin, has now completed its second season, and already fascinating results have appeared. Davide Nadali from the Sapienza University of Rome and Andrea Polcaro from the University of Perugia give us a glimpse of their findings, and it is clear that their ambitions for Read more…
For our third issue of the recurring theme ‘In Popular Culture’, we turn to Assyriology’s ‘greatest hit’ outside the scholarly community: the Epic of Gilgamesh. Like no other text from Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh has caught the attention of a modern audience. But why Gilgamesh? What do the modern artists, poets, authors, Read more…