Dear Mar Shiprim readers,
With less than a month to go till the 69th Rencontre in Helsinki, we speak to University of Helsinki’s Prof. Saana Svärd about the inspiration behind the theme ‘Politics, Peoples, and Polities in the Ancient Near East,’ the organising process, and the highlights that this year’s programme and the host city have to offer.
Looking forward to seeing you in Helsinki!
Pavla Rosenstein
Mar Shiprim Editor
In the spotlight –the 69th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Helsinki
Could you please tell us about yourself and this year’s Rencontre host – the University of Helsinki?
I am the professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies and the director of the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE), as well as the PI of the project Embodied Emotions: Ancient Mesopotamia and Today, here at the University of Helsinki.
I began my studies as an undergraduate at the University of Helsinki in 1998 and was a student assistant at the last Rencontre in Helsinki in 2001. This proved to be a remarkable experience, and certainly affected my desire to pursue academic research as a career choice. I completed my PhD at the University of Helsinki in 2012, with a dissertation on the women of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, supervised by Prof. Simo Parpola. I was able to stay on, first as a postdoctoral researcher, then as a docent, and later became a professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. I was invited to the professorship thanks to securing funding for the Centre of Excellence ANEE with my team. Applying for ANEE was a collaborative effort with colleagues at the university who had been working for the Centre of Excellence in Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT) under Prof. Martti Nissinen at the faculty of Theology.
The University of Helsinki is divided into faculties, and our BA and MA students can pursue a degree (currently in Finnish only) in Ancient Near East Studies within the faculty of Arts. PhD students can pursue a degree (in Finnish or English) under a separate track, usually under History or Linguistics also within the faculty of Arts. We closely collaborate with the faculty of Theology, and students can take language and other courses across the different faculties.
While I am currently the only professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the university, University of Helsinki has recently been able to offer a tenure track position to Dr. Jason Silverman in the faculty of Theology, thanks to his European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant for a project researching the impact of temple work on economy and society in the Persian Empire.
How is Assyriology perceived at the University of Helsinki and in Finland more broadly?
We work hard to collaborate with other disciplines and institutions, for example with Classical studies and the faculty of Theology within the University of Helsinki, but we also have active international collaboration. For example, Digital Applications in Assyriology Nordic Summer School has been a popular initiative (Uppsala 2022, Helsinki 2023 and Copenhagen 2024). Furthermore, many of our PhDs undertake research at a number of different institutions, for example docent Tero Alstola, whose dissertation was jointly conducted in Leiden within Assyriology and in Helsinki within Old Testament studies
As a further example of interdisciplinary collaboration in Helsinki, the recent CSTT publication Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions: Methodological Encounters and Debates (eds. Nissinen & Jokiranta) features contributions from Assyriologists and Biblical scholars from Helsinki and internationally, and Prof. Martti Nissinen at the faculty of Theology was himself a student of Prof. Simo Parpola many years ago and also published in the SAAS series (SAAS 7).
Within Finland, topics related to ancient Near Eastern Studies are currently only taught and researched at the University of Helsinki on the BA and MA level. However, we do try and work on public outreach in other cities and are currently developing a Finnish language MOOC which can be used as part of Finnish high school teaching as well. Planned launching date is 2025.
RAI 69 will be held at the Porthania building at the University of Helsinki (pictured).
Photograph by HY Ari Aalto.
How did this year’s Rencontre committee decide on the theme ‘Politics, Peoples and Polities’?
We tried to identify a theme that would be relevant to all Assyriologists as well as scholars in related fields. We brainstormed a number of different options, including gender, although we did not want to repeat a theme that was already explored at the last Rencontre in Helsinki. What was also important to us was to have a theme that provided cohesion across presentations, and we felt that political structures – essentially the study of how people identify and organize themselves – was relevant enough to weave a common thread through the conference. Finally, we felt that the theme provided an appropriate avenue through which to explore and revisit a range of methodologies and theoretical frameworks, which could prove useful to scholars tackling a wide range of research projects.
Ultimately we tried to reflect the infinitely complex and diverse human social organisation by looking at the development of systems for decision-making in groups (politics), the articulation of collective identities (peoples) and the establishment of mechanisms for the regulation, distribution and management of people as well as their goods and properties (polities). The ancient Near East offers an immensely rich record of these forms of social organisations and their development over a long period of time and under different ecological conditions. We therefore felt that while the theme relates closely to our work at the ANEE, it was also broad enough to provide stimulation and inspiration relating to a range of chronological and geographical studies within Assyriology and related fields.
And what about this year’s keynote speakers?
We tried to think about the Rencontre’s audience as a whole and were therefore committed to selecting three keynote speakers that would be interesting to participants engaging with different research relating to social organisation and identity formation.
Dr. Claudia Gatz will be able to provide an archaeological perspective by examining the role of material culture when studying ancient peoples and groups. She will also review and reframe current archaeological methodologies, identifying blind spots and exploring new ways of re-imaging socio-political pasts.
Dr. Seth Richardson, through his generalist-comparatist approach, will focus on methodology, in particular historiography – in other words how to generate meaning from the study of ancient historical records individuals and institutions left behind – in a way that is complementary to material and philological approaches. In his lecture, he will exemplify theoretical methodologies through concrete case studies relating to the conceptualization of the individual within a group setting in Mesopotamian society.
Dr. Kristin Kleber will complete our holistic approach by offering a more traditionally philological analysis of textual material with a new focus on identity-formation through three different complex polities in the first millennium BCE (the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and the Persian empires), while at the same time tackling modern re-conceptualisations of Achaemenid tolerance drawn from the Cyrus Cylinder.
What are some other highlights from this year’s program?
When we were organising the sessions within the general track, we decided to follow a theme rather than focus on chronological or geographical boundaries, so that participants can engage with a range of work carried out on similar topics, even if they cover a different time period or locality. For example the first track on Monday covers social history and identity, starting with Nielsen’s ‘Imagining of Babylonia,’ followed by Djabellaoui on Chaldeans in Babylonia, Zilberg on Carians, Anton on ‘Assyrian Continuity,’ Wallis on structures as a methodological framework and then finally a talk by Tavernier on drinking, right before the opening reception! I would therefore recommend finding a theme of particular interest that can be followed through the day through different perspectives and approaches.
It would also be remiss of me not to mention our workshop on ‘Helsinki Research from “State Archives of Assyria” to “Ancient Near Eastern Empires,”’ (on Wednesday) which will cover research carried out in Helsinki over the past several decades. We will discuss how the SAA project came about and how it impacted the field, conduct an interview with Simo Parpola, and hold a discussion of current projects and future goals in Helsinki, including discussion on the Helsinki produced white paper on collaboration and cowriting in ancient Near Eastern studies.
If this is your first time in Helsinki, I would highly recommend some of the outings on offer on Wednesday 10th July, in particular the guided Suomenlinna Fortress tour – a Unesco heritage site offering a fascinating insight into Finnish and northern European histories over several past centuries. And of course if you have yet to experience a Finnish sauna, the excursion to Uunisaari is a must!
RAI 69 Organising Committee (from left to right): Repekka Uotila, Jonathan Valk, Marta Lorenzon, Saana Svärd, Tero Alstola, Joanna Töyräänvuori and Taru Auranne (Ellie Bennett missing from photo). Photograph by Samuel Reinikainen.
What has been the easiest and the most challenging aspect of organising this year’s conference?
Organising a conference of this scale and complexity has been a huge endeavour and I have to highlight how wonderful and seamless it has been working with the other members of the organising committee, who have all been absolutely brilliant. Thanks to everyone’s efficiency and focus, none of us have had to put our research on hold, and I would especially like to thank our administrative team, led by Taru Auranne, as well as our researcher-organisers: Repekka Uotila, Ellie Bennett, Tero Alstola, Jonathan Valk, Joanna Töyräänvuori and Marta Lorenzon.
The most stressful part has been the budgeting. Because of inflation, our original calculations had to be revised and we had to dedicate significant time and effort in order to find creative solutions, while remaining committed to keeping our registration fees as low as possible. However, I’m happy to say we got there in the end.
And finally, what do you hope attendees will take away from the conference?
I hope that people will come away with a wide range of experiences. The general topic is cohesive enough that participants will hopefully think about social groups and how they changed and shifted over time, with relevance to their own particular interests. Because so many of the abstracts also delve into methodological and theoretical ideas, I also hope that some participants will be able to think about new tools and frameworks they can apply to their own research work. Finally, I hope everyone will go away feeling that the theme provided a good balance of cohesion and diversity for everyone to feel included, engaged and inspired!
Interview by Pavla Rosenstein
The 69th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale will take place 8 – 12 July, 2024 at the University of Helsinki, Finland.