The IAA awards an annual prize for the best PhD dissertation in the field of Assyriology (understood broadly to include all cuneiform studies) and Mesopotamian Archaeology.

2023

Winners: Clélia Paladre, “Les sceaux-cylindres proto-élamites: productions d’un phénomène revisité.”

and

Tomoki Kitazumi, “Übersetzungstätigkeit und Übersetzungsverfahren im hethitischen Reich.” 

2022

Winner: Melania Zingarello, “Anatomie d’un temps et d’un espace : dynamiques de l’évolution céramique à l’aube du phénomène akkadien dans la Mésopotamie protodynastique.”

2021

Winner: Erica Scarpa, “Social History Through Textual Patterns: Study on the Social Organization at Ebla during the Age of the Archives (Syria, 24th cent. BCE).”

2020

Winner: Étienne Bordreuil, “Peser, mesurer, compter à Ras Shamra/Ougarit à la fin de l’âge du Bronze récent.” 

Runner-up: Zsombor J. Földi, “The Trial Documents from Old Babylonian Larsa in their Legal, Economic, Social and Archival Contexts.” 

 

See below for a list of previous winners.

 

Please observe the following rules and regulations:

Rules and regulations:

  1. Starting in 2017, the IAA will award €1,500 to the best recent PhD dissertation in Assyriology and Mesopotamian archaeology. The funding for this award is intended to provide assistance for the publication of the dissertation. This assistance may take many forms, including a grant directly to the author for manuscript preparation or a subvention to a publisher. However, if the dissertation has not been accepted for publication by a publisher within four years of the date of the award, then the winner will forfeit the award and the subsidy must be returned to the IAA if it has been distributed.
  1. To be eligible, the dissertation must have been completed and officially approved and defended within the two years prior to the deadline for applications (November 1).
  1. As the prize is intended to help the publication process, the dissertation may not have been published to be eligible.
  1. Under exceptional circumstances, a runner-up will be awarded €500.
  1. The award winner will be acknowledged at the General Meeting of the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (RAI).
  1. The dissertation award program is open to IAA members from any country. There is no age limit. Applicants can apply only once.
  1. Submissions are accepted in all three official IAA/RAI languages (English, German, and French). The online form should be completed and the dissertation submitted in PDF format with embedded fonts no later than November 1.
  1. The IAA board will select one if its members who will be in charge of the organization of the prize for a three year term. A committee consisting of all the board members will first evaluate the submitted dissertations. If a candidate’s PhD supervisor is a member of the board, such member(s) will recuse themselves from the review of that candidate’s dissertation.
  1. Every dissertation will be reviewed by three board members, who will each submit a report to the full board no later than May 1. Every board member will, with the help of all the reports, select the three best PhD dissertations and establish a clear and well-argued ranking of these no later than June 1.
  1. The board member in charge of the organization of this prize will name two other board members to form a small committee of three members. No member who supervised one of the submissions will be eligible to serve on the small committee. The committee of three board members will do the final selection of the best dissertation, based on the rankings of the board members, no later than June 15. The selection will be submitted at the Board meeting of that year’s Rencontre. The prize will be publicly awarded during the general meeting.

 

IAA_Dissertation-Award_Form

Please send the form above completed and the pdf version of the dissertation to the following email address::

IAAdissertationprize@iaassyriology.com

 

Previous winners

2019

Winner: Shiyanthi Thavapalan with a dissertation entitled “The Meaning of Colour in Ancient Mesopotamia.”

Runner-up: Marine Béranger with a dissertation entitled “Développements des pratiques d’écritures et de l’expression écrite:  recherches sur les lettres de l’époque amorite (2002-1595 av. J.-C).“

 

2018

Winner: Jana Matuszak, “‘Und du, du bist eine Frau?!’ Untersuchungen zu sumerischen literarischen Frauenstreitgesprächen nebst einer editio princeps von Zwei Frauen B.”

 

2017

Winner: Bastian Still, “The Social World of the Babylonian Priest”

Runner-up: Grégoire Nicolet, “La “Maison aux Tablettes” et l’enseignement à Mari à l’époque paléo-babylonienne (ca 1800 av. J.-C.).”

 

Between 2013 and 2015, the prize was sponsored by De Gruyter.

2015

Winner: C. Jay Crisostomo, “Bilingual Education in Scholarship: The Old Babylonian Word List Izi”.

 

2014

Winner: Julien Monerie, “Aspects de l’économie de la Babylonie aux époques hellénistique et parthe.”

 

2013

Winner: Tobias Scheucher, “The Transmissional and Functional Context of the Lexical Lists from Hattusha and from the Contemporaneous Traditions in Late-Bronze-Age Syria.”