This year’s Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale is fast approaching!
After a one-year break, we are indeed looking forward for a week full of fruitful discussions and meeting, though virtual. The Organizing Committee has sent us the following contribution, rich with information and useful links, to let us know what to expect from the 67th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. See you there!
The University of Turin, one of the oldest European universities, will host the 67th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale on July 12-16 2021. The conference’s main theme is ‘Eating and Drinking in the Ancient Near East’. After one year break due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale finally resumes and for the first time it will be hosted in Turin.
We wish we could have welcomed the community of ANE scholars in the beautiful venue of Turin, but unfortunately the unforeseeable developments of COVID 19 pandemic forced us to organize a virtual conference.
Participants have recorded their papers that are available to registered users on a dedicated platform specifically built for the event (https://rai2021.streamcloud.it/portal/home). More than 100 papers organized in eight sessions and four workshops have been recorded and are already available (see the list of papers).
During the week July 12–16 only the keynote lectures and the Q&A sessions will be live streamed. The 67th RAI will open with the welcome address by Stefano de Martino (University of Turin), Paolo Bartorelli (First Counsellor, Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs), Gianluca Cuniberti (Deputy Rector, University of Turin) Walther Sallaberger (President of IAA), and Christian Greco (Director of the Museo Egizio). Following the welcome address, the keynote lectures will be delivered by Cécile Michel – “There is None to Set my Table.” Gender Aspects in Food and Drink Preparation – Theo van den Hout – Hittite Foodways: Eating and Drinking in Late Bronze Age Anatolia – and Lucio Milano – Food Consumption Paradigms in the Ancient Near East.
The eight sessions are: “Food Production and Consumption,” “Banquet and Commensality,” “Resource Management: Provisions, Supplies and Storage,” “Rituality,” “Medicine,” “Literature,” “New Perspectives in Ancient Near Eastern Studies,” and “Varia.” The workshops are: “Material Culture and Food in (greater) Mesopotamia from the Iron Age to the Parthian Period,” “The construction of meaning in Ancient Mesopotamian literature and scholarship,” “Life after Empire: Community Responses to Regime Change in Babylonia,” and “Figures of Speech in Mesopotamian and Syro-Anatolian Iron Age Texts.”
Q&A sessions will be organized in two virtual rooms of two sessions each (14-16 and 16:30-19:30, Rome time, see the final timetable). On Thursday, 15th July 2021, a plenary session will host the IAA General Meeting (16-19:30, Rome time).
On Friday, 16th July 2021, the 67th RAI will close with a special event, the projection of “Thus Speaks Tarām-Kūbi, Assyrian Correspondence” a multi award-winning film by Cécile Michel and Vanessa Tubiana-Brun. Through the voice of Tarām-Kūbi, an Assyrian woman who corresponded with her brother and her husband in Kaneš, the film illuminates the life of the Assyrian merchants in Kaneš (trailer of the English version: https://vimeo.com/433753829).
The 67th RAI is supported by the University of Torino, the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino (CRAST) and the Museo Egizio, and has received the patronage of the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The 67th RAI is available on internet (https://www.rai2021.unito.it/home-page) and social media on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/RAITorino2021), Twitter (@RAITorino2021), and Instagram (raitorino2021).
The organizing committee