Life at the Margins: Questions in Ancient Near Eastern Social History Workshop

Last Friday – April 17, 2015 – ISAW hosted the Life at the Margins: Questions in Ancient Near Eastern Social History workshop, organized by ISAW visiting research scholar Nicholas Reid and ISAW graduate student Jonathan Valk. The workshop brought together leading scholars to draw attention to social groups, social structures, and social problems that fall outside of the usual remit of ancient Near Eastern research. In this respect the workshop was a resounding success, illuminating questions surrounding prisoners of war, the early lives of servile children, variant forms of socio-political organization, infant loss, control over interaction with women of inferior status, and the social location of hunger. Amid high public interest, the speakers and members of the audience engaged in a productive exchange of knowledge and ideas. Possibilities for publishing the proceedings of the workshop for broader distribution are currently being assessed.