Ancient and Modern Perspectives on Historiography in Mesopotamia

The workshop is intended to broaden and deepen the scope of this year’s seminar dedicated to the topic The History of Assyria in Ancient and Modern Historiography. We will expand the scope in time and space and further explore text categories other than narrative, such as lists and omen compendia, by also including Sumerian and Babylonian texts. The goal is to acquire a correct understanding of the ancients’ intentionality in referencing mythical, legendary, and historical figures and events, which are included in these text categories as well as genres such as chronicles. The notion of the past as either paradigmatic model or reconstructed event history will be at the center of our discussion, as will be the setting and function of the texts. We will further scrutinize the applicability of modern taxonomies such as chronicles, annals, etc. to ancient textual production and continue to investigate how ancient historiographic writing interfaces with what modern scholarship tends to subsume under fiction and literature.

Registration is now closed, we have reached capacity for this event.

Program

9:30am - Beate Pongratz-Leisten (ISAW)
Between Genre and Meaning: Reading Assyrian Royal Inscriptions

10:30am - Coffee

11:00am - Piotr Michalowski (University of Michigan)
The Mesopotamian King Lists: History in the Making

12:00pm - Lunch

1:00pm - Nele Ziegler (EPHE, Paris)
Shamshi-Adad I: An Emblematic Figure of Assyrian History

2:00pm - Coffee

2:30pm - Peter Machinist (Harvard)
The Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta I and Assyrian Views of the Past

3:30pm - Jean-Jacques Glassner (CNRS, Paris)
The Diviner as Historian

4:30pm - Final Discussion

To RSVP, please email isaw@nyu.edu.

This is an invitation only event.