Xiaoli Ouyang

Xiaoli Ouyang received her PhD in Akkadian and Sumerian Studies (generally known as Mesopotamian Studies) in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, March 2009. Thanks to her BS in economics, she is broadly interested in economic developments and administrative structures of ancient societies. Her dissertation focuses on Umma, an archeological site in Mesopotamia that dates to the Ur III period (c. 2100-2000 BCE) and has yielded close to 30,000 texts written in cuneiform on clay tablets. In her dissertation, she tracks the movements of silver in the Umma province as a way to reconstruct the provincial administrative hierarchy and understand its interaction with the crown. She also identifies the important role played by the merchants in helping the Umma government dispose of staple goods to obtain silver. Her project at ISAW targets the temple treasuries in Umma. She plans to investigate the source of and control over the Umma temple treasuries, which often feature luxury items such as gems and precious metals not indigenous to Mesopotamia. Using the temple treasuries as a lens, she hopes to gain insight into the operation of the temple households in Umma vis-à-vis their de facto control by the governor or the king. She will also compare Umma with other Ur III provinces in terms of gubernatorial influence over temple households in order to reveal the checks and balances between local powers and the central government during the Ur III period.