Winter School on Cuneiform Culture and the Akkadian Language 2024
Outline
Our international Winter School on Cuneiform Culture and the Akkadian language is taught by Cécile Michel, a renowned French Assyriologist and Principal Investigator in Archiving Artefacts (Research Field E). Cécile Michel became an honorary professor at UHH’s Faculty of Humanities in 2016 and received an honorary doctorate from Copenhagen University in 2017. This one-week intensive introductory workshop is open to students from all backgrounds and will take a hands-on approach, making use of many practical exercises. It is taught in English.
The Akkadian language was t
he main language of Mesopotamia from the middle of the 3rd millennium to the end of the 1st millennium BCE. It was noted with cuneiform signs – like most of the languages of the Near East at that time. The course will focus on the Old Babylonian dialect, written during the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, which corresponds to a normative state of Akkadian, and whose most famous sample is the Code of Hammurabi (18th century BCE). Cuneiform writing, used to note this dialect, uses phonetic signs with a syllabic value, and a limited number of logograms. To get a foretaste of cuneiform, watch this video.
Workshop Info and Programme
The seminar will start with an overview of the cuneiform writing systems (logographic, syllabic, alphabetical) and their decipherment, cuneiform manuscripts and inscriptions, the variety of cuneiform texts, their organisation in archives and libraries, the scribes and their curriculum. This general introduction on cuneiform texts forms the basis for the following introduction to the Akkadian language and cuneiform script.
Time and Format
Classes will be held from 19 to 23 February 2024 in presence at the CSMC. It is not possible to participate online.
For more information and registration, please contact Merryl Rebello:
merryl.rebello@uni-hamburg.de( merryl.rebello"AT"uni-hamburg.de).
Previous Editions
- 2023
- 2022
- 2021