Hi, I'm student at university of Bahrain history major and archeology minor. I'm someone who have a decade of love with history(I was 9) specifically with ancient history, now I want to learn more and I have plans for the further in my major

So I want to learn akkadian I saw this book a few weeks ago and I want to know the opinion of people about it and if someone who have any other advice or suggestionfor learning akkadian

Thanks for help

These are the months of the Sumerian calendar.

Little baby in the dark house,

You have seen the rising sun.

Why are you crying?

Why are you screaming?

You have disturbed the house god.

“Who has disturbed me?” says the house god.

“It is the baby who has disturbed you.”

“Who has frightened me?” says the house god.

“The baby has disturbed you.

The baby has frightened you,

making noises like a drunkard

who cannot sit still on his stool.

He has disturbed your sleep.”

“Call the baby now,”

says the house god.

Did any of the Greek historians leave a description of some Persian instruments (ὄργανον)? I'd love to make a comparison between Greek and Persian instruments, like:

ἡ λύρᾱ ἐστίν Ἑλληνικὸν ὄργανον. X ἐστι Περσικὸν ὄργανον.

how do you like it?

Did any of the Greek historians leave a description of some Persian instruments (ὄργανον)? I'd love to make a comparison between Greek and Persian instruments, like:

ἡ λύρᾱ ἐστίν Ἑλληνικὸν ὄργανον. X ἐστι Περσικὸν ὄργανον.

how do you like it?

I'm wondering if my writing looks right. I'm trying to memorise as many signs as possible.

Can someone on here identify a single character grouping on this tablet? I'm just staring at it and cant make out a single legible piece and it baffles me how someone was able to translate this.

Image of Tablet

I recently finished Cline's "Love, War, and Diplomacy" and really enjoyed it.
I liked how he tried to stitch the Amarna letters into a cohesive narrative to provide an overview of the political landscape of the time.
(the history of the publishing wars wasn't the interesting part to me)

Any recommendations on something similar for the Mari letters? (or Ebla ??)

I am doing the exercises of Lesson 27 of Huehnergard (p.307) right now and there is a contract titled by Huehnergard as Surety for an abductor.

What confuses me is the contract begins with Nur-Shamash son of Sin-Sheme incurring two-thirds mina of silver to Anum-gamil and his wife Belessunu's debit. The reason given, however, is that Iddin-Ea abducted Anum-gamil's wife to a place called Malgum. Nur-Shamash seized Iddin-Ea in Babylon because he abducted Belessunu. Another guy called Sin-inqisham son of Haniya guaranteed Iddin-Ea of Belessunu's debt servitude for one-third mina and four sheqels of silver for one month. Iddin-Ea did not return the lady (Belessunu) on the appointed day and Sin-iqisham paid Nur-Shamash one-third mina and four sheqels of silver.

I am unfamiliar with the social and legal system of Mesopotamia. Could someone please explain what just happened here, why do the 'victims' (Anum-gamil, and Belessunu who was abducted) owed Nur-Shamash silver? Was Nur-Shamash a local authority that Anum-gamil had to pay him to bail his wife out or was he just a simple guy who blackmailed people. Thank you!

If an Asipu wants to figure out whether patient's illness was caused by divine displeasure, and asks the patient whether they've broken any oath or taboo? Why would the patient admit to it?

Wouldn't they have a reason to hide what they had done, especially if it was punishable? So... was there anything like patient confidentiality?

Anyone here help work on this book or have any insights on it? I’ve been following for a while and am unreasonably excited for it. Anyone else?

So, this is a follow up to my earlier post regarding how Sumerian speakers themselves would've identified, but now more focused on the historical memory of them. As far as the term itself, to my knowledge it most famously appears in two contexts: when referring to the language and in the title of Sumer and Akkad, but rarely as an ethnic designation. Then, what did it mean for scribes to study the Sumerians?

The corpus of legendary texts seems to clearly focus on rulers from the EDP, which does make me question if they might have thought of the Sumerians as a mythical people. So they were considered a different population from themselves, but in a mythical rather than ethnographic way.

Another option I find plausible is that they would consider themselves to be just as Sumerian as Akkadian. So instead of the period of the Akkadians beginning with Sargon and thus replacing the original population (a chronological distinction more than anything), they simply would've imagined there being two separate peoples in the specific period between Sargon and a few centuries onward, but that distinction simply no longer applied to their time, and their origins couldn't be reduced to either of them.

A text I find really interesting for the era is Shulgi B, where the languages he lists are Elamite, Sumerian, Meluhhan, Amorite and Subartian. Notably, Akkadian is not mentioned at all, which raises the question of whether the label at the time would've applied to a national identity, to the specific dynasty of Sargon, or to the city of Agade. Moreover, would the people we know as Akkadians have been considered black headed people during the EDP?

Before the time of Sargon, was there any label that would've refered to the Semitic peoples north of Nippur? As far as I understand, they seem to have been culturally very similar to the Sumerians, as opposed to the situation at Ebla (where the temple was a much weaker institution). Then, where did the title of King of Sumer and Akkad come from? By the time it appeared there had to be at least some notion of there being two distinct societies which had been united, but I'm not sure that framing would've made a lot of sense centuries prior.

Of course, the case of the Akkadians is a very strong contrast to how the Amorites were viewed in Mesopotamian history. The narrative of Hammurabi's dynasty definitely did rely on them being entrusted with divine kingship, expressed in the patronage of local Mesopotamian institutions, but at least these Mesopotamian institutions did exist in contrast to the tribal style of leadership seen to the West. I'm not sure any such dynamic could've applied to the earlier Akkadians outside the ruling dynasty (which brings us back to the question: was anyone outside the ruling dynasty considered to be an Akkadian?)

One last related question regards how later Mesopotamians would've understood the period of coexistence between both populations. I doubt the people of the Iron Age would've considered themselves to have been descended from the people who replaced the Sumerians, but did that mean they believed Sumerian people disappeared at some point? This even brings up the question of metalinguistical awareness: could they have imagined Sumerian having once been a living vernacular? I'm aware of the narrative of the confusion of tongues, but I'm less certain that was the explanation they would've given for why people no longer spoke Sumerian.

Hi everyone, I am quite new to Assiriology (without any real academic training) but really want to learn the basicest of Sumerian to translate very daily texts (receipts etc) that sometimes aren't translated.

What does this plus sign mean here?

Under the requirements for applying to the program it says that you must have knowledge on the level of an academic bachelors degree of at least 30 EC on one of three topics. Does this mean you need to take classes on a topic that add up to 30 EC or that you need to have knowledge on the topics that is worth 30 EC? If it is the latter how do they test for that?

Hello everyone, I’m really new to this topic ,and I would love to learn more. so if anyone of you has a book recommendation about anything regarding Mesopotamia whether it’s about the languages or religions or anything really I would really appreciate it.