ASYR1850 Syllabus ~ 1/28/16 Spring 2016 Collecting Knowledge in the Ancient World: Assurbanipal’s Library in Context Instructor: Prof. Matthew Rutz Department of Egyptology and Assyriology [email protected] Tel. 401-863-6312 Office hours: Tu 2–3 p.m., Th 1–2 p.m. (or by appointment), Wilbour Hall room 204 Meeting Time and Place: Monday 3–5:30 p.m., Wilbour Hall room 301 Course Description: Nineveh (now in present-day Mosul, Iraq) was the Assyrian empire’s last capital and home to one of the earliest large-scale collections of ancient literature: Assurbanipal’s library. Remembered in Greek tradition as Sardanapalus, this 7th-century king is credited with amassing thousands of clay tablets and wooden writing boards in a state-sponsored institution that included myths, hymns, rituals, medical and divinatory lore, and ancient dictionaries. This course will explore the contents and significance of Assurbanipal’s library, looking in a comparative way at its antecedents and heirs across the ancient world. Additional topics include: colophons; royal literacy; court scribes; libraries, museums, and heritage. Enrollment limited to 10 students for Spring 2016.* *NOTE: For Spring 2016 a reading knowledge of Akkadian cuneiform is a prerequisite (minimum one year of study; students who have passed ASYR 1000 Introduction to Akkadian may take ASYR1850 and ASYR 1010 Intermediate Akkadian concurrently); a reading of knowledge of German and/or French will be useful but is not a prerequisite. Course Aims: The course has the following principal aims: • To introduce students to the topic of ancient archives and libraries in general and Assurbanipal’s library in particular. • To situate Assurbanipal’s library in its archaeological, historical, and cultural contexts. • To introduce practical tools and resources for the study and reconstruction of Assurbanipal’s library and its contents. • To engage students directly with current research using primary sources. • To explore and critique the project of state-sponsored programs to acquire and store knowledge in the ancient world. 1 ASYR1850 Syllabus ~ 1/28/16 Spring 2016 Course Objectives: By the end of the course students should have: • Gained general knowledge of how ancient libraries were constructed and used. • Achieved an understanding of how Assurbanipal’s library fits into our picture of libraries from the ancient world. • Learned how to read and translate colophons appended to Akkadian texts. • Used photos and drawings to analyze a tablet or small group of tablets from the library. • Demonstrated the ability to identify an unfamiliar cuneiform tablet and discuss the significance of its presence in the library. Weekly Routine: Class will typically consist of three components: (1) a seminar discussion of weekly readings, supplemented with brief background or exposition from me, especially early on; (2) short in-class presentations that complement, augment, and/or catalyze our discussion; and (3) in-class reading and translation of prepared selections of cuneiform text. Weekly reading assignments will consist of seminal books/book sections/journal articles in English that contribute to a given week’s topic; depending on the composition of the class, readings in German and/or French may be assigned to students able to read those languages. Text preparation will require students to use drawings or photographs of cuneiform inscriptions, which we then read, translate, analyze, and discuss as a group. Assessment: Assessment for this course will be based on weekly assignments, both oral and written, and a final project. The breakdown of the final grade will be as follows: Preparation / participation 15% Weekly Presentations 15% Weekly Assessment: text preparation 20% Week 5 (submitted after class) Proposal 10% Week 6 (end of the week) Project 40% Reading Period Adequate preparation of a given week’s texts and regular in-class participation in discussion will be vital. Each week certain students will be assigned topics for short presentations for the following meeting; the responsibility for these presentations will be rotating, and in them students will be asked to summarize, critique, and stimulate discussion of the assigned topic in question. In a short assessment I will check each student’s written text preparation (checking transliteration, translation, notes on the text). Students will want to meet with me early on the semester to discuss a possible project topic, for which a proposal is required. The project will consist of a critical text edition of either a specific tablet in Assurbanipal’s library or an edition of the colophons from a group of tablets. The proposal should consist a description of the topic with essential bibliography and an explanation of how the student will address the topic. 2 ASYR1850 Syllabus ~ 1/28/16 Spring 2016 Written Work: All written work must be: submitted electronically and in print; in a common format (PDF preferred); in 11-12 pt. type, double spaced, with 1-1.25 in. margins; checked for spelling, grammar, and sense; properly referenced (either footnote or author-date style) with an indication in the first—and maybe only—footnote precisely which style you are using (Chicago Manual of Style and Society for American Archaeology are good choices, but there are others). Please see me about Unicode fonts suitable for rendering the diacritics needed to properly edit cuneiform texts. Readings: Readings must be done before class the day they are assigned. There is no course textbook. Instead, readings will be available on the Canvas course website (http://canvas.brown.edu/courses/), on OCRA (https://library.brown.edu/reserves/; OCRA password: gerginakku), and/or distributed in class. Text preparation will require using the standard tools: R. Borger’s Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon (MZL), R. Labat’s Manuel d’épigraphie akkadienne (Manuel; poor Labat never got a respectable acronym for his sign list!), and the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), which is not to be confused with the useful but severely, debilitatingly limited Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (CDA). ***NOTE*** that readings are subject to change, so please be sure to check the announcements on the Canvas website regularly. 3 ASYR1850 Syllabus ~ 1/28/16 Spring 2016 WEEKLY SCHEDULE Week 1 2/1 Introduction; overview of Neo-Assyrian history; a first text Readings: ~ n/a Reports: ~ What brings you to this class? Text preparation: ~ None (guided reading of unprepared text in class) Week 2 2/8 Nineveh and its remains Readings: ~ Layard 1849–1853, 1853: 337–347; Reade and Parpola in Veenhof 1986 Reports: ~ Archaeology of Nineveh: Reade 2000; a short bio of Assurbanipal Text preparation: ~ Library colophons: the basics (selected texts) Week 3 2/15 Reconstructing Assurbanipal’s library: Colophons, scripts, and attribution Readings: ~ Leichty 1964; Hunger 1968 (selections) Presentations: ~ Tools 1: print catalogues and bibliographies Text preparation: ~ Library colophons Week 4 2/22 NO CLASS (Long weekend) Week 5 2/29 Reading in the library Readings: ~ Fincke 2004; Frahm 2011 (selections) Presentations: ~ Tools 2: digital resources Text preparation: ~ Library colophons (cont.) 4 ASYR1850 Syllabus ~ 1/28/16 Spring 2016 Week 6 3/7 Whose library? Kings, scribes, and scholars Readings: ~ Lieberman 1990; Livingstone 2007 Presentations: ~ Radner and Robson 2011 (selections); Talon 2003 Text preparation: ~ Royal inscriptions of Assurbanipal (L4) in Novotny 2014 ~ Proposals due: 3/11 via e-mail Week 7 3/14 Collecting for the library Readings: ~ Frame and George 2005; Garrison 2012 Presentations: ~ Reade 2004; Goldstein 2010 Text preparation: ~ Parpola 1983; Frame and George 2005 Week 8 3/21 Cataloguing the library Readings: ~ Krecher 1979 Presentations: ~ Geller 2000; Delnero 2010 Text preparation: ~ Literary catalogues from Nineveh (selections) Spring Break 3/28 NO CLASS Week 9 4/4 Babylonian tablets in the Assyrian library? Readings: ~ Fincke 2003/2004; Fincke 2014a Presentations: ~ Diagnostic features of Babylonian and Assyrian scripts Text preparation: ~ Colophons in Babylonian script (selections) 5 ASYR1850 Syllabus ~ 1/28/16 Spring 2016 Week 10 4/11 Tablets from Kalḫu in Nineveh? Nabû-zuqup-kēnu & sons Readings: ~ Frahm 2011 (selections) Presentations: ~ Dossier of Nabû-zuqup-kēnu and his family Text preparation: ~ Colophons of Nabû-zuqup-kēnu (selections) Week 11 4/18 Assur and Nineveh: Two Assyrian cities and their libraries Readings: ~ Assur catalogues and recensions (selections distributed before class) Presentations: ~ Maul 2010 Text preparation: ~ Assur colophons (selections) Week 12 4/25 Cuneiform libraries redux: Assurbanipal’s library in context Readings: ~ Robson 2013; Beaulieu 2010 Presentations: ~ Pedersén 1998 (selections) Text preparation: ~ Colophons from other cuneiform libraries (selections) Reading/Exam Periods *Project due 6 ASYR1850 Syllabus ~ 1/28/16 Spring 2016 Reference Works and Digital Tools Catalogues Bezold, Carl. 1889–1899. Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Volume 1 (1889) Volume 2 (1891) Volume 3 (1893) Volume 4 (1896) Volume 5 (1899) King, L. W. 1914. Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, Supplement. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Lambert, W. G., and A. R. Millard. 1968. Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, Second Supplement. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Lambert, W.