Before and After Babel
August 2023 | Vol. 11.8 By Marc Van De Mieroop “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the sam
Heartbreak and the History of Distress in Ancient Mesopotamia
July 2023 | Vol. 11.7 By Moudhy Al-Rashid The concept of “heartbreak” appears multiple times in cuneiform texts as a metaphor to describe both mental and physical conditions. H
Cuneiform Mathematics: Outstanding Techniques in a System of Texts
February 2023 | Vol. 11.2 By Carlos Gonçalves Mathematical cuneiform documents from various sites and periods provide a wealth of information about the conceptualization and pract
The Cuneiform Wide Web: From Card Catalogues to Digital Assyriology
october 2022 | Vol. 10.10 By Shai Gordin and Avital Romach Can computers read cuneiform better than experts? The answer, at the moment, is no. But will computers read cuneiform bet
Everyday Life in Exile: Judean Deportees in Babylonian Texts
June 2022 | Vol. 10.6 By Tero Alstola When King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered the kingdom of Judah in the early sixth century BCE, part of Judean population was deported t
The Concept of Music in Ancient Mesopotamia
April 2022 | Vol. 10.4 By Daniel Sánchez Muñoz Cuneiform texts, more or less well-preserved real musical instruments, and iconography inform us about the instruments, performers,
Language Death—The Case of Akkadian
February 2022 | Vol. 10.2 By Johannes Hackl The phenomenon of language death is as old as the recorded history of the world’s languages, if not as old as language itself. Languag
Were There Sumerians?
February 2022 | Vol. 10.2 By Paul Collins The Sumerians can seem very familiar. They have been understood as a distinct people, speaking a common language, who occupied the alluvia