Mesopotamian mathematics: cuneiform slideshow

Slideshow from the New York Times website of 13 cuneiform clay tablets dating from 1900 to 1700 BC from an exhibition at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Many of these are exercises by students studying to be scribes who were learning mathematics based on the extinct Sumerian language


For more background on the exhibition and the tablets, go to artdaily.org and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World's own website

A Sumerian literary tour-de-force?

Sumerian Shakespeare is a personal blog by American Sumerologist Jerald Starr devoted to images and textual analysis of the cuneiform tablet  #36 from the Library of Congress's collection, which he states is an encoded "literary tour-de-force"
The blog also looks at the the image and portrayal of the Sumerian ruler, Ur-Namma, in sculpture and carved relief, and Starr's own experience learning to read and write Sumerian cuneiform

Law, literature and murder in the Ancient Near East: public lecture

This free lecture by Professor Piotr Michalowski, in honour of his late colleague, Raymond Westbrook, will take place at New London Synagogue, 33 Abbey Road, London  NW8 OAT (followed by a reception)


If you wish to attend, please email : office@newlondon.org.uk
Tel: 0207 328 1026     office@newlondon.org.uk     www.newlondon.org.uk


The lecture analyses a cuneiform document recording a murder trial of c.1800 BCE. The text is short, but its many twists and turns reveal a fascinating insight into an aristocratic Babylonian family

 Professor Michalowski the George G. Cameron Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations at the University of Michigan specializing in the Sumerian and Babylonian literature, languages, history, economics and poetics.  He is also is the editor of the Journal of Cuneiform Studies and President of the International Association of
Assyriologists.

Descriptive grammar of Sumerian: new e-thesis

Bram Jagersma's 2010 PhD thesis "A descriptive grammar of Sumerian" has been made available as an e-thesis by Leiden University.
Click here to access the link from the SOAS Library catalogue

Egyptian "Book of the Dead" : video

The latest major exhibition at the British Museum showcases the museum's collection of  Ancient Egyptian "Books of the Dead" - a rare and very fragile collection of spells on papyrus scrolls which were designed to guide the dead safely into eternal life.

The exhibition will include the longest Book of the Dead in the world, the Greenfield Papyrus, which is 37 metres long and has never been shown publicly in its entirety before.

John Taylor, the curator, introduces the exhibition in this short BBC video

The exhibition runs until 6th March 2011. Click here for further details and admission prices.

More on the "Aural Akkadian" project

Read an interview with SOAS's Martin Worthington about the "Aural Akkadian" project  from the Chronicle of Higher Education blog 
The project website - containing readings from Babylonian and Assyrian literature - is at  www.speechisfire.com