Cultures and Religions | Course catalogue

INTRODUCTION TO MESOPOTAMIC CULTURES

Course objectives

The course - provides students with knowledge and understanding of the methodological, critical-problematic, and practical aspects of the discipline; it offers regional and thematic perspectives in which research projects relevant to the discipline are active or may be developed; it highlights the diversity of fields in which disciplinary skills can be applied (descriptor 1); - develops the student’s independent ability to relate what has been learned to other academic fields (SSDs): historical, literary, artistic, cultural heritage, economic, political, historical-religious, etc. (descriptor 2); - enables students to apply the acquired knowledge and specific terminology in the context of so-called “transferable skills” (independent judgment, communication skills, descriptors 3–5).

Channel 1

LORENZO VERDERAME Lecturers' profile

Program - Frequency - Exams

Course program

The course is composed of a general part and a monographic part in which a specific aspect of the society, economy or religion of ancient Mesopotamia will be deepen. The general part topics are : 1. Introduction: space and time limits; languages and ethnies; historiography; core concepts. 2. Textual sources: language and writing; typologies. 3. Economy, 1: water management; agriculture; breeding; fishing, hunting, gathering; food preparation and consumption. 4. Economy, 2: goods transformation and production. 5. Economy, 3: goods procurement: war and commerce; transports; work. 6. Society: kingship and government; the society; the family; gender and age; ruling the society (the law); feelings, love and sex. 7. Religion: the pantheon; the god and the divine kingship; the house of the god: the temple; the divine statue; local cult; death and afterlife. For the introductory part the course will follow L. Verderame, Introduzione alle culture dell’antica Mesopotamia, 2017. The monographic part will deal with a specific aspect of the society, economy or religion of ancient Mesopotamia through the analysis of different types of sources. This year the topic will be the statuary in III and I millennium combining the study of the textual and iconographic sources: 1. Lack of statues for the III millennium; 2. Neo-Sumerian administrative documents; 3. Sumerian literary sources; 4. other sources; 5. the artisans and raw materials. 6. Assyrian statues; 7. Neo-Assyrian letters; 8. royal inscriptions. 9. Religious aspects of the statue in ancient Mesopotamia: 10. the divine cult; 11. statue restoration 12. and the "mouth washing" (mīs pî) ritual.

Prerequisites

None. However, for those who have not attended any course of languages, history or archaeology of the Ancient Near East I suggest the reading of L. Verderame, Letterature dell'antica Mesopotamia, Le Monnier/Mondadori Education, 2016.

Books

Lessons attendance is necessary to pass the final exam. All the material is available in Italian online on the eLearing2.uniroma1.it platform. For those who could not attend lessons the exam will be based on quizzes from the readings. Textbook: L. Verderame, Introduzione alle culture dell'antica Mesopotamia, Le Monnier / Mondadori, Firenze / Milano, 2017 N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, Routledge, London/New York, 1994

Frequency

Lesson attendance is recommended, but not compulsory. An alternative list of readings is available for those who will not attend lessons.

Exam mode

Students learning will be assessed during the course through discussion, quizzes, and small group works. Final exam will be based on quizzes from the main courses and the list of supporting readings.

Bibliography

L. Verderame, Introduzione alle culture dell'antica Mesopotamia, Le Monnier / Mondadori, Firenze / Milano, 2017 N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, Routledge, London/New York, 1994

Lesson mode

The course organized on classroom lessons of two hours each will be based on lectures with a part dedicated to discussion. For the second part of the course small groups works are planned. Lectures will be supported by PPT presentations. The PPT files as well as other didactic material will be available for the students on the web portal eLearning (elearning2.uniroma1.it).