Dr. Abigail Hoskins, Visiting Research Scholar, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University
In-person attendance at the NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (15 East 84th Street New York, NY 10028), registration required.
Abstract
The figure of the scribe is essential to any discussion of ancient Mesopotamian culture. Decades of careful research have allowed historians to paint a general portrait of the Mesopotamian scribe that can then be placed into historical narratives. But what about the individuals from whom this composite picture was created? “Living in a Culture of the Past: The Life and Work of a Scribe in Hellenistic Uruk” is a microhistorical study of the life and work of a particular scribe who lived in the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk in the late fourth century BCE. His name was Iqīšā, the son of Ištar-šum-ereš, of the Ekur-zakir clan. This talk examines of the ways that Iqīšā identified himself in the colophons of the traditional texts that he copied and demonstrates how the study of a single ancient individual’s life and work can lead to productive new insights about continuity, change, and power in Babylonia in the early Hellenistic period.