Dr. Annarita Bonfanti, Visiting Assistant Professor, ISAW, NYU
Presented by the NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW). In-person attendance at NYU ISAW (15 East 84th Street New York, NY 10028). Free and open to the public, but registration is required. Reception after lecture.
Abstract
“Urartu is the Assyrian name given to a state that flourished on the Armenian Highlands between the 9th and the 7th centuries BCE, roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Turkey, Armenia, and northern Iran. The items labelled in research as “Urartian” appear to be part of a standardized set of objects strictly connected to the royal dynasty, which used cuneiform writing as an élite marker; cuneiform writing appears to be a fil rouge linking Urartian objects both to each other and to the kings who produced them. In this talk, I will present a history of writing in Urartu, analyzing the ways and the whys it was employed as it was, and presenting several case studies that highlight the intersection between this immaterial good and the objects characterizing Urartian culture: there is no mute history, and Urartians knew this really well.
Annarita Bonfanti is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. She holds a BA and an MA in Classics from the University of Pavia, where she also received her PhD in History (2022). She is interested in the history, philology, and culture of Urartu, through which she intends to study the construction of the Urartian identity, together with the external inputs provided by neighbouring entities. She has conducted fieldwork in Turkey and Armenia, and she is currently a member of the AMSC (Archaeological Mission to Southern Caucasus).”