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Description
Teaching Delivery:听This module is taught in weekly 2 hour classes.听
颁辞苍迟别苍迟:听This module will provide instruction in the reading of Hurrian, the language of the Mittani Empire, a significant political unit mainly located in modern-day northern Syria and Iraq of the mid-second millennium BC that interacted with pharaonic Egypt and the Hittite Empire, as well as providing a cultural legacy that was picked up especially by the Assyrian Empire. Hurrian is still very poorly understood, even if its use was widespread in the 2nd millennium BC not only in its native regions, but also as a prestige language in Hittite Anatolia. New text-finds from current excavations are continually changing our understanding of Hurrian. This module will provide guidance on how to interpret a fragmentarily preserved language like Hurrian and use it as evidence for reconstructing ancient cultural and political constellations. The module will start with a consideration of the spread and historical contexts of the Hurrian language, followed by instruction in the grammatical interpretation of Hurrian, which is an ergative language of great interest to linguists, and finally by reading of Hurrian texts, both in transliteration and in the original cuneiform (prior knowledge of cuneiform will not be required to take this module).听
厂办颈濒濒蝉:听
鈥� understanding of differences between valid and invalid methods for deciphering fragmentary language data-sets听
鈥� understanding of basic categories of cuneiform epigraphy听
鈥� understanding of importance of considering material and historical contexts of textual evidence听
鈥� awareness of the basic problems inherent in reconstructing history from fragmentary and poorly understood evidence.听
罢别虫迟蝉:听Dennis R.M. Campbell, "Hurrian" in R. Hasselbach-Andee (ed.) A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages, Wiley and Sons, 2020, pp. 203-219
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
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