LET OP: deze lezing vindt plaats op een dinsdagmiddag (i.p.v. onze gebruikelijke donderdagmiddag). De voertaal is Engels.

Based on the cuneiform texts from Southern and Northern Mesopotamia, various aspects of the history and culture of Assyria in the third millennium BC are treated. The focus here is on the cities Nineveh and Assur during the so-called Akkadian and Ur III periods (from 24^th to the 20^th centuries BC). The Sargonic cuneiform texts – especially from Assur, and also the literary tradition – show that Assyria played an important role within the framework of the Mesopotamian social and cultural history already in the third millennium BC. The memory of it extended to the second millennium, and possibly even into the first millennium BC.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Hans Neumann, Direktor des Instituts für Altorientalische Philologie und Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde der Universität Münster.

Lecture organized in cooperation with Kristin Kleber, VU Amsterdam.