Members of the ancient Mesopotamian cult of Ištar have been subjected to various interpretations by scholars despite only a small number of textual references. In scholarly literature, assinnu have been described as everything from cultic prostitutes, to castrates, to “playboys”…
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In cooperation with the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Iraq Museum, Edward Chiera, then professor of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania, led an investigative archaeological excavation in 1925 to Yorgan Tepe, an ancient ruin near Kirkuk, Iraq. During suc…
The royal land grants from Ugarit are conveyances of property rights from the kings of Ugarit to designated individuals. The texts were discovered in excavations of the royal palace of Ugarit (Ras Shamra, Syria) and date to the last part of the Syrian Bronze Age. They are writte…
In the ancient Near East, the transmission of texts was inextricable from processes of revision. Scribes, at least those in positions of authority, made adjustments to their received material. Whether these alterations took the shape of exegetical glosses, omissions, or major ad…
Since its discovery in 1850, the Gilgamesh Epic has intrigued numerous scholars of the Bible, of the ancient Near East, and of world literature. For over 150 years, translations of the epic have improved as researchers learn more about the ancient Near Eastern languages. Books a…
The composition of Deut 27-28 is shaped by its ritual and performative function and by the narrative device of a script within a speech: the oral and ritual performance of the covenant ceremony by the Levites is framed within the speech-command of Moses. Studies of Deut 28 have …
This dissertation studies the direct discourse in selected biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts in order to compare the agency of intercessors attempting to avert divinely decreed doom, or what can be called “apotropaic intercession.” Eleven narratives from the Hebrew Bible (…
The Neo-Assyrian and Aramaic bilingual inscription from Fekheriyeh, a typical exemplar of ancient monumental inscriptions commemorating the dedication of Had(d)-yit'i's statue to Hadad of Sikan, is a significant new additional source for the study of the ancient Near East during…
Both the textual record and the archaeological record from the ancient Mesopotamia provide evidence for a rich array of human activities over more than three millennia. The vast majority of known cuneiform tablets lack secure archaeological provenience, and few large groups of t…
Uncovered in 1975, the Tell-Mardikh-Ebla archive was the first large collection of cuneiform tablets discovered in the age of the personal computer. Starting with the Ebla texts of Cybernetica Mesopotamica , and using the software program WordCruncher, I modified the format in w…
This dissertation investigates depictions of divine and human radiance in the Hebrew Bible and in Northwest Semitic and Mesopotamian literatures. It focuses specifically on the meanings of the following Akkadian terms: melammu; puluhtu; rašubbatu; namurratu; namrirrū; and šalumm…
This dissertation fills a gap in the scholarly study of Classical Hebrew grammar and syntax with the first comprehensive study of oath formulae. The difficult and elliptical nature of oath syntax, along with the multitude of diverse formulae employed, has often given scholars an…