Professor of Assyriology at the department of ancient near eastern civilizations.

Research Interests

Religion, ritual, and scholasticism in Mesopotamia according to cuneiform tablets written in Sumerian and Akkadian, especially in the first millennium BCE.

Teaching

Beginners’ Sumerian; Beginners’ Akkadian; The Divine World of Ancient Mesopotamia; advanced reading courses in Sumerian and Akkadian

Ongoing Projects

• Ancient Mesopotamian Priestly Scholasticism: In this project, we examine the activities of the scholar-priests of ancient Mesopotamia during the first millennium BCE, according to ritual texts, and according to scholarly texts (especially commentaries), and especially according to the juxtaposition of the two (e.g., ritual commentaries).

Previous Projects

• 2014-2019: “A Textual Reconstruction of the balaĝ-prayers to the God Enki and an Analysis of the Theology and Syncretism Portrayed in Them”: In this project we prepared new critical editions of the Balaĝ prayers to the god Enki-Ea according to cuneiform tablets dating to various periods.
• 2019-2022: “Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Mesopotamian Liturgy: A Study of the 2000-Year Long Transmission History of Sumerian Emesal Prayers”: In this project we traced the literary and ritual transmission of Emesal prayers from the early second millennium BCE until the end of the first millennium BCE.

Publication List

For the full publication list, please enter the following link

Graduate Students

M.A. Students

• Keren Meltzer
• Wered Filarski
• Yasser Khanjer
• Julia Tulaikov
• Benny Yonin
• Ami Asayag
• Yael Leokomovich
• Ni Chunrong
• Joyce Pui-Yee Leung

Ph.D. Students

• Julia Tulaikov
• Ami Asayag
• Yael Leokomovich
• Ni Chunrong
• Joyce Pui-Yee Leung

Post-doctoral Students

• Shai Gordin
• Zack Wainer
• Daniel Sanchez Munoz
• Zach Rubin
• Yuval Levavi
• Netanel Anor
• Matthew Susnow