The Origins of Assyriology: New Sources for its Reconstruction (OrAs)

The research project "The origins of Assyriology: new sources for its reconstruction" (OrAs) has one general goal and five specific objectives. The general goal of this project is to publish and study new documentary sources that allow us to reconstruct the history of the origins of Assyriology as an academic discipline on a more solid basis. To this end, we take as our starting point the correspondence of Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933), Professor of Assyriology at Queen's College, Oxford. This correspondence, most of it still unpublished, is dated between 1869 and 1933. It is preserved in the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford, arranged chronologically in nine volumes, with reference numbers 41613 - 41621 (d. 62 - d. 70). Sayce maintained a lifelong epistolary relationship with a myriad of scholars and specialists in various academic disciplines, becoming a key node in an international network for the exchange of new discoveries and ideas. His correspondence is a splendid source of information, among others, on the debates that shaped Assyriology, an academic discipline that was still in formation at the time. Regarding the five specific objectives of the project, they will be achieved through interdisciplinary research, the fundamental pillars of which are: (a) the history of Assyriology and (b) women's history. We summarise below these five objectives: 1) To examine the discovery of the Sumerian language and the controversy about its authenticity. 2) To study the advance in the knowledge of the cuneiform script and Akkadian grammar and lexicography. 3) To consider the spread of Assyriology outside France, the UK and Germany. 4) To elaborate biographical studies of Isabel F. Dodd (1857-1943) and Zsófia Torma (1832-1899), the only two women attested in Sayce's correspondence. 5) To reconstruct and analyse the academic and professional networks of pioneering women in Ancient Near Eastern studies. In order to reach the objectives set out here we have a working team of nine people that we have chosen taking into account: 1) the importance of collaborating with young researchers who are at the beginning of their post-doctoral stage and who have been trained at our university, in order to give continuity to their training and to an always enriching intergenerational exchange; 2) the need to establish and nurture international networks of collaboration, something fundamental in a project such as the one we propose here; for this reason we have invited specialists in the documentary sources selected, the main correspondents, and the themes to be scrutinized, counting on professionals linked to universities and research centres in Germany, Argentina and Italy.