Project description
Shedding light on the intricate connections between ritual and textual activities
Mesopotamian scholarship and Mesopotamian priesthood are complementary aspects of the same phenomenon: scholasticism. Even though this concept originally referred to the scholarly activities of Catholic priests in the Middle Ages, it can also be applied to the study of non-European communities of priestly scholars. In this context, the EU-funded AMPS project will use the scholastic model to study the priestly-scholarly community of ancient Mesopotamia. Its aim is to shed light on the intricate connections between the ritual and textual activities of this community and illuminate the holistic and systematic world view of its members. Specifically, it will reconstruct the social, religious and intellectual reality in which the ancient cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia were written.
Objective
The scholarly texts of ancient Mesopotamia in the first millennium BCE, specifically commentaries written in Akkadian on cuneiform tablets, were the work of priests who also performed cultic activities in the temple. The proposed project seeks to demonstrate how these scholarly and cultic activities were interrelated and how they shaped the self-identity of the priestly-scholarly community that was in charge of both. The project thus aims to bridge the gap between the study of intellectual history and the study of priesthood in ancient Mesopotamia, which are treated as two separate fields in Assyriology.
The project innovatively treats Mesopotamian scholarship and Mesopotamian priesthood as complementary aspects of one phenomenon: “scholasticism.” This concept, which originally referred to the scholarly activities of Catholic priests in the Middle Ages, has recently been applied to the study of non-European communities of priestly scholars with great success. Using the scholastic model to study the priestly-scholarly community of ancient Mesopotamia will reveal the intricate connections between the ritual and textual activities of this community and illuminate the holistic and systematic worldview of its members.
Combining traditional philology and the comparative approach, the project investigates how, like other scholastic communities, the scholar-priests of ancient Mesopotamia “internalized” the liturgical texts they studied and performed, how they attributed authority to these texts, and how their study of the liturgical corpus generated new exegetical texts. Key points of comparison between the scholar-priests of ancient Mesopotamia and various ancient and contemporary scholastic communities include their interest in language, textual authority, commentaries, and rituals. By applying the comparative method to the study of cuneiform tablets, the project aims to reconstruct the social, religious, and intellectual reality in which they were written.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history ancient history
- humanities languages and literature literature studies history of literature
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion philosophy history of philosophy medieval philosophy
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2020-COG
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91904 JERUSALEM
Israel
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