Ancient Mesopotamian scholarly activity in the first millennium BCE was mostly carried out by priests who were also in charge of performing rituals. In modern scholarship, though, these two parts of the priestly activity, namely, ritual and scholarship, are often treated as two different fields with very little overlap between them. But if both ritual and scholarship were practiced by the same individuals, or at least by the same social institution, we would expect to find a relationship between them. Therefore, our project is interested in the following questions: How did these two fields, i.e. ritual and scholarship, both dealt with by the same social group, interact together? Where and how do we find "ritual" in the scholarly activity of the ancient Mesopotamian priests? And where do we find "scholarship" in the ritual activity of these same priests?
The engagement with both ritual and scholarship in ancient Mesopotamia is not a unique phenomenon. This is a common feature found in other scholastic societies, that is, societies in which the scholarly activity is carried out by the same groups (often also by the same individuals, but not necessarily so) who are also in charge of the ritual activity. And in such societies indeed we find an interaction between these two activities. Such scholastic societies are of course part of the contemporary world (e.g. certain Catholic orders, Islamic scholarship, Jewish Rabbinic scholarship, Tibetan monastic scholasticism, and other examples), and the understanding of the scholastic society that was active in Mesopotamia more than 2000 years ago can be informed by such contemporary societies.
As part of the project's understanding of the scholar-priests of ancient Mesopotamia in the first millennium BCE within the framework of "scholasticism", the project has the following objectives:
1) To demonstrate that, like other scholastic communities, ancient Mesopotamian scholasticism was closely concerned with the religious activities of its members, especially their rituals;
2) To show how the texts and actions of the Mesopotamian scholar-priests were deeply “internalized” by them through memorization, study, and performance, creating a strong individual/communal identity;
3) To demonstrate how the authoritative status of the texts that were studied and performed by the scholar-priests promoted the creation of exegetical texts and commentaries.
In order to achieve these objectives, the project focuses on different textual corpora that relate to ritual, commentary, or both. Special emphasis is given to ritual and its textualization and interpretation, the relationship between commentaries and rituals, the Sumerian language as a ritual and scholarly language, and the historical and social aspects of the priestly-scholastic activities in the first millennium BCE.
