Project description
Exploring survival of cuneiform writing
Cuneiform script, one of the world’s oldest writing systems, endured into the first century CE, mainly for recording Mesopotamian astronomy. However, many surviving non-astronomical texts remain undated and understudied, leaving gaps in our understanding of late Mesopotamian literary culture. The ERC-funded RECC project aims to uncover why cuneiform writing persisted in a region absorbed into expanding empires. The project suggests that the script’s survival reflected a cultural response to political change. RECC will investigate the production of late cuneiform texts and the networks of scribal families who sustained the tradition. It will use CuneiDate, a new machine learning tool that will enable the dating of undated tablets, potentially transforming how we understand the final centuries of cuneiform writing.
Objective
In the prevailing view, cuneiform script survived until the first century CE because it was the only way to write the most enduring Mesopotamian science, astronomy. This view, however, is skewed by the nature of the data: while astronomical texts are easy to date, the vast majority of non-astronomical tablets cannot be dated and are overlooked in histories of the period. Yet, the vitality of cuneiform in its terminal phase suggests that a wealth of late literary and scholarly tablets awaits the development of new dating methods.
The aim of the Rewriting the End of Cuneiform Culture (RECC) project is to explain why cuneiform survived long after the great Mesopotamian centers had lost their prominence and become provinces within vast empires. The hypothesis posits that the survival and flourishing of cuneiform is a reaction to these changes, an attempt to defend the native tradition against cosmopolitan cultures. With their labored writings, Babylonian scholars endeavored to show that their legacy still had the power to speak to their own world.
The project has three Research Objectives:
To grasp the extent of the textual production of the late period and the network of scribal families responsible for it.
To chart the development of cuneiform script by means of a pioneering Machine Learning-powered tool (CuneiDate) that enables, for the first time, the inferred dating of undated tablets.
To rewrite the end of cuneiform civilization by explaining the reasons for the continued use of cuneiform.
This pathbreaking method promises to revolutionize cuneiform studies and other disciplines that study manuscript cultures by providing historical context to thousands of unmoored documents. The recovery of these contexts will disclose how the Babylonians coped with the loss of significance of their millennia-old traditions and offer insights for contemporary cultures experiencing cultural anxiety as they interact with more dominant cultures in a globalized world.
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.
You need to log in or register to use this function
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)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
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.
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.
Funding Scheme
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.
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.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
80539 Planegg
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.