Lecture
Veenhof-lecture: These Bones Live!
- Prof. Dr Francesca Rochberg
- Date
- Friday 22 November 2019
- Time
- Series
- Veenhof-lecture
- Location
- Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
Rapenburg 28
2311WE Leiden - Room
- Tempelzaal
These Bones Live! Cuneiform Knowledge and Natural Knowledge
In “These Bones Live!” Francesca Rochberg reflects on three aspects of her research in Assyriology. The first is Babylonian scribal scholarship and cuneiform intellectual culture. Second is how cuneiform knowledge, especially of heavenly phenomena, relates to the history of science. Last is how the field of Assyriology is situated in today’s world and how politics have shaped and continue to shape our knowledge of the ancient Middle East.
One of Assyriology’s most important intellectual forefathers, A. Leo Oppenheim, referred to what he called “ever-recurring blackouts of knowledge,” that is, the gaps between available sources and the despair of ever filling them. The frequency and magnitude of those lacunae caused Oppenheim to ask, “can these bones live?”. According to Francesca Rochberg they can, and they do!
Prof. Dr Francesca Rochberg is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. A short introduction will be given by Dr Mathieu Ossendrijver.
Admission free, please register through the RMO website
More information on the NINO website