WRITING AND ACCOUNTING IN EARLY MESOPOTAMIA: REASSESSING EVOLUTIONARY MODELS AND SOCIAL IMPACT OF LITERACY AT THE DAWN OF HISTORY (4TH-2ND MILLENNIA BCE)

ended

The project aims to reconsider the interplay between writing and accounting devices in early Mesopotamia, challenging old evolutionary models. As recent discoveries in Turkey make clear, writing did not replace prehistoric means of administration throughout Mesopotamian history. In addition, newly found traces of pigments on early cuneiform tablets invite us to reconsider the main writing medium – i.e. clay – as a complex one. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the project will output an innovative monograph, which will re-assess the role of writing in the ancient urban cultures of the Near East, and more broadly in cultural evolution. The research will focus on both Philology of cuneiform sources — no coherent study on ancient terminology for writing and accounting is presently available —, and Art History, in order to look for as yet unrecognized representations of ancient devices in the iconographic record. The research will be informed by original Digital Humanities solutions for data mining of cuneiform texts (PostgreSQL database, Python scripts). In addition, comparative Anthropology will provide a broader theoretical background to test assumptions and possible interpretations. The action will open up diverse academic opportunities for the researcher, including a professorship in Europe, either in History of the Ancient Near East or in Digital Humanities, thanks to the newly acquired expertise in History of sciences and programming languages. Through seminars and workshops, the host will benefit from the researcher’s expertise in comparative study of writing systems, as well as from his academic network. The results have great potential for exploitation in History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Cultural evolution, Digital Humanities. The project focuses on the historical developments of one of the core feature of civilization — namely writing — which is of great interest to both scholars and wide public within the European community.