Towards a History of Assyriology

The contributions collected in this volume are based on a section entitled “Towards a History of Assyriology” held in July 2018 as part of the 64th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (RAI) in Innsbruck. While the history of the comparatively young discipline of Ancient Near Eastern Studies did not receive too much attention in the past, recent years have seen an increased interest in the history of the discipline. Research into the Ancient Near East has been an international endeavor from the very beginning, as many of the contributions presented here demonstrate. This international cooperation has to be considered by any comprehensive history of ancient Near Eastern Studies. However, a prerequisite for such an international history of Ancient Near Eastern studies is the reappraisal of the national histories of ancient Near Eastern studies and its international networks, which are based on the study of archives of different sizes and languages. While at the beginning of ancient Near Eastern Studies in the 19th century, Denmark, England, France, and the German states, later the German Empire, played a central role, scholars in other countries soon began to dedicate themselves to ancient Near Eastern studies. Some of the contributions in this volume are devoted to such national academic histories. Other contributions are dedicated to well-known and lesser-known research personalities in the history of the discipline. Further articles discuss research-historical and ideological issues that influenced the subject of Ancient Near Eastern Studies / Assyriology and its development.