qibīma! Second Millennium Cuneiform Letters and their Language

Name: qibīma! Second Millennium Cuneiform Letters and their Language
Start: 2026-02-05T10:00:00+01:00
End: 2026-02-06T16:30:00+01:00
Location: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden

Schedule

Thu, 05 Feb, 2026 at 10:00 am to Fri, 06 Feb, 2026 at 04:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Rijksmuseum van Oudheden | Leiden, ZH

NINO Postdoctoral Research Fellow 6th Annual Conference
Organized by: Albert Planelles
Letters were a widespread form of communication in the ancient Near East, as evidenced by their discovery in many sites. Some of the largest corpora of preserved cuneiform letters date back to the second millennium BCE, which also saw the emergence of a number of local traditions outside the Mesopotamian core.
In cuneiform archives, one of the elements that most clearly defines letters is language. Letters can be distinguished from other types of documents by the use of specific formulas, the concurrence of injunctive verb forms, and a rather free language and style. The conference will bring all these elements into focus through papers that will explore the relationship between the language used in letters and everyday speech, as well as the use of expressions and idioms that appear only or mostly in letters, including formulaic expressions and rhetorical devices. The conference will also delve into how letters are used in the framework of interpersonal relations, inasmuch as they are used to express emotions and feelings and to convey power dynamics. Finally, dialects attested in letters will also be addressed, as well as language contact, language interference, and literacy.