Books by Agnete Wisti Lassen
Edited book accompanying the exhibition "Women at the Dawn of History" starting 29 February 2020 ... more Edited book accompanying the exhibition "Women at the Dawn of History" starting 29 February 2020 at Sterling Memorial Library, Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, CT. The book contains a number of essays on various aspects of the topics in addition to a description of all artifacts that are on display.
Women at the Dawn of History, 2020
This lavishly illustrated volume gives a voice to women who lived millennia ago in Mesopotamia, p... more This lavishly illustrated volume gives a voice to women who lived millennia ago in Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, Syria and Turkey, and explores their roles, representations and contributions to society.
Tens of thousands of cuneiform texts, monumental sculptures, and images on terracotta reliefs and cylinder seals cast light on the fates of women at the dawn of history, from queens to female slaves. In the patriarchal world of ancient Mesopotamia, women were often represented in their relation to men—as mothers, daughters, or wives—giving the impression that a woman’s place was in the home. But, as we explore in this volume, they were also authors and scholars, astute business-women, sources of expressions of eroticism, priestesses with access to major gods and goddesses, and regents who exercised power on behalf of kingdoms, states, and empires.
This volume accompanies an exhibition at the Babylonian Collection in the Sterling Memorial Library, showcasing artefacts and texts relating to women, many never exhibited or published before.
A stunning guide to the highlights housed within the Yale Babylonian Collection, presenting new p... more A stunning guide to the highlights housed within the Yale Babylonian Collection, presenting new perspectives on the society and culture of the ancient Near East
The Yale Babylonian Collection houses virtually every genre, type, and period of ancient Mesopotamian writing, ranging from about 3000 B.C.E. to the early Christian Era. Among its treasures are tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh and other narratives, the world’s oldest recipes, a large corpus of magic spells and mathematical texts, stunning miniature art carved on seals, and poetry by the first named author in world history, the princess Enheduanna.
This unique volume, the companion book to an exhibition at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, celebrates the Yale Babylonian Collection and its formal affiliation with the museum. Included are essays by world-renowned experts on the exhibition themes, photographs and illustrations, and a catalog of artifacts in the collection that present the ancient Near East in the light of present-day discussion of lived experiences, focusing on family life and love, education and scholarship, identity, crime and transgression, demons, and sickness.
Agnete W. Lassen is associate curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Eckart Frahm is professor of Assyriology at Yale University. Klaus Wagensonner is a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University.
Papers by Agnete Wisti Lassen
Aula Orientalis 42/2, 2024
The paper presents the first publication of a cuneiform tablet accompanied by a sealed envelope, ... more The paper presents the first publication of a cuneiform tablet accompanied by a sealed envelope, originating from Kassite Nippur and now housed in the collections of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. The text documents the receipt of beer containers by a previously unknown brewer, Taqīšu, who was active during the reign of Kurigalzu II. Based on prosopographic analysis, the document can be linked to Nippur’s so-called “archive of the granary”. The seal, featuring a martial motif and inscribed with a brief anonymous prayer to Marduk, is identified as belonging to the pseudo-Kassite style.
ZA, 2024
The seals and seal impressions from the site of Basmaya, a provincial Kassite town close to the T... more The seals and seal impressions from the site of Basmaya, a provincial Kassite town close to the Tigris-Diyala river junction, comprise five cylinder seals, a possible ring-seal, a sealed clay lump, and a cuneiform document impressed with a fingernail. All seals were found in domestic contexts, recovered from the floors and fill in the rooms of two large houses. Only two of the seals are contemporary with the context in which they were found. The three others, a Mitanni seal and two Old Babylonian seals, predate the Kassite period. Through a contextual analysis, this paper will propose that the Basmaya seals were conceptualized and used in different ways at the site, including as sealing devices-as expected-but also as collectibles and/or ornaments.
F. Kulakoğlu and C. Michel (eds.) Kültepe at the Crossroads between Disciplines: Society, Settlement and Environment from the Fourth to the First Millennium BC (KIM 5) Brepols Publishers, 2024
Zoltan Niederreiter and Erika Roboz (eds.) Mesopotamia: Kingdom of Gods and Demons. , 2024
Mesopotamia, 2023
HAider orAiBi AlMAMori-tAhA k. ABod-kAriM o. sWAdi-tiM ClAyden-petrA M. CreAMer elenA deveCChi-Ag... more HAider orAiBi AlMAMori-tAhA k. ABod-kAriM o. sWAdi-tiM ClAyden-petrA M. CreAMer elenA deveCChi-Agnete W. lAssen, Tell Basmaya-A Kassite
Ash-Sharq: Bulletin of the Ancient Near East, 2021
Сходознавство, 2021
Музей історичних коштовностей України зберігає п’ять циліндрич-них печаток із халцедону, які були... more Музей історичних коштовностей України зберігає п’ять циліндрич-них печаток із халцедону, які були вилучені на митниці в кінці 1990-х –на початку 2000-х рр. Циліндричні печатки є важливим об’єктом давньо-месопотамської культури, оскільки їх намотували на глиняні таблички для ратифікації. Водночас на них були вирізані зображення з мотивами з релігії та повсякденного життя. Печатки з України дають цікавий огляд майже трьохтисячолітньої практики запечатування в Стародавній Месопотамії. Однією з найпоширеніших тем печаток є сцена посвячення, яка зображує людину, що стоїть на чолі з богинею перед сидячим божеством. На трьох печатках з Музею історичних коштовностей України зображено варіанти цієї сцени, хоча дві з них виконані грубо і мають сумнівну достовірність. Здається, вони імітують шумерський стиль Ура III. Приклади гліптичного мистецтва цього періоду можна знайти в колекції Інституту рукопису Національної бібліотеки імені В. І. Вернадського в Києві, де зберігаються три шумерські таблички Ура III з відбитками на циліндричних печатках. Третя печатка зі сценою посвячення з музею датується Старовавилонським періодом і примітна демоном Угаллу, який зображений перевернутим. Одна печатка з колекції зображує відрубані людські голови серед гілочок у квітковому мотиві. Остання печатка, яку слід обговорити, датується часом Новоассирійської імперії 1-го тисячоліття до н. е. і атрибутується за зображенням Ламассу – крилатого бика з людською головою. У цьому дослідженні представлений каталог печаток, що зберігаються в музеї, з коротким вступом до практики опечатування та її термінології автентичними мовами на Стародавньому Близькому Сході.
Orientalia Nova Series 88, 2019
RBC [Rosen Babylonian Collection] 733 is a hitherto unpublished
Middle Assyrian tablet from the Y... more RBC [Rosen Babylonian Collection] 733 is a hitherto unpublished
Middle Assyrian tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC). In this short article, Jaume Llop presents an edition, commentary and copy of this sealed debt note from the YBC. Agnete Wisti Lassen has copied the seal and analysed its traces on the tablet.
Women at the Dawn of History, edited by Agnete W. Lassen and Klaus Wagensonner, 2020
A.W. Lassen, E. Frahm and K. Wagensonner (eds) Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks. Highlights from the Yale Babylonian Collection. New Haven, CT: Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, pp. 108-125, 2019
Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks: Highlights from the Yale Babylonian Collection, 2019
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2019
The corpus of sourced obsidian glyptic objects, like inscribed amulets and cylinder seals, is vir... more The corpus of sourced obsidian glyptic objects, like inscribed amulets and cylinder seals, is virtually nonexistent across the Near East. Here we report our findings for two obsidian amulets and two cylinder seals in the Yale Babylonian Collection and Metropolitan Museum of Art. We analyzed the artifacts using portable X-ray fluorescence, which is quantitative, nondestructive, and deployable virtually anywhere in the world. Our results establish that, for such objects, style is an unreliable predictor of obsidian source. Although the amulets are meant to protect against the same demon, they reflect different styles, skill in stone cutting, and knowledge of cuneiform, and their contexts of production must have considerably differed. The amulets' obsidian sources, however, are identical: the Kömürcü outcrops of the Göllü Dağ volcanic complex in Anatolia. The two cylinder seals exhibit typical Old Babylonian style and iconography, and the seals' obsidians are indistinguishable to the naked eye. One seal, however, matches the Anatolian “Bingöl B" source, one of the most important sources in Mesopotamia. The other seal matches an obsidian source that is only known from a vessel fragment unearthed from the Egyptian site of Abydos. This is, to our knowledge, the first time that Egyptian-tied obsidian has been chemically identified amongst Mesopotamian, Anatolian, or Levantine artifacts. Our findings tantalizingly suggest that such artifacts likely had more complex origins than has previously been appreciated. These results also hint that such objects might have been produced closer to the context of their use rather than nearer the volcanic sources of the stone.
Some four thousand years ago, the site of Kültepe in Central Anatolia was the scene of vibrant in... more Some four thousand years ago, the site of Kültepe in Central Anatolia was the scene of vibrant interaction among a number of ethnic and cultural groups. These cultural encounters are richly demonstrated in the glyptic remains, evidenced as seal impressions on clay tablets as well as seal stones. The seals, employed by merchants, moneylenders and administrators, were carved in different artistic styles, originating across the ancient Near East and stemming from various time periods. Within this cultural meeting, the seals changed and developed. Some were recarved and as a result show elements from more than one artistic tradition.
American Journal of Archaeology, 2016
ASOR Member-Organized Session
American Schools of Oriental Research, Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA... more ASOR Member-Organized Session
American Schools of Oriental Research, Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA
The InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta Hotel, November 18-21, 2015
In recent years, a number of seal studies have come out focusing especially on the social aspects of seal use. Most have been integrative in their approach to the material, i.e. they rely on archaeological and textual sources in addition to pictorial evidence. The aim of this session is to develop the integrative approach by addressing broader issues, such as the interaction between seal and owner, the seal's function in archival contexts, and the administrative usage of seals. The session hopes to offer a structured setting with the purpose of bringing together specialists to unite and compare findings and methodologies. The session will accept papers on all aspects of seals, be they archaeological, art historical, textual, etc.
Interested speakers can submit an abstract of 250 words or less via ASOR's online ASOR's Online Abstract Submission Site.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 15, 2014.
Professional membership and registration for the Annual Meeting is required at the time of abstract submission (directions will be provided in the confirmation of abstract receipt). Members may only be primary author of one presentation. Abstracts will not be reviewed until first authors of the papers have registered for the meeting. Should an abstract not be accepted, the registration fee can be refunded. Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this policy. For more information, visit https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.asor.org_am_2015_call-2Dfor-2Dpapers.html&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=1D3TFE4G5DUZ3JmIhS6JWPAqUZFn4jWBu8vqP0PSv2U&m=glNJlV9J4pIOkVORIIqpirABK0-LIFjFICflayQbIn8&s=b8CH2io5aAnj52aVsv0jU3m4OgDgobVCltY_Mr9ISFk&e= .
Please direct questions to Agnete W. Lassen ([email protected])
Uploads
Books by Agnete Wisti Lassen
Tens of thousands of cuneiform texts, monumental sculptures, and images on terracotta reliefs and cylinder seals cast light on the fates of women at the dawn of history, from queens to female slaves. In the patriarchal world of ancient Mesopotamia, women were often represented in their relation to men—as mothers, daughters, or wives—giving the impression that a woman’s place was in the home. But, as we explore in this volume, they were also authors and scholars, astute business-women, sources of expressions of eroticism, priestesses with access to major gods and goddesses, and regents who exercised power on behalf of kingdoms, states, and empires.
This volume accompanies an exhibition at the Babylonian Collection in the Sterling Memorial Library, showcasing artefacts and texts relating to women, many never exhibited or published before.
The Yale Babylonian Collection houses virtually every genre, type, and period of ancient Mesopotamian writing, ranging from about 3000 B.C.E. to the early Christian Era. Among its treasures are tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh and other narratives, the world’s oldest recipes, a large corpus of magic spells and mathematical texts, stunning miniature art carved on seals, and poetry by the first named author in world history, the princess Enheduanna.
This unique volume, the companion book to an exhibition at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, celebrates the Yale Babylonian Collection and its formal affiliation with the museum. Included are essays by world-renowned experts on the exhibition themes, photographs and illustrations, and a catalog of artifacts in the collection that present the ancient Near East in the light of present-day discussion of lived experiences, focusing on family life and love, education and scholarship, identity, crime and transgression, demons, and sickness.
Agnete W. Lassen is associate curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Eckart Frahm is professor of Assyriology at Yale University. Klaus Wagensonner is a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University.
Papers by Agnete Wisti Lassen
Middle Assyrian tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC). In this short article, Jaume Llop presents an edition, commentary and copy of this sealed debt note from the YBC. Agnete Wisti Lassen has copied the seal and analysed its traces on the tablet.
American Schools of Oriental Research, Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA
The InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta Hotel, November 18-21, 2015
In recent years, a number of seal studies have come out focusing especially on the social aspects of seal use. Most have been integrative in their approach to the material, i.e. they rely on archaeological and textual sources in addition to pictorial evidence. The aim of this session is to develop the integrative approach by addressing broader issues, such as the interaction between seal and owner, the seal's function in archival contexts, and the administrative usage of seals. The session hopes to offer a structured setting with the purpose of bringing together specialists to unite and compare findings and methodologies. The session will accept papers on all aspects of seals, be they archaeological, art historical, textual, etc.
Interested speakers can submit an abstract of 250 words or less via ASOR's online ASOR's Online Abstract Submission Site.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 15, 2014.
Professional membership and registration for the Annual Meeting is required at the time of abstract submission (directions will be provided in the confirmation of abstract receipt). Members may only be primary author of one presentation. Abstracts will not be reviewed until first authors of the papers have registered for the meeting. Should an abstract not be accepted, the registration fee can be refunded. Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this policy. For more information, visit https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.asor.org_am_2015_call-2Dfor-2Dpapers.html&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=1D3TFE4G5DUZ3JmIhS6JWPAqUZFn4jWBu8vqP0PSv2U&m=glNJlV9J4pIOkVORIIqpirABK0-LIFjFICflayQbIn8&s=b8CH2io5aAnj52aVsv0jU3m4OgDgobVCltY_Mr9ISFk&e= .
Please direct questions to Agnete W. Lassen ([email protected])
Tens of thousands of cuneiform texts, monumental sculptures, and images on terracotta reliefs and cylinder seals cast light on the fates of women at the dawn of history, from queens to female slaves. In the patriarchal world of ancient Mesopotamia, women were often represented in their relation to men—as mothers, daughters, or wives—giving the impression that a woman’s place was in the home. But, as we explore in this volume, they were also authors and scholars, astute business-women, sources of expressions of eroticism, priestesses with access to major gods and goddesses, and regents who exercised power on behalf of kingdoms, states, and empires.
This volume accompanies an exhibition at the Babylonian Collection in the Sterling Memorial Library, showcasing artefacts and texts relating to women, many never exhibited or published before.
The Yale Babylonian Collection houses virtually every genre, type, and period of ancient Mesopotamian writing, ranging from about 3000 B.C.E. to the early Christian Era. Among its treasures are tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh and other narratives, the world’s oldest recipes, a large corpus of magic spells and mathematical texts, stunning miniature art carved on seals, and poetry by the first named author in world history, the princess Enheduanna.
This unique volume, the companion book to an exhibition at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, celebrates the Yale Babylonian Collection and its formal affiliation with the museum. Included are essays by world-renowned experts on the exhibition themes, photographs and illustrations, and a catalog of artifacts in the collection that present the ancient Near East in the light of present-day discussion of lived experiences, focusing on family life and love, education and scholarship, identity, crime and transgression, demons, and sickness.
Agnete W. Lassen is associate curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Eckart Frahm is professor of Assyriology at Yale University. Klaus Wagensonner is a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University.
Middle Assyrian tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC). In this short article, Jaume Llop presents an edition, commentary and copy of this sealed debt note from the YBC. Agnete Wisti Lassen has copied the seal and analysed its traces on the tablet.
American Schools of Oriental Research, Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA
The InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta Hotel, November 18-21, 2015
In recent years, a number of seal studies have come out focusing especially on the social aspects of seal use. Most have been integrative in their approach to the material, i.e. they rely on archaeological and textual sources in addition to pictorial evidence. The aim of this session is to develop the integrative approach by addressing broader issues, such as the interaction between seal and owner, the seal's function in archival contexts, and the administrative usage of seals. The session hopes to offer a structured setting with the purpose of bringing together specialists to unite and compare findings and methodologies. The session will accept papers on all aspects of seals, be they archaeological, art historical, textual, etc.
Interested speakers can submit an abstract of 250 words or less via ASOR's online ASOR's Online Abstract Submission Site.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 15, 2014.
Professional membership and registration for the Annual Meeting is required at the time of abstract submission (directions will be provided in the confirmation of abstract receipt). Members may only be primary author of one presentation. Abstracts will not be reviewed until first authors of the papers have registered for the meeting. Should an abstract not be accepted, the registration fee can be refunded. Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this policy. For more information, visit https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.asor.org_am_2015_call-2Dfor-2Dpapers.html&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=1D3TFE4G5DUZ3JmIhS6JWPAqUZFn4jWBu8vqP0PSv2U&m=glNJlV9J4pIOkVORIIqpirABK0-LIFjFICflayQbIn8&s=b8CH2io5aAnj52aVsv0jU3m4OgDgobVCltY_Mr9ISFk&e= .
Please direct questions to Agnete W. Lassen ([email protected])
This paper will look into why identification was sometimes sacrificed as the primary parameter for the seal imagery and legend, and consider exoticism and collecting as alternative parameters for value ascription. As was argued by Appudurai, material objects gain value when taken out of a distant spatial or temporal context, demonstrating the power over time and space by the new owner. This paper will present three seals as cases whose imagery and legends clearly signal that they were of significant age, and of significant pedigree. Through a study of seal biographies the paper will follow the journey of these three seals through changing owners, and the ensuing recarving of imagery and legends. The three cases emphasize the importance of not only age, but especially the pedigree of the seals for their new owners, even at the expense of providing correct and legible information about the seal user. This suggests that a principle of ‘honor by association’ was in play, i.e. that the prestige of the previous owner would reflect on the new owner in his use of the seal. An ideal correspondence between seal owner and imagery and legend is less common than often assumed. Antique seals were collected, reused and enhanced to convey particular messages in a new context, which suggests that the primary function of seal imagery and legends was not always identification.
This report is a part of the project: Tools and Textiles – Texts and Contexts (TTTC).
Link to the report: https://ctr.hum.ku.dk/research-programmes-and-projects/previous-programmes-and-projects/tools/toolsreports/technical_textile_tools_report_berbati.pdf
See more about the TTTC-project at https://ctr.hum.ku.dk/research-programmes-and-projects/previous-programmes-and-projects/tools/