Late Sumerian
Bilingual Literature
History of Religion
Digital Humanities.

Current Projects

Sumerian is the first documented language of humankind. It is attested in Mesopotamia for three millennia (ca. 3500 BCE – 0). However, Sumerian was still used as a “dead” language for roughly two millennia (ca. 2000 – 0). Why? My project will try to answer this question from a linguistic, literary and historical perspective.

Curriculum Vitae 

Fellowships and Grants 

2019    Post-Doc fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. Project title: “The Development of the First Millennium Sumerian”.

2015 - 2019     Doctoral fellowship in Assyriology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Graduate School Distant Worlds. Ph.D. Title: “Sonnengrüßen: die sumerischen Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen”.

2014 - 2015     Predoctoral fellowship in Assyriology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Graduate School Distant Worlds.

prizes

2019    Bursary for participation in the Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology at Wolfson College.

2018    Bursary for participation in the “Advanced Seminar in the Humanities on Literature and Culture in the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece, Rome, and the Near East 2018-2019” at Venice International University.

2017    Bursary for participation in the “Master Class: Cuneiform Epigraphy” at Heidelberg University.

Education

2011 - 2013     M.A. in Languages and Civilizations of Ancient and Modern East at Florence University

2008 - 2011     B.A. in Ancient Literature - Oriental Curriculum at Florence University.

Publications

Books

In preparation             Sonnengrüße. Die sumerischen Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen = 2018 LMU Ph.D. thesis. Accepted for the series Ancient Magic and Divination (Leiden: Brill).

Chapters in books

Submitted       “Once Upon a Time, There Was an Exorcist: On the narrative Structures of Sumerian Kiutu Incantation-Prayers”, in S. Helle, G. Konstantopoulos (edd.) “The Shape of Stories: Narrative Structures in Cuneiform Literature”, Cuneiform Monographs (Leiden: Brill).

Articles

2019 (In press)            “Abracadabra incantations: Non-sense or healing therapies?”, KASKAL: Rivista di storia, ambienti e culture del Vicino Oriente Antico.

Presentations 

10.2019           “The Kiutu incantation-prayers. Or a literary genre inspired by a single composition”, Yale University (invited lecture).

04.2019           “Once Upon a Time, There Was an Exorcist: Narrative Structures in Kiutu Incantation Prayers”, Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology, Wolfson College, Oxford University.

06.2017           “The Sumerian of the first millennium BC: Kiutu prayers as a case study”, UC Berkeley-LMU Munich workshop “Cuneiform Languages and Texts in the Age of Digitisation: the Challenge of Late Sumerian”, LMU Munich.

11.2016           “Sumerische Gebete an den Sonnengott: Zu Aufbau und Entwicklung der Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen”, Kolloquium zum Alten Orient, LMU Munich (invited lecture).

05.2014           “Modern Scholars and the Ancient Insane: Towards a Research History of Psychiatric Interpretation of Mesopotamian Sources”, Building History - Forschungsgeschichte on the Ancient Near East, University of Verona.