Beatrice Baragli

Beatrice Baragli

Beatrice
Dr.
Beatrice
Baragli
Assyriology
Linguistics

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:

2022: Sonnengrüße. Die sumerischen Kiutu-Gebetsbeschwörungen, Ancient Magic and Divination 19 (Leiden/Boston: Brill).

2021: Beatrice Baragli, Albert Dietz, Zsombor J. Földi, Patrizia Heindl, Polly Lohmann and Sarah P. Schlüter (eds.): Distant Worlds and Beyond: Special Issue Dedicated to the Graduate School Distant Worlds (2012‒2021), Distant Worlds Journal Special Issues 3 (Heidelberg: Propylaeum).

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

Forthcoming: Hannelore Agnethler, Beatrice Baragli: “dumu diĝir-ra-na: The god’s filiation in Mesopotamian incantation literature”, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions.

Forthcoming: Beatrice Baragli, peter Zilberg: “An Old Babylonian fragment featuring the sun-god”, Orientalia.

Forthcoming: Aleksi Sahala, Beatrice Baragli, Giulia Lentini, Poppy Tushingham: “Towards a Word Similarity Gold Standard for Akkadian: Creation and Model Optimization”, PLOS ONE.

2023 – in press: Beatrice Baragli, Jeremiah Peterson: “Utu and Inana: A Sumerian Cultic Song Containing a Myth Featuring the Journey of the Rising Sun, the Appearance of the Morning Star, and the Aromatics Trade”, Oriens Antiquus – Series Nova 5.

2023 – In Press: Beatrice Baragli, Uri Gabbay: “The Ritual for Opening a Canal from Nineveh”, Iraq – The British Institute for the Study of Iraq journal.

2022: Beatrice Baragli, “The Bilingual Chiasmus: A Unique Rhetorical Device for ‘Knotting’ Words in Sumerian-Akkadian Literature”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 81, 261-281.

2022: Beatrice Baragli, “The Sun of Nippur: Tracing the Origin of Old Babylonian Sumerian Compositions to Utu Based on Literary Features”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 112, 321-346.

2022: Beatrice Baragli, “From the eBL Lab 34. Further Kiutu Fragments and Joins”, KASKAL 19, 185-190.

2022: Beatrice Baragli, Daisuke Shibata: “From the eBL Lab 35. BM 38873: A Parallel Fragment to Kiutu M”, KASKAL 19, 190-193.

2021: Beatrice Baragli, Zsombor J. Földi: “From the eBL Lab 23. A Harsh Punishment for an Evil Spirit: New Fragments of a Sumerian Kiutu from Ashurbanipal’s Library”, KASKAL 18, 233-238.

2019: Beatrice Baragli, “Abracadabra incantations: Non-sense or healing therapies?”, KASKAL 16, 293-321.

In preparation: Beatrice Baragli: “The Sumerian Compound Verbs in the First Millennium”, Proceedings of the Workshop “Late Sumerian: Case Studies, Challenges, Perspectives”.

In preparation: Beatrice Baragli, Uri Gabbay: “Preface”, Proceedings of the Workshop ‘Late Sumerian: Case Studies, Challenges, Perspectives’.

In preparation: Beatrice Baragli: “To Each Their Own Language: Explaining Linguistic Diversity in Ritual Texts and Incantations”, Proceedings of the workshop “Who is it (good) for? Ritual performances and ritual texts”.

Articles in NON-PEER Reviewed Journals and reviews

2023: Beatrice Baragli, Armando Bramanti: “Fourth meeting of the Giovani Ricercatori Italiani di Storia e Filologia del Vicino Oriente Antico (GRISeF-VOA) – Ricerche in corso”, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2023/34, 74-76.

2023 – in press: Review of: Marinella Ceravolo, L‘historiola nella Mesopotamia antica, Bulzoni (2022), ASDIWAL – Revue genevoise d’anthropologie et d’histoire des religions.

Book Chapters       

2023: Beatrice Baragli, “Representing Time in the Kiutu Incantation-prayers”, in Sophus Helle, Gina Konstantopoulos (eds.), The Shape of Stories: Narrative Structures in Cuneiform Literature, Cuneiform Monographs 54 (Leiden/Boston: Brill).

2021: Beatrice Baragli, “What Can Eliade Still Say to Assyriology?: The Reception of a Historian of Religions in Ancient Near Eastern Studies”, in: Beatrice Baragli, Albert Dietz, Zsombor J. Földi, Patrizia Heindl, Polly Lohmann and Sarah P. Schlüter (eds.), Distant Worlds and Beyond. Special Issue Dedicated to the Graduate School Distant Worlds (2012‒2021), Distant Worlds Journal Special Issues 3 (Heidelberg: Propylaeum), 15-23.

2021: Beatrice Baragli, Albert Dietz, Zsombor J. Földi, Patrizia Heindl, Polly Lohmann and Sarah P. Schlüter: “Preface”, in: Beatrice Baragli, Albert Dietz, Zsombor J. Földi, Patrizia Heindl, Polly Lohmann and Sarah P. Schlüter (eds.), Distant Worlds and Beyond. Special Issue Dedicated to the Graduate School Distant Worlds (2012‒2021), Distant Worlds Journal Special Issues 3 (Heidelberg: Propylaeum), 1-4.

Organized events

  • 17–20/07/2023: with Jonathan Beltz, Céline Debourse, Spencer Elliott, Elizabeth Knott, Evelyne Koubková, Yael Leokumovich, and Selena Wisnom: Who is it (good) for? Ritual texts and ritual performances, Workshop at the 68th RAI, Leiden, Netherlands.

  • 16–17/11/2022: with Prof. Dr Uri Gabbay: Late Sumerian: Case Studies, Challenges, Perspectives. Organisations: Martin Buber Society of Fellows and ERC “Ancient Mesopotamian Priestly Scholasticism in the First Millennium BCE” (AMPS), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

  • 02/12/2022: with Dr Armando Bramanti: IV Convegno dei Giovani Ricercatori Italiani di Storia e Filologia del Vicino Oriente Antico – Ricerche in corso. GRISeF-VOA (Giovani Ricercatori Italiani di Storia e Filologia del Vicino Oriente Antico), online.

  • 2020 – 2023: with Dr Peter Zilberg: Ancient Near East Departmental Colloquium, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Invited lectures

  • Reading a Sumerian Kiutu-prayer, Seminar, University of Tsukuba, Japan, 8/10/2023.

  • When Sumerian and Akkadian faced each other: bilingual texts in first millennium Mesopotamia, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, 14/04/2023.

  • Zu zweisprachigen Texten des 1. Jahrtausends und der Rolle des Spätsumerischen, Neue Forschungen zu Westasien im Altertum – Vortragsreihe des Lehrstuhls, Würzburg, Germany, 23/06/2022.

  • On Bilingual Texts of the 1st Millennium, HUJI Archaeological and Assyriological Departmental Seminar, Jerusalem, Israel, 09/06/2022.

  • The Sun of Nippur: From Rhetorical Devices to History of Sumerian Literature, ARWA Online Lecture Series – Philology & History Liaison Group. From Text to History: Philological Approaches to the Ancient Near East, online, 20/05/2022.

  • Late Sumerian as a Sacred Language, Colloquium of the Martin Buber Society of Fellows, Jerusalem, Israel, 24/01/2022.

  • Critical Text Editions: From Traditional Philology to Digitization, The 24th Annual Conference of the Israel Society for Assyriology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, online 25/01/2021.

  • The Kiutu incantation-prayers: A literary genre inspired by a single composition, Yale University, Connecticut, USA, 09/10/2019.

  • The Kiutu incantation-prayers: Or a literary genre inspired by a single composition, UC Berkeley California, USA, 25/09/2019.

  • Ein Kiutu-Gebet: Analyse und Interpretation, Research Forum of the Graduate School Distant Worlds, Munich, Germany, 03–05/12/2015.

alumni