24
Jan
2024

Invention & ingenuity

NINO Annual Meeting
VU Amsterdam
9:30-17:00 hrs
Bas ter Haar Romeny, Shiyanthi Thavapalan, Shana Zaia
Glass jar belonging to Sargon II, The British Museum, 103783001 (NINO Annual Meeting 2024 campaign image)

5th NINO Annual Meeting

We all know the Ancient Near East to be the birthplace of writing, medicine, mathematics, astronomy and a whole host of engineering and techno-scientific feats, some of which are only coming to light now, as we in the humanities collaborate more and more with colleagues in the STEM fields. At the NINO Annual Meeting 2024, we propose to explore the theme of Invention and Ingenuity in the Ancient Near East. 

On the one hand, speakers will highlight concrete examples of innovation and creativity in the material record and anchor them within the global history of ideas. On the other, they will also take the opportunity to consider how these concepts are reflected upon in ancient literature—that is to say, in the imagination or the mental world of people. The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam looks forward to hosting a lively discussion about how people exploited nature to invent and how inventions transformed ways of living.

The fifth Annual Meeting of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East will be held on Thursday 25 January 2024 at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

VU Organizers: Bas ter Haar Romeny, Shiyanthi Thavapalan, Shana Zaia
Theme: Invention & ingenuity in the Ancient Near East

Admission is free. Register by email to Shiyanthi Thavapalan before January 15, 2024.

Program

Update 22-1-2024: (small) program change

Venue

Agora 1 at VU Amsterdam Main Building (Hoofdgebouw)

De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

09:30-10:00Coffee and Registration

10:00-10:10

10:10-10:15

Welcome and Introductory Remarks

Introducing the VU’s Special Collections Exhibition for NINO Day

10:15-11:00 Keynote

Philology as an Experimental System:
Two Moments in the History of Cuneiform Notation

J. Cale Johnson (FU Berlin)

11:00-11:15 Coffee Break
11:15-12:45

Session 1

Chair: Shana Zaia

The Achaemenid Administrations’ Introduction of Aramaic as a Vehicular and Administrative LanguageMargaretha Folmer (Leiden University)
A Shared World of Images: Invention and Ingenuity in the Creation of a Common Language of Representation in Aegean and Black Sea Networks during the 5th to 3rd centuries BCEAleksandar Tsankov (Utrecht University)
Between Local and Global Perspective: Behind the Historiographical Plan of the Liber Superiorum of Thomas of Marga (9th c. CE)Giovanni Gomiero (Ghent University)
12:45-14:00 Lunch Break
14:00-15:15

Session 2

Chair: Shiyanthi Thavapalan

Tradition, Innovation, and Creativity in the Babylonian Horoscope. Some New Ideas about the Babylonian Origin of the Planetary Exaltations in Greco-Roman AstrologyAlessia Pilloni (FU Berlin) & Mathieu Ossendrijver (FU Berlin)
Invention and Creativity in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East: Embedding Global DiversityMiguel John Versluys (Leiden University)
15:15-15:45 Coffee Break
15:45-16:30

Session 4 Lightning Round

Chair: Bas ter Haar Romeny

A Note on the Technical Examination of Late Bronze Age Glass Tubes from the Ziggurat of Chogha Zanbil in Dutch Archaeological CollectionsGuus Verhaar and Réne van Beek (TU Delft and Allard Pierson Museum)
Anchoring Asceticism in Late Antique Gaul: Interiority, Paideia, and Community in Lérinian HagiographyTeun van Dijk (VU Amsterdam)
Paul, Syriac Christianity, and Judaism: Syriac Interpretations of Romans 9–11Hanna Hoogenraad (VU Amsterdam)
16:30 Borrel
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