Jeanette Fincke

Dr Jeanette C. Fincke
VISITING FELLOW
jeanette.fincke@ori.uni-heidelberg.de

Jeanette C. Fincke is Privat Dozentin (PD) at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and NINO Visiting Fellow in Leiden.

Main research interests

Dr Jeanette C. Fincke is an Assyriologist with expertise on cuneiform texts from a broad variety of periods and genres. She studied Assyriology (Ancient Near Eastern Studies), Hittitology and Egyptology in Hamburg and Würzburg finishing her studies with a Magister thesis (Hamburg, 1989) on the role of women in adoptions according to the Nuzi texts. For her PhD thesis (Würzburg, 1999) she turned to Sumerian and Akkadian medical texts from Mesopotamia and the Hittite kingdom focussing on ophthalmic diseases for which she also collected data from other scholarly as well as non-medical cuneiform texts. In her Habilitation thesis (Heidelberg, 2006) she studied the omen series iqqur īpuš that interprets various activities and events in a man’s life as well as some celestial phenomena for each of the twelve months plus the possible intercalary month(s). Her new edition of this omen series presents many new joins and some newly identified tablets which are edited for the first time.

Dr Finke’s main research area lies in the history of astronomy with a focus on the celestial phenomena described and interpreted as ominous signs in the series enūma anu enlil and related texts.

Her second area of research is based on the private and administrative tablets from the Hurrian kingdom of Arrapḫe, the so-called Nuzi tablets that date roughly from 1550 to 1450 BCE, and on the Hurrian language. In addition to this, she has concentrated on cuneiform medical texts and the tablets from the Ashurbanipal Library in Nineveh.

Previous activities

Following her PhD in Würzburg, Jeanette Fincke held several post-doctoral positions at the Seminar für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients – Assyriologie at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (1999-2002; 2003-05), at what is now the Middle East Department (formerly the Ancient Near East Department) of the British Museum, London (2003, 2005, 2006), at the Department of Assyriology at Leiden University (2006-2012), at the Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East, Ancient Near East – Assyriology of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (2013-14), at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris (2015-17), and at NINO in Leiden (2019-2020). During her career she was awarded two prestigious grants: a fellowship of the Margarete von Wrangell-Habilitationsprogramm of the Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden Württemberg (2003-05), and a M4Human fellowship from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung co-financed by the European commission (2013-14).

She has taught classes at all levels in Assyriology and Hittitology at the universities of Hamburg, Würzburg, Heidelberg, Amsterdam, Leiden, and London since 1995, and continues teaching regularly at Heidelberg.

Since 1990, she has spent several periods, ranging from a few days up to many months or years, examining the cuneiform collections of various museums in various countries for her publications: Germany (Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin), Great Britain (British Museum, London), Russia (Hermitage, St. Petersburg) and USA (Harvard Semitic Museum, Cambridge, MA; Babylonian Collection of Yale University, New Haven, CT; Oriental Institute, Chicago, IL). Her familiarity with these collections enabled her to identifying many joins and text compositions, the results of which she has been regularly sharing with other Assyriologists in private communication as well as in publications.

Selected publications

For full publication list, see personal website.

Books

  • Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der Nuzi-Texte. Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients: Reihe B, Geisteswissenschaften, no. 7: Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes 10, Dr. Ludwig Reichert, Wiesbaden, 1993.
  • Augenleiden nach keilschriftlichen Quellen. Untersuchungen zur altorientalischen Medizin. Würzburger Medizinhistorische Forschungen Band 70, Würzburg, 2000.
  • An Ancient Mesopotamian Herbal Handbook - The Series URU.AN.NA and MUD-UR.MAH Volume 1: The Tablets, Orient & Méditerranée 33. Peeters, Leuven 2021.
  • From Celestial Omens to the Beginnings of Modern Astrology in Ancient Mesopotamia. New Evidence for the Development of Modern Astrology in Cuneiform Texts Based on the Study of Three Technical terms (DUR = t.urru, GU and DUR) for the Description of Celestial Phenomena and Stellar Positions. The Babylonian Sky 1. ISLET, Dresden 2024.

Books edited

  • Festschrift für Gernot Wilhelm anläßlich seines 65. Geburtstages am 28. Januar 2010, Islet: Dresden 2010.
  • Divination in the Ancient Near East – Divination im Alten Orient. A workshop on Divination Conducted during the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg (20-25 July 2008), Eisenbrauns: Winona Lake, IN, 2014.
  • Divination as Science. A Workshop Conducted during the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Warsaw, 2014. Eisenbrauns: Winona Lake, IN, 2016.

Articles

  • Zum Verkauf von Grundbesitz in Nuzi. Pp. 125-41 in: J.C. Fincke (ed.), Festschrift für Gernot Wilhelm anläßlich seines 65. Geburtstages am 28. Januar 2010, Dresden 2010.
  • Spezialisierung und Differenzierung im Bereich der altorientalischen Medizin: Die Dermatologie am Beispiel der Symptome simmū matqūtu, kalmātu (matuqtu), kibšu, kiṣṣatu und gurištu. Pp. 159-208 in: G.J. Selz & K. Wagensommer (eds.), The Empirical Dimensions of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Die empirische Dimension altorientalischer Forschungen, Wiener Offene Orientalistik 6, Wien/Münster 2011.
  • “If a star changes into ashes…” A sequence of unusual celestial omens. Iraq 75 (2013) 171-96.
  • The Solar Eclipse Omen Texts from enūma anu enlil. Bibliotheca Orientalis 70, 5/6 (2013, published 2014) 582-608.
  • Additions to the Venus Omens of the Omen Series enūma anu enlil (EAE) published in BPO 3 as Group F. KASKAL 10 (2013) 89-110.
  • Babylonische Gelehrte am neuassyrischen Hof: zwischen Anpassung und Individualität, in H. Neumann et al. (eds.), Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien. Pp. 260-92 in: 52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale - International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, Münster, 17.-21. Juli 2006, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 401, Münster 2014.
  • The Seventh Tablet of the rikis gerri Series of enūma anu enlil. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 66 (2014) 129-48.
  • Three more Nuzi texts from the British Museum and a Middle Assyrian letter from the aftermath of Nuzi, Altorientalische Forschungen 41.1 (2014) 15-29.
  • Additions to already Edited enūma anu enlil (EAE) Tablets, Part II: Tablets Concerning the Appearance of the Sun Published in PIHANS 73, Part I, KASKAL 11 (2014) 103-39.
  • Additions to already Edited enūma anu enlil (EAE) Tablets, Part III: A New Copy from Babylonia for the Tablet on Planets (MUL.UDU.IDIM) of the Omen Series, KASKAL 12 (2015) 267-79.
  • The Oldest Mesopotamian Astronomical Treatise: enūma anu enlil (EAE). In: J.C. Fincke, Divination as Science, Winona Lake, IN, 2016, 107-146.
  • (together with Mathieu Ossendrijver) BM 46550 – a Late Babylonian Mathematical Tablet with Computations of Reciprocal Numbers, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 106 (2016) 185–97.
  • (together with Jaume Llop) Two Middle Assyrian Delivery Notes from the British Museum’s Tablet Collection, in: Y. Heffron, A. Stone, und M. Worthington, At the Dawn of History. Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J.N. Postgate, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2017, 313-19.
  • Additions to already Edited enūma anu enlil (EAE) Tablets, Part IV: The Lunar Eclipse Omns from Tablets 15-19 Published by Rochberg-Halton in AfO Beiheft 22, KASKAL 13 (2016; published 2017) 89-119.
  • Additional MUL.APIN Fragments in the British Museum, JCS 69 (2017) 247-60.
  • Assyrian Scholarship and Scribal Culture in Kalḫu and Nineveh, in: E. Frahm (Hg.), A Companion to Assyria. Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, 387-97.
  • The Library of Assurbanipal, in: L.P. Petit and D. Morandi Bonacossi (eds.), Nineveh. The Great City, Symbol of Beauty and Power, PALMA 13, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. Leiden 2017: 208-11.

Online publications

  • “The Babylonian Nineveh Texts”. Database created as part of The Ashurbanipal Library Project of the British Museum (first published 2003 and regularly updated).
  • “List of Nineveh Joins”. Database created as part of The Ashurbanipal Library Project of the British Museum (first published February 2006 and regularly updated).
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