University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum (Philadelphia, PA)
Since its first Paris meeting in 1950, the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale has drawn together Assyriologists—scholars who read and study cuneiform texts—and Near Eastern archaeologists from around the world to share new research and perspectives. From July 11 through 15, 2016, the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum will host the 62nd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, marking the fifth time the prestigious conference has been held in the United States, and the second time it has been hosted by Penn in Philadelphia. About 250 to 300 scholars and archaeologists are expected to attend from about two dozen countries.
The program will feature eleven workshops on a variety of topics from Ancient Near Eastern Art, to Ur and the Gulf, Intertexuality in Cuneiform Scholarship, and explorations of specific periods of history. One session will be held in memory of Åke Sjøberg (1924–2014), former Tablet Collections director at the Penn Museum and a renowned Sumerian scholar who initiated the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project before the age of computers. Education is an important topic for the conference, and one workshop, geared to middle school teachers, will focus on Teaching and Assyriology.
More than 150 participants offer short papers, and a poster session invites sharing and discussion among scholars. Conference meetings are held on the Penn campus. All registered attendees have free admission to the Penn Museum, to explore its galleries and related exhibitions, including Iraq’s Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur’s Royal Cemetery, Magic in the Ancient World, and the special exhibition The Golden Age of King Midas, featuring art and artifacts on loan from the Republic of Turkey.