Mainz, October 27–30, 2025
Some seventy years after the publication of Wolfram von Soden’s Herrscher im Alten Orient, the field of Near Eastern studies has yet to develop new approaches and methodologies to adequately reconstruct the lives and characters of the rulers who dominate the received narratives of the ancient Near East. This conference will address how historical persons (especially monarchs) were, and continue to be, shaped into figures—that is, how their personas were constructed and projected in antiquity and how we as historians reconstruct and view them today.
In addition to examing possible methodological approaches to the subject, papers will address
1) the structures and concepts of power that were instrumental in the formation of figures of power in antiquity;
2) how historically and culturally determined disparities are, or can be, overcome in our modern reconstructions of these figures; and
3) the rationale behind the character attributes assigned to them in modern scholarship and what alternative pictures can be drawn of them.
Scholars in Sumerology, Assyriology, Hittitology, and related disciplines are invited.
Scientific Organizer:
