ASOR

Last week I had the pleasure of (finally) attending the ASOR Annual Meeting in Boston. I was invited by the lovely Ludovico Portuese to present a paper in his session called “Manners and Etiquette in the Ancient Near East”.

The session was on the last day, so I attended sessions on pastoral nomadism, the transition from the Neo-Assyrian to the Neo-Babylonian period, and digital history and archaeology beforehand.

The session itself was wonderful. Manners and etiquette is not my normal topic, but the session proved it was an important aspect to consider when assessing ancient documents.

My paper was about how we can see Assyrian etiquette in how the scribes and artists wrote about their interactions with the “Queens of the Arabs” Samsi and Adiye.

I’m looking forward to writing up my paper for the proceedings of the session.

The other fantastic aspect of ASOR was being able to meet and spend time with people I hadn’t seen in a long time. I also was able to meet up with the other editors of the proceedings for GeMANE 4 and 5, as well as someone else who I want to organise a session with for next year.

I think I had a fantastic first ASOR, and I don’t think I could have had a better first impression. I definitely want to attend next year.