What does it mean to be a man? The answer to that might surprise you. In fact, different people will give different answers. The idea of what is ‘masculine’ is increasingly being shown to be based on cultural expectations, and the many cultures of ancient Western Asia were no different. This question was at the …
Author Archives: Ellie Bennett
New Article(s)! On ancient Near Eastern queenship and a review
It’s been a while, but three articles or scholarly work I’ve been involved with have been published! The first I want to highlight should be seen as a pair, and are part of a long project started within ANEE I think in 2019. Led by Melanie Wasmuth, it’s ambitious goal was to compare kingship and …
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New Article! Body Words with Emotional Meanings
Over the Summer I participated in the Ancient Language Processing workshop in Varna. The workshop focuses on using computational linguistics to explore ancient language corpora. I wrote a paper with Aleksi Sahala where we used word embeddings to find words in a Neo-Assyrian corpus that had a similar usage profile to words relating to the …
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New article! What does age mean to a Neo-Assyrian man?
I just had wonderful news that my article “Age and Masculinities during the Neo-Assyrian Period” has been published in the excellent Journal of Cuneiform Studies! You can see find it on their website. In it, I give a brief overview of the sociological theories behind ageing, and how ancient Near Eastern scholars have studied age …
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New Article in Hebrew Studies
I received wonderful news that my article “The Masculinities of the Neo-Assyrian “Queens of the Arabs” has been published in the Hebrew Studies journal. You can see the contents of the special edition here at NAPH’s website. This article means a lot to me, as it was the reason for my interest in masculinities studies. …
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 …
Digital Applications in Assyriology Summer School, Uppsala, 2022
This week I had the pleasure of participating as a teacher in the Digital Applications in Assyriology Summer School, hosted by Uppsala University, in collaboration with ANEE at the University of Helsinki. I was one of six teachers: Rune Rattenborg, Seraina Nett, Aleksi Sahala, Stefan Smith, and Lena Tambs. We had 12 students attend from …
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Promootio
Last week was the final stage in the Finnish PhD process: the Promootio. The event is held over several days, and is when the Masters and Doctors of Finnish universities receive their insignia. For Masters, this is a laurel wreath and a gold ring. For Doctors, it’s a top hat and sword. If you want, …
I’m a Dr!
Yesterday I passed my thesis defence at the University of Helsinki. As part of the proceedings, I had to present a lectio praecursoria. This was a 20 minute presentation about my dissertation, titled ‘The “Queens of the Arabs” During the Neo-Assyrian Period’ (and is available to download). The opponent was Professor Lorenzo Verderame, and after …
Paper Presentation: Using Networks to Investigate Semantics of Masculinities During the Neo-Assyrian Period
On the 8th of October I presented my most recent research regarding masculinities during the Neo-Assyrian period. I have been using the techniques developed by the Semantic Domains team in ANEE to investigate the wider meanings behind masculinities. This has meant using probability measurements to measure how likely two words would occur together in a …
Ellie Bennett 