Position:

Retired (formerly Senior Research Fellow in Assyriology)

Faculty / College Address:

Oriental Institute / Somerville College

Email:

stephanie.dalley@orinst.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests:

• Akkadian literature and history

Current Projects:

• The Hanging Garden of Babylon: an elusive World Wonder traced.  OUP forthcoming 2013.
• "Kish and Hursagkalama: An Assessment of the cities' history and cults in the light of information from cuneiform texts", ed. Karen Wilson, Kish (Chicago Field Museum and Univ. Chicago Press) in press
• "Seven naptanum texts from the reign of Rim-Sin I of Larsa", co-authored with Muayad Sulaiman, forthcoming, Iraq 74, 2012.
• "Gods from north-eastern and north-western Arabia in cuneiform texts from the First Sealand Dynasty, and a cuneiform inscription from Tell en-Nasbeh", forthcoming in Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.
• "Nakhthor in Assyria", for the Arshama project ed. J.Ma and C.Tuplin, OUP forthcoming
• "Ancient Mesopotamian Temples as sacred groves, and the adoption of date-palm symbolim in Syrian, Phoenician and Ionic Greek architecture", for conference on ancient gardens, Fondation Hardt, Geneva 2013.
• "Ancient Mesopotamian literature and the environment", ed. Louise Westling, History of Literature and the Environment (CUP)
• A Short History of Babylon (IB Tauris).

Courses Taught:

• Akkadian Set Texts and Background Lectures for the BA and MPhil courses, as required.

Recent Publications:

• F.N.H. Al-Rawi and S. Dalley, Old Babylonian Texts from Private Houses at Abu Habbah, Ancient Sippir: NABU Publications 2000
• The legacy of Mesopotamia, Oxford; Oxford University Press 1998 (Chinese translation forthcoming)
• Myths from Mesopotamia, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1997. Also published in Arabic by Besan Publishing, Beirut. Arabic translation by Najwa Nasr
• "Old Babylonian Texts in the Ashmolean Museum", Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts vol. XV: OUP 2004
• "Sennacherib, Archimedes and the Water Screw: The Context of Invention in the Ancient World" in Technology and Culture 44/1 pp1-26 (with J.P. Oleson)
• "Semiramis in History and Legend. A case study in interpretation of an Assyrian historical tradition". Paper given at a conference in Elmau, Bavaria, Oriens et Occidens 8, ed. E. Gruen, 11-22, 2005
• Contributions "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon" and "Mesopotamia, ancient" to Oxford Companion to the Garden, 2006
• "The Language of Destruction and its Interpretation". Paper given at the 4th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Berlin, Baghader Mitteilungen 36, 2005, 275-285.
• Book, "Esther's Revenge at Susa", showing that the biblical book of Esther comes from an Assyrian court narrative rootes in specific historical events. Oxford University Press 2007
• 2005 Old Babylonian Texts in the Ashmolean Museum Mainly from Larsa, Sippir, Kish, and Lagaba.  Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts XV (OUP)
• 2009 Babylonian Tablets from the First Sealand Dynasty in the Schoyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 9 (CDL Press)
• 2011 Japanese translation by T.Ohtsu, of Mari and Karana, Two Old Babylonian Cities.
• 2008 "Babylon as a name for other cities including Nineveh" ed. R.D.Biggs et al, Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique 2005 (University of Chicago)
• 2008    "The Identity of the Princesses in Tomb II and a new Analysis of events in 701 BC" ed. J.E.Curtis et al., New Light on Nimrud, Proceedings of the Nimrud Conference, British Museum 2002. British Institute for the Study of Iraq.
• 2010 "Temple Building in the Ancient Near East: A Synthesis and Reflection", ed. M.Boda and J.Novotny, From the Foundations to the Crenellations.  Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, AOAT 366.
• 2010 "Old Babylonian Prophecies at Uruk and Kish", ed. A.Slotsky and S.Melville, Opening the tablet Box. Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster (Brill).

Further Info:

• Radio programme recording: on Babylon; and on the Gilgamesh epic, 2006
• TV programme on Assyrian Lion-hunts, Channel 4, 2006.