DigEanna: eine digitale Rekonstruktion des Eanna-Archivs

The Babylonian cuneiform tablets conventionally labeled as the ‘Eanna temple archive’ represent one of the most important text groups from Ancient Babylonia, and they are arguably the most multifaceted collection of archival material from the best documented period of Babylonian history, the long sixth century. Counterintuitively, and numerous preceding studies (including several by the applicants) notwithstanding, no truly comprehensive investigation of these texts as a body of documentary data, as an ‘archive’, has ever been attempted. DigEanna will close this knowledge gap. Building on previous largescale projects and significant collections of pertinent data, making full use of pertinent digital methodologies and aligning itself with relevant data-gathering Digital Humanities projects, the project will break new ground in the study of Iron Age Babylonia and the Ancient World in general. All three applicants have published widely in the field and are internationally recognized specialists in Neo- Babylonian studies, albeit with different research foci. Their intensive collaboration that will result from DigEanna, and the input of their project partners and collaborating institutions, will ensure that the project is more than a sum of its parts.