Her seminar talk will focus on the ways in which merchants, specifically the long-distance traders from Old Assyrian Assur, balanced their professional identity as merchants with their civic identity – both negotiating and maintaining various aspects of their collective character as a community working and living abroad in Anatolia. Religious belief and practice were an integral part of this collective identity and the known religious practices of the Old Assyrian merchants will be discussed within a wider study on the religious lives of merchants in the ancient Near East.
Nancy Highcock is working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in ”Memories for Life” projects currently underway at Uppsala and Cambridge universities. The projects are analyzing dedicatory practices of private peoples from the 3rd – 1st millennia in ancient Mesopotamia. Merchants constitute a rich case study for how the non-royal elite shaped several spheres of urban life, including that of religion.
The meeting takes place on Tuesday 26th February at 4:15–6 pm in the faculty hall of the Faculty of Theology (Fabianinkatu 24, room 524, access from the inner courtyard of Vuorikatu 3).
Coffee and buns will be served.
AMME seminar is open for everyone interested, welcome!