Northwest Semitic Epigraphy: Hebrew and Moabite inscriptions

Admission requirements

Introduction to Classical Hebrew OR Biblical Aramaic: Daniel OR another Semitic Language (please get in touch with the course leader before the start of the course, if you are in doubt).

Description

This course will give students the opportunity to engage with Hebrew and Moabite inscriptions from drawings, photographs and the Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden. Students will engage with changes in writing systems, orthography and genre. Students will also engage with the history of scholarship on epigraphy written in Hebrew and other Norhwest Semitic languages in the first millennium BCE

Students will acquire a solid basis of the writing system(s) that will enable them to read Hebrew and Moabite inscriptions and interpret them in their broader cultural and historical context. This will given students the unique opportunity to encounter the culture of the Southern Levant through texts written there and which—unlike biblical texts—have survived without a long history of textual transmission and change.

Course objectives

Knowledge and Insight

• Knowledge of the Palae-Hebrew, Moabite and closely related Alphabets

• Good understanding of the grammar and orthography of these texts and how they evolve

• Familiarity with the apparatus (main grammars, dictionaries and text editions)
  Skill

• Give a grammatical analysis of Hebrew, Moabite and related inscriptions

• Analyse and Interpret these texts in their historical, archaeological and linguistic contexts

• Reconstructing texts that

• Use of digital tools to further the study of these inscriptions

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

Seminar

Assessment method

Assessment and Weighing

1. 10% Participation
2. 10% Essay Proposal
3. 50% 4,000 word essay
4. 30% Drawing of invented Phoenician inscription with short reflection

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.

Resit

If the essay is not passed, one new attempt can be made at the following normal faculty deadline.

Inspection and feedback

Students are invited to seek individual feedback tutorials with the course instructor.

Reading list

A reading list will be made available on the course’s brightspace site. Access to a copy of the BHS is necessary (can be accessed in the UB).

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.

Registration Contract teaching and Exchange

Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.

Contact

• For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

• For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office Herta Mohr

Remarks

None.