Sylff News

The first Summer School of Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Bulgaria was held from August 26 to 30, 2024, in Sofia. Supervised by Zozan Tarhan, a 2020 Sylff fellowship recipient at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” the program was held at the Regional History Museum Sofia and featured guest lecturer Priv.-Doz. Sebastian Fink of the University of Innsbruck, an expert on the language, literature, and ıntellectual history of the ancient Near East.

Program participants listen to a lecture on ancient Mesopotamia. ©Mario Filipov

More than 20 people from different countries took part in the program. Students, alumni, and researchers from Sofia University were joined by those from the New Bulgarian University, the University of Plovdiv, the University of Veliko Tarnovo, the University of Oxford, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Göttingen, the University of Amsterdam, and the National University of Kyiv, who were all eager to learn more about ancient Mesopotamia.

The Summer School offered basic knowledge about the field of ancient Near Eastern studies, also known as Assyriology. Participants received philological introductions to the basics of Akkadian and Sumerian—two of the world’s most ancient languages—worked with cuneiform texts, and were introduced to the history, culture, and religion of ancient Mesopotamia.

The program comprised intensive courses introducing ancient Near Eastern studies (S. Fink and Z. Tarhan), Akkadian (Z. Tarhan), Sumerian (S. Fink), religion in ancient Mesopotamia (S. Fink and Z. Tarhan), and archaeology of the ancient Near East (Z. Tarhan).

The Summer School was an outgrowth of Tarhan’s endeavors to develop a center for Assyriology and ancient Near Eastern studies in Bulgaria, both for study and research. Following the model of other international intensive and summer programs, Tarhan held the first intensive course in Akkadian on August 21–25, 2023, also hosted by the Regional History Museum Sofia. With the success of this course, Tarhan and the museum began preparations for an expanded program, culminating in the August 2024 Summer School of Ancient Near Eastern Studies.

Sebastian Fink and Zozan Tarhan (right and second from right) and other Summer School participants at the Regional History Museum Sofia. ©Mario Filipov

Zozan Tarhan is a recognized Assyriologist at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski with experience in philological work on cuneiform texts, mainly in Akkadian, and an expert in the study of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. She is currently editing unpublished texts .

Sebastian Fink is an Assyriologist at the University of Innsbruck focusing on Sumerian texts and is one of the leading specialists of Emesal. He has studied topics on various aspects of Mesopotamian history and culture.