Andrew George
SOAS University of London, Babylonian, Emeritus
- SOAS University of London, Near and Middle East, Faculty Memberadd
- Andrew George studied Assyriology at the University of Birmingham (1973–79) and for a while kept a public house in Da... moreAndrew George studied Assyriology at the University of Birmingham (1973–79) and for a while kept a public house in Darlaston. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on “Babylonian Topographical Texts” under the supervision of W. G. Lambert (1985). From 1983 to 2020 he taught Akkadian and Sumerian language and literature at SOAS, University of London, where he is now Professor Emeritus of Babylonian. His specialisms are Babylonian literature, religion and intellectual culture. His best-known books are a critical edition of the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic for OUP (2003) and a prize-winning translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh for Penguin Classics (2000, revised 2019). Most recently he has published seven volumes of new texts from cuneiform tablets now in Norway.edit
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The recent publication of cuneiform texts relating to Babylon allows a reassessment of the city's topography, and sheds light on the remains discovered by Robert Koldewey and more recent excavators. A comparison of the archaeological... more
The recent publication of cuneiform texts relating to Babylon allows a reassessment of the city's topography, and sheds light on the remains discovered by Robert Koldewey and more recent excavators. A comparison of the archaeological and documentary evidence relating to selected structures of the city provides examples of the ways in which archaeology and philology can successfully complement each other.
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Research Interests: History and Assyriology
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Research Interests: Assyriology and Cuneiform
Research Interests: History and Assyriology
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Review article of B. Pongratz-Leisten, Ina Sulmi irub (Mainz, 1994)
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The Sippar Library tablet IM 124485 is a new source for Tablet XX of Enūma Anu Ellil (EAE), the great compilation of Babylonian celestial and meteorological omens. The twentieth tablet of the series, which deals principally with lunar... more
The Sippar Library tablet IM 124485 is a new source for Tablet XX of Enūma Anu Ellil (EAE), the great compilation of Babylonian celestial and meteorological omens. The twentieth tablet of the series, which deals principally with lunar eclipses on the fourteenth day of each month of the year, was edited by Francesca Rochberg in 1988 along with all the other tablets of lunar-eclipse omens in EAE (Rochberg-Halton 1988: Chapter 10). Rochberg was unable to report the whole text of her MS M = ND 4357, a Neo-Assyrian tablet from the library of the temple of Nabû at Kalaḫ; it can now be consulted as CTN IV 5 (Wiseman and Black 1996: Pls. 5–6, 145), though the copy of the reverse is inadequate. In addition a Late Babylonian exemplar of a further commentary, written in the time of Philip Arrhidaeus for the scholar Iqīša of Uruk, has come to light in W23300 (now IM 75990), published as Uruk IV 162 (von Weiher 1993: 103–5, 186). Despite these additions to knowledge, some of the text of EAE XX r...
Research Interests: Assyriology and Iraq
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Research Interests: Assyriology and Babylon
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This paper discusses the sanctuary of the god Marduk in Babylon as the archetype of the Babylonian cult-centre and examines the repercussions of its unique status on first-millennium temple builders.
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Tablets of the Middle Assyrian period are rare in the collections of the British Museum, principally because the German excavations at Assur, from which most come, were plainly more carefully controlled than many early excavations. Thus... more
Tablets of the Middle Assyrian period are rare in the collections of the British Museum, principally because the German excavations at Assur, from which most come, were plainly more carefully controlled than many early excavations. Thus it is a pleasure to place this article, which presents three Middle Assyrian tablets, in a volume celebrating Lady Mallowan and Prof. D. J. Wiseman, to both of whom Assyriology is grateful for the edition of many documents from a younger Assyrian capital, Nimrud. The three pieces published here are a fragment of edicts, a document listing personnel, and a collection of omens.*
Research Interests: Assyriology and Iraq
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This article presents a newly deciphered Old Babylonian fragment of the Epic of Gilgameš. The passages of text preserved on it tell of Enkidu’s encounter with the prostitute and of his arrival in the city of Uruk, and clarify the... more
This article presents a newly deciphered Old Babylonian fragment of the Epic of Gilgameš. The passages of text preserved on it tell of Enkidu’s encounter with the prostitute and of his arrival in the city of Uruk, and clarify the relationship between other sources for the same episode. The perceived difference between the Old and Standard Babylonian poems’ treatment of Enkidu’s seduction disappears. The extant versions can be reconciled in a single narrative, common to all versions, that holds two different weeks of sexual intercourse. The different narrative strategies deployed in describing them are one of the ways in which the poem explores Enkidu’s psychological development as he changes from wild man to socialized man.
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Translations of a 221 Old Babylonian letters now in a private collection
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Edition of incantations and related texts in a private collection.
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Edition of extispicy prayers, reports and omen texts in a private collection
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Part One: Editions of ancient Mesopotamian temple lists; Part Two: A gazetteer of Mesopotamian temple names
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Edition of cuneiform lists and other texts relating to the cultic topography of Babylonian and Assyrian cities and temples
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Editions of Old Babylonian literary texts in a private collection, including the Song of Bazi, fragments of Atrahasis and Gilgamesh, and Babylonian love poems
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In ancient Mesopotamia, men training to be scribes copied model letters in order to practice writing and familiarize themselves with epistolary forms and expressions. Similarly, model contracts were used to teach them how to draw up... more
In ancient Mesopotamia, men training to be scribes copied model letters in order to practice writing and familiarize themselves with epistolary forms and expressions. Similarly, model contracts were used to teach them how to draw up agreements for the transactions typical of everyday economic life. This volume makes available a trove of previously unknown tablets and fragments, now housed in the Shøyen Collection, that were produced in the training of scribes in Old Babylonian schools.
Following on Old Babylonian Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Part One: Selected Letters, this volume publishes the contents of sixty-five tablets bearing Akkadian letters used to train scribes and twenty-six prisms and tablets carrying Sumerian legal texts copied in the same context. Each text is presented in transliterated form and in translation, with appropriate commentary and annotations and, at the end of the book, photographs of the cuneiform. The material is made easily navigable by a catalogue, bibliography, and indexes.
This collection of previously unknown documents expands the extant corpus of educational texts, making an essential contribution to the study of the ancient world.
Following on Old Babylonian Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Part One: Selected Letters, this volume publishes the contents of sixty-five tablets bearing Akkadian letters used to train scribes and twenty-six prisms and tablets carrying Sumerian legal texts copied in the same context. Each text is presented in transliterated form and in translation, with appropriate commentary and annotations and, at the end of the book, photographs of the cuneiform. The material is made easily navigable by a catalogue, bibliography, and indexes.
This collection of previously unknown documents expands the extant corpus of educational texts, making an essential contribution to the study of the ancient world.