10/22/2026
We’re delighted to announce a newly published review essay by Dr. Klaus Wagensonner, entitled “Archaizing, Paradigmatic, Enigmatic – A Look at ‘Babylonian Ceremonial Script’”, in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.
The essay discusses Carole Roche-Hawley’s recent book, Babylonian Ceremonial Script in Its Scholarly Context, exploring how ancient Mesopotamian scribes used archaizing cuneiform script to evoke the past. Such writing was more than a matter of style: it could serve to display scholarly expertise, lend prestige to inscriptions, and preserve or imitate much older texts.
By examining examples ranging from royal inscriptions to scribal exercises and paleographic lists, Dr. Wagensonner considers how ancient scholars studied, copied, and reinterpreted earlier writing traditions—and what these practices reveal about their understanding of the past.
The article features numerous objects from the Yale Babylonian Collection, including two illustrated here.
🔗 Read the article in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.
Image 1: This tablet contains the copy of a stamped mud brick with an inscription of king Ur-Namma. The copy was produced approx. 1,500 years later by a scribe named Marduk-nasir. (YPM BC 002019 / MLC 2075)
Image 2: In the same period, the Neo-Babylonian period, scribes often used archaizing sign forms to compose texts such as this royal inscription by king Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605–561 BCE) inscribed on a clay barrel cylinder. (YPM BC 017038 / YBC 2450)
