Mesopotamian Tutorial

Upon approaching the end of my masters, I realized that despite the name of the Bible and the Ancient Near East- the former part had been adequately drilled in over the years but not the latter. So in an attempt to fill in the black gaping hole of my general knowledge of the ancient near east I arranged for myself a tutorial on said subject.
I arrived on time, but rather hurried by the sprint I had made from the scooter rank to the arch library and began looking around for my tut advisor. I spied out the female form that fit the given description and hastily approached. Naomi is an interesting character. She has an amazing mop of frizzy hair that floats a few centimeters above her head, and she has more rouge on her teeth than her lips. She is eccentric and extremely pleasant. When she forgets a word, she’ll replace it with german (she’s Russian), and if that fails, she might just give it to you in akkadian.

This week I bombed up to school for our meeting despite the fact that is was a national holiday, and my scooter was the only vehicle in a ten mile radius of the university!! Needless to say the uni was deserted except for the good ol’ arch library open for the half day. So as we begin the lesson she brings in this huge book that is half the size of a person and heaves it onto the table- then standing up and using both hands she opens it up and begins explaining to me the plaques and freezes found in Assurbanipal’s palace. I don’t have the heart to tell her we’ve covered this material before, and therefore ask brilliant questions (she thinks) to the life and aspirations of Mr King of the Known Universe. I leave the tutorial wondering if next time i should try and guide the topic more, but thankfully she announced that next week we will talk specifically of the Queens of Mesopotamia- pretty groovy! So if something interesting comes up from it, I’ll be sure to post it.