Stephanie M. Dalley

Position:

Retired teacher of Assyriology, Shillito Fellow
Honorary Senior Research Fellow

Faculty / College Address:

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern StudiesSomerville College

Email:

stephanie.dalley@ames.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests:

  • Akkadian literature and history

Current Projects:

  • Book: Biography of Esarhaddon King of Assyri
  • Book: Babylon Through Time, city of knowledge 2000 BC – AD 116 forthcoming CUP
  • Article: The First Sealand Dynasty: Literacy, economy, and the likely location of Dur-Enlil(e) in southern Mesopotamia at the end of the Old Babylonian period (in press, ed. S.Paulus and T.Clayden)
  • The palace of Esarhaddon beneath the Mosque of Jonah’s Tomb in Mosul

Courses Taught:

  • Akkadian Set Texts and Background Lectures for the BA and MPhil courses, as required.

Recent Publications:

  • 2023    'Kish and Hursagkalama: an assessment of the cities' history and cults in the light of information from cuneiform texts', Chapter 3 in Where Kingship descended from Heaven. Studies on Ancient Kish, eds. Karen L.Wilson and Deborah Bekken. Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures of the university of Chicago. Studies in ancient cultures no. 1. 2023 pp.23-48
  • 2023    Review article of Olof Pedersén, Babylon the Great City, in Bibliotheca Orientalis (Leiden) forthcoming
  • 2022    Ashmolean Magazine, The City of Babylon A History c.2,000 BC to AD 116.
  • 2022    'Narrative art and the Hasanlu beaker: Proposal for a coherent interpretation linked to Gilgamesh', ed. D.Wicke and J.Curtis, Ivories, Rock Reliefs and Merv. Studies on the Ancient Near East in honour of Georgina Herrmann). marru 15, Münster: Zaphon, 107-126
  • 2021    Myths from Mesopotamia. Translation into Simple Chinese c.2023, Yilin Press, Nanjing
  • 2021    The City of Babylon: a history c.2000 BC to AD 116 (CUP) 
  • 2020 ‘The First Sealand Dynasty: Literacy, economy, and the likely location of Dur-Enlil(e) in southern Mesopotamia at the end of the Old Babylonian Period’, in Babylonia under the Sealand and Kassite Dynasties eds S. Paulus and T. Clayden, De Gruyter, Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 24, 9-27
  • 2020   ՛ašar niṣirti / bīt niṣirt՛ Notes Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2020/2, no.77, pp.165-16 forthcoming 'Sennacherib's open-air sanctuary at Khinis /Bavian: quarries, quarry workers, recarved panels, and polylithic bulls', in Mortals, deities and divine symbols. Rethinking ancient imagery from the Levant to Mesopotamia. Studies offered to Tallay Ornan, eds. B.Sass and L. Battini. Oxford: Archaeopress.Prepublication online.
  • 2017  ‘Gilgamesh and heroes at Troy: myth, history and education’, ed Sherratt, Archaeology and Homeric Epic Oxbow 116-134
  • 2017  ‘The natural world in ancient Mesopotamian literature’ eds Parham and Westling, A Global History of Literature and the Environment, 21-36
  • 2017  ‘Of arches, vaults and domes’ eds. Heffron, Stone and Worthington, At the Dawn of History. Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of J.N.Postgate, 127-131
  • 2017  ‘The cuneiform inscription found at Tas-Silğ (Malta), banded agate, “targets” and “cushions” ‘. eds Mizzi, Vella and Zammit, Ancient Near Eastern Studies supplement 50, in honour of A.Frendo, 21-28
  • 2015  Review of André-Salvini, ed. La Tour de Babylone. Études et recherches sur les monuments de Babylon, in Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXII, 751 -755
  • 2014  ‘Itineraries of Nakht-hor and Alexander in Assyria’, Kaskal 11, 2014, 171-181
  • 2014  ‘From Mesopotamian temples as sacred groves to the date-palm motif in Greek art and architecture” ed. K.Coleman , Le Jardin dans l’Antiquité. Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique Tome LX, Fondation Hardt, Vandoeuvres, 53-86
  • 2013    The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon (OUP)
  • 2013  Translation into Arabic by Najwa Nasr, Beisan Press, Beirut
  • 2013   Translation into Simple Chinese 2023, Yilin Press, Nanjing
  • 2013  ‘First millennium BC variation in Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, the Flood story and the Epic of Creation: What was available to Berossos?’ eds. J.Haubold, G.Lanfranchi, R.Rollinger, J.Steele The World of Berossus
  • 2013  ‘The Greek Novel Ninus and Semiramis: its background in Assyrian and Seleucid history and monuments’. eds. T. Whitmarsh and S.Thomson, The Romance between Greece and the East 117-126
  • 2013  ‘Gods from north-eastern and north-western Arabia in cuneiform texts from the First Sealand Dynasty, and a cuneiform inscription from Tell en-Nasbeh’, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy
  • 2012  ‘What did Ut-napishti say when he first caught sight of Gilgamesh?’ Revue d’Assyriologie 106, 101-102
  • 2012  ‘Seven naptanum texts from the reign of Rim-Sin I of Larsa’ (with Muayad Sulaiman), Iraq 74, 153-165
  • 2010  ‘Old Babylonian Prophecies at Uruk and Kish’ eds. A.Slotsky and S.Melville, Opening the tablet Box. Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster
  • 2010  ‘Temple Building in the Ancient Near East: A Synthesis and Reflection’, eds. M.Boda and J.Novotny, From the Foundations to the Crenellations. Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, AOAT 366
  • 2009  Babylonian Tablets from the First Sealand Dynasty in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 9 (CDL Press)
  • 2007  Esther's Revenge at Susa. From Sennacherib to Ahasuerus (OUP)

Further Info:

  • 2022. City of Babylon. TORCH event, Oxford Univ. with Prof. Paul Collins and Tom Holland, October 12th, video on UTube
  • Unearthed. Windfall Films 2022 Discovery Channel
  • BBC Podcast (Dan Snow series Historyhits) Babylon, recorded Dec. 9th 2022
  • BBC Podcast (Dan Snow series Historyhits) The Hanging Garden of Babylon 2023
  • Radio programme recording: on Babylon; and on the Gilgamesh epic, 2006
  • TV programme on Assyrian Lion-hunts, Channel 4, 2006.

Photograph of Stephanie M. Dalley