The Prosopography of the Middle Assyrian Texts (PMA)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ariel M. Bagg
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 428315025

The main goal of this project is to create a “biographical” lexicon of the about 4800 personal names attested in the published, non-literary cuneiform texts from the Middle Assyrian period (1434–1056 BCE). This prosopography (abbreviated PMA) not only presents the written sources, but also offers a linguistic analysis of the names as well as “biographies” of each attested person. This “Who is who” of the Middle Assyrian period will make the sources available for studies in the fields of onomastics, chronology and social history of this and other periods of the ancient Mesopotamian history. The work consists in an alphabetical catalogue of the personal names in two volumes (PMA 1, A-K and PMA 2, L-Z) and a third volume (PMA 3) with an analytical catalogue of the constituent elements of the names, a typological classification, and a catalogue of the professions and titles as well as of the places of origin and further registers. PMA 3 will thus allow the exhaustive use of the material facilitating and promoting studies in social history of the Middle Assyrian period.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants