From Babylon, at the heart of modern-day Iraq, the Neo-Babylonian Empire expanded across much of the Near East during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. Though relatively short-lived, this empire generated a rich corpus of inscriptions that illustrate the relationship between the imperial heartland and its peripheral territories. This presentation will examine a remarkable subset of that evidence: the inscribed monuments commissioned by Kings Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC) and Nabonidus (556-539 BC) and located in the mountains of Lebanon and Jordan, respectively.

 

These monuments, not only anchor Babylonian kingship in distant territories but also pose important methodological challenges for field-based epigraphy. Hence, this presentation will address both the methodological issues involved in studying inscriptions in the field and the historical implications of these extraordinary monuments, silent witnesses to the ancient grandeur of the Mesopotamian empires.

 

Born in Madrid, Da Riva studied in Ghent, Erlangen and Würzburg. She obtained her PhD at the University of Würzburg (2001), and is currently professor in the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Barcelona. She has worked on cuneiform collections from several museums in Europe, North America and the Middle East. Her main research interests are: administrative and historical texts, political history and religious and literary texts from Babylonia, as well as cuneiform epigraphy, and she has published several articles and books on these topics. Da Riva has given lectures and seminars in universities and research centers around the world, and has been visiting researcher in several international institutions during stays of various lengths.

Da Riva has been fellow of the DFG Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe “Rethinking Oriental Despotism” at the Freie Universität Berlin, visiting professor at the Venice International University and Professeur Invité at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She has also taught courses at the Yarmouk University of Irbid and at the Universität Tübingen. At present she directs the archaeological study of the site of Sela, in Jordan, where she carries out research on Iron Age Edom.