By Persia & Babylonia
From 7 to 10 October Johannes Hackl (Leipzig University) will be teaching the masterclass “Registration Practices in Late Period Babylonia and Their Supposed Precursors: A Reassessment” at Leiden University.
“When G. van Driel presented his survey of the taxation system in the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods, he cautiously entertained the possibility that ‘the registration of property transactions by the government in the Achaemenid period may have had a precursor in the activities of a group of scribes as notaries’ (Van Driel, Elusive Silver [2002], p. 185). Later commentators on pre-Achaemenid registration and taxation practices generally endorsed this view, and it is now widely agreed that registry offices had already existed in Neo-Babylonian times. The masterclass aims to explore the sources upon which these assertions are based, and offers an introduction to the documents pertaining to the development of such institutions in the Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods, including their Ptolemaic counterparts.”
This event is organised in the framework of the Persia & Babylonia project and supported by the Erasmus+ Teaching Mobility program. Check the poster for details of time and place. If you are interested in attending this masterclass, please register via persiababylonia@hum.leidenuniv.nl.