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In Assyriology transliteration refers to converting cuneiform script into Latin alphabet.

When archaeologists talk about stratigraphy (a concept first applied by geologists), they refer to the sequence of occupation layers (along with the building structures and artefacts found therein) caused by past cultures and their individual representatives.  This sequence becomes visible in the profiles of excavation trenches which are documented by drawings and photographs and which enable the reconstruction of relative chronologies, hence, the relative sequence of occupation phases and events.

Sippar (Abu Habba) is the northernmost city of Babylonia, situated on the east bank of the river Euphrates and approximately 60 km north of Babylon. While its earliest settlement dates back to the 4th millennium BCE, it developed to one of the major cities in Southern Mesopotamia. A huge archive of the city’s main temple, the temple of the sun god Šamaš, and several private family archives dating to the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods originate from that city.

The Babylonian Sun-god. See also here.

The study of the common characteristics of a historical group. It does not trace individual biographies, but instead studies the lives of the group collectively, focusing on the patterns that the group shares.

Neo-Babylonian and Late Babylonian promissory notes are legal documents (hence, legally binding documents) which record the promise of payment of a debt (emerging from, e.g., tax obligations or a leasing relationship). This document type is (verbally) distinguished from common loans where one party makes available their property (e.g. an amount of silver or an object) to another party for a certain amount of time.

Prof. F.M.Th. de Liagre Böhl (1882-1976) was a professor of Assyriology at Leiden University from 1927-1953 and one of the founders of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East. He assembled the De Liagre Böhl Collection.

Babylonian goddess and wife of the Babylonian god Nabû. See also Tašmetu.

The Babylonian god of writing. See also here.

The so-called ‘land between the two rivers’, the Euphrates and the Tigris. The area that is now primarily known as Iraq.