Symposium "THE TABLETS AND THEIR SCRIBES" Second International HFR Symposium

The project ›Hethitische Festrituale‹ (HFR) at the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz, which dedicates its work to a comprehensive edition of all Hittite festival texts, including cultural, religious, palaeographic and economic studies, will hold its Second International Symposium entitled ›The Tablets and Their Scribes: The Palaeography of Hittite Cuneiform and Writing Practices in Hittite Anatolia‹ from 2nd until 4th May 2024 at the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz.

The symposium aims to discuss a variety of phenomena related to scribal habits and practices in the Hittite kingdom. This includes both centrally-imposed systematic changes that the cuneiform script has undergone throughout its history in Anatolia, as well as handwriting and idiosyncrasies of individual scribes. Through studying the ductus of the tablet and sign shapes it is not only possible to date the text, but also to attribute it to a particular scribe or a scribal circle. The full potential of palaeographical research is now emerging thanks to the application of modern tools that have been developed in recent years, like 3D scanning or digital sign-recognition.

HFR (›Das Corpus der hethitischen Festrituale: staatliche Verwaltung des Kultwesens im spätbronzezeitlichen Anatolien‹) is a longterm project conducted at the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz, the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and the Philipps-Universität Marburg. Objectives of HFR include the editorial reconstruction and indexing of the extensive corpus of Hittite cult festival texts from the 2nd mill. bce in the form of web-based text editions as well as the investigation of core questions associated with the corpus in the context of overarching studies.

The symposium is organized and conducted within HFR, a long-term project of the Research Programme of the Union of German Academies of Sciences.