Melammu Project

Melammu Symposia are held regularly and serve to promote interdisciplinary research and cross-cultural studies by providing a forum in which cultural continuity, diffusion and transformation in the ancient world can be assessed systematically on a long-term basis.

The database aims to collect textual, art-historical, archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic evidence concerning the heritage of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East and to make it easily accessible on the Internet.

[1] The Melammu Database contains documented links between the civilizations of Ancient Mesopotamia (Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer) and contemporary and later civilizations that show the impact and continuity of religion, political systems, art and iconography, literature, and other cultural and social phenomena as a result of both direct influence and of cultural diffusion.

The word melammu, which means "divine radiance, splendour, nimbus, aura," is an Akkadian loanword from Sumerian.

The spread of the concept of "divine radiance" can be traced by observing the diffusion and transformations of the relevant iconographic motif.

The logo of Melammu is taken from an Achaemenid seal discovered on the northeast coast of the Black Sea and represents the goddess Anahita, mounted on a lion and surrounded by the divine radiance, appearing to a Persian king.

The fact that the seal was found outside the area controlled by the Assyrian Empire and possibly carved by a Greek artist, illustrates the dynamic diffusion of these ideas (through imperial propaganda) across geographical and cultural boundaries.

[2] So far, the following symposia have taken place: At the Third Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project (Chicago, USA, October 27–31, 2000), the general assembly deliberated the foundation of an "International Association for Intercultural Studies of the Melammu Project", to be officially established through legal channels.