Publication : In search of Nineveh

Dominique Charpin

In search of Nineveh. French scientists discover Mesopotamia (1842-1975)

The adventure of deciphering cuneiform script.

In 1842, French archaeologists began excavations around Mosul in search of Nineveh, the famous biblical city. The enterprise was crowned with success : they unearthed ancient palaces and numerous inscriptions in "  cuneiform " script.It took years of research and the genius of scholars like Jules Oppert (1825-1905) to decipher these inscriptions and understand the Semitic language in which they were written : Assyrian.
These discoveries made headlines in the scientific world and even triggered heated controversy, for example when it was admitted that cuneiform characters had been created to record a non-Semitic language, Sumerian. Not to mention the earthquake caused by the discovery of an Assyrian version of the Flood story, predating the Bible !
Recalling the context of fierce international competition (notably between the English, Germans and French) and the technical problems associated with the rudimentary conditions of these distant explorations, Dominique Charpin's book recounts the birth and development of a discipline, Assyriology. It shows scholars at work, as field research evolved, and as political contexts and techniques changed.

Charpin D., En quête de Ninive. Des savants français à la découverte de la Mésopotamie (1842-1975), Paris, Collège de France/Les Belles Lettres, coll. " Docet omnia ", 2022.

ISBN :978-2-2514-5358-3
Price 25.90 €
Publication november 18 2022

Dominique Charpin is Professor at the Collège de France. After working as a field epigraphist at Mari (Syria) and Larsa (Iraq), he has been working since 2015 with the American mission that took over the excavation of Ur. He is notably the author of Hammu-rabi de Babylone (2003) and Lire et écrire à Babylone (2008) and, with Les Belles Lettres, La Vie méconnue des temples mésopotamiens (2017), " Tu es de mon sang " (2019) and En quête de Ninive (2022) ; he is co-editor of the Archives royales de Mari, director of the Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale and responsible for the website www. archibab.fr.