Assyriology

Overview

The Assyriology programme of Eötvös Loránd University is offered by the Department of Assyriology and Hebrew Studies at the Faculty of Humanities is a two-year, full-time program lasting four semesters.

The students must also be familiar with the history and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia. At the end of the program studens complete an MA dissertation. The staff at the department are specialized in the history and archaeology of ancient Assyria, in the economy and society of the Old-Babylonian period, and in the study of the Sumerian language and literature.

This program is recommended to applicants who would like to deepen their knowledge of Assyriology and consider pursuing an academic career in the field.

This program enables students to carry out research in Assyriology and prepares them for a PhD degree.

Strength of program

Most of the staff of the program have international experience. They have studied and/or worked in research projects abroad. The department has a joint excavation in Kurdistan with the Institute of Archeology at ELTE. Experience shows that graduating from our program is a very good starting point for doctoral or (at a later stage) postdoctoral studies, a number of our former MA students have acquired their PhD at foreign universities.

The leader of the program, Prof Zólyomi was a member the renowned Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature project at the University of Oxford. He is an internationally acknowledged expert in Sumerian grammar. Prof Dezső is a leading expert in the military history of ancient Mesopotamia, he has published a number of monographs on the Assyrian army.

Career paths

Students of Assyriology pursue as a rule a career of academic researcher or university instructor. Academic researchers work at institutes affiliated with universities or at museums housing collections of cuneiform texts.

Job examples

There exist several museums in Europe with substantial collections of cuneiform texts with a need of experts in Assyriology, e.g., Louvre (Paris), British Museum (London), Ashmolean Museum (Oxford).