I just had wonderful news that my article “Age and Masculinities during the Neo-Assyrian Period” has been published in the excellent Journal of Cuneiform Studies! You can see find it on their website.
In it, I give a brief overview of the sociological theories behind ageing, and how ancient Near Eastern scholars have studied age in our material. Then I explain the potential for digital methods like co-occurrences in a corpus have for this type of study. By seeing the patterns of how words were used on a big scale, you can get an idea of the major themes and phrases surrounding the word you’re interested in. So instead of imposing our modern ideas about ageing as a decline and a terrible thing, your starting point can begin with ideas suggested from the texts themselves.
I use co-occurrence networks and co-occurrence lists to inform my reading of the Neo-Assyrian texts, and focus on a group of words relating to youth and old age. I find that (naturally), young and old men were conceptualised differently, but also some nuances specific to certain words. Finally, I describe how the concepts of both young AND old men played into what Neo-Assyrians thought of as an ‘ideal man’.
If you’re interested in a copy, please send me an email.
Ellie Bennett 