In May 2025, Bert van der Spek, Irving Finkel, Reinhard Pirngruber, and Kathryn Stevens published a critical edition with translations and commentary of all the so-called Babylonian Chronicles and historical sections of the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries, including the Babylon and Uruk king lists and the Antiochus Cylinder:
Babylonian Chronographic Texts from the Hellenistic Period (Atlanta: SBL Press 2025).
This work is set to become a key resource for historians of the Hellenistic period – Assyriologists as well as Classicists and Archaeologists.
We cordially invite you to join us on Friday 5 June for a symposium on the new publication with six experts. They will discuss the subject of Babylon as a mirror of political, social and religious developments in the Near East during the Hellenistic period, taking into account local changes in Babylonia itself since the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
SBL offers symposium participants the opportunity to buy the book at a 30% discount. Use discount code Symposium26 when ordering online between 10 May and 10 June 2026.
Programme
09:45-10:15 Arrival and coffee
10:15-10:30 Words of welcome and introduction by Shana Zaia, tenured Assistant Professor of Ancient History at VU Amsterdam
10:30-12:00 Michael Jursa, Professor of Assyriology at University of Vienna: Continuity and Change since the Neo-Babylonian Empire
Julietta Steinhauer, Associate Professor in Hellenistic History at University College, London: Offerings in the Greek Fashion in a Multicultural Society (Greece, Near East and Egypt)
12:00-13:00 Lunch Break
13:00-14:30 Céline Debourse, Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University: Religious Developments in the Hellenistic period
Cindy Meijer, PhD graduate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: Prophecy and Power: Predictive Texts and Politics in the Hellenistic Near East and Egypt
14:30-15:00 Tea break
15:00-16:30 Lucinda Dirven, Professor of Antique Religions, Radboud University, Nijmegen: Religion Going Public: Diaries and Chronicles as Source on the Development of Traditional Mesopotamian Religion in the Hellenistic and Parthian Periods
Kathryn Stevens, Associate Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Corpus Christi College: Babylon as Mirror of the Hellenistic Near East
16:30-17:15 Round table moderated by Bert van der Spek. We will invite a number of Dutch colleagues working on the Hellenistic period from various perspectives
17:15-18:15 Drinks
Register
In view of the catering arrangements and the number of available seats, please register here before 20 May.
Organizers: Shiyanthi Thavapalan, Shana Zaia, Bert van der Spek, and Bas ter Haar Romeny.
This symposium has been made possible thanks to the generosity of:
- The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO)
- The LUCE Fund of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam