Assyriology
MA and Ph.D. Program Requirements
January 2006

Under ordinary circumstances, the following courses are required for the M.A. in Assyriology, :
Eighteen courses, including at least nine courses in Akkadian, two courses in Sumerian, and three courses in Ancient Near Eastern History. Four additional courses are to be chosen from the same areas, allied fields like Mesopotamian History and Archaeology, Linguistics, or other ANE languages.

The following additional courses are required for the Ph.D.:
Eighteen courses, including at least nine more courses in Akkadian, three more courses in Sumerian, and two more courses in Mesopotamian History or Mesopotamian Archaeology. The remaining four courses are again to be distributed among the areas mentioned for the M.A.

The required qualifying examinations are:

2 in Akkadian, set by different examiners
1 in Sumerian
1 in Mesopotamian History
1 in Mesopotamian Archaeology

If  a student has had grades of B or better in at least two courses in Mesopotamian History and/ or Mesopotamian Archaeology, exams in these fields may, with the consent of the advisor, be reduced to half exams, or be replaced by exams in another ANE language, or Comparative Semitics.

Hittite and Anatolian Languages, History and Culture
MA and Ph.D. Program Requirements
September 2004

The program for Hittite and Anatolian Languages, History, and Culture is primarily aimed at philological training including basics in Akkadian and Sumerian. To guarantee a well-rounded training a historical and an archaeological component are included.

Within a regular program not all Anatolian languages (other than Hittite) can be taught since they rotate through more than four years. These languages not only include the Indo-European Anatolian Languages Palaic, Cuneiform Luwian, Hieroglyphic Luwian, Lydian, Lycian, Carian, Pisidic and Sidetic but also Hurrian. Apart from Hieroglyphic Luwian covering two quarters (First and Second millennium texts in that order) classes in these languages take one quarter each (Lydian, Lycian, Hurrian) or are combined in one (Palaic and Cuneiform Luwian, and Carian, Pisidic and Sidetic). This means that the students are strongly urged to study some of these by themselves.

For the MA the following 18 courses are required:

3    Elementary Hittite
3    Advanced Readings in Hittite
1    First-Millennium Hieroglyphic Luwian
1    other Anatolian language
3    History of the Ancient Near East (sequence including Anatolian history)
2    Anatolian Archaeology
3    Elementary Akkadian
2    Elementary Sumerian

For the Ph.D. program the following 9 courses are required as a minimum:

5     Advanced Readings in Hittite
1    Second Millennium Hieroglyphic Luwian
3    other Anatolian languages.

Changes in the above program are possible in order to accommodate individual interests (e.g. more Sumerian for somebody who wants to make more Akkadian in the form of Old Assyrian to study the earliest period of Anatolian history, or peripheral Akkadian for the relations with Hittite satellites like Alalakh, Emar or Ugarit, or an Egyptian component to study Egyptian-Hittite relations).

For the MA the reading examination in German is required. For the second modern language students are strongly advised to take Italian instead of French.