Stephanie Mary Dalley
FSA (''née'' Page; March 1943) is a British
Assyriologist
Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southea ...
and scholar of the
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...
. She has retired as a teaching Fellow from the
Oriental Institute, Oxford
The Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (formerly the Faculty of Oriental Studies), is a subdivision of the University of Oxford.
The faculty is engaged in a broad range of research and teaching on modern and historical Asian and Middl ...
. She is known for her publications of cuneiform texts and her investigation into the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and her proposal that it was situated in
Nineveh, and constructed during
Sennacherib
Sennacherib ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: or , meaning " Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sargon II in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynas ...
's rule.
Biography
As a schoolgirl, Stephanie Page worked as a volunteer on archaeological excavations at
Verulamium
Verulamium was a town in Roman Britain. It was sited southwest of the modern city of St Albans in Hertfordshire, England. A large portion of the Roman city remains unexcavated, being now park and agricultural land, though much has been built upon ...
,
Cirencester
Cirencester (, ; see below for more variations) is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, west of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswolds. It is the home of ...
, and
Bignor Villa. In 1962, she was invited by
David Oates, a family friend, to an archaeological dig he was directing in
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a m ...
, northern Iraq. Here she was responsible for cleaning and conserving the discovered ivories. Between 1962 and 1966 she studied
Assyriology at
Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge.
The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...
, part of
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
, and followed it up with a PhD from the
School of Oriental and African Studies
SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury a ...
, London.
In the years 1966–67, Page was awarded a Fellowship by the
British School of Archaeology in Iraq
The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI) (formerly the British School of Archaeology in Iraq) is the only body in Britain devoted to research into the ancient civilizations and languages of Mesopotamia. It was founded in 1932 and its aim ...
, and she worked at the excavation at
Tell al-Rimah
Tell al-Rimah is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in Nineveh Province (Iraq). Its ancient name may have been either Karana or Qattara. It is located in Nineveh Province (Iraq), roughly west of Mosul and ancient Nineveh in the Sinjar re ...
as
Epigrapher
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
and registrar. The tablets excavated at
Tell al-Rimah
Tell al-Rimah is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in Nineveh Province (Iraq). Its ancient name may have been either Karana or Qattara. It is located in Nineveh Province (Iraq), roughly west of Mosul and ancient Nineveh in the Sinjar re ...
formed the subject of her PhD thesis and later for a book for general readership, ''Mari and Karana, two Old Babylonian Cities''. In Iraq she met Christopher Dalley, now a Chartered Engineer, whom she later married. Then they had three children.
From 1979 to 2007, Dalley taught
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
and
Sumerian at the
Oriental Institute, Oxford University
The Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (formerly the Faculty of Oriental Studies), is a subdivision of the University of Oxford.
The faculty is engaged in a broad range of research and teaching on modern and historical Asian and Middl ...
, being appointed Shillito Fellow in Assyriology in 1988. She is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow of
Somerville College
Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...
, a member of Common Room at
Wolfson College, and a Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries.
Dalley took part in archaeological excavations in the
Aegean,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
,
Syria,
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
and
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
. She has published extensively, both technical editions of texts from excavations and national museums, and more general books. She has been involved in several television documentaries.
Contributions to Assyriology
Mythology
Dalley published her own translations of the main Babylonian myths: ''Atrahasis'', ''Anzu'', ''The Descent of Ishtar'', ''Gilgamesh'', ''The Epic of Creation'', ''Erra and Ishum''. Collected into one volume, this work has made the Babylonian corpus accessible for the first time to the student of general mythology and it is widely used in university teaching.
The Nimrud Princesses
In 1989 the Iraqi Department of Antiquities excavated one of a series of tombs in the ancient Palace of
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a m ...
. A sarcophagus contained the skeletons of two women who had been buried with over 26 kg of gold objects, many of them inscribed. The inscriptions identified the women as queens from c 700 BC. Dalley showed that the name ''
Ataliya
Iaba, Banitu and Atalia were queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the primary consorts of the successive kings Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC) and Sargon II (722–705 BC), respectively. Next to not ...
'' was of
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
origin. The name of the other queen, ''Yaba'' could also have been Hebrew, a word possibly meaning ''Beautiful'' and equating to another,
Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyrian ...
name form ''Banitu'' which is also found on the jewellery.
She concluded that these women, probably mother and daughter as they had been buried together, were Judean princesses, probably relatives of King
Hezekiah
Hezekiah (; hbo, , Ḥīzqīyyahū), or Ezekias); grc, Ἐζεκίας 'Ezekías; la, Ezechias; also transliterated as or ; meaning "Yahweh, Yah shall strengthen" (born , sole ruler ), was the son of Ahaz and the 13th king of Kingdom of Jud ...
of
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, given in diplomatic marriage to the Assyrian Kings. This arrangement sheds a new light on the political relationships between Judah and
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
at that time.
The analysis also offers an explanation for an otherwise obscure passage in the
Old Testament (
II Kings
The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the books ...
18.17–28 and also
Isaiah
Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named.
Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...
36.11–13). The besieging Assyrian commander, who would have been a close relative of the King, calls on the people of
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
advising them to abandon their rebellion. "Then
Rab-shakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said 'Hear ye the words of the great king, the King of Assyria'". He could speak in Hebrew because he had learned it at his mother's knee.
Legacy in later cultures
In several academic articles Dalley has traced the influence of Mesopotamian culture in the
Hebrew Old Testament, early
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
epics
The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) is a set of software tools and applications used to develop and implement distributed control systems to operate devices such as particle accelerators, telescopes and other large sci ...
, and the ''
Arabian Nights''. In particular she has studied the transmission of the
story of Gilgamesh across the cultures of the Near and Middle East and shown its persistence to the ''Tale of Buluqiya'' in the ''Arabian Nights'', examining the evidence for Gilgamesh and
Enkidu
Enkidu ( sux, ''EN.KI.DU10'') was a legendary figure in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, wartime comrade and friend of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Their exploits were composed in Sumerian poems and in the Akkadian ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', writte ...
in the tale, as well as contrasting Akkadian and later Arabic stories. She has also noted the appearance of the name Gilgamesh in the
Book of Enoch.
Hanging Garden of Babylon
![Gardens of Ninevah](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Gardens_of_Ninevah.png)
One of the
seven wonders of the ancient world
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity. The first known list of seven wonders dates back to the 2 ...
, the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon were not found despite extensive archaeological excavations. Dalley has suggested, based on eighteen years of textual study, that the Garden was built not at Babylon under
Nebuchadnezzar, but in
Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrians, by
Sennacherib
Sennacherib ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: or , meaning " Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sargon II in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynas ...
, around 2700 years ago. She deciphered Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform, and reinterpreted later Greek and Roman texts, and determined that a crucial seventh century BC inscription had been mistranslated. While none of
Nebuchadnezzar's inscriptions ever mentioned any gardens, Dalley found texts by
Sennacherib
Sennacherib ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: or , meaning " Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sargon II in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynas ...
about a
palace he built and a garden alongside that he called a ''wonder for all people''. The texts also described a water screw, pre-dating
Archimedes, using a new bronze-casting methodology that raised water all day, and related these to extensive aqueducts and canals that brought water from hills eighty kilometres away. A
bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
from Nineveh and now in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
depicts a palace and trees suspended on terraces, which Dalley used as further supporting evidence. Her research confirms the description of later Greek writers that the gardens were, in fact, terraces built up like an amphitheatre around a central pond. She compiled these conclusions into her book ''The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced'', published in 2013.
The Sealand
Dalley published in 2009 an archive of some 470 newly-found cuneiform texts and deduced that they had originated in a southern Mesopotamian kingdom previously known only as the ''Sea land'' which flourished c 1,500 BC. This fills a significant gap in modern historical knowledge. Her analysis of the texts has made it possible to identify tablets in other museums and collections as being from the Sealand dynasties.
Selected publications
''A full list of publications up to 2014 is available on www.academia.edu''
Books
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* (paperback)
Papers
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Radio and Television
* BBC ''
Horizon'' "Noah's Flood", 1996
* BBC ''Secrets of the Ancients'' episode 5: "Hanging Gardens of Babylon", 1999
* BBC Radio, "Babylon and the Gilgamesh Epic". 2006
* BBC ''Masterpieces of the British Museum'', Series 2 Episode 1, "The Assyrian Lion Hunt Reliefs", 2006
* Channel 4 UK: "Secrets of the Dead, The Lost Gardens of Babylon", 2013
* PBS ''
Secrets of the Dead
''Secrets of the Dead'', produced by WNET 13 New York, is an ongoing PBS television series which began in 2000. The show generally follows an investigator or team of investigators exploring what modern science can tell us about some of the great ...
'', "The Lost Gardens of Babylon", 2014
References
Sources
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External links
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The Lost Gardens of Babylon on PBS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dalley, Stephanie
Living people
British archaeologists
English Assyriologists
Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London
Place of birth missing (living people)
1943 births
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Alumni of SOAS University of London
Academics of the University of Oxford
Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford
British women archaeologists
Assyriologists