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Simo Kaarlo Antero Parpola (born 4 July 1943) is a Finnish Assyriologist specializing in the
Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
and Professor emeritus of Assyriology at the University of Helsinki (retired fall 2009).


Career

Simo Parpola studied Assyriology, Classics and Semitic Philology at the University of Helsinki, the
Pontifical Biblical Institute The Pontifical Biblical Institute (also known as Biblicum) is a research and postgraduate teaching institution specialised in biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. It is an institution of the Holy See entrusted to the Society of Jesus. His ...
and 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 documen ...
in 1961–1968. He completed his PhD in Helsinki and began his academic career as wissenschaftlicher Assistant of Karlheinz Deller at the Seminar für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients of the
University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...
in 1969. Between 1973 and 1976 he was Docent of Assyriology and Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki, and from 1977 to 1979 Associate Professor of Assyriology with tenure at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. He was appointed Extraordinary Professor of Assyriology at the University of Helsinki in 1978 and has directed the University's Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project since 1986. He taught at the University of Padua as Visiting Professor in Spring 1995, and worked as Research Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University in 1999. He contributed to the compilation of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary from 1982 until its completion in 2010 and partook in the Ziyaret Tepe archaeological expedition as Senior Epigraphist in 2001–2006. Among Simo Parpola's students of Assyriology were Amar Annus, Sanna Aro, Grant Frame, Mikko Luukko, Raija Mattila, and Saana Svärd.


Research


Overview

The main focus of Parpola's research has been on the study of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in all its aspects (language, literature, history, geography, society, religion, royal ideology and sciences), but he has also contributed to the study of the Indus script, Sumerian language, Jewish mysticism and
Assyrian identity Assyrian nationalism is a movement of the Assyrian people that advocates for independence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. The Assyrian people claim d ...
in post-empire times, among others. In 1986 he initiated a long-term international research project to edit Neo-Assyrian sources (The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project), which has resulted in a 19-volume series of standard text editions (State Archives of Assyria) and in a digital corpus of texts written in the Neo-Assyrian language. The published series contains cuneiform texts, transcriptions and translations of first hand records written by civil servants, professionals and administrators and are considered to be an important source accessible to scholars of many disciplines. In 1998, Parpola started the
Melammu Project The Melammu Project investigates the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian and Ancient Near Eastern culture from the third millennium BCE through the ancient world until Islamic times. It does so by organizing conferences and ...
, an interdisciplinary project that investigates the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian culture in the classical world and thereafter.


"The Assyrian roots of Christianity"

Parpola, in a study published in 2004 entitled
Mount ''Nisir and the Foundations of the Assyrian Church''
','' argues that the
Christian church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym for ...
was "..built on foundations laid by
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 ...
..", and that "..the continuity and survival of Assyrian ideas in Christianity must be taken seriously.". He comes to this conclusion by assessing what he considers to be parallels in both Christianity and the
ancient Mesopotamian religion Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 6000 BC and 400 AD, after which they largely gave way to Syriac C ...
, and states that
Assyriologists 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, sout ...
generally avoid and reject the belief structure and central components in regards to ancient Mesopotamia.


Academic honours

* Finnish Professor of the Year, 1992. * J. V. Snellman Public Information Award of the University of Helsinki, 1996. * Honorary Member of the
American Oriental Society The American Oriental Society was chartered under the laws of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned societies in America, and is the oldest devoted to a particular field of scholarship. The Society encourages basic ...
, 2001. * Honorary Member of the Finnish Science Center, Heureka, 2003. Member of the
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Univer ...
from 1995.


Works

Books * ''Etymological Dictionary of the Sumerian Language'' I-II. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2016. * (Editor-in-chief) ''Assyrian-English-Assyrian Dictionary''. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008. * (with Michael Porter) ''The Helsinki Atlas of the Ancient Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period.'' Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2001. * (with Veysel Donbaz) ''Neo-Assyrian Legal Texts in Istanbul''. Studien zu den Assur-Texten, Bd. 2. Saarbücken: Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, 2001. * (with Andreas Fuchs) ''The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III: Letters from Media and Babylonia.'' State Archives of Assyria 15. Helsinki University Press, 2001. * ''Assyrian Prophecies''. State Archives of Assyria 9. Helsinki University Press, 1997. * ''The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh''. State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts 1. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997. * ''Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars''. State Archives of Assyria 10. Helsinki University Press, 1993. * (With T. Kwasman) ''Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part I: Tiglath-Pileser III through Esarhaddon''. State Archives of Assyria 6. Helsinki University Press, 1991. * (With G. B. Lanfranchi) ''The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces''. State Archives of Assyria 5. Helsinki University Press, 1990. * (With Kazuko Watanabe) ''Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths''. State Archives of Assyria 2. Helsinki University Press, 1988. * ''The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West''. State Archives of Assyria 1. Helsinki University Press, 1987. * ''Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, Part II: Commentary and Appendices''. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 5/2, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker, 1983. * ''Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Part 53: Neo-Assyrian Letters from the Kuyunjik Collection''. London, 1979. * (With A. Parpola and S. Koskenniemi) ''A Concordance to the Indus Inscriptions''. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Series B 185. Helsinki, 1973. * ''Neo-Assyrian Toponyms''. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 6, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker, 1970. * (With A. Parpola, S. Koskenniemi and P. Aalto) ''Decipherment of the Proto-Dravidian Inscriptions of the Indus Civilization''. Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies, Special Publications 1. Copenhagen, 1969. Articles *
Mount Nisir and the Foundations of the Assyrian Church
, pp. 469–484 in Salvatore Gaspa et al. (eds.), ''From Source to History: Studies on Ancient Near Eastern Worlds and Beyond Dedicated to G. B. Lanfranchi.'' Alter Orient und Altes Testament 412. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014. *

, pp. 15–27 in Markham J. Geller (ed.), ''Melammu: The Ancient World in an Age of Globalization.'' Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium of the Melammu Project. Max Plack Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge, Proceedings 7. Berlin, 2014. * "The Etymology of the Sumerian Word for Star", pp. 29–43 in Antonio Panaino (ed.), ''Non licet stare caelestibus'': Studies on Astronomy and Its History offered to Salvo De Meis. Indo-Iranica et Orientalia. Milano: Mimesis, 2014. * "Sumerian: A Uralic Language (I)," pp. 181–210 in Leonid Kogan et al. (eds.), ''Language in the Ancient Near East.'' Proceedings of the 53e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Vol. I, Pt. 2 (''Babel und Bibel'' 4/2). Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2010. * "Sumerian: A Uralic Language (II)," ''Babel und Bibel'' 6 (2012), 269–322. * "The Neo-Assyrian Royal Harem," pp. 613–626 in G. B. Lanfranchi et al. (eds.), ''Leggo! Studies presented to Frederick Mario Fales on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday.'' Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012. * "Cuneiform Texts from Ziyaret Tepe (Tušhan), 2002-2003," ''State Archives of Assyria Bulletin'' 17 (2008), 1–113, Plates I-XXV. * "The Neo-Assyrian Ruling Class," pp. 257–274 in Thomas R. Kämmerer (ed.), ''Studien zur Ritual und Sozialgeschichte im Alten Orient / Studies on Ritual and Society in the Ancient Near East''. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Bd. 374. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007. * "Il retroterra assiro di Ahiqar", pp. 91–112 in Ricccardo Contini and Cristiano Grottanelli, (eds.), ''Il saggio Ahiqar.'' Brescia: Paideia, 2005. *
National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times
" ''Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies'' 18/2 (2004), 5-49. * "The Originality of the Teachings of Zarathustra in the Light of Yasna 44", pp. 373–383 in Ch. Cohen et al. (eds.), ''Sefer Moshe. The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume''. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004. *
Mesopotamian Precursors of the Hymn of the Pearl
, pp. 181–193 in R.M. Whiting (ed.), ''Mythology and Mythologies. Methodological Approaches to Intercultural Influences.'' Melammu Symposia 2. Helsinki, 2001. *
The Magi and the Star
, ''Bible Review'' 6 (2001), 16-23 and 52–54. *

: ''Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society'' 12 (2000), 1-16 *
The Mesopotamian Soul of Western Culture
: ''Bulletin of the Canadian Society of Mesopotamian Studies'' 35 (2000), 29-41 * "Monotheism in Ancient Assyria", pp. 165–209 in Barbara Nevling Porter (ed.), ''One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World.'' Casco Bay, 2000. *

: ''Archaeology Odyssey'' 2/5 (1999), 16–27. * "The Concept of the Saviour and Belief in Resurrection in Ancient Mesopotamia": ''Academia Scientiarum Fennica, Year Book'' 1997, 51–58. * "The Man Without a Scribe and the Question of Literacy in the Assyrian Empire", pp. 315–324 in Beate Pongratz-Leisten et al. (eds.), ''Ana šadê Labnāni lū allik. Festschrift für Wolfgang Röllig''. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 247. Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1997. * "The Assyrian Cabinet", pp. 379–401 in M. Dietrich and O. Loretz (eds.), ''Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament. Festschrift für Wolfram Freiherrn von Soden zum 85. Geburtstag''. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 240. Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1995. *
The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy
: ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'' 52 (1993), 161–208. *
Mesopotamian Astrology and Astronomy as Domains of the Mesopotamian ‘Wisdom’
, pp. 47–60 in H. Galter (ed.), ''Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens''. Graz, 1993. * (With J. Neumann)
Climatic Change and the 11th-10th Century Eclipse of Assyria and Babylonia
: ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'' 46 (1987), 161–182. *
Assyrian Library Records
: ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'' 42 (1983), 1-29 * "Assyrian Royal Inscriptions and Neo-Assyrian Letters", pp. 117–142 in F. M. Fales, ed., ''Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological and Historical Analysis.'' Rome, 1981. *

, pp. 171–182 in Bendt Alster (ed.), ''Death in Mesopotamia.'' Copenhagen, 1980


See also

*
Asko Parpola Asko Parpola (born 12 July 1941, in Forssa) is a Finnish Indologist, current professor emeritus of South Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in Sindhology, specifically the study of the Indus script. Biography Parpola i ...
*
Panbabylonism Panbabylonism (also known as Panbabylonianism) was the school of thought that considered the cultures and religions of the Middle East and civilization in general to be ultimately derived from Babylonian myths which in turn they viewed as being ba ...


Notes


External links


Curriculum Vitae: Simo Parpola.
''Archaeology Odissy Archives'', December 1999. Article by Simo Parpola. {{DEFAULTSORT:Parpola, Simo 1943 births Living people Finnish Assyriologists Paleolinguists Linguists of Sumerian Academic personnel of the University of Helsinki Members of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters Members of Academia Europaea Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Assyriologists