Biography
I graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2017 with a BA in Assyriology, for which I wrote a dissertation on the level of acculturation of a community of Judean exiles living in Babylonia in the sixth and early fifth centuries BC, focusing on their naming practices and their patterns of life. I then went to the University of Oxford for my MSt in Assyriology, writing my thesis on the patterns of economic life during the Babylonian ‘long sixth century BC’, using quantitative methods to analyse the dates written on a large corpus of economic cuneiform tablets.
My PhD research focuses on the god Marduk, who came to be the head of the Babylonian pantheon by the 1st Millennium BC. If people have heard of any Mesopotamian god, then it is probably Marduk. Despite this, there are still large gaps in our knowledge of him. One aspect of this deity that has received almost no attention is the divine name commonly said to be held by him: Bēl ("Lord"). My research seeks to understand the role of this alternate name of Marduk in Mesopotamian theology in the late-second Millennium and the first Millennium BC.
Other academic interests
- Onomastics
- Babylonian economic history
- Ancient Near Eastern languages
- Mesopotamian literature
