Assyriology postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

The first Akkadian sentence I translated without checking a crib was the opening of an Old Babylonian letter: "To my lord say, thus says your servant." It is a formula, repeated across hundreds of letters, yet working through it sign by sign showed me how much a fixed phrase can tell us about who expected to be obeyed and who expected to ask. I want to pursue postgraduate study in Assyriology so that I can read such texts confidently in their original script, set them in their historical context and eventually contribute to their interpretation.

My undergraduate degree was in Ancient History, where most of my training centred on Greek and Roman sources in translation. A second-year survey of the ancient Near East introduced me to Mesopotamia, and I began learning Akkadian on my own using John Huehnergard's A Grammar of Akkadian. Working alone had limits, so in my final year I joined an evening class in the language run through my university's continuing education department. By the end of it I could parse regular verbal forms, recognise the common Old Babylonian sign values and read short, normalised passages with a dictionary. I am aware that this is a foundation rather than fluency, and that cuneiform palaeography and Sumerian remain largely ahead of me. That is precisely why I am applying for structured, advanced study.

My dissertation examined Old Babylonian letters concerning canal maintenance and irrigation labour, mostly through published translations, with my own readings of selected passages compared against them. I was interested in how responsibility for clearing channels was negotiated between officials and local communities. Comparing translations taught me to notice where editors had made interpretive choices, such as how a verb of obligation was rendered or whether a damaged line had been restored. I received a first-class mark for the dissertation, and my supervisor's comments encouraged me to pursue the question of administrative language more systematically, which requires a far stronger command of the sources than I currently have.

Since graduating I have worked as a search room assistant in a local authority archive. My duties are ordinary but relevant: retrieving and returning documents, helping visitors interpret handwriting in parish and estate records, and enforcing handling procedures for fragile material. I have learned to read nineteenth-century hands patiently, to record uncertainty honestly in catalogue notes, and to explain to members of the public why a document cannot simply be photographed and taken away. Helping a retired farmer trace field names through tithe maps reminded me that administrative records, whether written on clay or paper, often preserve the clearest traces of everyday lives.

Outside work I coach a junior chess club at a community centre on Saturday mornings. Chess has nothing to do with Mesopotamia, but explaining an opening to ten-year-olds has made me better at breaking a complex system into steps, and the club has shown me how much I enjoy teaching. I also keep a notebook of sign forms I copy from published hand copies, which has become a calm evening habit rather than a chore.

At postgraduate level I hope to develop my reading of Akkadian across periods, begin Sumerian properly, and gain experience working from cuneiform copies and photographs rather than only from transliterations. I am particularly drawn to letters and administrative documents, and to the question of how written formulas shaped relationships of authority. I would welcome guidance on refining this into a research focus, and I am open to having my assumptions corrected as my reading widens.

I bring disciplined self-teaching, practical experience with archival material and a clear sense of what I still need to learn. I would value the chance to build on these in a rigorous academic setting.