Tommaso Bacci

“On Neo-Assyrian and Aramaic yet again” a lecture by Na’ama Pat-El Thursday 29th October 2026, 12:00h GMT+1 (Madrid time)

Why do Neo-Babylonian legal contracts refer to "iron oxen" used to plow fields? Did the Babylonians invent tractors? Not quite, apparently iron oxen are a legal clause which means that the borrower has to replace any ox that dies during the term of the lease. The oxen are therefore "immortal".

🧵New digital resources for Masoretic studies: a megathread. We're living in a golden age of digital tools for the study of the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. This thread compiles recent resources, several of which have launched just this year.

In 2025 @bnuyaminim.bsky.social and me taught a course on Comparative Semitics at the Leiden Summer School. After some cleaning up, we've decided to upload the syllabus and release it under a CC license for you and yours to peruse through. doi.org/10.17613/b4z...

3 years @ 65%, on Second Temple literature

united for the plurale glebae, down with the plurale majestatis (inscription by anonymous A-leveler, UChicago Regenstein Library)