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JSPS Core-to-Core Program: International Research Network for Ancient Western Asian Studies

This highly-collaborative program — which is organized by Prof. Dr. Karen Radner (with the assistance of Dr. Jamie Novotny) and Prof. Dr. Daisuke Shibata — is designed (1) to establish and strengthen contacts between historians, linguists, and archaeologists at LMU Munich and Japanese scholars from various academic institutions; (2) to exchange scholarly ideas through a series of three international workshops; and (3) to create a digital and annotated corpus of royal inscriptions from the land of Mari. Funding is provided by Radner’s 2022 Leibniz Prize and Shibata’s 2023 JSPS Core-to-Core Award.

Scholarly visits to LMU Munich

Between 2023 and 2030, Radner’s Chair of Ancient History of the Near and Middle East will host students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors from Japanese universities that are participating in Shibata’s JSPS Core-to-Core Award (“International Research Network for Ancient Western Asian Studies”), especially Tsukuba University. The following researchers have visited the LMU’s Historisches Seminar:

  • Yui Arimatsu (Hiroshima University): 21 November–7 December 2023.
  • Sanae Ito (Nagoya University): 22 July–31 August 2023.
  • Kotaro Mamata (Tsukuba University): 6 February–19 March 2025.
  • Daisuke Shibata (Tsukuba University): 10–31 September, 2023; 14 July–12 August, 2024; and 10 July–1 August 2025.
  • Hajime Yamamoto (Yamaguchi University): 7–31 August 2023.

Shibata, as well as several other scholars, are expected to carry out research at LMU between January 2026 and January 31st 2030.

Workshops on Royal Inscriptions of Ancient Western Asia

A core objective of the collaborative agreement between Radner and Shibata is the organization of three one- and two-day workshops and the publication a(n open-access) edited volume of the proceedings. Royal inscriptions of Ancient Western Asia are the central theme of all three international gatherings.

 

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Participants in the Royal Inscriptions of Western Asia Workshop, November 2024, Doshisha University, Kyoto.

The first workshop, “Royal Inscriptions in Ancient Western Asia,” was held at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan) on November 4th, 2023. This small, one-day event comprised lectures by academics from Chou University, LMU Munich, Nagoya University, Tsukuba University, and Yamaguchi University. View workshop program here.

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Participants in the Royal Inscriptions of Western Asia Workshop, July 2025, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München.

The second workshop, “Royal Inscriptions in Ancient Western Asia 2,” was held at LMU Munich on July 28th–29th, 2025. This two-day event comprised lectures by academics from Cambridge University, Chou University, LMU Munich, Tsukuba University, Tubingen University, University of California Los Angeles, University of Pennsylvania, and Yamaguchi University. View workshop program here.

The third workshop, “Royal Inscriptions in Ancient Western Asia 3,” will be held at Nagoya University (Japan) in late October/early November 2026. The conference proceedings of all three events is planned for 2027.

RIMARI: Royal Inscriptions of the Land of Mari

Shibata plans to prepare transliterations and English translations of all of the Akkadian inscriptions from the “land of Mari,” a small kingdom located on the middle Euphrates. Following the style of the Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) and Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (RINBE) projects, RIMARI will edit the known 230 inscriptions, which known from 309 clay and stone objects, both in print and online, in an annotated and open-access format. The project is still in progress.

 

 

 

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