The UCL Ancient Near Eastern Studies Community
The UCL ANE Seminar Series
Authority and Gender in the ANE 2026/7
The UCL Ancient Near Eastern Seminar Series is a collaborative space for young scholars to share their work, exchange ideas, and have interdisciplinary discussions. We host fortnightly seminars during term time with presenters from London, the rest of the UK, and across the world, at different stages of their careers from undergraduate and postgraduate students to early career researchers. All are welcome to attend and join our friendly community of ANE enthusiasts!
The theme this year is Authority and Gender in the Ancient Near East. Talks take place every other Tuesday 17:00-18:00, and in Term 1 all (except the first talk - see programme below) will be held in room 309 Gordon House. The link for online attendance will be sent out before each seminar via our mailing list, which you can subscribe to here:
Term 1 Programme
29/09/2026 Maitreyi Sanadhya
UCL
(Room 308 Gordon House)
Less than a Woman: Disputation and the Construction of Gender Ex Negativo in Two Women B
13/10/2026 Ida Ceccarelli
Sapienza University
of Rome
How clay figurines and their distribution can help to understand the construction of gender identity in the first half of the III millennium in Mesopotamia
27/10/2026 Arkadina Cadena
Penn State University
Inanna’s Descent: the Feminist Katabasis
10/11/2026 Irene Alberti
Ca' Foscari University
of Venice
Gender Matters: Women at Ebla (Syria, 24th Century BCE) from a Socio-Economic and Legal Perspective
24/11/2026 Hannah Goldin UCL
Who Controls a Woman’s Word? Gender and Household Authority in Numbers 30 and Ancient Near Eastern Law
08/12/2026 Lucrezia Manganelli
Freie Universität Berlin
Gender as a Narrative Construction for Legitimizing Authority in the Sargonic Narratives from Mesopotamia to Anatolia
Term 2 Programme
12/01/2027 Salvatore Bellavia
Università di Messina
Dreams, Gender, and Political Authority at Mari: Addu-Duri and the Limits of Kingship
26/01/2027 Rosemary Ott
University of Toronto
Not the King’s Shadow: Detangling Misconceptions of Royal Women in New Kingdom Egyptian Art
09/02/2027 Abigail Tan
Independent researcher
The origins of satrapal authority in Persian Babylonia c. 539–484 BC: towards a new conceptualisation of upward ideological influence in the Achaemenid Empire
23/02/2027 Sara Manasterska
University of Heidelberg
Unnamed powers: position and authority of unnamed women in Middle Assyrian texts
09/03/2026 Valery Schlegel
Freie Universität Berlin
The Myth of the Eunuch and the Power of the ša rēši in the Neo-Assyrian Empire
23/03/2026 Elliott Lairie
University of Lille
Women's Relations with Local Assyrian Authorities in the Old Assyrian Period
Term 3 Programme
27/04/2027 Christian Allasino
Sapienza University
of Rome
Walmu King of Wiluša. On the title kulawani-
11/05/2027 Charlie Oubridge
SOAS
Comparing Egyptological and Assyriological understanding of state influence on identity formation
25/05/2027 Kieran Vernon
University of Oxford
The Authority of the Past in Mythological Narratives
8/06/2027
The Eduba London team and
UCL ANE Seminar Series presenters
Authority and Gender: Roundtable Discussion