Please join us for the 2026 David Noel Freedman Lecture with Dr. Susanne Paulus, Associate Professor of Assyriology and Curator of the Tablet Collection at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) at the University of Chicago.

Michigan League, Vandenberg Room, 2nd Floor
Monday, October 26th, 4 - 6pm

Abstract:

Writing history is telling stories. The stories we tell about ancient economies, including that of Late Bronze Age Babylonia, are often shaped by preconceptions about commodities, credit, and debt. Drawing on tablets excavated in cities such as Babylon, Nippur, and Ur in modern Iraq, this lecture follows barley through a series of transactions involving taxes, loans, investments, and even two piglets. Barley was both a major food source and an economic staple, but the documents reveal much more than subsistence. They offer alternative ways of understanding credit, debt, and investment in Late Bronze Age Babylonia.

Biography:

Susanne Paulus is an Associate Professor of Assyriology and Curator of the Tablet Collection at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the social, legal, and economic history of Late Bronze Age Babylonia. Her current book project, Banking with Barley, supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, explores credit, debt, and economic life in Kassite Babylonia. She is also an epigraphist for the Nippur excavations and is involved in the publication of cuneiform texts from the city of Babylon.