CSMC Newsletter

It is a significant addition to the laboratory of CSMC: a new CT scanner – the so called ENCI machine – which makes it possible to read sealed cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia in a completely non-invasive way, has arrived at the premises of the Cluster last month. The device was developed and built in a joint project between the CSMC and DESY by the assyriologist Cécile Michel, physicist Christian Schroer, and computer scientist Stephan Olbrich. The delivery of the machine was quite a special moment for us, and we took the opportunity to compile an image gallery, enriched with some technical descriptions, to give you a sense of what ENCI is and how it works.

The al-Jazzar Mosque of Akka still houses parts of a significant collection now spread around the globe. But the local holdings are at risk. Funded by the Aliph Foundation, the CSMC is now carrying out a short-term project to create the conditions for the long-term preservation of the early prints and handwritten archival materials. The programme started in September with instruction courses, led by Maria Luisa Russo, for two trainees in basic conservation measures. Until the end of this year, these trainees will work on-site to stabilise the collection through effective immediate measures, such as dry cleaning, deacidification, and setting up a suitable storage room.

The Faculty of Humanities at Universität Hamburg has awarded Cécile Michel an honorary doctorate. Michel received the certificate from the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Silke Segler-Meßner. The laudation was given by Michael Friedrich. At CSMC, Michel has been active in several key roles for many years. She is leading two research projects, one on ‘Archives and Literacy in 2nd Millennium Assyrian Manuscript Culture’, the other on ‘Reading Closed Cuneiform Tablets Using High-Resolution Computed Tomography’. In addition, she is the spokesperson of the Cluster's Ethics Working Group and chair of the ethics committee.

Our exhibition on the ‘Written Treasures of Hamburg: New Questions to Old Manuscripts’ at the Hamburg State and University Library (SUB) came to an end earlier this month. Employing 20 particularly noteworthy, significant, or surprising written artefacts from the holdings of the SUB, it gave a sense of how research at the Cluster proceeds: starting from individual objects, we can uncover historical contexts and recognise astonishing connections between different cultures of writing. If you want to learn more about the manuscripts that were on display in the exhibition, you can order a free copy of the bilingual exhibition catalogue, which is now also available in print, from our website.

After way more than a year of preparation, the main Cluster conference ‘Studying Written Artefacts: Challenges and Perspectives’ is now behind us. It consisted of more than 120 presentations, panel discussions, and poster presentations by researchers from around the world and across a wide range of disciplines. We received wonderful feedback from our participants and are very grateful to everyone who came to Hamburg for these intense three days to join the conversation, thus helping to make this event a great success. We are thrilled about all the new contacts that were established during the conference and the potential for future collaboration that they yield.

With the beginning of the new semester, several new doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from a range a different disciplines have joined our Cluster to pursue individual research projects or to join existing research teams: Joud Nassan Agha (Islamic Studies), Abigail Armstrong (Medieval History), Andreas Beckert (Computer Science), Michael Hensely (Ethiopian Studies), Giuseppe Marotta (cultural heritage conservator), Greg Nehring (Archaeometry), and Christoph Weyer (Musicology) have all taken up their positions at CSMC at the beginning of October, and we are excited to see what they will bring to our Cluster.

We also welcome a new Artist in Residence at our Cluster this month: Philip Loersch will join us until the end of the year to exchange ideas with our researchers and to get inspiration for his own artistic work. Philip's drawings (which do not look like drawings) always want to surprise and astonish the viewer. For this purpose, he uses his hand-drawn letters and works with them rather unconventional ways. We already had the pleasure to get a sense of his intriguing and surprising angle on writing at our workshop ‘Beyond Visualising Language’ at Deichtorhallen Hamburg earlier this year, now we look forward to see even more from him.

This autumn, Axel Malik turns the Hamburg State and University Library into ‘The Feverish Library’. The exhibition is on display until 31 October. In our interview, he talks about the impact of art in public spaces and why libraries are the ideal environment for his unreadable signs.