We are pleased to report that the Assyriology conference planned for February 27 is coming together nicely.  The title and topic is "Ancient History: Assyriological Perspectives" and the field of participants is impressive.  Heather Baker (University of Toronto), Eckart Frahm (Yale University), Grant Frame (University of Pennsylvania), Jacob Lauinger (Johns Hopkins University) and Jonathan Tenney (Cornell University) will join Brown Professors John Steele and Matthew Rutz for a full day of discussion of historic issues in Assyriology.  Please call 863-3132 for details and to register (no charge to attend).  

We are pleased to share with you  information about a just-published book edited by John Steele, with contributions by many of our department members:  Yuzhen Guan, M. Willis Monroe, Matthew Rutz, Zackary Wainer and our former Post-Doc Andreas Winkler.

Zackary Wainer successfully defended his dissertaion Monday, April 4, and the Egyptology and Assyriology Department happily gathered to congratulate him.  We join his family in celebrating his achievements and in wishing him the very best going forward.  Well Done, Zack!

We are delighted to share with you that Laurel Bestock has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure, effective July 1, 2016.  Well deserved for her scholarship, enthusiasm and teaching excellence, as well as her service to the department and university.  We are lucky to have her with us and extend our sincere congratulations for this milestone.  Additionally, it should be noted that Laurel must have had the Fountain of Youth elixir in her goblet, she looks exactly as she did in her senior year at Brown '98-'99!

The gathering of several preeminent Assyriologists at Brown on Saturday, February 27 resulted in a wonderful exchange of knowledge and ideas.  Professors Heather Baker (University of Toronto), Grant Frame (University of Pennsylvania), Eckart Frahm (Yale University), Jacob Lauinger (Johns Hopkins University) and Jonathan Tenney (Cornell University) joined Professors Matthew Rutz and John Steele for a day of lively presentations and discussions.  Thank you to our guests and conference attendees for participating in this rewarding event.

The life and work of Otto Neugebauer (1899-1990), founder of Brown's Department of History of Mathematics and recipient of Brown's most prestigious honor, the Rosenberger medal, in 1987, is examined in a newly published book, A Mathematicians Journey's: Otto Neugebauer and Modern Transformations of Ancient Science, co-edited by the department's John Steele. The book looks at Neugebauer's career from his student days in Göttingen and Copenhagen, his principled stand against the Nazis in resigning from his position at the famous Mathematical Institute in Göttingen in 1933, and his move to Brown University in 1939. Neugebauer was unquestionably the most important historian of ancient science of the twentieth century, and his legacy lives on at Brown with the Department of Egyptology and Assyriology continuing to be a major center for the history of ancient science.