Thank you so much, Jon! I will of course make sure to keep you and everyone else interested updated along the way!

Thank you so much, Janine!

Thank you so much for your kind message and words, Andrew!

The project aims to develop this subfield of research at the intersection of Assyriology, ancient medicine, and pandemic history, anchored at @ucph.bsky.social .

Look out for job postings for postdocs in the near future!

Working with the brilliant PandemiX Center of Excellence, we will explore six case studies in the project to reconstruct the earliest epidemic timeline and offer new historical insight into how humans have experienced infectious disease since the dawn of history.

The project will provide the first holistic study of epidemics in Mesopotamia, drawing on cuneiform texts, archaeological evidence, a metastudy of ancient DNA studies, and epidemiological modelling. We will examine how epidemics arose, spread, and impacted societies over 1600 years of history.

Many congratulations Moudhy, and I look much forward to reading it!

Thank you so much, Christopher!

Thank you so much, Erica!

6/6 You can read the article with open access here:

The Erra Epic – known from the first millennium BCE – framed warfare, destruction, and epidemics as cosmic chaos, thereby linking disease to myth. This narrative helped people in ancient Mesopotamia understand and ritualize such crises, attempting to prevent their influence. 5/6

Isolation practices date back to at least 1800 BCE, as also shown in previous studies. A letter from the Syrian city Mari show early quarantine measures, including a ban on sharing items like cups or beds with a specific sick person. Practical steps against disease in the ancient world😷 4/6

Rituals and collective prayers were responses to epidemics in ancient Mesopotamia. Some examples show that communities sought to appease the responsible god as a way to stop outbreaks, which is illustrated in an Old Babylonian letter and possibly mirrored in the epic of Atrahasis. 3/6

Ancient Mesopotamians used terms like mūtānu (a plural form of the word for "death"💀) to describe epidemics. Especially this popular term often lacked details on symptoms or causes. A reminder of how societies framed disease in their own cultural context. 2/6