Research Interests:  Archaeology of the Ancient Near East

During 1994-95, Prof. Kilmer made progress in her work on several topics dealing with ancient Mesopotamian music. In January 1995, an expanded version of "The Eyes of the Drum: A Difficult Cuneiform Text" (dating to the late first millennium B.C.) was presented to a conference in Israel on the Archaeology and Iconography of Music at Bar Ilan University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In July of 1995, Prof. Kilmer chaired a session on the ancient city of Emar for the Recontre Assyriologique Internacionale at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and delivered a lecture on Genres of Mesopotamian vocal music compositions to the Mesopotamian Literature Group in the State University of Groningen, Holland.

1994 saw the publication in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies of cuneiform texts from the ancient city of Nuzi (part of the collection of the P.A. Hearst Museum). This was a joint project with graduate students Kent Hillard and John Carnahan.

Work on a book The World of Entertainment in Ancient Mesopotamia continues.

Recent Publications

"Musical Practice in Nippur." Proceedings of the 35th Recontre Assyriologique Internationale 1989: Nippur at the Centennial (Philadelphia 1992), pp. 101-112.

"Nuzi Texts in the P.A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology," in "Texts and Fragments", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 46 (1994), pp. 105-122 (With John W. Carnahan and Kent G. Hillard).

"Games and Toys in Ancient Mesopotamia", in Actes du XIIe Congres International des Sciences Prehistoriques et Proto-historiques, Bratislava, 1-7 septembre 1991 (four volumes, Institut Archeologique de l'Academie Slovaque des Sciences, Bratislava 1993), vol. 4, pp. 359-364.

Last modified 4 February 2000.