Deutsch Intern
DFG Centre for Advanced Studies MagEIA

Ulrike Steinert

Research interests

  • Ancient Mesopotamian Anthropology and History of Ideas
  • Ancient Mesopotamian history of knowledge and medicine
  • Historical research on emotions
  • Gender research
  • Akkadian lexis, semantic fields and metaphor research

Curriculum Vitae

1997-2004

Studied Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Ethnology, and Religious Studies at the Free University of Berlin

2007

Doctorate in Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Georg-August-University Göttingen

2008

Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Perspective. Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows" at the University of Heidelberg

2008-2010

Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cluster of Excellence "TOPOI - The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilisations" at the Free University of Berlin

2011-2013

Medical History and Humanities Fellowship of the Wellcome Trust and Research Fellow at University College London

2013-2018

Senior Postdoc in the ERC project "BabMed- Babylonian Medicine" at Freie Universität Berlin

2018-2022

Postdoc in the Research Training Group 1876 "Early Concepts of Man and Nature: Universality, Specificity, Transmission" at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

2022-2026

Principal Investigator in the DFG project "Akkadian and Hittite Emotional Concepts in Context (AHEC)" at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

2024-2025

Deputy Professorship (W 2) for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Institute of Classical and Ancient Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Publications (Selection)

A. Monographs

  • Aspekte des Menschseins im Alten Mesopotamien. Eine Studie zu Person und Identität im 2. und 1. Jt. v. Chr. (Cuneiform Monographs 44), Leiden: Brill, 2012.
  • Women’s Healthcare in Ancient Mesopotamia in the First Millennium BCE: An Edition of the Textual Sources (Babylonisch-Assyrische Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen 12), Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2026

B. Editorials

  • With Chiara Ferella and Tanja Pommerening: Living Bodies, Dead Bodies and the Cosmos: Culturally Specific and Universal Concepts (Ancient Cultures of Sciences and Knowledge 3), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024
  • With Karen Sonik: The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East, London: Routledge, 2023
  • Systems of Classification in Premodern Medical Cultures: Sickness, Health and Local Epistemologies, London: Routledge, 2020
  • Assyrian and Babylonian Scholarly Text Catalogues: Medicine, Magic and Divination (Babylonisch-Assyrische Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen 9), Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018
  • With Natalie May: The Fabric of Cities. Aspects of Urbanism, Urban Topography and Society in Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 68), Leiden: Brill, 2014

C. Articles

  • With Jessica Knebel, “Emotion Metaphors Related to the Source Domain heat/fire in Ancient Texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt”, Interdisciplinary Egyptology 4/2 (2025)
  • “Mesopotamian Amulet Prescriptions for Averting and Preventing Fear”, in: A. Berlejung, G. Bohak (eds.), Amulets of Protection and Texts for Fears in Antiquity (ORA 57), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024, 117-146
  • “Created to Bleed: Blood, Women’s Bodies and Gender in Ancient Mesopotamian Medicine”, in: L. Lehmhaus (ed.), Female Bodies and Female Practitioners. Gynaecology, Women’s Bodies, and Expertise in the Ancient to Medieval Mediterranean and Middle East. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023, 233-305
  • “Emotion and the Body: Embodiment, Conceptual Metaphor, and Linguistic Encoding of Emotions in Akkadian”, in: K. Sonik, U. Steinert (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Emotions in the Ancient Near East. London: Routledge, 2023, 51-87
  • With Giovanna Colombetti, “Material Affective Engagements: Examples from Ancient Mesopotamia”, Aestimatio – Sources and Studies in the History of Science 3/2 (Special Issue), 2022, 113-168
  • “Concepts of Life in Ancient Mesopotamian Textual Sources”, Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 11 (2022), 288-307
  • “Ecstatic Experience and Possession Disorders in Ancient Mesopotamia”, in: D. Stein, S. Kielt Costello, K. Polinger Foster (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World. London: Routledge, 2022, 369-396
  • “Healing Substances and Therapies in Mesopotamian Women’s Health Care Texts: Properties, Effects and Cultural Meanings”. Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 36 (2020), 54-72
  • With Henry Stadhouders, “Two Rituals to Postpone an Ill-omened Childbirth: An Edition of KAR 223 and Duplicates”, Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 32 (2018), 56-78
  • “Körperwissen, Tradition und Innovation in der babylonischen Medizin”, in: A.-B. Renger, C. Wulf (eds.), Körperwissen: Transfer und Innovation. Paragrana. Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie 25/1. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016, 195-254
  • “Fluids, Rivers, and Vessels: Metaphors and Body Concepts in Mesopotamian Gynaecological Texts”, Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 22 (2013), 1-23
  • “K. 263+10934, A Tablet with Recipes Against the Abnormal Flow of a Woman’s Blood”, Sudhoffs Archiv. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftsgeschichte 96/1 (2012), 64-94