Childhood in Mesopotamian texts and archaeology: finding a common ground?

Abstract

Children in antiquity, having long been rather overlooked in modern scholarship, rightly received increased attention by archaeologists, historians and philologists in recent years. Despite few exceptions, however, most studies have not addressed how to deal with the divide between archaeological and textual data. This is also true for ancient Mesopotamia, where the separation of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology has created reluctance in integrating both types of sources. While combined approaches have been successfully applied to specific topics in recent years (e.g. Neo-Assyrian expansion, climate change), childhood and other aspects of social history generally lack such treatments.
In this paper, I review different types of data available for studying children in the Old Babylonian period (2000-1600 BC) and I outline opportunities and challenges in integrating material culture and texts by discussing two thematic case studies, infant mortality and child socialisation.