Dr. Martin Worthington

Born in York and raised in Italy, Martin studied Ancient History and Egyptology at UCL. He went on to do an MPhil and PhD in Assyriology at Cambridge, supervised by Nicholas Postgate. Most of Martin’s research is on Mesopotamian philology, literature, or the relation between the two. His first book, Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism (De Gruyter, 2012) was the first extended exploration for Babylonian and Assyrian of a crucial question: how far can we trust our manuscripts? And what if they contain mistakes? Martin has also published on topics including Babylonian/Assyrian magic and medicine, Mesopotamian social history, Sumerian lexicography, and narrative strategies in Middle Egyptian literature. His current main lines of research include “Mesopotamian Orality", “The structure of the Akkadian poetic line", and “Sargon’s Riddle". Martin is a great believer in public outreach. In this vein he directed the world’s first Babylonian-language film, The Poor Man of Nippur (freely available on Youtube), and authored Teach Yourself Complete Babylonian (2nd ed. 2018).