enenuru: history and explanation
Feb 18, 2012 12:02:28 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Feb 18, 2012 12:02:28 GMT -5
- A Brief Board History -
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The board is named for the Sumerian word which served as initial rubric identifying Sumerian incantation texts. As a name for the group, it indicates an early and continuing fascination with this text genre. The collective interest of the group, however, spans the wider field of Mesopotamian studies.
The enenuru board was formed in march of 2007 with the help of a few early members and with my (at that time) very limited social networking experience. As laymen, our small group was faced with a challenge: how to sophisticate our enthusiasm for Mesopotamian culture, and discussion thereof, and how to attract persons who could help us in this endeavor?
These first formative goals lead to an open exploration of source materials and access options. We collected and shared materials, fussed around with ETCSL and ePSD and others, and in time found our way into university libraries, discovering the richness of intellectual discussion found in the scholarly Assyriological journals. For most of the core contributing members, enenuru had become a place where two complimentary fascinations informed each other: The ancient Mesopotamian literary world on the one hand, and on the other hand, the remarkable modern philological and archaeological apparatus that forms our window into the past.
As a layman group with some student membership with an increasing devotion to the field of Assyriology we had become a very peculiar oddball on the net. Perhaps the only thing more obscure then the Mesopotamians are the people who study them - and the people who acknowledge and delight in their efforts are rather few as well. With the aim of increasing this ode to eccentricity and intellectual activity, we made propoganda videos, started enenuru.net where some of the best posts were refined for the public, and created a facebook group.
Approaching our 5th year on the net, it is sometimes very quiet sometimes very busy. Sometimes we have lost fascinating thinkers, other times we have gained fascinating thinkers. The core members of the board have remained remarkably consistent . Some of us have, over the years, ourselves enrolled in university. From both students and dedicated laymen, the call to redefine enenuru has surfaced in recent times: we are academic in spirit and remain open to all who would like to discuss, or to learn to discuss, Mesopotamian culture through the lens of academic progress.
The enenuru board was formed in march of 2007 with the help of a few early members and with my (at that time) very limited social networking experience. As laymen, our small group was faced with a challenge: how to sophisticate our enthusiasm for Mesopotamian culture, and discussion thereof, and how to attract persons who could help us in this endeavor?
These first formative goals lead to an open exploration of source materials and access options. We collected and shared materials, fussed around with ETCSL and ePSD and others, and in time found our way into university libraries, discovering the richness of intellectual discussion found in the scholarly Assyriological journals. For most of the core contributing members, enenuru had become a place where two complimentary fascinations informed each other: The ancient Mesopotamian literary world on the one hand, and on the other hand, the remarkable modern philological and archaeological apparatus that forms our window into the past.
As a layman group with some student membership with an increasing devotion to the field of Assyriology we had become a very peculiar oddball on the net. Perhaps the only thing more obscure then the Mesopotamians are the people who study them - and the people who acknowledge and delight in their efforts are rather few as well. With the aim of increasing this ode to eccentricity and intellectual activity, we made propoganda videos, started enenuru.net where some of the best posts were refined for the public, and created a facebook group.
Approaching our 5th year on the net, it is sometimes very quiet sometimes very busy. Sometimes we have lost fascinating thinkers, other times we have gained fascinating thinkers. The core members of the board have remained remarkably consistent . Some of us have, over the years, ourselves enrolled in university. From both students and dedicated laymen, the call to redefine enenuru has surfaced in recent times: we are academic in spirit and remain open to all who would like to discuss, or to learn to discuss, Mesopotamian culture through the lens of academic progress.
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Lots of nice stuff on deities has been posted, religion and language, and divine symbols this week - in case anyone missed it, I've finally got my en2-e2-nu-ru tattoo which I'm still happy about: