Agnete Lassen Delivers Moorey Lecture at Oxford University

On May 20^th, 2026, Agnete W. Lassen, Associate Curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, delivered the annual Roger Moorey Lecture at Oxford University. The lecture was entitled “Set in Stone? Object Biography and the Reworked Seal.” Arguing that ancient Near Eastern seals were “fluid” objects that were continuously recarved and recontextualized, the lecture explored what reworked seals can tell us about how the people of ancient Mesopotamia understood, used, and continuously reappropriated their own material past.