The Mesopotamian Fellowship provides support in the amount of $7,500 for one three-to-six month period of research. $1,000 of this Fellowship amount will be alocated for registration and trave support to the 2009 ASOR annual meeting where the successful candidate will be expected to present a paper on his or her research. This fellowship is primarily intended to support field/research in ancient Mesopotamian civilization carried out in the Middle East, but other research projects such as museum or archival research related to ancient Mesopotamian studies may also be considered. The Mesopotamian Fellowship is based on a 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009 fiscal year. A recipient who does not use the fellowship for at least three months must forfeit and return a prorated amount of the stipend. Fellowship time should be continuous, without frequent trips outside the Middle East.

Pre-doctoral students and post-doctoral scholars from any country are invited to apply. Applicants must be affiliated with an institution that is a corporate member of ASOR (see list of current institutional/corporate members here) or must obtain individual membership in ASOR.

Each recipient must submit a written report within two months of the conclusion of the award period, according to ASOR guidelines. A portion of the stipend will be withheld until the report is received. An acknowledgment of ASOR support must be included in the published reports of the project.

The deadline for applications is 1 April 2008. Successful applicants will be notified by 30 April 2008. Applications may be submitted in two ways:

a) applicant can email application as a Microsoft Word attachment to asor@bu.edu (please do not zip the file first) and ask recommenders to do the same with their recommendation letters; if a transcript needs to be submitted, please send this in the mail; or
b) applicant and recommenders may mail application materials and letters to the address below.

Download application form in pdf or in Word (not yet available).

View our list of past recipients or frequently-asked-questions.

Frequently-asked questions about the Fellowship

Can the Fellowship be used for research in the U.S.?

The Fellowship Committee prefers to fund applicants who will travel to the Middle East to perform their research in the field. The Committee may in rare cases fund travel overseas to perform research in a European museum on Mesopotamian materials.

How long should the "statement of proposed research program" (item #15) be in the application?

Most applicants use 4-5 pages (double-spaced) to describe their proposed research.

Can figures be included in the application?

Figures may be included in an emailed or mailed application. These can be added to the end of the application and left out of the 10 page limit on the text of the application. If you are emailing your application, please limit the number of large high-resolution images since these will make your Word document very large and potentially difficult to circulate to the fellowship committee.