Origin & Development

The discussion group "Epigraphy and Scriptural Culture", which first met in 2007, led in 2008 to the establishment of the Collaborative Research Centre Initiative "Material Text Cultures" under the aegis of Markus Hilgert (Assyriology). Since then it has received financial backing from the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts in Baden-Württemberg. After several phases of internal project evaluation and selection, in December 2009 the Collaborative Research Centre Concept Paper was submitted to the German Research Foundation in Bonn.

The ongoing development of the centre's theoretical foundations and research programme was performed by the working group "Material Text Cultures", as well as by part of the annual project for 2009/2010 conducted by the Altertumswissenschaftlichen Kolleg Heidelberg (Research Community for the Study of the Ancient World) entitled "Text Praxis: Handeln an, mit und infolge von Geschriebenem".

After giving a positive assessment, the German Research Foundation agreed to the inauguration of the Collaborative Research Centre on 23rd May 2011. The centre embarked on its mission on 1st July 2011, and Markus Hilgert was elected its spokesman for the first research period.

On 18th June 2013 Markus Hilgert was elected head of Near Eastern Museum in Berlin by the Foundation Board of Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Prof. Dr. Ludger Lieb, Professor of ancient German philology, was unanimously elected new spokesman of Collaborative Research Centre 933 by its members on 21st October 2013.

After approval of the renewal application, CRC 933 was able to start its second funding phase in July 2015. The third – and last – funding period of the Collaborative Research Centre was approved in May 2019.