Below, “the Association” refers to the International Association for Assyriology (IAA); “the Board” refers to the board of the IAA; “the Secretary” refers to the secretary of the IAA.
1. The city/university to organize the RAI shall as a rule be designated three years before the event takes place.
2. Essential information on an upcoming RAI shall be made available at least one year in advance. (A checklist list of desirable issues to consider is available from the Secretary.) It should be available in printed form during the preceding RAI and communicated by electronic means (e-mail, website) and announcements in selected periodicals (e.g. NABU). It will https://datingranking.net/nl/bdsm-overzicht/ also figure in the general IAA-website based at Leiden.
Students and accompanying persons get only half that amount
3. Since a meaningful discussion of papers is essential, papers shall preferably be given in English, French or German, and their titles shall be mentioned in time in a provisional programme to be consulted on the website. Informative abstracts shall be provided in time for the programme, which must allow time for discussion when fixing the designated time. Use of powerpoints and handouts should be encouraged and facilitated. Organizers are entitled to refuse to schedule any paper of which the abstract has not been received at the time of the announced deadline.
4. At most two parallel sessions are acceptable during the days devoted to the main theme (which usually will fill at least two days of the RAI) or reserved for other lectures of general interest. Changes in the programme are only acceptable if announced in time, before the beginning of the sessions (morning, afternoon), so that the audience has time to make choices.
5. To unburden the usually heavy programme of oral lectures and to prevent too many parallel sessions, the alternative of posters should be promoted, and circulars on the RAI must give information on the facilities and conditions for their use. The local Organizers are entitled to decide on the basis of abstracts whether a paper offered will be scheduled as a lecture or as a poster. The programme must reserve enough time for an opportunity to discuss them with their presenters, preferably without competition by other lectures.
6. The programme must include one or two half-day sessions devoted to archaeology (apart from those archaeological papers dealing with the main theme), for both thematic lectures and progress reports on excavations.
7. At least one half-day session of the programme should be reserved for special and smaller meetings or workshops, where people sharing a common interest (subject, period, area) can meet in a fair number of parallel sessions. Which meetings or workshops will be scheduled will depend on what offers are made, but a workshop must include a minimum of four related lectures. Offering facilities to existing workgroups (Sumerian grammar, Middle Assyrian studies, Ur III texts, etc.), to special fields (Hittite, Ugarit), and to new initiatives (e.g. workgroups on language, literature, religion, society, economy, law, special periods or groups of texts, seals, art, etc.) will make the RAI more attractive and useful for more participants. The Organizers have to announce these possibilities well in advance and/or contact specialists who are ready to organize such a workshop and to offer its complete programme in due time for inclusion by the Organizing Committee in the main programme and for taking care of meeting facilities.
8. If there is to be a special “museum day”, for those involved or interested in the “museological aspects” of our discipline, linked to the RAI, its organizers must contact the Organizing Committeee well in time for scheduling this event and for including the necessary information in their circular and programme.
9. It is advised, but by no means required, that some forum be organized at the discretion of the host committee with the goal of reviewing the history of the field as it developed at the host institution(s). Alternatively, a programme could be shaped around a major scholar associated with the host institution, aiming to highlight the the life and times in which the scholar contributed to the discipline.
10. The registration fee for the RAI should be kept within reasonable limits. At present a sum of ca. 130 Euro seems a good upper limit, of course depending on what it includes. Its size shall be decided on by the Board one year in advance. In accordance with the , members of the International Association for Assyriology (IAA) get a discount of 30 Euro on the registration fee.
11. To promote the attendance of young colleagues (especially students and assistants) the Organizers must try to make cheaper accomodation available and charge them a reduced registration fee. Moreover, organizers have the duty of finding funds allowing them to invite representatives from the countries of the Near East (especially Iraq, Syria and Turkey) in the interest of maintaining scholarly contacts with these countries. They should also make serious efforts to find money which will allow colleagues from other countries, for whom the costs would be too heavy a burden, to attend under favourable conditions. The Board is ready, if necessary, to support their efforts of finding money by formally stating their obligations in this respect in an official letter.
The Organizers will submit the proposed subject and date in time to allow evaluation by the Board during the RAI two years before the RAI in question
12. The RAI supports the annual collection of data on the “cooperation internationale”, in particular those on current and new research, and their distribution by electronic means on the IAA-website. The person responsible for collecting and editing these data is a member of the Board.
14. At the very beginning of the RAI there will be a meeting of the Board to evaluate the current situation and to prepare the General Meeting. This meeting shall be scheduled for one and a half hours during an afternoon session, but not on the last day. Its agenda will be drawn up by the Board of the Association and can include items submitted in time, in written form, by members of the RAI.
