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2014 publications

Puduhepa

Title: Ünal, A., Eskiçağ Anadolu toplumlarında kadın anayanlı bir Hitit kraliçesi : Puduhepa ve zamanı, Çorum : Hitit Üniversitesi, 2014.

Keywords: Puduhepa - Hittite queen

Abstract:

Vicino oriente 18

Title: Università di Roma, Istituto di studi del Vicino oriente, Vicino Oriente XVIII, 2014.

Keywords: Middle Persian - Middle persian literature - Sasanian period - Pahlavi -four elements - čahār zahagān - Sumerian - translate - inim- -bal - eme-bal - Sumerian to Akkadian - translation - Hittite reception - Turkish republic - Iraqi Kurdistan - archaeological map - Paikuli - Copper route - Khirbet al-Batrawy - Jordan - Egyptian connection - Transjordan - aegyptiaca - Transjordanian urban centres - trade - cultural interactions - Jericho - Motya - masks - cothon - nail - temple of Astarte

Content:

M. Jafari-Dehaghi - Čahār zahagān in Middle Persian literature

S. Seminara - Beyond the words. Some considerations about the word "to translate" in Sumerian

R. Francia - Gli Ittiti e la loro riscoperta nella Turchia repubblicana

K. Rashid Rahim - C.G. Cereti - L. Colliva - A. Fusaro - C. Insom - G. Labisi - S. Mancini - J. Bogdani - M. Galuppi - G. Terribili - MAIKI, Missione Archeologica Italiana nel Kurdistan Iracheno: la carta archeologica dell'area di Paikuli, obiettivi e metodologie applicate

L. Nigro - The Copper Route and the Egyptian connection in 3rd millennium BC Jordan seen from the caravan city of Khirbet al-Batrawy

M. Sala - EB II-III aegyptiaca east of the Jordan: a reevaluation of trade and cultural interactions between Egypt and Transjordanian urban centres

C. Fiaccavento - Two EB III Red Polished jugs from Palace B in Khirbet al-Batrawy and jugs with Reserved Alternate-Hatching Decoration (RAHD) from Palestine and Transjordan

D. Montanari - An EB IV dagger from Tell es-Sultan/Jericho

F. Spagnoli - Una brocchetta dipinta dal Tempio di Astarte nell'Area sacra del Kothon a Mozia

B. D'Andrea - Nuove stele dal Tofet di Mozia

A. Orsingher - Listen and protect: reconsidering the grinning masks after a recent find from Motya

The Larsa E.babbar

Title: Jean-Louis Huot, L’E.babbar de Larsa aux IIe et Ier millénaires (Fouilles de 1974 à 1985), Presses de l’Ifpo, Beirut, 2014.

Keywords: Mesopotamia - Larsa - E-babbar - religion - ritual - archaeology - architecture

Abstract: Le temple de Šamaš à Larsa (sud Iraq), l’E.babbar, a été exploré par une mission française dirigée par Jean-Louis Huot de 1974 à 1985. Des travaux préliminaires, engagés auparavant par A. Parrot et J. Margueron, furent publiés dans Syria. Les fouilles récentes ont été l’objet de rapports de 1974 à 1978, dans Syria également, puis de livres plus substantiels aux éditions ERC. Il demeurait cependant dans les archives des relevés, des inventaires d’objets inédits et des descriptions architecturales précieuses. Ces publications préliminaires n’offraient pas de conclusions synthétiques.

Les événements consécutifs à la guerre du Koweit ont éloigné la perspective d’une reprise des travaux. Le temps était venu de nouer la gerbe. Cet ouvrage n’a pas l’intention de republier ce qui l’a déjà été. La quasi-totalité des relevés architecturaux et des objets présentés sont inédits. On a conclu par une synthèse sur ces vestiges qui s’étendent sur près de 300 m de longueur. Ces bâtiments appartenaient à des projets architecturaux juxtaposés sur une durée de près de deux mille ans. Sur le même site, mais selon des conceptions différentes, des souverains successifs se sont attachés à reconstruire, modifier ou agrandir un édifice digne de Šamaš, au cœur du pays de Sumer. ([http://www.ifporient.org/en/node/1540|Table of Contents]])

Cultural Exchange from Alexander to the Sassanids

Title: Pierre Leriche (ed.), Art et civilisation de l'Orient hellénisé. Rencontres et échanges culturels d'Alexandre aux Sassanides. Hommage à Daniel Schlumberger, Picard History, Paris, 2014.

Keywords: Mesopotamia - Alexander - Sassanid - Hellenistic - cultural exchange

Abstract: Avec la conquête d'Alexandre (330-323 av. J.-C.) et la création des empires séleucide et lagide, la civilisation de l'Orient entre de plain-pied dans la sphère culturelle du monde grec. L'hellénisme se diffuse et se transforme lui-même au sein de nouvelles capitales. Alexandrie, Antioche, Pergame et Séleucie du Tigre remplacent Athènes. Les idées, les artistes et les marchandises circulent sur de longues distances, de la Méditerranée jusqu’à l’Inde en passant par l’Asie Centrale, provoquant de multiples transferts culturels. Cet ambitieux ouvrage regroupe les contributions d'éminents spécialistes et embrasse les territoires allant de l’Égypte à l'Inde. Ils s'appuient sur les dernières découvertes en Syrie, en Irak mais aussi en Asie Centrale et en Afghanistan, et attirent l'attention sur les destructions de sites archéologiques, notamment, au Proche-Orient.

Life, Death, and Coming of Age

Title: Alice Mouton and Julie Patrier, Life, Death, and Coming of Age in Antiquity: Individual Rites of Passage in the Ancient Near East and its Surroundings, NINO, Leiden, 2014.

Keywords: ancient Near East - social history - ritual - death

Abstract: Biological and social life of human beings is punctuated by rites of passage. Although some of them are documented in detail, rites of passage in ancient Near Eastern cultures have not previously been presented comprehensively and parallel to each other. A thorough study is achieved in this volume by combining various approaches and disciplines. The basic rites of passage are examined: birth, adolescence, changes of social status, and death. The present volume consists of twenty-one contributions by specialists of ancient Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, and neighbouring cultures. It is structured around three main axes: “Becoming someone: The social dimension of rites of passage”, where the interface between the religious sphere and the socio-political structure is examined; “Real life, symbolic life: Ritualized life and death in rites of passage”, or how each threshold crossed by an individual is perceived as a new beginning; and “Liminality and impurity: The dangers of transformation”, which defines the complex relation between notions of purity and impurity and rites of passage.

Archaeologies of Text

Title: Morag Kersel and Matthew T. Rutz (eds.), Archaeologies of Text, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2014

Keywords: archaeology - philology - ancient world - history - historiography - interdisciplinary

Abstract: Scholars working in a number of disciplines – archaeologists, classicists, epigraphers, papyrologists, Assyriologists, Egyptologists, Mayanists, philologists, and ancient historians of all stripes – routinely engage with ancient textual sources that are either material remains from the archaeological record or historical products of other connections between the ancient world and our own. Examining the archaeology-text nexus from multiple perspectives, contributors to this volume discuss current theoretical and practical problems that have grown out of their work at the boundary of the division between archaeology and the study of early inscriptions. In 12 representative case-studies drawn from research in Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, and Mesoamerica, scholars use various lenses to critically examine the interface between archaeology and the study of ancient texts, rethink the fragmentation of their various specialized disciplines, and illustrate the best in current approaches to contextual analysis.

The collection of essays also highlights recent trends in the development of documentation and dissemination technologies, engages with the ethical and intellectual quandaries presented by ancient inscriptions that lack archaeological context, and sets out to find profitable future directions for interdisciplinary research. ([http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/archaeologies-of-text.html|Table of Contents]])

CUSAS 28: Documents of Judean Exiles Title: L. F. Pearce and C. Wunsch, Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer, CDL Press, Bethesda, 2014.

Keywords: Babylonia - administrative texts - private archives - Judean exiles - Jewish history Abstract: The publication by Laurie  E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch of the first, extra-biblical, archival source from the exiled Judean community in Babylonia in the 6th and 5th centuries BC represents a major contribution to both Mesopotamian and Biblical studies. The volume provides complete editions, translations, copies and outstanding photographs of 103 cuneiform texts from the David Sofer Collection along with an extensive commentary on the hundreds of new personal names with Yahwistic elements that add substantially to our understanding of Judean religious beliefs during this formative period in the development of exilic Judaism. The new documents provide us with new insights into the social and economic life of the Judeans (along with others groups forcibly settled in Mesopotamia by Nebuchadnezzar II) in their own community of Al Yahudu (Jewtown) and their interrelationships with and assimilation to their West Semitic and Babylonian neighbors. The comprehensive analysis and discussion of the new data by the authors offer many additions and insights into the hitherto limited knowledge of this community, the naming practices of immigrant groups over several generations, and, by implication, how other exiles in Babylonia might have been influenced by similar experiences after being forcibly resettled in a foreign environment. This is an essential resource not only for Assyriologists, archaeologists  and historians but particularly for biblical scholars interested in the history of Judaism in its Mesopotamian context.

How Mesopotamian Scribes Learn to Write Legal Documents

Title: Walter R. Bodine, How Mesopotamian Scribes Learned to Write Legal Documents: A Study of the Sumerian Model Contracts in the Babylonian Collection at Yale University, Mellen Press, 2014.

Keywords: Mesopotamia - Sumerian - scribes - scribal scholarship - history of law

Abstract: This is a remarkable and important work that provides insight into social and economic activities provided to us in the cuneiform records of ancient periods revealing how these activities were negotiated and regulated by laws and contracts, through records of the Sumerian model contracts from the Mesopotamian scribal school curriculum. It is an essential reference work for any student of ancient Mesopotamian history and comparative law. In the Mesopotamian school, scribal students were prepared to assume many responsibilities. Among them was the writing of functional contracts (i.e., those used in actual legal proceedings) and other legal documents. A large number of these functional documents have been preserved and published. Student scribes learned to write them by preparing practice examples. These include model contracts, model court cases, model letters, and models of public announcements. That phase of scribal training represents the closest Mesopotamia ever came to developing a law school. An introduction to this work overviews the book and discusses the effort made in it to discover the provenience and period of composition of the documents, the importance of personal names and the need of attention to paleography for this investigation, and the use, and the use of functional contracts in the process of restoring lost and obscure readings. A survey of past study discusses work done, explains the usage of terms, relates the model contracts to other school documents, and locates them at the intermediate level of Mesopotamian scribal education. The texts are set forth in transliteration and a literal translation, which are arranged side by side in order to make clear the author's understanding of the documents.

Sumerian Grammar

Title: Gábor Zólyomi, Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian, DeGruyter, Warsaw, 2014.

Keywords: Sumerian - language - grammar - copular clauses - linguistics

Abstract: This work is the first comprehensive description of Sumerian constructions involving a copula. Using around 400 fully glossed examples, it gives a thorough analysis of all uses of the copula, which is one of the least understood and most frequently misinterpreted and consequently mistranslated morphemes in Sumerian.

It starts with a concise introduction into the grammatical structure of Sumerian, followed by a study that is accessible to both linguists and sumerologists, as it applies the terminology of modern descriptive linguistics. It provides the oldest known and documented example of the path of grammaticalization that leads from a copula to a focus marker. It gives the description of Sumerian copular paratactic relative clauses, which make use of an otherwise only scarcely attested relativization strategy. At the end of the book, the reader will have a clear picture about the morphological and syntactic devices used to mark identificational, polarity and sentence focus in Sumerian, one of the oldest documented languages in the world.

Babylonian Poems of Pious Sufferers

Title: T. Oshima, Babylonian Poems of Pious Sufferers. Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi and the Babylonian Theodicy, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2014.

Keywords: Babylonia - literature - theodicy - Ludlul - text editions - history - comparative literature - Old Testament

Abstract: Takayoshi Oshima analyses the two most important Babylonian wisdom texts: Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi (also known as the Babylonian Job or the Babylonian Righteous Sufferer) and the so called Babylonian Theodicy. On the basis of the hitherto published as well as newly available, unpublished cuneiform manuscripts, the author establishes a new critical text for each poem and gives an English translation. He offers detailed philological and critical notes to the texts, discussing both the textual and the interpretive issues evoked by individual words and passages. In addition, however, each poem is preceded by a lengthy discussion of its origins, intention, and plot, as well as by more general considerations of its cultural and historical background, including short but important observations on the relationship to Old Testament wisdom literature.

House and Household in Mesopotamia

Title: Federico Buccellati, Tobias Helms and Alexander Tamm (eds.), House and Household Economies in 3rd Millennium B.C.E. Syro-Mesopotamia, British Archaeological Reports International Series, Oxford, 2014.

Keywords: Mesopotamia - archaeology - third millennium - Tell Chuera - households - economic history

Abstract: This volume contains a selection of articles based on papers presented at an international workshop held at Frankfurt am Main, Germany from the 27th to the 28th of October, 2012 (http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/162480/1/BAR_2682_Households__-_contents-libre.pdf). The workshop was organized by members of the Research Training Group 1576 "Value and Equivalence" and the Tell Chuera Project. The articles address a wide range of materials (lithics, terracotta figurines, domestic architecture and installations, glyptics) and topics (the organization of space within residential areas, the economic base of 3rd millennium settlements, an anthropological perspective on the study of domestic remains) which are related to the study of 3rd millennium BC houses and households in northern Mesopotamia. Many articles focus on recent archaeological excavations and observations from Tell Chuera, but hitherto unpublished field data from other sites (Tell Mozan, Tell Hazna, and Kharab Sayyar) are also presented. The archaeological focus of the volume is broadened by a philological treatise dealing with the study of households in southern Mesopotamia.

Local and Imperial Politics in Achaemenid Babylonia

Title: Caroline Waerzeggers, Marduk-Rēmanni: Local networks and imperial politics in Achaemenid Babylonia, Peeters, Leuven, 2014.

Keywords: Babylonia - Achaemenid - Persia - private archives - economic history - political history - business - administrative

Abstract: Marduk-remanni was a Babylonian man who lived in the provincial town of Sippar during the first decades of Persian rule in Mesopotamia (second half of the sixth century BC). His archive of c. 187 cuneiform texts was found in 1881 during excavations carried out on behalf of the British Museum, but since then it has received little attention. On first sight, the historical relevance of Marduk-remanni's records seems minimal. They relate to his private assets, business enterprises, and legal concerns - matters that barely seem to transcend the personal and local spheres. But upon closer scrutiny, it becomes clear that Marduk-remanni was at the centre of a far-flung personal network and that his life, despite his having lived far from the political centre, reflects many of the developments and changes taking place at the highest imperial level. He was a child when Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylonia, and although this regime change caused little upheaval outside the political arena at first, by the time of Marduk-remanni's death several decades later, the world of his childhood had changed. His life had taken a completely different course than that of his father and grandfather. He had traveled near and far, visiting the Persian court at Susa on several occasions. No longer were the horizons of his world confined to the Babylonian heartland, as they had been for his father and grandfather. Marduk-remanni was born in provincial Babylonia, but he died as a citizen of a world empire. This book traces the social, economic and political dynamics that transformed his life.

Introduction to Hittite

Title: Arnaud Fournet, Introduction à la langue hittite, La Garenne Colombes, 2014.

Keywords: Hittite - language - grammar

Abstract: The book and its 8 chapters are a detailed introduction into the morphology and grammar of Hittite, described from a synchronic point of view. Numerous sentences are analyzed and illustrate the main features of the Hittite language. The book also provides the phonetic readings of more than 350 cuneiform signs, and their equivalents in Hittite, Akkadian and Sumerian.

Tell Tuqan Excavations

Title: F. Baffi, R. Fiorentino, and L. Peyronel, Tell Tuqan Excavations and Regional Perspectives: Cultural Developments in Inner Syria from the Early Bronze Age to the Persian/Hellenistic Period, Proceedings of the International Conference May 15th-17th 2013 - Lecce, Congedo Editore, 2014.

Keywords: Syria - Tell Tuqan - archaeology - settlement history - cultural heritage

Abstract: The Proceedings collect the papers presented at the International Conference held in Lecce from May 15th to 17th 2013. Several Italian and foreign scholars, who worked in Syria until the forced interruption of fieldwork in 2011, participated in the conference. The papers deal with different periods, showing continuity or hiatus in the settlement history, emphasizing geographical and environmental analogies. This volume offers insights for the historical reconstruction of a large region during two thousand years, from the Early Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period. When we have no epigraphic documents, as in Tell Tuqan, the analysis of the material culture provides evidence of exchanges and interaction with nearby areas. A substantial degree of continuity in the human occupation of the Matkh region from the III to I Millennium B.C. was undoubtedly favored by the humid environment of the ancient lake. We can observe a continuity of settlements (sometimes with short interruptions or partial abandonments) directly connected with the economic and political role played by the main regional urban centres. Around the ruins of these ancient sites there are now new villages, large or small, marking the Syrian landscape. Here the people can feel themselves as heirs of their past history. Awareness of that origin creates a connection with the next generation. Its denial causes an irreparable loss of our cultural heritage.

Hittite Mythology

Title: Alberto Bernabé Pajares, Mitos Hititas : entre oriente y occidente, Akal, Madrid, 2014.

Keywords: Hittite - mythology - religion - text editions

Abstract: Entre las tablillas sacadas a la luz en las excavaciones de Hattusa, la antigua capital de los hititas, se encontraron textos mitológicos, tanto relacionados con el ritual, como traducidos o adaptados de otras culturas, como la acadia o la cananea, o incluso con textos mágicos. En esta obra se traduce su práctica totalidad, acompañados cada uno de ellos de introducciones que los sitúan en su contexto y que brindan las claves para entenderlos e interpretarlos.

El interés central del libro, Mitos hititas. Entre Oriente y Occidente, ha sido sobre todo situar los mitos hititas en su contexto cultural y en una línea evolutiva que va desde sus orígenes, que en unos casos se encuentran en los ritos de la población sobre la que se impusieron, los háticos, y en muchos otros se hallan en literaturas vecinas, como la mesopotámica, que ejercieron su influjo sobre el mundo hitita a través de los hurritas, hasta los ecos de estas historias que podemos encontrar en el mundo clásico y aún en épocas más recientes.

S.A.R.G.O.N. Editrice e Libreria

Title: N. De Zorzi, La Serie Teratomantica šumma izbu: Testo, Tradizione, Orizzonti Culturali 2 Vols., Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2014.

Keywords: magic - divination - ritual - literature - score edition

Abstract: Mesopotamia can be characterized as a “divination culture” more than any other ancient civilization. Because divination plays a pivotal role in the Mesopotamian belief system understanding its hermeneutic apparatus becomes crucial to any study devoted to it. This two-volume book provides a comprehensive analysis of one of the most important divinatory compositions from ancient Mesopotamia, the series known in the field as Šumma izbu “If a malformed birth,” which deals mostly with malformed human and animal births. The main part of the first volume elucidates the inner structure, the building principles and the hermeneutic code of Šumma izbu. The volume also provides a typological analysis of the textual sources used for the reconstruction and the study of the series and gives an overview over their chronological and archaeological distribution. Moreover, it surveys the structure and diachronic development of the Mesopotamian teratomantic corpus, from the Old Babylonian omen compendia to the so-called ʽcanonicalʼ series of the first millennium, and explores its social setting. An English summary of nineteen pages concludes the first volume of the book. The second volume offers a full edition of Šumma izbu, the first after Erle Leichty’s pioneering edition of 1970. This new ʽscoreʼ edition draws on a substantial number of unpublished sources, for the most part housed in the British Museum, and a collation of those already published. It represents a significant step forward in the reconstruction of the series. A detailed commentary discusses philological, lexicographical and interpretative issues and attempts at contextualizing Šumma izbu within the ancient Mesopotamian divinatory corpus.

Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 12

Title: G. Gabriel, enūma eliš - Weg zu einer globalen Weltordnung: Pragmatik, Struktur und Semantik des babylonischen "Lieds auf Marduk", Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2014.

Keywords: literature - mythology - Akkadian language

Abstract: Das Lied auf Marduk ( enūma eliš ) ist der vermutlich bedeutsamste mythische Text der babylonischen Kultur und berichtet vom Aufstieg des Gottes Marduk zum absoluten Herrscher über alle Götter und die Welt. Gösta Gabriel liefert die erste umfassende Gesamtinterpretation des Textes, wobei er ihn aus sich selbst heraus analysiert. Dabei wird zwischen der außertextlichen Wirkdimension (Pragmatik) und seiner inneren Verfasstheit (Struktur) und Bedeutung (Semantik) unterschieden. Zentral für das Verständnis des Werkes ist zudem die Festsprechung ( šīmtu ) und die Namensgebung, die mit Blick auf ihre textinterne Funktion beleuchtet werden. Abschließend führt die Untersuchung die verschiedenen Betrachtungsstränge zusammen, wodurch sich der Text in seiner Außen- und Binnenwirkung als Weg und Schlüssel zu einer ewigen friedlichen Weltordnung offenbart, die durch und in Marduk begründet ist - die Pax Mardukiana.

Documentary Sources in Economic History

Title: H. D. Baker and M. Jursa (eds), Documentary Sources in Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman Economic History, Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2014.

Keywords: economic history - Mesopotamia - Greece - Rome

Abstract: This volume (Table of Contents) breaks new ground in approaching the Ancient Economy by bringing together documentary sources from Mesopotamia and the Greco-Roman world. Addressing textual corpora that have traditionally been studied separately, the collected papers overturn the conventional view of a fundamental divide between the economic institutions of these two regions. The premise is that, while controlling for differences, texts from either cultural setting can be brought to bear on the other and can shed light, through their use as proxy data, on such questions as economic mentalities and market development. The book also presents innovative approaches to the quantitative study of large corpora of ancient documents. The resulting view of the Ancient Economy is much more variegated and dynamic than traditional ‘primitivist’ views would allow.

Babel und Bibel 8

Title: N. Koslova, E. Vizirova, and G. Zólyomi (eds), Studies in Sumerian Language and Literature: Festschrift für Joachim Krecher, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 2014.

Keywords: literature - Sumerian

Abstract: This volume (Table of Contents) is a festschrift for Joachim Krecher, Professor of Assyriology in the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Krecher is best known, perhaps, for his seminal Sumerische Kultlyrik, published already in 1966. This compendium includes 17 essays by friends and colleagues, all focusing on Sumerian language and literature.

GMTR 6

Title: N. Veldhuis, History of the Cuneiform Lexical Tradition, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 2014.

Keywords: lexical lists - writing - intellectual history

Abstract: Lexical texts are lists of words and lists of cuneiform signs, developed by the ancient scribes to describe, transmit, and research one of their most treasured fields of knowledge: the knowledge of writing. The history of these lists extends from the very beginning of writing in the late fourth millennium BC all the way to the Parthian period in the first century AD. This study (Table of Contents) investigates the development of the lists, their uses in ancient Mesopotamian scholarship and education, and their role in intellectual life.

Ancient Near East Monographs 8

Title: C. L. Crouch, Israel and the Assyrians: Deuteronomy, the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, and the Nature of Subversion. Society for Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2014.

Keywords: Neo-Assyrians - Hebrew Bible - biblical studies - treaties

Abstract: This volume undermines the popular interpreta-tionof Deuteronomy as an anti-imperial, subversive tract (full book available online). The book draws on theories of adaptation and allusion to provide the theoretical foundation for a discussion of subversion and its detection and thereby tests the idea of subversive intent against the social context in which it would have functioned. It contains detailed textual analyses of Deuteronomy 13 and 28 in relation to the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon and other ancient Near Eastern curse and treaty traditions. It also reflects on the historical circumstances of the seventh century BC, with particular attention to questions of bilingualism of authors and audiences. Te book’s argument challenges the pre-exilic dating of Deuteronomy and problematizes the Israelites’ wider relationship with the Assyrian Empire

Feasting

Title: P. Altmann and J. Fu, Feasting in the Archaeology and Texts of the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, 2014.

Keywords: archaeology - Hebrew Bible - material culture - anthropology

Abstract: This volume (Table of Contents)brings together the work of scholars using various methodologies to investigate the prevalence, importance, and meanings of feasting and foodways in the texts and cultural-material environments of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. Thus, it serves as both an introduction to and explication of this emerging field. The offerings range from the third-millennium Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia to the rise of a new cuisine in the Islamic period and transverse geographical locations such as southern Iraq, Syria, the Aegean, and especially the southern Levant. The strength of this collection lies in the many disciplines and methodologies that come together. Texts, pottery, faunal studies, iconography, and anthropological theory are all accorded a place at the table in locating the importance of feasting as a symbolic, social, and political practice. Various essays showcase both new archaeological methodologies–zooarchaeological bone analysis and spatial analysis–and classical methods such as iconographic studies, ceramic chronology, cultural anthropology, and composition-critical textual analysis.

RINAP 3/2

Title: A. K. Grayson and J. Novotny, The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704-681 BC), Part 2, The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3/2, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, 2014.

Keywords: Sennacherib - Neo-Assyrian period - royal/monumental inscriptions - edition

Abstract: The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704-681 BC), Part 2 (Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period 3/2) provides reliable, up-to-date editions of 195 texts of Sennacherib, as well as 26 other late Neo-Assyrian inscriptions that might belong to this king and 2 inscriptions of his family (including one of his wives, Tashmetu-sharrat). The volume contains historical inscriptions on bull and lion colossi from Nineveh, rock reliefs, stone horizontal prisms, and clay cylinders and prisms from other cities under Sennacherib’s authority (especially Ashur and Tarbisu); epigraphs on reliefs; and inscriptions on bricks, threshold slabs, door sockets, wall panels, stone blocks, beads, metal plating (including door bands); and drafts and copies of historical and building inscriptions written on clay tablets. Each text edition (with its English translation) is supplied with a brief introduction containing general information, a catalogue containing basic information about all exemplars, a commentary containing further technical information and notes, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Mesopotamian Civilizations 19

Title: G. M. Beckman, The babilili-Ritual from Hattusa (CTH 718), Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 2014.

Keywords: Hittite - ritual - text editions - religion

Abstract: Hittite culture of the second millennium B.C.E. was strongly influenced by Mesopotamian culture, in part through the mediation of the peripheral cuneiform civilizations of northern Syria, in part through direct contact with Babylonia and Assyria. The text edited here (CTH 718) presents an extreme example of this cultural impact, featuring incantations in the Akkadian language (Hittite babilili) embedded within a ceremony set forth in the Hittite tongue. This ritual program has therefore become known to scholars as the "babilili-ritual." With almost 400 preserved lines, this ceremony is one of the longest religious compositions recovered from the Hittite capital, and there are indications that a significant additional portion has been lost. The divine figure to whom the rite is addressed is Pirinkir, a variety of the well-known Ishtar of Mesopotamia. Its purpose seems to be the elimination of the sins of a member of the royal family. Many of the ritual activities and offering materials employed here are characteristic of the cult practice of the Classical Cilician region known as Kizzuwatna, which was introduced into the central Hittite realm during the final two centuries of the state's existence. Nonetheless, the Akkadian of the incantations is neither the Akkadian employed in the Hurrian-influenced area of Syria and eastern Anatolia nor that otherwise known from the Hittite royal archives; rather, it is closer to the language of the later Old Babylonian period, even if no precise Mesopotamian forerunners can yet be identified.

HES (Heidelberger Emesal-Studien) 1

Title: U. Gabbay, Pacifying the Hearts of the Gods: Sumerian Emesal Prayers of the First Millennium BC, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2014.

Keywords: Sumerian - ritual - religion - literature

Abstract: Pacifying the Hearts of the Gods investigates the corpus of Emesal prayers, i.e., prayers composed in the Emesal register of the Sumerian language that are known from cuneiform tablets dating from the beginning of the second millennium BC up to the end of the first millennium BC (Table of Contents). In the first millennium BC these prayers, which are usually accompanied by interlinear Akkadian translations, were divided into four main genres, natively called Balaĝ, Eršema, Eršaḫuĝa, and Šuila. The content of the prayers is usually lamentful, mourning the destruction of various Mesopotamian cities and temples, but it is not restricted to the commemoration of past disasters. The book examines the role of these prayers in the daily, monthly, annual, and noncalendrical cult of the temples of ancient Mesopotamia. It approaches these prayers, especially the Balaĝ and Eršema genres, not only as texts but as part of a larger theological system that includes the ritual context of the prayers, their musical performance, and their cultic performer (the gala/kalû). Focusing on the first millennium BC, the book demonstrates how each element of this system serves the main theological purpose of the prayers: divine pacification. It also discusses the textual transmission of these prayers - most of which were included in the first-millennium BC series of kalûtu, “lore of the kalû cultic functionary” - on the basis of changes in the long litanies of gods, epithets, cities, and temples. Special emphasis is given to the scribal context of the prayers.

VFMOS 3, III

Title: A. A. Dornauer, Das Archiv des assyrischen Statthalters Mannu-kī-Aššūr von Gūzāna/Tall Ḥalaf), Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2014.

Keywords: text edition - primary source - Neo-Assyrian period - archive

Abstract: Im Jahr 1912 fand Max Freiherr von Oppenheim auf der Zitadelle der neuassyrischen Provinzhauptstadt Guzana (modern Tall ?alaf) die Überreste des Archivs des Statthalters Mannu-ki-Aššur (max. 808–764). Eine erste Bearbeitung der Texte von Ernst F. Weidner erschien 1940 im sechsten Beiheft des Archivs für Orientforschung. Die vorliegende Neubearbeitung von Aron A. Dornauer berücksichtigt das seitdem gewachsene Wissen und stellt die Texte in den soziohistorischen Kontext einer Phase, in der Assyrien das eroberte Obermesopotamien in das Provinzialsystem des sich formierenden assyrisch-obermesopotamischen Territorialstaats integrierte. Die administrativen Urkunden und Briefe dokumentieren Getreide, Groß- und Kleinvieh für Abgaben sowie Personal für zivilen und militärischen Frondienst. Infanteristen und Schleuderer, Streitwagen- und Hilfstruppen sowie der Tross werden ausgehoben, mit Waffen, Rüstzeug, Equiden und Proviant ausgerüstet. Gold und Gesandte aus dem Westen werden durch Guzana geleitet; Personen werden des Rechtsbruchs beschuldigt; Rituale werden organisiert. Neben der Kommunikation innerhalb der Provinz dokumentieren die Texte die Kommunikation der Provinzadministration mit königlichen Büros in Kal?u, mit Offiziellen benachbarter Provinzen und Magnaten wie dem turtanu, für den die Provinzverwaltung Streitwagen und Truppen bereitzustellen hatte. Briefformat, Schriftgebrauch und Duktus unterscheiden sich von den jüngeren Texten aus Ninive, Kal?u und Assur. Eine Besonderheit der Einleitung des Briefformulars des turtanu und des Mannu-ki-Aššur dokumentiert, dass sich in der ersten Hälfte des 8. Jahrhunderts nicht nur die Magnaten königliche Prärogative angeeignet haben.

Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East 8

Title: A. E. Miglio, Tribe and State: The Dynamics of International Politics and the Reign of Zimri-Lim, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2014.

Keywords: Mari - political history - warfare

Abstract: The cuneiform tablets recovered from the ancient city of Mari (Tell Hariri) richly document the socio-political world of ancient Syro-Mesopotamia. The city of Mari flourished as a political capital under the king Zimri-Lim from c. 1775-1762 until Hammu-rabi of Babylon destroyed the city, leaving thousands of cuneiform letters in the ruins. The letters from ancient Mari reveal how society constrained and catalyzed politics during the reign of Zimri-Lim, the last king of Mari. This book analyzes Zimri-Lim’s interactions with contemporary sovereigns from the Habur as well as his dealings with Yamut-bal and Numha tribal polities. It describes how Zimri-Lim’s disproportionate dependence on tribal connections left him vulnerable when tribal alliances began to fail him in his tenth regnal year. At this time, an Elamite force mounted a sustained offensive against several of the states in southern Mesopotamia and the northern regions of the Habur. The Elamite incursion into the Habur undercut the tribal alliances of Zimri-Lim, making him susceptible to the ambitious expansion of Hammu-rabi of Babylon (Table of Contents).

Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East 7

Title: R. Feingold, Engraved on Stone: Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals and Seal Inscriptions in the Old Babylonian Period, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2014.

Keywords: cylinder seals - Old Babylonian period

Abstract: Cylinder seals were important instruments in the Ancient Near East, and were used in Mesopotamia from the beginning of the third millennium BC to the fifth century BC. Cylinder seals were made from various minerals with different degrees of hardness. They served an economic function, identifying the owner, and also served as amulets. Seal cutters were skilled professionals, and the use of seals which were recut due to a change of ownership or abrasion can be identified, providing information about both seal cutters and seal owners. This volume (Table of Contents) presents an analysis of 1000 cylinder seals (including 70 that are not yet published) from the Old Babylonian period, including the Isin and Larsa dynasties, and uses this analysis as well as data from written texts of the period to answer questions relating to the seal cutters and the production of the seals: What was the significance of the cylinder seals in this period? What is known about the raw materials - the minerals - from which the seals were made? Where did these materials originate, and what can be deduced about the trade in ready-made cylinder seals? Who were the seal cutters? Were they able to read what they wrote on the seals? Which tools did they use? Is it possible to identify which workshops they worked at? Who were the owners of the seals and what were their positions and professions?

Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East 6

Title: L. M. Zucconi, Can No Physician Be Found?: The Influence of Religion on Medical Pluralism in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Israel, Second Edition, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2014.

Keywords: medical history - Egypt - Israel - Mesopotamia

Abstract: This book analyzes how religion, as an expression of a universal order, applied to the medical practices in the cultures of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Israel. The comparative approach sheds light on how religious concepts shaped not only the particular medical identity of each society, but also how they can simultaneously participate in a broader medical culture spanning the ancient Near East. A feature common to all three cultures is the presence of two types of healers. Scholars of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia distinguish them as scientific (physician) or magical (priest) whereas biblical scholarship sees healing in connection with prophets and priests as simply miraculous. By understanding the role of religion, we can see that these ancient societies did not operate under the science/magic dichotomy but rather used the multiplicity of healers as variations within a single healing strategy based upon the ideas of illness as a divine message and healing as a method of community cohesion. One type of healer focused on the message as a form of vertical communication with the deities, maintaining a relationship between humans and the divine. The other class of healers concentrated on the horizontal mode of communication, allowing people within the community to understand the message behind the illness as well as the potential resolution to such problems in the community (Table of Contents).

AOAT 414/1

Title: J. Hackl, M. Jursa, and M. Schmidl, with assistance from K. Wagensonner, Spätbabylonische Privatbriefe: Spätbabylonische Briefe Band 1, Herausgegeben von Michael Jursa, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 2014.

Keywords: letters - text editions - Neo-Babylonian period

Abstract: In this volume – the first of a series that will publish a full (re-)edition of the Late Babylonian letter corpus – 243 letters from private archives are edited. Eighty of these letters have not been published before, and an additional 58 have never been edited and are not included in Ebeling’s now quite dated edition of the corpus. Almost all of the tablets have been collated, and the editions are preceded by an analysis of the letters’ formal structure and content. Accompanying commentary contextualizes the letters and establishes their archival background. The book includes a glossary and numerous indices.

AOAT 401

Title: H. Neumann, R. Dittmann, S. Paulus, G. Neumann, and A. Schuster-Brandis (eds), Krieg und Frieden: 52e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, Münster, 17.-21. Juli 2006, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 2014.

Keywords: warfare - history - archaeology

Abstract: This volume brings together research presented at the 52nd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, which took place in Münster between the 17th and 21st of July, 2006. The theme of the 52nd Rencontre was “War and Peace in the Ancient Near East”. Constant alternation between times of war and times of peace was one of the fundamental experiences of ancient Near Eastern peoples. Preparation for and performance of war along with seeking and making peace are discernible in different forms and contexts in the textual and material evidence of the ancient Near East. The theme of the 52nd Rencontre was relevant to scholars from many of the sub-disciplines of ancient Near Eastern research, including Sumerology, Akkadian studies, Hittitology, Ugaritology, and ancient Near Eastern archaeology, as well as to scholars interested in broader research questions pertaining to the history, culture, and languages of the ancient Near East. Among the subjects addressed by the contributions presented at the 52nd Rencontre were questions of military equipment, waging war and ending it (along with the attendant ritual/religious and legal questions), the social and economic background informing the use of military violence between states and groups, war as the continuation of politics by other means, and the perception of and reflections on the relationship between war and peace in literature and art. In addition to these contributions, this volume also includes research presented at the 52nd Rencontre that is not related to the 52nd Rencontre’s theme (Table of Contents).

AOAT 369

Title: M. Krebernik and H. Neumann, with the assistance of G. Neumann (eds), Babylonien und seine Nachbarn in neu- und spätbabylonischer Zeit. Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium aus Anlass des 75. Geburtstags von Joachim Oelsner, Jena, 2. und 3. März 2007, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 2014.

Keywords: Neo-Babylonian period - social history

Abstract: This volume is the product of a colloquium in honour of the 75th birthday of Joachim Oelsner, which was held at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Oelsner’s long-standing academic home. The subject of the colloquium and therefore also of the present book – namely “Babylonia and its neighbours in the neo- and late-Babylonian periods” – is a known focus of Oelsner’s rich academic oeuvre. Oelsner’s publications in this area have contributed substantially and persistently to our knowledge of the history and culture of Babylonia in the 1st millennium BC and have inspired much further research. The publication of this volume will simultaneously honour Oelsner’s outstanding life-time achievements and demonstrate the influence of his research on the study of the ancient Near East (Table of Contents).

OBO 263

Title: D. T. Sugimoto (ed), Transformation of a Goddess: Ishtar - Astarte - Aphrodite, Academic Press Fribourg, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2014.

Keywords: religion - Mesopotamia - Near East - Hellenistic world

Abstract: This book deals with the changing nature of the goddess Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite, who was widely revered in the ancient West Asia and the Mediterranean world and was known by different names. Although the three names are often closely related, their mutual relation has not yet been sufficiently clarified. They appear with different characters and attributes in various areas and periods. They may well refer to independent goddesses, each of whom may also be connected with other deities. In this volume, specialists on different areas and periods discuss the theme from various perspectives, allowing a new and broader understanding of the goddess(es) concerned. The areas covered range from Mesopotamia to the Levant, Egypt and the Mediterranean world, the periods embraced from the third millennium BC to the Hellenistic age.

Mesopotamian Civilizations 17

Title: W. Farber, Lamaštu: An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals and Related Texts from the Second and First Millennia B.C., Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 2014.

Keywords: ritual - text editions - religion

Abstract: A new comprehensive edition of the Lamaštu series of incantations.

TOPOI Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 12

Title: D. Bonatz (ed), The Archaeology of Political Spaces. The Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont in the Second Millennium BC, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2014.

Keywords: archaeology - history

Abstract: This book, consisting of 12 contributions, amalgamates the most recent results from archaeological research in the Upper Mesopotamian piedmont. Under the growing influence of expanding territorial states which had become established during the 2nd millennium BC, this region experienced a substantial change in social and political life during that time. The discussion is centered around settlement shapes, developments in the material culture, as well as written documents that attest to this change. In summary, this book emphasizes the significant roll of archaeological research in the reconstruction of models concerning the formation and transformation of political space in the ancient world (Table of Contents).

TOPOI Berlin Studies of the Ancient World 17

Title: E. Cancik-Kirschbaum, N. Brisch, and J. Eidem (eds), Constituent, Confederate, and Conquered Space in Upper Mesopotamia: The Emergence of the Mittani State, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2014.

Keywords: Mitanni - political history - archaeology

Abstract: The Mittani empire is one of the most enigmatic political structures in Mesopotamian history. Reconstructing the emergence and the organisation of this state, whose territory encompassed Upper Mesopotamia touching the Levant and the piedmont plains of the Zagros in the East at the height of its power, is exceedingly difficult. Cuneiform specialists, archeologists and historians discuss the Mittani state with regard to modes of spatial organisation co- and preexisting in the region (Table of Contents).

Mémoires de N.A.B.U. 16

Title: M. Guichard, Florilegium marianum XIV: L'Épopée de Zimrī-Lîm, SEPOA, Paris, 2014.

Keywords: Mari - literature - philology

Abstract: The latest volume in the Florilegium marianum series (Table of Contents), featuring a literary and historical analysis of a Zimri-Lim military-historical 'epic' text.

Explorations in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations 3

Title: K. H. Garroway, Children in the Ancient Near Eastern Household, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 2014.

Keywords: social history - children - archaeology

Abstract: Despite their importance, children have long been marginalized in discussions of ancient societies. Only recently has this trend begun to change within biblical and ancient Near Eastern scholarship. A recent wave of studies, especially in relation to the Hebrew Bible, has started to address children in their own right. In light of the current state of scholarship on children, the purpose of this book is threefold. First, Garroway continues to fill out the picture of the child in the ancient Near East by compiling child-centric texts and archaeological realia. In analyzing these materials, she surveys the relationship between children and ancient Near Eastern society by examining the extent to which structuring forces in a community, such as social status and gender, contribute to the process of a child's becoming a member of his household and society. Finally, this information provides a base for future research, for example, a cross-cultural study of children in the ancient Near East in Classical Antiquity.

Explorations in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations 2

Title: M. Kozuh, The Sacrificial Economy: Assessors, Contractors, and Thieves in the Management of Sacrificial Sheep at the Eanna Temple of Uruk (ca. 625-520 B.C.), Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 2014.

Keywords: temple - religion - Uruk - social history - administration

Abstract: In the mid-first millennium B.C., the Eanna temple at Uruk sacrificed a minimum of nine lambs every day in its basic routine of offerings to its gods; in addition to these, special occasions and festivals demanded the sacrifice of as many as 90 lambs in a single day. All told, the Eanna sacrificed about 4,300 lambs per year. There were more than 120 herdsmen connected to the Eanna at any given time, and the temple expected there to be tens of thousands of sheep and goats under their responsibility. These herdsmen delivered male lambs to the Eanna for sacrifice, and the temple had an internal infrastructure for the care, maintenance, and ritual expenditure of these lambs; they also delivered wool, which the Eanna sold mostly in bulk quantities. This book aims to analyze the economic organization of this entire system of sheep and goat maintenance and utilization, to explore the economic and social relationships between the Eanna and its herdsmen, and to integrate the study of the Eanna s animal economy into the developing picture of the Neo-Babylonian temple economy as a whole. Kozuh's careful examination of the bookkeeping records, the management records, and legal documents connected with this substantial enterprise sheds new light on an arcane area of first-millennium Mesopotamian life that will be sure to enlighten our understanding of the daily life, economy, and social structure of this region.

Studien zu den Assur-Texten 5

Title: D. Prechel and H. Freydank, Urkunden der königlichen Palastverwalter vom Ende des 2. Jt. v. Chr. Das "Archiv" Assur 21101 (M7 F), Studien zu den Assur-Texten 5. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2014.

Keywords: Assur - text edition - Middle Assyrian period - archive

Abstract: The volume contains editions to 92 legal documents from the Middle Assyrian period.

CUSAS 21

Title: S. F. Monaco, Archaic Bullae and Tablets in the Cornell University Collections, CUSAS 21. CDL Press, Bethesda, Maryland, 2014.

Keywords: archaic texts - Uruk III - text publication

Abstract:

WVDOG 140

Title: E. Klengel-Brandt, Die neuassyrische Glyptik aus Assur, WVDOG 140, Fundgruppen 7. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2014.

Keywords: cylinder seals - Neo-Assyrian period - Assur

Abstract:

ICAANE 8

Title: P. Bieliński, M. Gawlikowski, R. Koliński, D. Ławecka, A. Sołtysiak and Z. Wygnańska (eds), Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2014.

Keywords: archaeology - material culture - art history - urbanism - bioarchaeology

Abstract: The 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (VIII ICAANE) was held in Warsaw in spring 2012, jointly organized by the University of Warsaw, the K. Michalowski Foundation and the Institute of Prehistory of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. The three-volume Proceedings contain the latest information and analyses reported at the VIII ICAANE. The first volume contains papers presented during plenary sessions as well as two of the main themes: Township and Villages and High and Low - The Minor Arts for the Elite and for the Populace. The second volume includes the most extensive session dedicated to the results of field research, Excavations and Progress Reports, covering the entire Near East, the Gulf countries and the Caucasus. The volume is completed by contributions presented during the poster session. The third volume is a collection of four themes: Archaeology of Fire, Bioarchaeology - an innovation of the 8th ICAANE, introduced to bring together scholars working within interdisciplinary projects on various aspects of the ecology of the ancient populations of the Near East -, Conservation, Preservation and Site Management and the Islamic Session. Anyone with an interest in the ancient Near East will find much to enjoy and appreciate in these three impressive volumes.

Title: B. T. Arnold, N. L. Erickson, and J. H. Walton (eds), Windows of the Ancient World of the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honor of Samuel Greengus. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 2014.

Keywords: Hebrew Bible - ancient Israel

Abstract: This honorary volume of scholarly essays celebrates Dr. Samuel Greengus, Julian Morgenstern Professor of Bible and Near Eastern Literature and Professor of Semitic Languages at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, esteemed teacher and mentor. The contributions are varied in scope (Table of Contents), including studies of biblical texts and the ancient Near East. Together, the essays demonstrate the rich and vast field that is the study of the Hebrew Bible and thus highlight the profound and broad influence that Samuel Greengus has had on multiple generations of students, now scholars in a field that he has helped shape. Windows to the Ancient World of the Hebrew Bible is sure to delight the reader and holds unique importance for students of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East. It presents innovative research and heralds fine scholarship, representative of an even finer scholar.

Assyria to Iberia

Title: J. Aruz with S. Graff and Y. Rakic(eds), A Third-Millennium Miscellany of Cuneiform Texts. CDL Press, Bethesda, Maryland, 2014.

Keywords: exhibition - ancient art - economic history

Abstract: This comprehensive book explores the spectacular art of the first millennium B.C. from the Near East to Western Europe. This was the world of Odysseus, in which trade proliferated with Phoenician merchants; of King Midas, whose tomb was adorned with treasures; and of the Bible, whose stories are illuminated by recent artistic and archeological discoveries. It was also a time of rich cultural exchange across the Mediterranean and Near East as diverse populations interacted through trade, travel, and migration. Assyria to Iberia showcases masterpieces that reflect the cultural encounters of this era. Stunning details convey the beauty and significance of more than 300 objects drawn from collections around the globe. These objects include carved reliefs from the majestic palaces of ancient Assyria, Phoenician fine bronze metalwork and carved ivories, and luxurious jewellery. Texts by over 80 international scholars provide a compelling picture of this fascinating period, one that is essential to understanding the origins of Western culture and art.

CUSAS 26

Title: A. Westenholz, A Third-Millennium Miscellany of Cuneiform Texts. CDL Press, Bethesda, Maryland, 2014.

Keywords: archaic writing - text editions

Abstract: Transliteration, commentary, and photographs of cuneiform inscriptions, texts, and objects from 8 cities of the third millennium.

Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 266

Title: P. M. Michel, Le culte des pierres à Emar à l'époque hittite. Academic Press Fribourg, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2014.

Keywords: Syria - Emar - ritual

Abstract: The purpose of this book is to shed new light on the aniconic cults of the ancient Near East, where previously standing stone cults of Semitic and Anatolian populations were invariably studied separately. The study offers a synthetic view of all the information currently available and then proceeds to a renewed interpretation of cultic standing stones in Late Bronze Age Emar. At the end of the fourteenth century BC, Aštata and Emar entered the Hittite sphere of influence. While previous scholars have discussed matters of Hittite administration in Emar, they have little studied religious aspects, considering that the Hittites were tolerant in these matters. However, a close analysis of various Emar rites related to cultic standing stones leads us to acknowledge that the Hittite conquest of Aštata had repercussions also on local religious life.

Ancient Near East Monographs 7

Title: A. Lenzi and J. Stökl (eds), Divination, Politics, and Ancient Near Eastern Empires. Society for Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2014.

Keywords: religion - prophecy - biblical studies

Abstract: This collection (full book online) examines the ways that divinatory texts in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East undermined and upheld the empires in which the texts were composed, edited, and read. Nine essays and an introduction engage biblical scholarship on the Prophets, Assyriology, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the critical study of Ancient Empires.

Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 229

Title: M. DePauw and S. Coussement (eds), Identifiers and Identification Methods in the Ancient World: Legal Documents in Ancient Societies III. Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oosterse Studies, Leuven, 2014.

Keywords: interdisciplinary - legal history

Abstract: This volume provides a survey of how people were identified in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece and Rome. Rather than discussing the identifiers themselves, the contributions focus on the selection of elements such as names, genealogy, titles, or ethnics, as well as on legal confirmation of identity in the form of witnesses, seals or signatures. The varying socio-onomastic and legal conventions illustrate intense cultural exchange as well as regional traditions in the Ancient World, and this collection of papers will be of interest to both social and legal historians.

Studia Chaburensia 4

Title: D. Morandi Bonacossi (ed), Settlement Dynamics and Human-Landscape Interaction in the Dry Steppes of Syria. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2014.

Keywords: archaeology - Syria - pastoralism

Abstract: This volume is the result of a workshop convened in Warsaw on May 3-4 2012 as part of the 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, with the aim of reinvigorating discussion on agro-pastoralist and specialised hunter societies living at the semi-arid and dry fringes of Syria's stable, long-term settlement zone. The seventeen papers gathered here (Table of Contents) present the results of the most important international field research projects of recent decades dedicated to the interdisciplinary exploration of the dry steppe regions of Syria: the arid margins of northern Syria, the Palmyra, Jebel Bishri, and the Middle Euphrates and Khabur regions.

AOAT 51

Title: S. Paulus, Die babylonischen Kudurru-Inschriften von der kassitischen bis zur frühneubabylonischen Zeit. Untersucht unter besonderer Berücksichtigung gesellschafts- und rechtshistorischer Fragestellungen. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 51. Münster, 2014.

Keywords: kudurru - inscriptions - edition - study

Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld

Title: A. Gadotti, 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld' and the Sumerian Gilgamesh Cycle. Untersuchungen zur Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 10. Berlin, 2014.

Keywords: Gilgamesh - Sumerian literature - text edition

Abstract: Alhena Gadotti offers a much needed new edition of the Sumerian composition Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, last published by Aaron Shaffer in his 1963 doctoral dissertation. Since then, several new manuscripts have come to light, prompting not only a new edition of the text, but also a re-examination of the composition. In this book (Table of Contents), Gadotti argues that Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld was the first, not the last of the Sumerian stories about Gilgamesh. She also suggests that a Sumerian Gilgamesh Cycle, currently only attested in old Babylonian manuscripts (ca. 18th century BC), was in fact developed during the Ur III period (ca. 2100-2000 BC). Providing a new way to look at the Sumerian Gilgamesh stories, this book is relevant not only to scholars of the ancient Near East, but also to anyone interested in epic and epic cycle.

Writings from the Ancient World 35

Title: S. E. Holtz, Neo-Babylonian Trial Records. Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2014.

Keywords: Neo-Babylonian period - legal history - social history

Abstract: This collection (Table of Contents) of sixth-century B.C.E. Mesopotamian texts provides a close-up, often dramatic, view of ancient courtroom encounters shedding light on Neo-Babylonian legal culture and daily life. In addition to the legal texts, Holtz provides an introduction to Neo-Babylonian social history, archival records, and legal materials. This is an essential resource for scholars interested in the history of law.

Bronze Age Bureaucracy

Title: N. Postgate, Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014.

Keywords: Middle Assyrian period - economic history - social history

Abstract: This book (Table of Contents) describes ten different government archives of cuneiform tablets from Assyria, using them to analyse the social and economic character of the Middle Assyrian state, as well as the roles and practices of writing. The tablets, many of which have not been edited or translated, were excavated at the capital, Assur, and in the provinces, and they give vivid details to illuminate issues such as offerings to the national shrine, the economy and political role of elite households, palace etiquette, and state-run agriculture. This book concentrates particularly on how the Assyrian use of written documentation affected the nature and ethos of government, and compares this to contemporary practices in other palatial administrations at Nuzi, Alalah, Ugarit, and in Greece.

Ancient Mesopotamia

Title: G. Algaze, Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2014.

Keywords: archaeology - urbanism - Uruk

Abstract: The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the “cradle of civilization”; owing to the scale of the processes of urbanization that took place in the area by the second half of the fourth millennium bc. This book (Table of Contents and Electronic Resource) draws on the work of modern economic geographers to explore how the unique river-based ecology and geography of the Tigris–Euphrates alluvium impacted the development of urban civilization in southern Mesopotamia. It argues that these natural conditions granted southern polities significant competitive advantages over their landlocked rivals elsewhere in Southwest Asia, most importantly the ability to transport easily commodities. In due course, this resulted in increased trade and economic activity and higher population densities in the south than were possible elsewhere. As southern polities grew in scale and complexity throughout the fourth millennium, revolutionary new forms of labor organization and record keeping were created, and it is these socially created innovations, the author argues, that ultimately account for why fully developed city-states emerged earlier in southern Mesopotamia than elsewhere in Southwest Asia or the world.

Ancient Persia

Title: M. Waters, Ancient Persia. A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2014.

Keywords: Achaemenid empire - history

Abstract: The Achaemenid Persian Empire, at its greatest territorial extent under Darius I (r.522–486 BC), held sway over territory stretching from the Indus River Valley to southeastern Europe and from the western Himalayas to northeast Africa. In this book, Matt Waters gives a detailed historical overview of the Achaemenid period while considering the manifold interpretive problems historians face in constructing and understanding its history. This book (Table of Contents) offers a Persian perspective even when relying on Greek textual sources and archaeological evidence. Waters situates the story of the Achaemenid Persians in the context of their predecessors in the mid-first millennium BC and through their successors after the Macedonian conquest, constructing a compelling narrative of how the empire retained its vitality for more than two hundred years (c.550–330 BC) and left a massive imprint on Middle Eastern as well as Greek and European history.

The Ancient Near East

Title: M. Liverani, The Ancient Near East. History, Society and Economy. Routledge, London and New York, 2014.

Keywords: history - society - economy

Abstract: The Ancient Near East reveals three millennia of history (c. 3500–500 bc) in a single work. Liverani draws upon over 25 years’ worth of experience and this personal odyssey has enabled him to retrace the history of the peoples of the Ancient Near East. The history of the Sumerians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and more is meticulously detailed by one of the leading scholars of Assyriology. Utilizing research derived from the most recent archaeological finds, the text has been fully revised for this English edition and explores Liverani’s current thinking on the history of the Ancient Near East. The rich and varied illustrations for each historical period, augmented by new images for this edition, provide insights into the material and textual sources for the Ancient Near East. Many highlight the ingenuity and technological prowess of the peoples in the Ancient East. Never before available in English, The Ancient Near East represents one of the greatest books ever written on the subject and is a must read for students who will not have had the chance to explore the depth of Liverani’s scholarship.

Oxford Handbooks

Title: M. L. Steiner and A. E. Killebrew (eds) The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant : c. 8000-332 BCE Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014.

Keywords: archaeology - material culture - Near East

Abstract: This Handbook aims to serve as a research guide to the archaeology of the Levant, an area situated at the crossroads of the ancient world that linked the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The Levant as used here is a historical geographical term referring to a large area which today comprises the modern states of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, western Syria, and Cyprus, as well as the West Bank, Gaza, and the Sinai. Unique in its treatment of the entire region, it offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the current state of the archaeology of the Levant within its larger cultural, historical, and socio-economic contexts. The Handbook also attempts to bridge the modern scholarly and political divide between archaeologists working in this highly contested region. Written by leading international scholars in the field, it focuses chronologically on the Neolithic through Persian periods - a time span during which the Levant was often in close contact with the imperial powers of Egypt, Anatolia, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. This volume will serve as an invaluable reference work for those interested in a contextualised archaeological account of this region, beginning with the tenth millennium BC 'agricultural revolution', until the conquest of Alexander the Great that marked the end of the Persian period.(Table of Contents).

Culture & History of the Ancient Near East 71

Title: I. Kalimi and S. Richardson (eds) Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography Brill, Leiden, 2014.

Keywords: Neo-Assyria - ancient Israel - warfare - historiography

Abstract: Sennacherib and his ill-fated siege of Jerusalem fascinated the ancient world. Twelve scholars—in Hebrew Bible, Assyriology, archaeology, Egyptology, Classics, Aramaic, Rabbinic and Christian literatures—examine how and why the Sennacherib story was told and re-told in more than a dozen cultures for over a thousand years. From Akkadian to Arabic, stories and legends about Sennacherib became the first vernacular tales of the imperial world. These essays address outstanding historical issues of the campaign and the sources, and press on to expose the stories’ theological and cultural roles in inner-cultural dialogues, ethnic origin stories, and morality tales (Table of Contents). This book is the first of its kind for readers seeking out historical and historiographic bridges between the ancient and late antique worlds.

Routledge Sourcebooks for the Ancient World

Title: M. W. Chavalas (ed) Women in the Ancient Near East Routledge, London, 2014.

Keywords: Near Eastern women - literature - medicine - law

Abstract: This volume provides a collection of primary sources that further our understanding of women from Mesopotamian and Near Eastern civilizations, from the earliest historical and literary texts in the third millennium bc to the to the end of Mesopotamian political autonomy in the sixth century bc. This book is a valuable resource for historians of the Near East and for those studying women in the ancient world. It moves beyond simply identifying women in the Near East to attempting to place them in historical and literary context, following the latest research. A number of literary genres are represented, including myths and epics, proverbs, medical texts, law collections, letters, treaties, as well as building, dedicatory, and funerary inscriptions (Sample and Table of Contents).

Cuneiform Monographs 46

Title: L. Sassmannshausen with G. Neumann (eds) He Has Opened Nisaba's House of Learning: Studies in Honor of Åke Waldemar Sjöberg on the Occasion of His 89th Birthday on August 1st 2013 Cuneiform Monographs, Brill, Leiden & Boston, 2014.

Keywords: Sumerian - writing - material culture - social history - religion - literature

Abstract: In He has Opened Nisaba’s House of Learning twenty-six scholars honor Åke Sjöberg, professor emeritus of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania and former editor of the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary. The twenty-one studies included focus on Mesopotamian wisdom literature, religious texts, cultural concepts, the history of writing, material culture, society, and law from the invention of writing to the Hellenistic period (Table of Contents). The volume includes editions of several previously unpublished texts.

The Dawn of the Bronze Age

Title: S. Bar, The Dawn of the Bronze Age: The Pattern of Settlement in the Lower Jordan Valley and the Desert Fringes of Samaria during the Chalcolithic Period and Early Bronze Age I Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 72. Brill, Leiden & Boston, 2014.

Keywords: archaeology - the Levant

Abstract: In The Dawn of the Bronze Age Shay Bar presents a detailed account of the pattern of settlement during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age I periods (mid-Fifth to late Fourth Millennia BC), in one of the least explored areas of the southern Levant – the lower Jordan valley and the desert fringes of the Samaria mountains. More than 120 surveyed sites and five excavation reports form an essential database for every scholar interested in the archaeology of the Near East in these periods.

Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 68

Title: N. N. May & U. Steinert (eds) The Fabric of Cities. Aspects of Urbanism, Urban Topography and Society in Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 68. Brill, Leiden & Boston, 2014.

Keywords: city - urbanism - topography - case studies

Abstract: The Fabric of Cities presents an interdisciplinary collection of articles on urbanism in ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, Greece and Rome, which focuses on the social dimension of cities' topographical features. The contributions of this book offer investigations of neighbourhoods, city gates, streets, temples and palaces drawing on textual and archaeological sources as well as art. The topics treated in this work encompass the diverse functions of public and marginal spaces in Mesopotamian cities and Rome, the role of agency in the development of Babylonian neighbourhoods, the relationship between public and private in Assyrian palaces, the connection between political strategies and temple building in Sumerian literary texts, and the communicative uses of language in Classical Greek texts to talk about urban space.

Table of contents Introduction: Urban Topography as a Reflection of Society? Natalie N. May and Ulrike Steinert The Cost of Cosmogony: Ethical Reflections on Resource Extraction, Monumental Architecture and Urbanism in the Sumerian Literary Tradition. J. Cale Johnson Gates and their Functions in Mesopotamia and Ancient Israel. Natalie N. May City Streets: Reflections on Urban Society in the Cuneiform Sources of the Second and First Millennium BCE. Ulrike Steinert The Babylonian Cities: Investigating Urban Morphology Using Texts and Archaeology. Heather D. Baker From bābānu to bētānu, Looking for Spaces in Late Assyrian Palaces. David Kertai „Ich bin die Grenze der Agora.“ Zum kognitiven Stadtbild der Athener in klassischer Zeit. Jan Stenger Religiöse Topographie Roms: Der Aventin. Innerhalb der Stadt und außerhalb des Pomeriums. Darja Šterbenc Erker Index

The Healing Goddess Gula

Title: B. Böck, The Healing Goddess Gula. Towards an Understanding of Ancient Babylonian Medicine. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 67. Brill, Leiden & Boston, 2014.

Keywords: medicine - Mesopotamia

Abstract: Providing a comprehensive examination of the traits and areas of authority Ancient Babylonians attributed to their healing goddess, this book draws on a wide range of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform sources, including god lists, literary compositions, lexical lists, prognostic texts, incantations, and prescriptions. Analysing the use of selected metaphors associated with the goddess, a new perspective is offered on the explanation for disease as well as the motivation for particular treatments. Special chapters deal with the cuneiform handbook on prognosis and diagnosis of diseases, medical incantations appealing to the healing goddess, and the medicinal plants attributed to her. For the first time a body of evidence for the use of simple drugs is brought together, elaborating on specific plant profiles. The result is a volume that challenges many long-held assumptions concerning the specialized cuneiform medical literature and takes a fresh look on the nature of Ancient Babylonian healing.

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