Volume 52, Issue 2

According to the cuneiform archives of Ebla (Tall Mardīḫ, Syria, 24 th century BC), real estate, indicated by the term e₂ , is predominantly owned by men of high rank. Only a small portion of the records document real estate and land owned by women. Thus, the number of available texts is limited and the data on their properties scarce. Despite this disparity, women’s real estate and land holdings are recorded across administrative and chancery documents, including legal records of inheritance transfers. Based on this variety of texts, this study aims to provide an updated picture of women’s houses and land holdings in Ebla, supported by a metrological analysis of their agricultural properties. It also explores the legal issues entangled with their gender and marital status.

This contribution aims to re-evaluate a specific archaeological context linked to the Urartian state, namely the site of Geghovit in Armenia, which is a rock-cut tomb with a funerary assemblage containing several objects of considerable interest due to their historical and cultural implications. The article presents a new analysis of the materials discovered during the construction of a bridge, with particular emphasis on a notable sword. This sword is identified as an akinakes , a distinctive Scythian weapon belonging to the so-called Early Scythian phase. Furthermore, a new chronological proposal is provided for the entire archaeological context.

Irregular or deviant burials, i. e. cases of sepulture divergent from the usual burial rite, are well known from many cultures. Based on a review of numerous published burial sites, the existence of similar practices can now be documented for ancient Mesopotamia of the 3 rd to 1 st millennium BCE as well. Unusual features include absence or dislocation of skull or limb bones, partial burning, burial in prone position, and complete disarticulation. While a part of these may go back to disturbance or secondary reburial, perimortal violence, or ritual removal of bones, certain body manipulations such as skeletal mutilation, fettering, and covering with stones may be explained as arrangements against the return of the dead, comparable to similar practices against alleged revenants and vampires in other cultures.

Despite the fact that the name of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810–1895) has been justly enshrined in the history of Assyriology for his fundamental contributions to the decipherment and explication of Old Persian, Elamite, Assyrian and Babylonian, he himself acknowledged the assistance that he received from others who provided him with their own copies of inscriptions at the tomb of Darius I at Naqš-e Rostam. Two of the three — Niels Ludvig Westergaard, a Dane, and Vil’yam Franzevitch Dittel, a Russian — were scholars, while the third — Joseph Louis Tasker, a young Englishman — had spent the previous five years travelling through parts of Europe and the Middle East. The contributions of these three individuals, acknowledged by Rawlinson but scarcely remembered today, form the subject of this study.

This article deals with some Hittite oracular texts in which entrails of confirmation are observed with reference to the ḫurri bird. A new join, KpT 1.58 + KpT 1.61, is presented with transliteration, translation and commentary, followed by four other texts. In all these texts igi - anda (= menaḫḫanda ) “as a countercheck”, instead of ištu / ta ... “by ...”, introduces the check by entrails. This proves that the ḫurri bird method was indeed considered a kind of extispicy.

Cuneiform texts dating to the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2100 – 2000 BCE) contain unusually extensive and detailed data on the manufacture of bronze in ancient Babylonia. Mentions of the objects made of tin bronze (Sumerian zabar) are comparatively rare. Such examples mainly concern high status items. By contrast, utilitarian objects such as hoes, sickles, and axes, thousands of which were routinely produced, are usually described in texts as being made of copper (urudu). This situation is seemingly contradicted by the archaeological evidence, which shows that, the during the late fourth and the third millennium BCE the type of bronze predominantly used in Southern Babylonia and Iran—especially for simple tools—was the arsenical one, with the tin bronze having been used quite rarely. As this contribution argues, the answer to this dilemma is provided by the fact that the manufacture of the allegedly “copper” objects involved the alloying of copper with a material called su gan . We conclude that su gan is to be identified as arsenic, and that, accordingly, the alloys so produced were arsenical bronzes.

This paper presents an Old Babylonian tablet containing a compilation of conventional phrases and lines concerning the moon-god Nanna, some of which represent the incipits of certain literary compositions. The tablet was originally discovered in Babylon during the German excavations conducted between 1899 and 1917. After the abrupt end of the excavations, the tablet was lost but later resurfaced in a modified form; its shortened text was published and edited multiple times. This paper presents the first edition of the tablet, combining the text as it was originally discovered with its current form, based on an excavation photo taken in 1908 and modern photographs of its truncated form.