Volume 104, Issue 1

Abstract: The legend of Adapa is one of the most fascinating stories of Mesopotamian literature; its interpretation has been disputed for more than a century.It was known until recently from four Akkadian fragments, the oldest and longest of which (the Amarna version) goes back to the Middle Babylonian period. The Old Babylonian library discovered by the Iraqi expedition in Tell Haddad/Meturan around 1980 contained two unhoped-for copies of the story in the Sumerian language. This Sumerian version, which has much in common with the Akkadian, but also much that is new and unexpected, is edited here, a literary evaluation and a first comparison with the other versions are sketched.

Abstract: According to a widespread belief, the prepositive connective conjunction *wa- , a highly prominent Common Semitic syntactic feature, is generally lost in Akkadian, where it is replaced by the postpositive -ma . The article investigates the paratactic structures of the earliest syntactically informative documents written in Akkadian, the Sargonic royal inscriptions, in an attempt to show that the role of the connective u in this corpus is radically different from what we find in its later analogues. This fact may have some implications for the diachronic background of the connective element /u/ in Sumerian. As for the history of the Akkadian parataxis as a whole, interesting structural parallels to it are found on the opposite extreme of the Semitic-speaking world, in the modern Semitic languages of Ethiopia.

Abstract: My aim for this article is to resuscitate the proposal by von Soden that Akkadian poetry uses two core rhythmical elements, the trochee and the amphibrach. After a discussion of previous treatments of metre and rhythm in Akkadian poetry and of the rules of stress in the Akkadian language, I proceed to show that these two core elements are to be found arranged into meaningful patterns, recreating and emphasising the movements of the text. My main point is therefore that the rhythm of Akkadian poetry is to be thought of as a vehicle for poetic expressivity rather than as a metrical law.

Abstract: Based on the Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician orthography and linguistics the first part of this paper demonstrates that, despite the communis opinio, Awa/ir(a/i)kus of the KARATEPE inscription and Wa/irikas of the ÇINEKÖY inscription cannot be identical. Accordingly, the second half of the paper discusses the chronology of these and other related inscriptions and proposes a new king list for Hiyawa.