Volume 107, Issue 2

Abstract: Drehem, ancient Puzriš-Dagān, is well known as the place of origin of more than 15,000 cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period that were sold on the antiquities markets from 1909 onwards. The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq undertook the first controlled excavations at the site in 2007 under the direction of Ali Ubeid Shalkham. The cuneiform texts and fragments found there not only add to the well-known royal archives dealing with cattle, treasure or shoes, but they include many records on crafts and agriculture. With this evidence, the subsistence economy behind this important administrative center and royal palace of the Third Dynasty of Ur becomes more evident. We thank the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, the Iraq Museum Baghdad and Mr Ali Ubeid Shalkham for the permission to publish the tablets from the excavation season of 2007. The stays of Nawala Al-Mutawalli at LMU Munich in 2015 and 2016 in order to prepare this article were generously funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. We are grateful to Margarete van Ess for the invitation to a first meeting in 2013 at the DAI Orientabteilung, Berlin. Thanks are owed to Manuel Molina for his careful reading of this article and his helpful remarks and Frans van Koppen for his editorial care. Walther Sallaberger’s work also contributes to his “Sumerisches Glossar” project. – All photos and plans of the excavation were made by Ali Ubeid Shalkham, the tablets in the Iraq Museum were photographed by Nawala Al-Mutawalli Mahmood. The abbreviations follow the Reallexikon für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie. The online digital resources CDLI (cdli.ucla.edu) and especially BDTNS (bdtns.filol.csic.es) have proven once more to be indispensable for our studies of lexicography and prosopography.

Abstract: The fact that the signs zi and zí were both used in the Codex Hammurapi to write the sequences /ṣi/ and /ze/ will be explained by the superposition of two orthographic systems. One system is based on the acquisition of phonetic values from Sumerian in which the vowels /i/ and /e/ were distinguished. In the other system, which must have developed in a Semitic context – presumably due to frequent writings of the sequence /ṣe/ in forms of the common verb waṣûm  –, the primary phonetic value of the sign zí is /ṣe/. It will be demonstrated that the combination of the two orthographic systems was advantageously used in the Codex Hammurapi. The sign zí was employed for a more precise identification of the /ṣ/ onset and the sign zi for a more accurate marking of the /i/ vowel of the sequence /ṣi/.

Abstract: The “Esoteric Babylonian Commentary” (abbr. EBC) represents an excerpt from a larger commentary tablet LBAT 1601, which was unusual in its wide scope encompassing teratology, medical diagnosis, physiognomy, cuneiform sign exercises, and magical incantations and rituals, and which reinterpreted these diverse fields of knowledge in terms of astronomical phenomena. The topics selectively excerpted into EBC by a lamentation priest suggest a compartmentalization of textual expertise, consistent with professional purviews in the late 1 st millennium BCE.

Abstract: In 1965, a very important discovery took place in Najafabad village in Asadabad district, located in western Iran: the find of a monumental stele of Sargon II dating to his campaign into the central Zagros in 716 B.C. This article examines the questions of where the stele was exactly found and where it had been originally erected. It shows that the stele was made of local limestone and that the mound at Najafabad contained an Iron Age settlement. Mount Alvand is identified with the Orontes/Oroandes of Greek and Roman sources and also with Urattus, the last place Sargon visited during the campaign.