Volume 99, Issue 2

The two mathematical tablets AO 9071 and AO 9072 from the Musée du Louvre are published here for the first time. They contain series texts similar to those published by Neugebauer in Mathematische Keilschrifttexte (1935–1937). The series raise a number of crucial questions in various fields, namely linguistics, history and mathematics. The aim of the present article is to present some aspects of these issues and to provide the reader with a complete edition of the two tablets (copy, transliteration, translation, commentary).

In this article, an unpublished and unplaced Sumerian literary fragment that appears to describe the witnessing of various deities involved with the netherworld and an unpublished distribution text provisioning, among other things, the use of ghee in conjunction with the funerary offerings of the g u 2 - e n - n a official at Old Babylonian Nippur, are treated.

Die kontrovers diskutierte Datierung einer hieroglyphen-luwischen Inschrift, der ANKARA-Silberschale, wird aus epigraphischer bzw. inhaltlicher Sicht neu überprüft. Es wird vorgeschlagen, dass die epigraphischen und inhaltlichen Eigenschaften der ANKARA-Inschrift nur mit der Annahme eines bisher unbelegten hethitischen Großkönigs nach Šuppiluliuma II. erklärt werden können. Der zweite Teil des Aufsatzes wird der Frage gewidmet, ob eine solche Annahme mit den Kenntnissen über das Ende des hethitischen Reiches in Einklang gebracht werden kann.

In a peripheral room of the Administrative Quarter of the Royal Palace G at Ebla, Early Bronze IVA (ca. 2400–2300 BC), two miniature statues of females were found on the floor: one is a standing figure of silver, steatite, and wood, and the other one is a seated figure of gold, steatite, limestone, and wood. These nearly intact images are masterpieces of the miniature art of the very end of Early Dynastic IIIB, and probably belonged to a precious ceremonial standard of an Ebla queen. The proposal is that the standard represented the homage paid by queen Tabur-Damu, the last Ebla king Ishar-Damu's wife, to a funerary statue of the deceased queen mother Dusigu.