bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The tablets from Abu Salabikh and their provenance
Authors: Krebernik M. , Postgate J. N. 
Published: August 2016

AbstractDuring the excavations at Abu Salabikh between 1975 and 1989 cuneiform tablets of Early Dynastic date were found in a variety of contexts. Those from 1975–76 were published in Biggs and Postgate 1978, and were added to the sequence of Inscriptions from Abu Salabikh as numbers 516–32. Here all the remaining pieces from later seasons are now published, extending the sequence from IAS 533 to 556. In the first part of the article the distribution of cuneiform tablets across the site as a whole is considered, along with the question of what this may imply for the function of the buildings in which they were found. The second part of the article is an edition of the newly published pieces, and this is followed by an index to the proper nouns and words attested in all the administrative texts from the site.
The ChicagoMaqlûfragment (A 7876)
Authors: Abusch Tzvi , Schwemer Daniel 
Published: August 2016

AbstractThe fragment A 7876 (Oriental Institute, Chicago) occupies a special position among the cuneiform sources of the ritualMaqlû. The six-column tablet, inscribed in the Neo-Assyrian script of the 8th and 7th centuries BC, originally contained the complete text of the series with its nine canonical tablets. Taking into account the relevant duplicate manuscripts the article offers an annotated edition of this fragment and compares its style and format to other “large tablets” (dubgallu) of Babylonian literary texts.
A Middle Assyrian flock-master's archive from Tell Ali
Authors: Ismail Bahijah Kh. , Postgate J. Nicholas 
Published: August 2016

In 1978 a small archive of about twenty-five cuneiform tablets was discovered at the site of Tell Ali, which stands on the left bank of the Lower Zab more or less where travellers from Aššur to Nuzi and Arrapha would have crossed the river, some 42 km west of Kerkuk (Ismail 1982, 117). These tablets are now in the care of the Iraq Museum. We present here copies of almost all the texts by Dr Ismail, with her transliterations, alongside translations and commentary which are the joint work of the two authors.Documentation of animal husbandry has been rather scarce among the Middle Assyrian archives hitherto recovered. A few texts have been published from Aššur (see Jacob 2003:KAJ115; 225; 267; 97;WVDOG94 73;VS21 26), and some of the best evidence came from Tell Billa, ancient Šibaniba, north-east of Nineveh (Finkelstein 1953, especially Nos. 21 and 36). It is clear that the Durkatlimmu archives will soon provide much fresh evidence (see passages cited in Jakob 2003, 365 ff.). This small archive from Tell Ali is contemporary with the bulk of the Durkatlimmu texts, and resembles them in various respects. Small as it is, it conveys a clear picture of the Assyrian state's interest in animal husbandry as a source of meat for special occasions and of wool and goat-hair to meet the state's requirements for everyday textile production.
A Nimrud manuscript of the fourth tablet of the seriesmīs pî, CTNIV 170(+) 188, and aKiutuincantation to the sun god
Authors: Shibata D. 
Published: August 2016

SummaryA fragment of a two-column tablet containing a bilingual text from Nimrud,CTNIV 170, has turned out to belong to the same tablet asCTNIV 188, a manuscript of the fourth tablet of the seriesmīs pî“Mouth-Washing”. With the help of the new fragment, it becomes possible for the first time to reconstruct the second and third versions of a SumerianKiutuincantation to the sun god Utu-Šamaš.
The diffusion of the cuneiform writing system in northern Mesopotamia: The earliest archaeological evidence
Authors: Quenet Philippe 
Published: August 2016

The invention of writing in southern Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth millennium BC had many and long-lasting consequences. As far as the Early Bronze Age is concerned, one of the most remarkable of these consequences is that the cuneiform writing system that gradually emerged in southern Iraq during the first part of the Early Dynastic period spread to northern Syria around the mid-third millennium BC. A flourishing scribal tradition was already firmly established throughout the Syrian Jezirah and inner Syria by the advent of the Akkadian period.It is difficult to establish the reasons and mechanisms that led the elites of northern Syria to borrow the practice of writing from their counterparts in southern Iraq. The steps in this process are even more unclear. Hence the aim of this paper is to gather material evidence that may help us shed light on those questions. As an archaeologist, I will not discuss here the content of epigraphical finds, but only their context and chronological attribution according to the chronological divisions in northern and southern Mesopotamia respectively.
Tablets from the Sippar library III. Two Royal Counterfeits
Authors: Al-Rawi F. N. H. , George A. R. 
Published: August 2016

This article continues the publication of tablets from the library of the temple of Šamaš at Sippar begun in volume 52 of this journal. Presented here are the library's copies of two texts which have in common the fact that they are not what they purport to be: Maništūšu's cruciform monument, and a literary letter of Samsu-iluna. Both texts are clearly fictitious compositions which postdate their supposed royal authors by a long time. Their purpose was apparently to supply evidence of historical precedent. The invented evidence which these documents present as fact would be intended to substantiate or advance the claims of those who wrote them. While both tablets are duplicates of known texts, each adds to a greater or lesser degree to our knowledge of these texts, not least by filling lacunae and by confirming or rebutting the restorations of previous editors.The identification of a tablet from niche 8 B as a duplicate of the last column of a large Neo-Babylonian exercise tablet from Ur allows this text to be properly identified for the first time. It is one of several royal letters in Akkadian, some apparently genuine, others certainly bogus, which entered the scribal tradition and survive in late copies. This example purports to be from Samsu-iluna, the son and successor of Hammurapi of Babylon, to Enlil-nādin-šumi, a man whose several titles identify him as a very senior figure, and apparently a royal prince. As is the case with the Cruciform Inscription of Maništūšu, anachronisms in the text mark the composition out as later than it purports to be. Following the formulae which name the letter's addressee and sender the text itself opens with the phrase umma ana narê, an expression that also appears in a probably genuine letter of Nebuchadnezzar I.
Abdissarès l'Adiabénien
Authors: de Callataÿ F. 
Published: August 2016

Le nom du roi Abdissarès serait aujourd'hui totalement inconnu s'il ne figurait sur quelques monnaies de cuivre heureusement parvenues jusqu'à nous (ΒΑΣΙLΕΩΣ/ΑΒΔΙΣΣΑΚΟΥ). Quoique extrêmement rares, ces monnaies sont connues depuis longtemps. E. Q. Visconti, F. de Saulcy, V. Langlois, O. Blau, E. Babelon et P. Bedoukian sont les numismates qui ont le plus contribué, par leurs vues ou leurs informations originales, à développer les connaissances à propos de ce roi.Ernest Babelon a donné la meilleure liste, sans doute, des types monétaires d'Abdissarès tandis que Paul Bedoukian en a fait connaître le plus grand nombre d'exemplaires. Cette liste, quelque peu amendée en fonction de meilleures lectures, est la suivante:Dr.: Buste d'Abdissarès à dr., barbu et coiffé d'une “tiare” ouverte sur le côté et ceinte du diadème royal. Grènetis au pourtour.Rv.: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ (à dr., de haut en bas) ֊ ΑΒΔΙΣΣΑΚΟΥ (à g., de haut en bas). Aigle debout à dr. sur une ligne de terre.a-Paris, BN, coll. de Luynes, n° 3433 (7,40g-23Ø-12h: F. de Saulcy, 1855, 101; V. Langlois, 1859, Pl. I, n° 8; E. Babelon, 1890, Pl. XXIX, n° 3; J. de Morgan, Manuel de numismatique orientale de l'Antiquité et du Haut Moyen Age, Paris 1923–36, 192, Fig. 213 et J. Babelon, Catalogue de la collection du duc de Luynes. Monnaies grecques IV, Paris 1936, Pl. CXXVII, n° 3433).
Re-writing the late prehistory of south-eastern Arabia: a reply to Jocelyn Orchard
Authors: Potts D. T. 
Published: August 2016

In a pair of recent articles Jocelyn Orchard has presented what is arguably the most radical interpretation of late fourth and third millennium BC cultural development in the Oman peninsula to appear since archaeological excavations began in this region during the 1950s. Her theses challenge many aspects of current thinking and as such deserve to be scrutinised by all scholars working in East and South Arabian archaeology. Moreover, given the fact that Orchard has reviewed the status of the Jamdat Nasr pottery found in the Hafit-type graves of Oman and the United Arab Emirates, it is important that Mesopotamian specialists examine what she has said about relations between Jamdat Nasr Mesopotamia and the Oman peninsula.In an effort to extract the salient points from Orchard's 1994 and 1995 articles I shall both quote directly and paraphrase her theses in point form. In this way I believe it will be easier to see how her argument is constructed out of a series of interlocking propositions.1. In 1994 Orchard coined the term “Al-Hajar oasis towns”, asserting that these differed from so-called “Umm an-Nar settlements”. The two settlement types, she maintained, had been conflated erroneously by scholars working in the area in part because of “the fact that on a number of sites Umm an-Nar tombs are found intermingled with al-Hajar buildings”. Orchard, however, argued that “these two types of third millennium settlement are very different in style” (Orchard 1994: 63). She characterised the Umm an-Nar buildings — in actual fact she only means tombs — as being “built wholly or in part of white limestone”, which differed from the “al-Hajar form of masonry-revetted platform construction”. “Indeed”, she wrote, speaking of the ceramic evidence for such a partitioning of third millennium culture in the Oman peninsula, “the general assumption that all third millennium wares found in the al-Hajar region represent a single culture is curious in view of the fact that three groups of wares can be distinguished, each of which is firmly associated with a different milieu (viz. Umm an-Nar tombs, settlements on Umm an-Nar and Ghanadha islands and al-Hajar settlements)” (Orchard 1994: 64).
King Apil-Sîn confirms the judgment of Sumulael
Authors: Al-ʿAdami K. A. 
Published: August 2016

IM 85928, the tablet published here, was discovered at Sippar during the first season of excavations conducted in 1978 by the Department of Archaeology, College of Arts, University of Baghdad. The find-spot was Room 29, under Level II. The tablet measures 12.4 × 6.3 × 4.2 cm. It was enclosed in two envelopes. The outer of the two envelopes was not inscribed. The inner envelope is inscribed on obverse and reverse with 45 lines of text. A further six labels (kišib PN) are written at random on the top and left edges. The tablet itself is inscribed on obverse and reverse with 34 lines.The text is a juridical document which describes a case brought before King Apil-Sîn of Babylon, the grandfather of Hammurapi, by one Šamaš-šarrum and others. A certain Nūr-ilīšu has laid claim to some of the plaintiffs' property. Their case is that the houses in question were granted to them by Apil-Sîn's own grandfather, King Sumulael. The outcome of the royal hearing is that Apil-Sîn returns ownership of the properties to Šamaš-šarrum and his fellow litigants, and Nūr-ilīšu is sworn to forgo any further claim against them in perpetuity. Among the witnesses are well-known notables of Sippar, including the šangûm-priests Lipit-Ištar and Šamuḫ-Sîn, and also the king's aunt, Ayyālatum, daughter of Sumulael. The tablet is dated to “the year following that of Apil-Sîn”, which presumably means his second year.
Tablets from the Sippar library X. A dedication of Zabaya of Larsa
Authors: Al-Rawi Farouk N. H. 
Published: August 2016

The Neo- or Late Babylonian tablet presented here adds to the increasing number of ancient Mesopotamian formal inscriptions extant in copies made by first-millennium scribes. Another such tablet from the Sippar library, containing a copy of two building inscriptions reporting the work of Gudea and Šulgi on the temple of Nanše at Sirara, has already been published.The present tablet's existence was announced in Iraq 49 (1987) 249. The inscription copied on to it uses an early monumental script. The text (11. 1–13) is a dedication to the goddess Nanše made by a diviner called Nanna-mansum (or Sîn-iddinam) for the well-being of an Amorite sheikh called Zabaya. This is most probably the fourth king of Larsa, who enjoyed the same name and title and reigned in the mid-twentieth century BC, in the usual chronology. The present text is accordingly catalogued by the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia project under Zabaya of Larsa as E4.2.4.3 (Frayne, Old Babylonian Period, RIME 4, p. 112). Original inscriptions of this king have been found at Larsa and Maškan-šāpir.The colophon (11. 14–18), apparently written over a poorly erased text, is in a conventional late script. The object on which the inscription was found is reported as a bronze “buck” (daššu), presumably a goat-shaped figurine. This was no doubt the object dedicated by Nanna-mansum (or Sîn-iddinam) to Nanše for his royal master many centuries before. Such bronze castings occur elsewhere in the written sources as ornaments on a bed (Nbn 206, 2: da-áš-šá-a-tum).
Excavations at Kish and Bar

gh

uthiat 1933: II. Pottery
Authors: Harden D. B. 
Published: August 2016

Figs, 1 and 2 show a conspectus of the restorable pot-shapes of both plain and glazed ware found in the Sassanian buildings excavated at Kish in 1932-3. Almost all of them come from the SS 7 complex, at an average depth of 2 metres: a few are from SS 6 or SS 8, at a similar depth. They form a group that should prove most valuable for purposes of dating on less well documented sites in Iraq, for it seems most probable that this pottery belongs to the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. The latest coin found with the pots is one of Justinian I (A.D. 527-65).A. Plain ware. The commonest shapes are the hemispherical and truncated conical bowls which often bear Aramaic incantations; jugs which have ovoid bodies and rounded or pointed bases; jugs with pinched lips and flat bases or base-rings; and large three-handled jars for storing liquids.
Medea in Metamorphoses 7: Magic, Moreness and the Maivs Opvs
Authors: Williams Gareth 
Published: August 2016

It is now widely recognised that Medea's last words in her elegiac letter to Jason, Heroides 12, combine the terrible foreshadowing of infanticide with a telling metapoetic signature:quo feret ira, sequar! facti fortasse pigebit;et piget infido consuluisse uiro.uiderit ista deus, qui nunc mea pectora uersat!nescioquid certe mens mea maius agit.(Ov. Her. 12.209-12)Where my anger leads, I'll follow. Perhaps I'll regret my deed—as I regret the attention I paid to my faithless husband.Be that the concern of the god who now goads my breast!Certainly, something greater is stirring in my mind!Ovid positions Heroides 12 as ‘a “prequel” to his own Medea-tragedy’, that maius opus which notionally provides Medea with an appropriate generic setting in which to exact her revenge; elegy is too light a medium to bear the weight of so tragic a denouement. Heroides 12 thus concludes by adapting itself to the contours of the larger Ovidian career—a career in which he was to revisit the Medea-theme for the third time in Metamorphoses 7. There, her life-story is selectively told from the beginning of the Argonautic voyage and Medea's first infatuation with Jason to her magical intervention in his gaining of the golden fleece (1-158); from her rejuvenation of Jason's father, Aeson, to the dastardly way in which she induces the daughters of Pelias, Aeson's half-brother, to murder their father (159-349); and from the briefly told murder of her children at Corinth to her marriage to Aegeus and the attempted murder of Theseus, his son, at Athens (394-423). At this point Medea takes flight once more (424; cf. 350-93, in the wake of Pelias' murder) and disappears from the Metamorphoses for good—or, we might imagine, for yet more evil to be worked.
Testing the Boundaries of Ekphrasis: Lucian on the Hall
Authors: Newby Zahra 
Published: August 2016

Picture yourself in a beautiful room, flooded with early morning light. It has a lofty ceiling, delicately gilded and glinting in the sunshine. The walls are adorned with paintings, in colour and detail as bright as Spring. What is one to do in the face of such beauty? Stand mute, gazing in wonder, or articulate the impact of the visual, rival it even, in words?This is the question posed by Lucian's On the Hall, a rhetorical introduction or prolalia, probably written between 160 and 180 CE. The piece is framed as a debate about the merits of speaking in beautiful surroundings. While the first speaker confidently asserts that it is both desirable and beneficial to give oratorical displays within impressive surroundings, a second speaker, who only appears in chapter 14, suggests that such surroundings will instead overpower the speaker and distract his audience. Yet the debate does not only question whether beautiful surroundings help or hinder the epideictic orator. It also asks what the proper response of an educated man should be to visual beauty, and problematises the relationship between the visual and the verbal. While many of Lucian's other works give descriptions of works of art, or appeal to the reader's artistic knowledge, this essay puts the ekphrastic project itself in the spotlight, questioning whether words can ever truly compete with the impact of the visual.
Ethnography's Freak Show: The Grotesques at the Edges of the Roman Earth
Authors: Evans Rhiannon 
Published: August 2016

Blemyis capita absunt, uultus in pectore est. Satyris praeter effigiem nihil humani. Aegipanum quae celebratur ea forma est. haec de Africa.Pomponius MelaChorographia1.48The Blemyes lack heads: their faces are in their chests. There is nothing typical of humans about the Satyrs, apart from their superficial appearance. The Aegipanes have the shape described in stories. So much for Africa.How useful are Roman geographical texts? Outrageous claims like the one cited above have invited scepticism concerning the scientific value of geographies and ethnographies produced by Roman authors. To a large extent, the importance attributed to a geographical text will depend on what is being sought from that text. For example, O.A.W. Dilke tells us that, ‘We are fortunate in possessing all seventeen books of theGeographyof Strabo,’ and that Strabo ‘shows good critical power in assessing earlier geographical writers and giving us a verbal picture of the known world of the time.’ However, ‘a contrast with Strabo's work is provided by the very simple and popularChorographiaof Pomponius Mela,’ of which Dilke expresses die view that it would have been preferable had Juba II's work survived.
Horace's Arboreal Anniversary (C. 3.8)
Authors: Putnam Michael C. J. 
Published: August 2016

Martiis caelebs quid agam kalendis,quid uelint flores et acerra turisplena miraris positusque carbo in caespite uiuo,docte sermones utriusque linguae:uoueram dulcis epulas et albumLibero caprum prope funeratus arboris icru.hic dies anno redeunte festuscorticem adstrictum pice dimouebitamphorae fumum bibere institutae consule Tullo.sume, Maecenas, cyathos amicisospitis centum et uigiles lucernasperfer in lucem: procul omnis esto clamor et ira.mitte ciuilis super urbe curas:occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen,Medus infestus sibi luctuosis dissidet armis,seruit Hispanae uetus hostis oraeCantaber sera domitus catena,iam Scythae laxo meditantur arcu cedere campis.neglegens, ne qua populus laboret,parce priuatus nimium cauere etdona praesentis cape laetus horae: linque seuera.What I, a bachelor, am doing on the Kalends of March, what the flowers mean and the casket full of incense and the coal placed on the living turf, you marvel at, learned in the conversations of both languages: I had vowed a savoury feast and a white goat to Liber when I was nearly done to death by the tree's fall. This feast day, as the year returns, will remove the cork, tightened with pitch, from a jar taught to drink the smoke when Tullus was consul.
Out of Circulation? An Essay on Exchange in Persius' Satires
Authors: Malamud Martha 
Published: August 2016

Twenty five years ago in the infantRamus, J.P. Sullivan wrote ‘In Defence of Persius’. Not many scholars writing today would think of choosing that title: having contemplated the indefensible aspects of Classical literature, most are far too wary to leap to the defence of any classical author, let alone a writer of Satire, a genre distinguished by its combination of crassness and cruelty, its insistence on turning its audience into victimisers. Sullivan's defence rests partly on his perceptive appreciation of Persius' unusually complex and intense poetic style. Twenty years later, also inRamus, John Henderson took a different approach to the same author: his (ironical?) strategy was not to defend the poet, but to banish him and his style entirely:Persius then: not the minor figure caught in Latin Literature's toils, Silver Immaturity, that obscure, difficult poetaster and also-ran satirist. Rather, a central and key textual trace of the cultural formation of imperial subjectivity.… Away, then, Persius, from the margins of literariness and into the centre of Roman imperial cultural formation…The formulation of the object of study as a textual trace—no longer an obscure poet, but acentralandkeytextual trace—transforms the reading of an unpopular minor Latin author (surely a self-indulgent exercise, after all;notthe sort of thing our educational system ought to be funding) into an exemplary study of the cultural formation of imperial subjectivity. Persius would have enjoyed sharingthissecret with his ditch.
Is Literary Criticism an Illegitimate Discipline? A Fallacious Argument in Plato's Ion
Authors: Lowenstam Steven 
Published: August 2016

The short Platonic dialogue, the Ion, has suffered a strange fate. Its authenticity has been doubted, and its content considered slight or repetitious. The greatest and most surprising setback the work has encountered is that critics have never even been able to agree on its subject. Therefore, an analysis of the dialogue requires that we first investigate whether the dialogue questions the knowledge of poets or critics, the two subjects proposed. Second, Socrates' argument denying an area of expertise to rhapsodes needs examination; and, finally, the implications of the Ion's argument, especially in regard to the connections between literary criticism and philosophy, deserve attention.The main argument of the Ion is anticipated by two questions posed at the beginning of the work. Socrates asks Ion whether he is as skilful (deinos) in discussing Hesiod and Archilochus as he claims to be in regard to Homer (531a1-2). When the rhapsode responds that his talent is limited to Homer, Socrates concludes that Ion's ability to speak about Homer is not based upon technical knowledge (tekhnē) or a scientific method (epistēmē) but upon divine inspiration. Shortly afterwards, Socrates asks whether Ion or a seer could better assess Homeric and Hesiodic passages about soothsaying (531b3-6). This question anticipates the argument in the last third of the dialogue where Socrates insists that Ion has no particular expertise in regard to the Homeric works and that in fact specialists in various technical fields are better qualified to judge Homeric passages. The question also prefigures the important role divination will play in the dialogue.