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Two Aramaic legal documents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

T. Kwasman
T. Kwasman
Affiliation:
University of Cologne
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Extract

The Aramaic clay tablets presented here are legal documents with Neo-Assyrian formularies. These texts are important as they attest to an Akkadian legal tradition and its adaptation to an Aramaic context. The fact that the writing material is clay is exceptional since one would expect an Aramaic document to be written on parchment or papyrus. Published examples of Aramaic documents on clay are relatively uncommon although more are surfacing.

Type
Notes and communications
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , January 2000 , pp. 274 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 2000

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References

1 The clay tablets are now located in the Moussaieff Collection in London. I wish to thank M. J. Geller for copying the tablets. Abbreviations follow Soden, W. v., Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (Weisbaden, 1965Google Scholar). Further abbreviations include: SAA = State Archives of Assyria Studies; SAAB = State Archives of Assyria Bulletin; NARU = Radner, K., Die Neuassyrischen Privatrechsurkunden als Quelle für Mensch und Umvelt. SAA VI (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997)Google Scholar; FNALD = Postgate, J.N. (ed.), Fifty Neo-Assyrian legal documents (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1976)Google Scholar; NALK = Kwasman, T., Neo-Assyrian legal documents in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (Studia Pohl Series Maior, 14.) (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1988)Google Scholar; AT = Menzel, B., Assyrische Tempel. (Studia Pohl Series Maior, 10.) (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, c. 1981).Google Scholar

2 The most recent publications of Aramaic legal documents are Fales, M., ‘An Aramaic tablet from Tell Shioukh Fawqani, Syria’, Semitica 46, 1996, 81–121Google Scholar; Müller-Kessler, C., ‘Einearämaische “Visitenkarte”. Eine spätbabylonische Tontafel aus Babylon’, MDOG 130, 1998, 189–195Google Scholar; Joannès, F. and Lemaire, A., ‘Trois tablettes cunéiformes à onomastique ouest-semitique’, Transeuphratène 17, 1999, 17–34Google Scholar; pl. I–II. See in general Fales, M., Aramaic epigraphs on clay tablets of the Neo-Assyrian period (Rome, 1986).Google Scholar

3 Such is also the case in bilingual inscriptions such as Bisitun und in Tell Fekherye. See Folmer, M. L., The Aramaic language in the Achaemenid period. A study in linguistic variation. OLA, 68. (Leuven: Peeters, 1995), §4.15.1 and §4.15.4.5 with the corresponding literature.Google Scholar

4 Fales, ‘Aramaic tablet’ 89, states that the Shioukh Fawqani tablet also turns ‘like a page’. Note the copy of BM 78707 (CT 49:6) by D. Kennedy, where the Aramaic caption has been copied upside down. This tablet also turns like a page in a book and thus the copy is misleading (see the copy of the same tablet by T. G. Pinches, CT 4, Pl. 39).

5 See Muffs, Y., Studies in the Aramaic legal Papyri from Elephantine (Leiden, 1969), 189 ff.Google Scholar

6 The extent of cuneiform legal traditions and their influence covers a large area. (See previous footnote.) Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian legal formularies and terms are not only attested in Aramaic documents but also in Hebrew and probably Greek. See for example Sperling, D., ‘The Akkadian term Dīnu u Dabābu’, JANES 1, 1968, 35–40Google Scholar; Stol, M., Epilepsy in Babylonia (Cuneiform Monographs, 2, Groningen, 1993), 138–141.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Lipiński, E., ‘Aramaic clay tablets from the Gozan-Harran area’, JEOL 33, 1993–1994, 143–150.Google Scholar