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Archæological Excavation
- University of Toronto Quarterly
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 5, Number 2, January 1936
- pp. 299-302
- Review
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REVIEWS ment of bishops, Swift's want of exercise, affairs of state--all of them are jumbled in. The peculiar importance of these letters lies in the more complete revelation than we have had before of Swift's existence in Ireland and in certain details which fill in gaps in our knowledge or confirm previous speculations. There are, for example , new details' about his tract, .dn Enquiry into the Behaviour of the ~ueen's last Ministry, which indicate conclusively that Swift was wholly unaware of whatever designs Oxford and Bolingbroke may have had for bringing in the Pretender. Bui: more significant is the ease with which we can trace the composition and final revisions of Gullive1·'s Travels by scattered references to its progress; and we see clearly that it is to Ford that we owe thanks for the uncorrupted edition of the text published by Faulkner in 1735. Like most of Swift's letters, these transcend personal limits and are useful in lighting up a period. The work of Professor Nichol Smith as editor is at once comprehensive and suggestive; it deserves only the highest commendation. ARCHJEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION1 LEROY WATERMAN It is a pleasure to welcome a new volume in the Harvard Semit1c Series. It comes as the result of excavations at the site of ancient Nuzi, near the modern Kirkuk in Iraq, conducted under the auspices of the Semitic Museum and the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University in co-operation with the American School of Oriental Research of Baghdad. The general ti tle "Excavations at Nuzi" gives appropriate recognition to the sound principle that no work of excavation is finished until the results are published. The present work appears as volume III in the series dealing with the results·from the same site, and consists almost entirely of those obtained 10/d Akkadian, Sumerian, nnd Co.ppadocian TtxJs from Nuzi, by Theophile James Meek, Professor of Semicics, University College, T oronto. (Excavations at Nu'Zi, conducted by the Semitic .Museum and the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, with the co-operation of the American School of Oriental Research at Baghdad, vol. Ill.) (Ha.rvard Semitic Series, vol. X), Harvard University Press. · 299 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY during the season of 1930-1, under the directorship of Mr. F. S. Starr, with Professor T. J. Meek as epigraphist. It was highly· appropriate, therefore, that Professor Meek should serve as the interpreter of the textual material. The book contains ninety-four plates of early Cuneiform texts reproduced in facsimile, accompanied by an introduction, lists of proper names, summary of contents, complete transliteration and translation of a few unusual texts, and brief discussions of moot points. The bulk of the work (nos. 2-222) is a compendium of Old Akkadian texts from levels III and IV of the site, which must be placed fairly early in the third millenium B.C. From them we learn that the name of the city was not yet Nuzi; it bore an older name, perhaps to be pronounced Gasur. Nos. 4-12 are letters, but all may be classified as business documents dealing almost entirely with, :1griculture. These documents are of_unusual interest, _ constituting as they do the only group of early Sa~gonid texts yet to be found in northern Mesopotamia. Their contribution to our knowledge is of first-rate importance. They show that the earlier civilization in this region was s·umerian, since virtuaUy all occupations and p1;ofessions were known by Sumerian names, and likewise Sumerian furnished the names for domestic animals, tools and utensils, and most products. The great majority of the people were, however, Akkadian Semites, as is witnessed by the personal names. The texts thus bear witness to the very rapid sem_itizing of Sargon's empire as far at least as northern Mesopotamia. The closeness of Gasur to the city ofAsshur leads us to anticipate some evidence of the latter. Actually our texts do contain the city's name always written d -sirki, and these references constitute our earliest notices of the city.. The absence of the name of the god Ashur ~ight be taken to imply that the city-name preceded .the god, but with...