The Ancient Near East: History, Texts, Etc.
- The Ancient Near East:History, Texts, Etc.
In this note, I argue that those sections of Enūma Eliš that deal with the construction of the city of Babylon were secondarily added to the text. My argument is based on the presence of inconsistencies and unnecessary repetitions in this material and concludes that the document is a composite work that took shape over time. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]
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A.'s contribution focuses on the assumption of royal duties by non-royal persons in the ANE, with particular attention to the Neo-Babylonian period. From his reading of the relevant documentation, A. concludes that non-royal agents carried out activities the performance of which was the prerogative of royal figures as a way of enhancing their own reputations and with the intention of either preserving or impairing the integrity of the kingdom with regard to needed building and restoration activities. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]
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In this article, we publish 14 tablets stemming from rescue excavations at Tell Waresh2 in southern Iraq that took place in 1990. The site, located close to ancient Nippur, was destroyed as a result of hydraulic operations carried out in the 1990s. In the excavations approximately 72 objects inscribed with cuneiform writing were discovered, most of them with dating formulas connecting the tablets to kings of ancient Larsa. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]
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This article explores the cultural implications of the sign N41 used in an apparently random constellation of words related to women, water, and metals. The symbolic [End Page 347] meaning of iron and its consistent relation with the sky in religious texts leads A.-V. to conclude that the Egyptian cosmovision contemplated the sky as an iron container of water, pieces of which fell to the earth in the shape of meteors that were used to produce ritual objects. The indexicality of the N41 sign suggests that the relation between birth, afterlife, and iron existed even before the first attested longer religious texts in Egypt. Finally, the lexical parallels between Egypt and Mesopotamia regarding meteors can be explained as a common reaction to the phenomena of falling iron meteorites. [Adapted from published abstract—V.H.M.]
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This article presents an OB fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh currently housed in the Suleimaniyah Museum in the territory of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq. The preserved portion of the fragmentary text describes how Gilgamesh dreams of the coming of the wild man Enkidu. The description has many commonalities with other versions of the same episode, dating to both the 2nd and the 1st millennia. Our article compares the various versions of the passage in terms of their similarities and differences, and concludes that the above fragment is one more witness to an OB poem of Gilgamesh that had considerable currency in southern Babylonia. [Adapted from...
