'I Passed Over Difficult Mountains': Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani 9783963272400, 9783963272417, 3963272406

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Prefazione
Alaura / Bonechi: “The Heroic Age of Assyriology: ”An Unpublished Manuscript of Archibald H. Sayce at The Queen’s College, Oxford
Ciampini: In Search of Meaning: Ramesses II in his Court of the Luxor Temple
Cohen: Three Amarna Notes: Scribal Training, Scribal Hands and Tablet Provenance
d'Alfonso: City-States, Canton States, Monarchy and Aristocracy: The Political Landscape of the Early Iron Age in Central Anatolia within the Context of the Eastern Mediterranean (11th–9th century BCE)
de Martino: The Materiality of the Cuneiform Tablets and the Puzzle of the Hittite Historical Geography
Di Filippo: The “Eastern Turkey in Asia”: A Digital Edition of the Map Series IDWO 1522
di Lernia: Archaeology in the Sahara: Before and after the “Arab Spring”
Fales: Factions, Fictions and Frictions: Assurbanipal’s Letters to the Babylonian Citizens
Marazzi / Bolatti Guzzo: Some Reflections on the Nişantaş Inscription and Related Issues
Matthiae: Adapa at Khorsabad: Interpreting the “Grand Royal Emblem”
Mora: Barley and Sheep in Kululu (Central Anatolia, late 8th century BC)
Mori: The “Fields of the Town”: On the Shape of Public Land in Late Bronze Age Ekalte
Nadali: Different Degrees of Empathy: On the Mobility of Images in Ancient Mesopotamia
Pinnock: Some Thought about the Tell Halaf Reliefs: A Neo-Syrian Cycle of Carvings between Tradition and Innovation
Ponchia / Lonfranchi: Peering through the Door: A Note on the Functions and Relations of the atû in Neo-Assyrian Society
Pongratz-Leisten: Myth and Politics Continued: The Ideological Discourse of Lagash and Ebla on a Cultural Continuum
Verderame: “Canine Instincts and Monkeys’ Features”: Animal and Demonic Traits in the Construction of “Otherness” in Sumerian Literature
Vita / Epinel: Glosses in three El-Amarna Letters (EA 107, 108 and 124)
von Dassow: Oriental Despotism, the Enlightenment’s Evil Twin
Zaccagnini: Ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu: Accounting and Material Culture in the Near East
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dubsar 28 “I Passed over Difficult Mountains”

“I Passed over Difficult Mountains” Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani Edited by Francesco Di Filippo, Lucio Milano and Lucia Mori

www.zaphon.de

dubsar 28 Zaphon

dubsar-28-FS-Liverani-Cover.indd 1

10.08.2023 13:20:52

“I Passed over Difficult Mountains” Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani

Edited by Francesco Di Filippo, Lucio Milano and Lucia Mori

dubsar Altorientalistische Publikationen Publications on the Ancient Near East Band 28 Herausgegeben von Kristin Kleber und Kai A. Metzler

“I Passed over Difficult Mountains” Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani

Edited by Francesco Di Filippo, Lucio Milano and Lucia Mori

Zaphon Münster 2023

Illustration auf dem Cover: Austen Henry Layard: The Monuments of Nineveh. From Drawings Made on the Spot. London 1849, Vol. 1. Plate 81: “An Assyrian Army passing through a mountainous Country. (Kouyunjik)”.

“I Passed over Difficult Mountains”. Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani Edited by Francesco Di Filippo, Lucio Milano and Lucia Mori dubsar 28

© 2023 Zaphon, Enkingweg 36, Münster (www.zaphon.de) All rights reserved. Printed in Germany. Printed on acid-free paper.

ISBN 978-3-96327-240-0 (Buch) ISBN 978-3-96327-241-7 (E-Book) ISSN 2627-7174

Mario Liverani at work in the archaeological site of Arslantepe, South-Eastern Turkey. (Photo by Roberto Ceccacci)

Table of Contents

Prefazione

ix

“The Heroic Age of Assyriology”: An Unpublished Manuscript of Archibald H. Sayce at The Queen’s College, Oxford Silvia Alaura / Marco Bonechi

1

In Search of Meaning: Ramesses II in his Court of the Luxor Temple Emanuele Marcello Ciampini

19

Three Amarna Notes: Scribal Training, Scribal Hands and Tablet Provenance Yoram Cohen

31

City-States, Canton States, Monarchy and Aristocracy: The Political Landscape of the Early Iron Age in Central Anatolia within the Context of the Eastern Mediterranean (11th–9th century BCE) Lorenzo d’Alfonso

49

The Materiality of the Cuneiform Tablets and the Puzzle of the Hittite Historical Geography Stefano de Martino

79

The “Eastern Turkey in Asia”: A Digital Edition of the Map Series IDWO 1522 Francesco Di Filippo

87

Archaeology in the Sahara: Before and after the “Arab Spring” Savino di Lernia

101

Factions, Fictions and Frictions: Assurbanipal’s Letters to the Babylonian Citizens Frederick Mario Fales

109

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Table of Contents

Some Reflections on the Nişantaş Inscription and Related Issues Massimiliano Marazzi / Natalia Bolatti Guzzo

131

Adapa at Khorsabad: Interpreting the “Grand Royal Emblem” Paolo Matthiae

153

Barley and Sheep in Kululu (Central Anatolia, late 8th century BC) Clelia Mora

181

The “Fields of the Town”: On the Shape of Public Land in Late Bronze Age Ekalte Lucia Mori

197

Different Degrees of Empathy: On the Mobility of Images in Ancient Mesopotamia Davide Nadali

217

Some Thought about the Tell Halaf Reliefs: A Neo-Syrian Cycle of Carvings between Tradition and Innovation Frances Pinnock

233

Peering through the Door: A Note on the Functions and Relations of the atû in Neo-Assyrian Society Simonetta Ponchia / Giovanni B. Lanfranchi

265

Myth and Politics Continued: The Ideological Discourse of Lagash and Ebla on a Cultural Continuum Beate Pongratz-Leisten

289

“Canine Instincts and Monkeys’ Features”: Animal and Demonic Traits in the Construction of “Otherness” in Sumerian Literature Lorenzo Verderame

313

Glosses in three El-Amarna Letters (EA 107, 108 and 124) Juan-Pablo Vita / Andrés Diego Espinel

329

Oriental Despotism, the Enlightenment’s Evil Twin Eva von Dassow

339

Ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu: Accounting and Material Culture in the Near East Carlo Zaccagnini

377

Prefazione

Siamo lieti di offrire a Mario Liverani un libro come questo: una raccolta di saggi a lui dedicati da colleghi che in un lungo arco di tempo sono stati per lui amici, ma soprattutto interlocutori in un dibattito che ha coinvolto i suoi molti campi di interesse. La ricerca sviluppata da Mario ha orizzonti amplissimi e i contributi contenuti nel volume ne danno atto, perché rimandano ad un ventaglio altrettanto ampio di problematiche, di fonti e di nodi interpretativi sui quali lui stesso ha detto qualcosa di originale, di non scontato. Ma in aggiunta a questo vogliamo sottolineare che ciascuno di questi contributi testimonia la consuetudine, che Mario ha sempre coltivato, alla collaborazione, allo scambio di opinioni e di vedute non solo con i colleghi storici, ma anche con quelli di altre discipline. Ci auguriamo che questo gli faccia piacere: a lui che ha insegnato a noi allievi a praticare la ricerca storica tenendo saldi i confini disciplinari e permeabili i confini documentari, guardando alla storia come ad un caleidoscopio di prospettive. Una parola va spesa sul titolo del libro, “Ho valicato montagne difficili”, che immaginiamo Mario leggerà sorridendo. Mario è pienamente in quel verso di Gilgamesh (X 252), che rappresenta peraltro un topos letterario a lui caro: lo è nella realtà delle cose e nella personale percezione del suo stesso lavoro. Se bene lo conosciamo, ogni ricerca che ha intrapreso, ogni libro che ha scritto gli è costato una fatica impervia, nessun tema che ha trattato ha avuto soluzioni scontate, né univoche. Eppure, valicata la montagna, si è spesso chiesto (e talvolta lo ha scritto) se ne fosse valsa la pena. La “via difficile” è stato il metro della sua attività, ma noi stentiamo a rendercene conto pensando come una grandissima parte della sua produzione scientifica realizzata negli ultimi quarant’anni discenda quasi naturalmente da un nucleo di idee forti elaborate in meno di un decennio: idee che riguardano aspetti cruciali della storia del Vicino Oriente, come per esempio la natura degli scambi e del commercio, la fisionomia delle società nomadiche, la storia del paesaggio, la morfologia degli imperi, la retorica del discorso politico. Altri interessi si sono sviluppati in seguito ed altri certamente ne verranno. Faremmo quindi un torto al festeggiato se volessimo tracciare qui un bilancio del suo lavoro, per il quale ci conviene attendere un suo prossimo libro. Nel frattempo non possiamo che augurarci che egli accolga il tributo di quanti hanno partecipato a questo volume come un segno di amicizia e come prova che la “via difficile” possa portare buoni frutti non meno come realtà che come metafora. Vogliamo dire da ultimo a Mario che queste parole di prefazione sono scritte in italiano per un motivo particolare: per essere un omaggio, che sentiamo nostro

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Prefazione

ma condiviso da tanti, alla prosa dei suoi scritti pensati e pubblicati, appunto, in italiano. E’ una prosa esemplare, scarna e diretta, precisa ed evocativa allo stesso tempo, che continua ad accompagnare il nostro piacere di leggerlo. Francesco Di Filippo Lucio Milano Lucia Mori Roma 25 aprile 2023

“The Heroic Age of Assyriology” An Unpublished Manuscript of Archibald H. Sayce at The Queen’s College, Oxford Silvia Alaura / Marco Bonechi Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale (ISPC), CNR, Roma . uring our recent stay at Oxford, while working on the Sayce Papers kept in D the Library of The Queen’s College, we came across a handwritten manuscript titled “The Heroic Age of Assyriology”.1 Although undated, it soon turned out to be the paper read by Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933)2 immediately after the opening session of the Section II: Assyriology and kindred subjects of the Seventeenth International Congress of Orientalists, held at Oxford between 27th August and 1st September 1928. Sayce’s lecture, which traces the history of the founders of cuneiform studies and mentions episodes that do not feature in other sources, remained unpublished. The Proceedings of the congress appeared one year later in the form of a rather succinct booklet in which only the résumés of the various papers were supplied. That concerning Sayce, who spoke at 10 a.m. on 28th August under Heinrich Zimmern’s chairmanship, reports: Personal reminiscences of Hincks, Rawlinson, Schrader, Oppert, Talbot, Norris, George Smith, Delitzsch, Layard, Loftus3 and Rassam with remarks upon their contributions to Assyriology were fittingly made the subject of the opening proceedings by the last living survivor of the early period of scientific Assyriology, who began the study of the subject in 1860.4 1

2

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4

The Queen’s College, Oxford, Sayce Papers, MS 759/1 – 1.7.5. We are deeply grateful to the Provost and Fellows of The Queen’s College, Oxford, for giving us permission to publish this document. We also thank Jacob Dahl and Christopher Metcalf for their help and hospitality during our stay in Oxford. For Sayce see, among others, Langdon 1933; Belton 2007; Worthington 2009; Alaura / Bonechi 2018. Loftus’s name does not appear in the Queen’s College manuscript, and it is possible that Sayce mentioned him while orally expanding on his presentation. Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Congress of Orientalists Oxford 1928, Oxford: Oxford University Press ‒ London: Humphrey Milford, 1929, p. 52. Among the reviews of the Proceedings see A. Ballini, Aevum 2/3, 1928, 469‒492; G. Cœdès, Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient 29, 1929, 461‒464; D.H., Journal des savants Mai 1930, 235‒236; W. Gampert, Archiv Orientální 3/1, 1931, 194‒197.

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The Oxford congress received extensive coverage in the press. For instance, each day The Times published a report entitled “Orientalists at Oxford”, and the Assyriological session on the 28th was summarized the following day.5 When Sayce delivered his paper, he was almost 83 years old. Some years earlier he had published his autobiography,6 and the content of his 1928 lecture is often drawn from this book, although the occasion of the congress allowed him to introduce interesting variations and additions. It must be presumed that Sayce wrote “The Heroic Age of Assyriology” very shortly before the Oxford congress, and in any case not before 1926, when the decision was taken to resume the International Congresses of Orientalists after a long break.7 Perhaps, Sayce at Oxford partly based his text on the speech on the beginnings of Assyriology that he gave in London on 12th May 1925, when the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland awarded him the Triennial Gold Medal “on account of his long and eminent services to learning”.8 On that occasion Sayce had coined the expression “Heroic Age of Cuneology”. Contextualizing Sayce’s 1928 paper: the Oxford setting Being the “last living survivor of the early period of scientific Assyriology”, the venerable Oxford professor Sayce was the perfect choice as speaker to bridge the gap between the new era of research and the halcyon days terminated by the Great War. He should have been among the organizers of the never-held Oxford congress of 1915, the very year of his retirement from the chair of Assyriology, which he had been granted by his University in 1891. The president of the Assyriological section of the 1928 congress, Stephen Herbert Langdon, Sayce’s successor to the Oxford chair, appointed him as the living icon of the founding years. Sayce

5

6 7

8

The Times, Wednesday, 29 August 1928, p. 14 (“Influence of Eastern Art in West. Assyriological Progress”). An announcement of the congress, with its program, had already been published by The Times on 16 August, p. 15. Summarizing the inauguration of the Congress on the 27th, the special correspondent of The Times wrote on the 28th (“An International Gathering: First since the War”, p. 14) that even if “many [papers], of course, are of purely linguistic and technical interest”, nonetheless “there are many which might very well prove attractive to a much wider public”. The selective list of the announced lectures included “The Heroic Age in [sic] Assyriology”, delivered by “one of the veterans of Assyriology, the Rev. Professor A. H. Sayce, who is now 82 years of age”. Sayce 1923. See the Introduction to the 1929 Oxford Proceedings, which concisely explains what happened after the Sixteenth Congress, held at Athens in 1912. See “Notes of the Quarter” in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1925 no. 3, 577, 579, and 588‒595. The Triennial Gold Medal was instituted in 1897 in connection with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, and this was the tenth occasion on which it was presented.

“The Heroic Age of Assyriology”

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fulfilled the role of eyewitness by presenting a rhetorically skillful speech, which mirrored not only his mature understanding of the archetypal events, but also his youthful attachment to the imperial heights Britain had reached during the Victorian Age. By contrast, Langdon’s presidential address, during which he “claimed for Assyriology the title of ‘Queen of Modern Historical Research’”,9 was mainly devoted to the present state of cuneiform studies.10 The other scholars who presented papers during the 1928 Oxford Assyriological section11 belonged to diverse generations. Carl Ferdinand Friedrich LehmannHaupt (1861–1938), from Innsbruck, presented “Die vorarmenisch-chaldaischen Altertümer des Britischen Museums und ihre kulturgeschichtliche Bedeutung im Rahmen der Gesammtergebnisse der Ausgrabungen auf Toprah-qalʿah bei Wan”;12 Heinrich Zimmern (1862–1931), from Leipzig, presented “Babylonische Prophetie”;13 Anton Deimel (1865–1954), from Rome, presented “Die Probleme der sumerischen Verbalpräfixe”;14 Moses Schorr (1874–1941), from Warsaw, presented “Prolegomena zu einer Bearbeitung der neubabylonischen Rechtsurkunden”;15

The Times, Wednesday, 29 August 1928 (“Influence of Eastern Art in West: Assyriological Progress”), p. 14. 10 Langdon indicated five revolutionary developments in Assyriology during the previous sixteen years: the rise of Hittite studies, due to the German discoveries at “Boghazkeui”; the general progress of Sumerian philology; the publication of historical and religious texts by the German expedition at “Ashur”; the recovery of chronological and dynastic lists “which made Assyriology the safest guide in ancient oriental history”; and the discovery by the Oxford expedition of an early civilization in the Indus Valley (see the 1929 Oxford Proceedings, 51‒52). 11 See their résumés in the 1929 Oxford Proceedings, 52‒56. 12 The 1929 Oxford Proceedings, p. 55, add: “(Contained in the author’s Armenien einst und jetzt, vol. ii, pt. 2, 1929. See also the author’s article ‘Urartu’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica)”. A laudatory review by Sayce of the recently published first volume of the long-awaited Corpus Inscriptionum Chaldicarum, Berlin: W. de Gruyter & Co., 1928, edited by Lehmann-Haupt (who became emeritus in 1931) appeared in the October 1928 fascicule of The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, pp. 973‒976. 13 Zimmern, who became emeritus in 1929, gave a lecture titled “Babylonische Prophetie” on 11 January 1930, at Leipzig, a short excerpt of which appeared in the Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philologisch-historische Klasse bzw. Sitzungsberichte der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig 82, 1930, pp. 1*‒2* (see the “Zimmern-Bibliographie” edited by F. H. Weissbach in ZA 40, 1931, 157‒158). 14 Published as “Die šumerischen Verbal-Praefixe” in Orientalia 34/35, November 1928, pp. 137‒144 (wrongly referred to as “Orientalia, no. 32, pp. 83–88” in the 1929 Oxford Proceedings, p. 53). Deimel dated the foreword to his Šumerisches Lexicon. II Teil. Vollständige Ideogramm-Sammlung. Band 1, Rom, to 15 August 1928, i.e. thirteen days before the beginning of the Oxford congress. 15 In February 1928, at Warsaw Schorr was one of the founders of the Institute of Judaic 9

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Stephen Herbert Langdon (1876–1937), from Oxford, presented “The Excavations of Jemdet Nasr by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition”;16 Paul Koschaker (1879–1951), from Leipzig, presented “Geschlechter und Geschlechtereigentum im altakkadischen Recht”;17 Ernest John Henry Mackay (1880–1943), at that time Special Officer of the Archaeology Survey of India and Field Director of the excavations at Mohenjo-Daro, presented “Some ancient connections of the Indus Valley”;18 Charles Leonard Woolley (1880–1960), from London, presented “Excavations at Ur, 1927–8”;19 Edward (Edoardo) Chiera (1885–1933), from Chicago, presented “Excavations at Nuzi near Kirkuk”;20 Eckhard Unger (1885– 1966), who would become professor at Berlin in 1930, presented “Der grosse

Sciences for the research of Judaic sciences and Judaism, mainly focused on Biblical subjects, philosophy, religion, the Talmud, sociology, Semitic languages and Hebrew literature (see Wikipedia’s article online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Schorr, access 24 November 2018). 16 In 1928 Langdon, who had become professor of Assyriology at Oxford in 1919, published two books: The Venus tablets of Ammizaduga (with John Knight Fotheringham) and Pictographic inscriptions from Jemdet Nasr excavated by the Oxford and Field Museum Expedition (Oxford editions of cuneiform inscriptions 7), both Oxford University Press ‒ London: Humphrey Milford. On the astonishing finds, the amazing behaviour and the deplorable archaeological methods of Langdon’s two campaigns at Jemdet Nasr (January‒March 1926 and, with Louis Watelin, March 1928) see Matthews 2002, 1‒7, and Zaina 2020, 3‒8. 17 One month before, at the end of July, Koschaker had finished the introduction of his Neue keilschriftliche Rechtsurkunden aus der El-Amarna-Zeit (Abhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-Historische Klasse XXXIX/5, Leipzig: S. Hirzel) and he had sent the last corrected proofs to the publisher on 16 August, i.e. ten days before the beginning of the 1928 Oxford congress. 18 See Possehl 2010. 19 The chart published in 2015 by Richard Zettler and William Hafford on p. 369 of their entry “Ur. B. Archäologisch” of the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 14, 5/6, permits us to situate within Woolley’s 1922–1934 investigations at Tell al-Muwayyar the 1927–1928 campaign (lasting nine months!), during which the ‘Royal Cemetery’, discovered in the previous campaign, and the Nanna courtyard were excavated. See also the résumé of the field activities at Ur during the crucial years 1926– 1928 by Zettler 1998, 15‒17. Woolley would publish his bestseller Ur of the Chaldees shortly after the Oxford congress, and of course in this 1929 book the unparalleled finds of the 1926–1928 campaigns are given prominence. 20 In the autumn of 1927, Chiera left the University of Philadelphia to become professor of Assyriology at the Oriental Institute in Chicago and director of the Assyrian Dictionary Project. His long second season of excavation at Nuzi, where he acted as director of the expedition of Harvard University and the American School of Oriental Research at Baghdad, had ended in March 1928. His Excavations at Nuzi I. Texts of Varied Contents (Harvard Semitic Series V, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) appeared in 1929.

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assyrische Obelisk des Ashurnāṣirpal im Britischen Museum”;21 Viktor Christian (1885–1963), from Vienna, presented “Der Geist der sumerischen Sprache”;22 Julius Lewy (1895–1963), who would become professor at Gießen in 1930, presented “Stand und Aufgaben der Forschung an den Kültepe-Texten”;23 George Dossin (1896–1983), from Liège, presented “A propos de l’interprétation de deux passages du Code de Khammurapi (Rev. xxv. 103–xxvi 1)”;24 and Ephraim Avigdor Speiser (1902–1965), from Philadelphia, presented “Kirkuk Tablets” and “Southern Kurdistan in the Annals of Ashurnāṣirpal and to-day”.25 Deconstructing Sayce’s 1928 paper “The Heroic Age of Assyriology” has a tripartite structure. Pages 1–4 are devoted to the 1870s, pages 4–10 outline the previous, “heroic” years, and pages 10–12 again deal with the seventies. As he argues on page 12, for Sayce the heroic age ended in the mid-seventies, when in England the teaching of Assyriology was

A few years later, Unger elaborated this groundbreaking paper in Der Obelisk des Königs Assurnassirpal I. aus Ninive (MAOG 6/I–II), Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1932. The ‘White Obelisk’ is a topic dear to the Jubilarian, who recently discussed it in his “‘I Constructed Palaces Throughout My Country’. Establishing the Assyrian Provincial Order: The Motif and its Variants” (M.G. Biga / D. Charpin / J.-M. Durand eds, avec la collaboration de L. Marti, Recueil d’études historiques, philologiques et épigraphiques en l’honneur de Paolo Matthiae, RA 106, Paris 2012, 182‒183, with literature), where he endorses Julian Reade’s 1975 and Holly Pittman’s 1995 vindications of Unger’s correct attribution in 1928 of this monument to Ashurnasirpal I, soon accepted in 1932 by Emil O. Forrer, but firmly opposed inter alia by Benno Landsberger in 1948, Henri Frankfort in 1954 and Rykle Borger in 1961. 22 See the article with the same title in the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 36, 1929, 197‒202 (Christian recalls that it is the Vortrag he read at the Oxford congress in “September 1928”). 23 Lewy’s studies in Old Assyrian texts of these years soon produced his books Die Kültepetexte der Sammlung Rudolf Blanckertz, Berlin, Berlin: Heintze & Blanckertz, 1929, Die Kültepetexte der Sammlung Frida Hahn, Berlin, Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1930, and Die altassyrischen Rechtsurkunden vom Kültepe 1–2 (MVAG 33/35) Leipzig: Hinrichs 1930–1935 (with Georg Eisser). 24 The 1929 Oxford Proceedings add: “(To be published in the Zeitschrift für Assyriologie)”. Dossin had spent the period from 13 March to the end of May 1928 digging at Arslan Tash in the excavations directed by François Thureau-Dangin, see Thureau-Dangin et al. 1931, 3. 25 Speiser’s studies of those years on the Nuzi tablets include “A Letter of Saushshatar and the Date of the Kirkuk Tablets”, JAOS 49, 1929, 269‒275, and “New Kirkuk documents relating to family laws”, AASOR X, 1930, 1‒73. Speiser’s second Oxford paper appeared as “Southern Kurdistan in the Annals of Ashurnasirpal and Today” in AASOR VIII, 1928, 1‒42. 21

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first established.26 Such a structure leads Sayce to emphasize the fundamental contribution British culture made to the rise of the discipline. In 1925 his pupil Wallis Budge had polemically written that “there seems to exist a rather widespread desire, especially on the Continent, and among the followers of Continental scholars in England, to belittle the works of English Assyriologists, and to obscure the fact that the science of Assyriology was founded by Englishmen, and developed entirely by the Trustees of the British Museum and their staff. The English built the main edifice of Assyriology, and other nations constructed the outlying buildings”.27 While the general ideas presented by Sayce at the Oxford congress are broadly similar to those already expressed by Budge, the international setting of the 1928 lecture – delivered in front of European and American colleagues and delegates from all over the world – probably prompted Sayce to adopt a subtler and less strident tone.28 Furthermore, the tripartite structure of his paper also permits Sayce to rhetorically contrast the heroic age with the period that followed it, and the early founders with the latecomers, characterized as “giants” versus “epigoni”. All this seemed intended to show that the Germans did not play an essential role in the very early years of Assyriology. Sayce begins his lecture by explaining that the “Heroic Age of Assyriology” is an expression used in a letter that Jules Oppert (1825–1905) sent to him at the beginning of the 20th century. The description of the work carried out during the 1870s at the British Museum, under the aegis of Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1813–1885), by Sayce together with George Smith (1840–1876) and Friedrich Delitzsch (1850–1922), a pupil of Eberhard Schrader (1836–1908), revives the cosmopolitan, brilliant and cooperative atmosphere of those years.29 The scholars mentioned in these pages also include François Lenormant (1837–1883) and William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877). When Sayce moves on to the actual discussion of the “Heroic Age of Assyriology”, his narrative offers an accurate assessment of the importance of

On the initiative of Samuel Birch (then keeper of the Oriental Department of the British Museum and President of the newly founded Society for Biblical Archaeology), from 1875 onwards a series of lectures of Assyrian and Egyptian philology was organized. The lectures were “delivered to the students of the archaic classes” in the London rooms of the Society by Sayce himself, who considered them to be an “experiment”, the hope being that they would lead to the establishment of Assyriology as an academic discipline. See Birch 1876, 18; also Budge 1920, Vol. 1, 10‒15. 27 Budge 1925, IX. 28 Cf. the aforementioned report of The Times on August 28, p. 14: “This is the first Congress to be held since the War, and it is a great achievement on the part of the Oriental professors and teachers in the University to have been successful in bringing together the largest gathering of Orientalists ever known, and thus restoring among Oriental scholars peace, good will, and the renewal of international relations” (our italics). 29 Alaura / Bonechi, in print. 26

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people and events which is surprising in some respects. He does not start with the British baronet Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1801–1895), as Budge had done in 1925, but rather with the Irish clergyman Edward Hincks (1792–1866). In this way Sayce anticipates the current re-evaluation of the crucial and often overlooked role played by Hincks in the foundation of Assyriology30 and openly manifests his lack of sympathy for Rawlinson – not unexpectedly if we consider, for instance, the assessment of Sayce’s work that Rawlinson offered at the 1874 London Congress of Orientalists.31 Sayce then turns to Edwin Norris (1795–1872), devoting great attention to him as a sign of sincere esteem. It is only at this point that Sayce introduces Rawlinson, but to underline his loss of interest in Assyriology after the 1870s and to mention an unedifying episode in 1889 concerning the splitting of the Congress of Orientalists. By contrast, to Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) Sayce dedicates a lengthy laudatory reminiscence. Sayce had a great admiration for Layard both as an archaeologist and Assyriologist, and their bond mainly stemmed from the end of the 1870s, a period in which Layard was ambassador in Constantinople and Sayce was devoting most of his energies to the Hittites.32 Later, Sayce and Layard discussed issues relating to Mesopotamia, such as the dispute in 1893 between Layard’s protégé Hormuzd Rassam (1826–1910) and Budge, who from 1892 was Acting Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum and who became Keeper in 1894.33 It is surprising that Oppert is not mentioned among the “giants” of the “heroic age”, all of whom (Hincks, Norris, Rawlinson, Layard) were evidently subjects of Her British Majesty in Sayce’s eyes. Sayce then returns to the 1870s to introduce the nascent German school based in Leipzig, with which he had excellent relations until the Great War. Mentioned

See Cathcart 1983 and Cathcart 2011 (especially p. 9), both with literature. “I am far from wishing to disparage the labours of the English school of Assyriology, or to deter young disciples from joining our ranks. What I complain of is ‒ and I am fully as culpable as my fellow-labourers in this matter ‒ that we have hitherto devoted ourselves to the sensational rather than the practical branch of the inquiry, and have thus built up a superstructure on insecure foundations. […] While I congratulate, therefore, Mr. George Smith on his great achievements […]; and while I also congratulate Mr. Sayce on the general accuracy of his readings, and especially on his success in partially explaining the astronomy and astrology of the early Chaldaeans; I do most earnestly recommend both of these scholars to pay more attention in future to the rudiments of the study than to its higher branches. […] Let me, then, impress upon all young Semitic scholars who desire to take up the study of the Cuneiform Inscriptions to begin at the beginning; to learn thoroughly the alphabet and grammar of the Assyrian language before they attempt independent translation; and only gradually to ascend into those higher regions of inquiry which will be brought before the Section by the experienced scholars around me” (Rawlinson 1876, 22‒24). See Alaura / Bonechi in print. 32 See Alaura 2020. For Layard as Assyriologist see Ermidoro 2020. 33 See Alaura 2020, 53. 30 31

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here besides Schrader are Delitzsch’s pupils Paul Haupt (1858–1926) and Carl Bezold (1859–1922). There follows an equally friendly reference to the French school based in Paris, of which, in addition to Lenormant, he mentions Joachim Menant (1820–1899). Finally, Sayce closes his review with a tribute to one last friend, Fritz Hommel (1854–1936) – the only one who was still alive in 1928 and who was continuing to give lectures at the University of Munich – who is celebrated as one of the founders of the German school on a par with Schrader and Delitzsch. “The Heroic Age of Assyriology” [Page 1] I must begin with an apology. What I have to say will be necessarily egoistic. As it will largely deal with my experiences & intercourse with the early founders of Assyriology the first personal pronoun will frequently obtrude itself. I have borrowed the title of my Paper from Prof. Oppert. A year or two before his death in a letter to me34 he described himself & myself the two of us as “the last survivors of the heroic age of Assyriology”. The phrase, perhaps, was not strictly correct since I was a late-comer into the field like Prof. Schrader, who, however, had died before [sic] the letter was written.35 And as a matter of fact I had preceded Schrader by a few years, having contributed an article on the date of Khammurabi to the Journal of Sacred Literature & Biblical Record36 while I was still an undergraduate, while & my article on “An Accadian Seal”, which sketched determined for the first time the outlines of Sumerian Grammar & was soon afterwards developed by Dr. Lenormant into a systematic & outlining formal grammar, was written first after I had taken my B. A. degree & had published a little later (1870) in the Journal of Philology.37 It must be remembered that at that time Accadian was supposed to be the name of xxx what we now know as Sumerian & the existence of a city of Akkad, tho’ recorded in the Old Testament, was an object of doubt. I remember recollect George Smith announcing his discovery of it38 to Fox Talbot & myself one morning when we were hunting for tablets with him among what were then the unnumbered (& unregistered) multitudes of them in the British Museum. [Page 2] The Journal of Philology was devoted to classical philology & accordingly it was therefore not exactly the place in which an article on Sumerian In Sayce’s passive correspondence kept at Oxford in the Bodleian Library there are only two letters from Oppert, dated 1875 and 1877. 35 Sayce mistakenly writes “before” instead of “after”: Schrader died in 1908 and Oppert in 1905. 36 Sayce 1864 (Sayce dated his article to June 19, 1863). Schrader’s first Assyriological work was published five year later (Schrader 1869). 37 Sayce 1870; Lenormant 1873; Lenormant 1874; Lenormant 1879. See also Sayce 1923, 77. 38 See Smith 1875, 253. 34

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inscriptions was naturally to be expected. About the time that it the article appeared one of my brother Fellows met the editor, Aldis Wright,39 in Cambridge, who mentioned the title of it to him. He of course naturally supposed “Accadian” of which he had never heard to be “Arcadian” & thereupon warned the editor not to publish it. “Sayce”, he said, “is a good classical scholar, but he knows nothing about zoology, much less about seals in Arcadia” (that is to say, the marine animal). It was really the seal of Dungi, or as I called him, Sulzi, that was in question, & not a marine animal.40 In 1872 my “Assyrian Grammar for Comparative Purposes” was published by Trübner41 & was the commencement of an intimate xxxxx a friendship with him which lasted to the end of his life. Shortly A few months after the publication (in xxxx October 1874) a knock came one morning at the door of my College rooms & there entered a young German [i.e. Friedrich Delitzsch] with his lady mother who to my youthful eyes looked quite a portly old lady. My visitor began by asking me if I could direct him to the rooms of “Mr. Sayce”: “I am Mr. Sayce”, I replied. “I mean,” he answered, “Mr. Sayce the Assyriologist who has written an Assyrian Grammar”. He afterwards explained that he had expected to find an elderly gentleman “with a grey beard”; such, at any rate, was the impression which my “Assyrian Grammar” had left upon him. He had brought with him a copy of his own first Assyriological publication “Die Assyrische Thiernamen” (which had just appeared (1874) & was intended to be the first part of a series of “Assyrian Studies”).42 His visit was the beginning of a life-long friendship, & I have always flattered myself that xxxxxx xx his indispensable “Assyrisches Handwörterbuch”43 was substituted for xx a more ambitious work which he had originally designed & of which he had sent me the first xxx & xxx proofs. This seemed to me to be too diffuse & complicated for practical use besides containing disputable [Page 3] points of comparative philology. It would have & accordingly I wrote to urge him to change the plan of the book, which xxx xxx on the scale

William Aldis Wright (1831–1914), Shakespearean and biblical scholar. He was one of the editors of the Journal of Philology from its foundation in 1868, and was secretary to the Old Testament Revision Company from 1870 to 1885. In 1870 Sayce took holy orders and in 1874 Oxford University appointed him its representative on the Old Testament Revision Company, which had set about preparing what would become the Revised Version of the Old Testament. 40 For this anecdote see also Sayce 1923, 54‒55. 41 Sayce 1872. This book was immediately reviewed by Schrader in The Academy, Vol. III. ‒ No. 55, Sept. 1, 1872, 340, and by J.G. in Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 21 (N.F. 4), Heft 12, 1872, 566‒570. Nicholas Trübner (1817–1884) was not only a publisher and bookseller, but also a linguist. On the friendship between Sayce and Trübner see Sayce 1923, 67‒68 and 189‒190. 42 Delitzsch 1874. For this and other anecdotes concerning Delitzsch and Smith see Sayce 1923, 93‒95. 43 Delitzsch 1894–1896. 39

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originally contemplated would have taken many years to finish. Delitzsch & I used to work together at the tablets in the British Museum, often discussing & comparing matters of interest which xxx turned up in them & communicating our discoveries one to the other. There were no students’ rooms in those days & our work was carried on in the little private room allotted to Dr. Birch, the Keeper of the Oriental Department. Birch was a man of wide interests & many friends & the consequence was that his room was constantly filled with visitors, politics, in which he was specially interested, being more discussed among them than anything else. George Smith, when he home from his expeditions to the East, divided his time between the cases & drawers in which the tablets were kept & visits to our room, & after the day’s work was over he & Delitzsch would generally have a walk stroll together. I cannot never forget one morning when Delitzsch told Birch & myself that he had had a very curious & disturbing experience the previous afternoon when while walking back back along Oxford Street to his lodgings. Suddenly he had heard his name called by George Smith whom we knew to be at that time leaving Mosul either in Mosul or about to leave it; Delitzsch had turned round to the right whence the voice had come but naturally in the cro could not discover his friend in the crowd. He was, however, convinced that it really was George Smith who had returned unexpectedly early, without any announcement & it was some days before he could be persuaded that he had been mistaken. We afterwards learned that Smith had died near Aleppo on his homeward journey that very afternoon.44 Smith was short, slight & shy ‒ a typical Londoner, in fact, apart from his shyness. One day when he was looking up some tablets for me a lady visitor to the museum asked him a question which he duly answered, & just afterwards I happened [Page 4] to ment in speaking to him to mention his name. Whereupon she said: “Are you Mr. Smith?” “Yes, Madam,” he replied. “What not the great Mr. Smith?” Whereupon he The poor man blushed up to his hair. Oppert complained that he Smith never read anything but except his own publications, which meant that he did not read that what Oppert wrote; when I repeated this to Smith he did not deny the fact but merely said that it would be much better if the Assyriologists, instead of writing books & articles themselves, would read the tablets, adding that “there is only one way of becoming an Assyriologist, & that is to copy, copy, copy”. Smith himself did not wholly follow this advice. He was overwhelmed by a somewhat large family & the exigencies of his wife a small income, & he was glad, therefore, to supplement his small official income the latter by what were termed popular books writing for the publishers. One day he remarked to me: “It is a great mistake for a literary man to get married; there is no water-butt allowed in these days”. So the children had to be allowed to grow up & be provided for. Dr

44

On this famous episode see, besides Sayce 1923, 95, also Budge 1925, 289, and Reade 2015, 461.

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Dr. Hincks I never saw. But I received letters from him while I was still a school-boy.45 He was the rector of a country parish in Ireland, which he seldom left except to visit Trinity College, Dublin, of which he had been a Fellow, & now & then, but very occasionally, London. He once complained in a letter that when he had visited London a little while previously certain inscriptions in the British Museum which he wished to examine had been concealed from him. As a matter of fact, they had probably been xxx reserved for Major (later Sir Henry) Rawlinson who was working on the cuneiform texts semi-officially & naturally did not wish another scholar to forestall his discoveries. The fact that I had began my cuneiform studies while I was still a boy at school was, as I have said, what justified Oppert in counting me among the representatives of “the heroic age”. The first contribution to the subject was made to the Journal [Page 5] of Sacred Literature & Biblical Record just before I entered Oxford, tho’ my next contribution, that to the Journal of Philology, did not appear till five years later. Meanwhile While still an undergraduate I had made the acquaintance of Vaux whose book on Assyrian discoveries discoveries had much to do with interesting the British public in Assyrian excavation,46 & an epistolary acquaintance with & thro’ him came to know Edwin Norris with whom I carried on a long epistolary correspondence.47 In the course of his correspondence with me it he told me that Rawlinson’s famous Memoir on the Behistun inscription published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society48 differed very considerably from the original draft. of it. It had been sent to him as secretary of the Society, & he had found it so full of philological inaccuracies & want of acquaintance with the literature of the subject ‒ due to the author’s residence in the East out of reach of libraries ‒ that while he recognised the genius of the writer & the very important discoveries he had made, he could not recommend its publication by the Society in its existing form. It was accordingly returned to Rawlinson with Norris’s queries, notes & corrections & to a large extent was subsequently re-written. One of the results of this was a second visit of Rawlinson to the rock of Behistun in order to verify or correct the readings which Norris had doubted questioned. Norris also told me that in the Napoleonic days he had spent two or three years in Naples where he had learned the dialect so thoroughly that he came to be employed as an interpreter by Italians from Northern & Central Italy. He had No letters from Hincks are to be found in Sayce’s passive correspondence kept at Oxford in the Bodleian Library. 46 Vaux 1850. The antiquary and numismatist William Sandys Wright Vaux (1818–1885) was Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals of the British Museum from 1861 to 1870, and secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1875 until his death. 47 In Sayce’s passive correspondence kept at Oxford in the Bodleian Library there are only two letters from Norris, dated 1872 (and see below, n. 50). 48 H.C. Rawlinson published his “The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun” in the 1846–1851 fascicules of The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. See Budge 1925, 52‒56. 45

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in fact a wonderful gift for languages & his Memoir on the third Language of the Achaemenian inscriptions which he termed “Scythic”49 is was not only the foundation of all future work upon the subject but contains very little that even now needs correction. [Page 6] Norris’s last letter was written to myself.50 I was about to start for Italy (in 1872) & had agreed to lunch with him on my way thro’ London. His letter, relating to some matters we wished to discuss & written in his usual minute hand, came suddenly to an end in the middle of a sentence. Then came a the sentence in a xxx xxx half-formed letters: “If this continues I must give up work”. After that there was only a note by his daughter saying that her father had had a paralytic seizure while writing the letter & that consequently my lunch with him would have to be cancelled. He never recovered consciousness & died a few days later. Rawlinson I knew well. He was of middle stature with a fine intelligent faces & the manners of a man of the world. Active, brilliant & incisive he was a striking contrast to his brother, Canon George Rawlinson, for many years my brother Professor here in Oxford & my colleague in the small Visitorial Board of five which at that time managed the affairs controlled the Ashmolean Museum. It was wickedly said that all the genius of the family had been absorbed by Sir Henry so that nothing was left for the other members of it. But the two brothers worked well together: the Canon was a good classical scholar with a wide & accurate knowledge of Greek Literature, which was especially useful to Sir Henry in the earlier days of his deciphering work. In the his later life geography rather than cuneiform inscriptions claimed more & more Sir Henry’s attention & he was content to leave the interpret decipherment of the inscriptions to younger men. As he grew old, moreover, the political interests of his earlier life once more resumed sway & like Dr. Birch he saw in Russia a dangerous enemy to British rule in India. Once only, not very long before his death, he was tempted for a moment to return to his old love. The [Page 7] Oriental Congress at Stockholm in 1889 had been the scene of a good deal of smothered discontent. Count [Carlo] Landberg, its moving genius, had deeply offended Oppert & [Gottlieb Wilhelm] Leitner, more especially the latter, who, therefore, determined to break away from the official body & inaugurate a rival Congress in London. Leitner, accordingly, called on Rawlinson, now old & infirm, & asked him if he would be President. At first Rawlinson agreed & xxx old first affection for his earlier interests in Assyriological research became keenly awake. But it was only for a short time; he soon realised that he was too infirm to undertake the duties of such a post & resume the Assyriological studies he had allowed to drop, & a few months later he told Leitner that he must find another

49 50

Norris 1855; this paper was read in 1852. Sayce refers to Norris’s letter dated December 3rd, 1872 (Bodleian Library, MS d. 62, 63‒65).

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President for his Congress of dissidents.51 Layard, too, I knew well. I stayed with him in at Therapia in the summer of 1879 in the days when he was British Ambassador & omnipotent in Constantinople. One evening an incident occurred which caused him to tell me the story of a very interesting period in his life, little if at all known to his friends & consequently unpublished.52 This That afternoon an old friend of his, Mr. Grace by name, had arrived from Alexandria, & in the evening there was a large state dinner-party at which several of the Turkish Ministers were present as well as some of the foreign ambassadors & Admiral Hobart Hobart Pasha, the British Admiral of the Turkish fleet. When the ladies had retired Layard asked me to sit by him & be introduced to Mr. Grace. Then looking round the table he said: “The first time I saw Constantinople I little thought I should ever be entertaining a company like this. I owe it all to my old friend Grace; when I first visited Constantinople I often did not know where to look for a dinner”. Then he went on to tell me how after the death of his father, who had left a large family behind him with slender means of support, an uncle who was a coffee-planter in [Page 8] Ceylon had asked him to come & join him there. Layard had always had a passionate desire to explore the East & accordingly instead of proceeding to Ceylon by ship he started to do so by land. The result was that by the time he had reached the eastern side of the Jordan the means money provided for the journey by his uncle was nearly all exhausted & he was forced to travel on foot. Then he was captured by the Beduin & for about six months xxx was a slave in their camp. He eventually managed, however, to escape & made his way to Damascus where, ragged, halfstarving & in Arab dress he knocked at the gate of the British Consulate. The Consul believed his story & provided him with clean clothes & a few coins. Thereupon he made his way on foot thro’ Asia Minor to Constantinople, living with the Turkish peasants & dependent to a large extent living dependent on their on the hospitality of the Turkish peasants & picking up their language at the same time. At In Constantinople he called on Sir Stratford de Redcliffe, at that time the British Ambassador there, who was evidently favourably impressed by the young man & told him to give him his address. The only address he could give, it seems, was that of a Frank chemist. Shortly afterwards young Grace arrived, with the intention of making a tour in Asia Minor, & asked the Ambassador if he could recommend a dragoman. “No,” said Sir Stratford, “but there is a young Englishman here who I think would just suit you. He has been tramping thro’ Asia Minor on foot, knows the people & speaks sufficient Turkish for your purpose.” Layard was accordingly sent for & engaged as dragoman. Before the tour was finished he had ceased to be dragoman & became Grace’s friend & fellowtraveller. He was again furnished with means for accomplishing his journey to

See also Sayce 1923, 265‒267 and 283‒284. On the 8th Congress of Orientalists in Stockholm and Christiania see Rabault-Feuerhahn 2010. 52 See Sayce 1923, 163‒165. See also Alaura 2020, 33‒35. 51

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Ceylon, but on this second occasion did not get further than Mosul. The rest of the story I heard from James Fergusson the architect. Botta was at the [Page 9] time excavating at Khorsabad.53 Here, therefore, Layard stayed, making remained & made drawings of some of the objects xxx xxx that had been found. These he sent to London together with a statement that similar remains discoveries would be made further south, opposite Mosul, on the site of Nineveh, & that if the requisite amount of money could be sent to him he would undertake to excavate them there for the British Museum. The drawings were shown to James Fergusson as an architectural expert & he at once determined that the chance should not be thrown away. After a talk with John Murray, the publisher, sufficient money was collected & sent by them to commence the excavations & a small fund was started which resulted in the discovery of the monuments & palaces of palaces & monuments of the ancient Assyrian kings. Layard was a good draughtsman, a good judge of character, an admirer of the Turkish peasant, & a stanch [sic] friend.1) [On the back of page 8: (Draughtsmanship : military consulship)] One of my last recollections of him is xxx a conversation in his London house one afternoon tea in which he when he xxx vigourously [sic] defending xxx took the part of his old friend & protégé Hormuzd Rassam who had become entangled in a quarrel with the British Museum.54 Hormuzd Rassam, by the way, who had married an English wife, & spent the better part of his life in Bayswater not far from the house in which I was living at the time. He asked me one day if I would revise the English of an account of his experiences in Aden & Abyssinia & more especially of his work in Babylonia & Assyria which he was writing for the benefit of his children. I agred agreed to do so & the pages of the MS [i.e. manuscript], written in pencil, were sent to me from time to time as soon as they were finished. There was a good deal in them of interest to the Assyriologist, but unfortunately I took no notes, thinking that the whole work would be completed & eventu before long & eventually published. When only the earlier portion of the intended work however had been written & revised I had to leave England for Egypt [Page 10] & when I returned some months later I found that Rassam was dead & his unfinished MS was lost or destroyed.55 Professor Schrader I first met at the Oriental Congress in London in 1874, & after its close he spent a day or two with me here in xxx Queen’s xxx College. I was with him again when the Congress met at Berlin in 1881 where where he entertained all the Assyriologists who were present at a luncheon-party.56 It

Paul Émile Botta (1802‒1870) excavated at Khorsabad between 1843 and 1845. Layard recalled his very pleasant meeting with Botta at Mosul for instance in Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia (Layard 1887, 368‒370). 54 For the quarrel between Rassam and the British Museum see Reade 2015, 461‒463. See also Alaura 2020, 53. 55 See Sayce 1923, 302. 56 See Sayce 1923, 210. 53

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turned out that neither host nor guests were smokers which drew a remark from Mr. [Vladimir Semyonovich] Golénischeff, who was one of the party. Another of the guests was Prof. Haupt. I had made his the latter’s acquaintance in the early days of his Assyriological work when he had sent me the MS of his article on the Assyrian verb; & not long afterwards he spent a visited London in order to copy the Gilgames texts & spent a week with me here in Oxford. He had just begun to taken his degree & was giving lectures at Göttingen. I asked him how he had obtained leave of absence. “Nothing was easier”, he answered, “I advertised a course of lectures on Sumerian grammar at 6 o’clock in the morning & of course nobody came”. While Haupt was in London Bezold came arrived there for the first time & Haupt went to meet him at the station. “Instead of waiting to let me be his dragoman” said Haupt to me, “Bezold put his head out of the window of the railway carriage & shouted: ‘Träger, werf me a fiacre’, which of course brought no response. It was during his stay in London that Haupt made the important discovery of the existence of two dialects xxx xxx in Sumerian. Haupt, however, belongs to the period which followed the Heroic Age. That But that was not the case with however with either Ménant or François Lenormant. Ménant I never saw personally, but we had a good deal of correspondence with one another, beginning with a protest on his part against my xxx the judgment of his [Page 11] work which I had expressed in my Assyrian Grammar.57 But the protest was that of a gentleman & I subsequently found him a faithful friend up to the end of his life. Of François Lenormant I can speak only with affection, mingled with admiration for the wideness of his outlook knowledge & intellectual interests. He was a man of considerable size & stature & of great vivacity of manner & readiness of speech. He received a wound during the siege of Paris from which he never fully recovered & which was eventually the cause of his death. One day I received a letter which began with the words: “I am nailed to the bed & fear that I may never leave it”. It was the last letter I received from him.58 In Lenormant I see one of the founders of Sumerian grammar. I have left to the last one of the early Assyriologists who I am glad to say still remains with us. Professor Hommel, indeed, does not belong to the Heroic Age, but he was one of the earliest of the “Epigoni”. We first met at the Oriental Congress

See Sayce 1872, 21‒22 (“Ménant, ‘Exposé des éléments de la grammaire Assyrienne,’ Paris, 1868 (Oppert’s first edition enlarged; inaccurate and incomplete)”, “Ménant, ‘Le Syllabaire Assyrienne’ (useful, but too long and incomplete)”). Note that no letters from Menant are to be found in Sayce’s passive correspondence kept at Oxford in the Bodleian Library. 58 In Sayce’s passive correspondence kept at Oxford in the Bodleian Library there are four letters from Lenormant, dated 1875, 1876, 1879 and 1880, so the letter to which Sayce refers has not reached us. 57

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in Florence in 187859 & ever afterwards he has inspired my me with respect for his wide range of learning & his bold & brilliant combinations. Schrader, Delitzsch & Hommel have been the founders of Assyriology in Germany. Perhaps before concluding I ought to say something about a movement which had a good deal to do with the promotions of Assyriological studies in this country. This was the creation of the Society of Biblical Archaeology & the establishment (1874) of xxx lectures upon the Assyrian language & inscriptions in connection with it. Both were due to the enthusiasm of a consumptive but energetic personality, W.[illiam] R. Cooper, who did not profess to be a scholar himself, but was intensely interested in the results of oriental research & with the help of Dr. Birch made the Society what it was for so many years, the centre of [Page 12] Assyrian & Egyptian research studies in Great Britain.60 The title of the Society was the joint production invention of Cooper & Birch; as the latter told me, it was necessary to get as many members as possible for the sake of their subscriptions & the term word “Biblical” was still one with which to charm the British public. The first lecturer was myself61 & I have always been proud of the fact that xxx one of my first pupils was Sir E. Wallis Budge. When the lectures were started, however, in 18734-5 the Heroic Age of Assyriology was just passing away. The small band of scholars who had xxx founded created it had accomplished their work & wonderful work it was. The more I look back upon the publications of Rawlinson, Hincks & Norris, the more I realize that there were “giants in those days”. I hope I have not kept detained you too long with these anecdotic reminiscences xxx & so have kept you from proceeding to the more serious work of the Congress. But it must be remembered that a science & the personality of its founders are closely connected together. We cannot fully realize this one without knowing & understanding something about this other. The lines to be followed have first to be marked out, & whether they shall be laid on ground who will that shall will carry them to the city of truth & reality or lead them into the waste-lands & haunted swamps of pseudo-science depends upon the insights & genius of those who have first xxx designed them. What chiefly counts is not so much the pile of learned superstructure which we can build upon the foundations as the foundations of the building itself themselves.62 For the lectures presented by Sayce and Hommel during the Florence 1878 congress see Bollettini del Quarto Congresso Internazionale degli Orientalisti in Firenze. Settembre 1878, Firenze: Le Monnier, 1878, 5, 6 and 9. 60 See above n. 26. 61 See Sayce 1877. 62 In our opinion, the use of the terms “superstructure” and “foundations” in his conclusive sentence “What chiefly counts is not so much the pile of learned superstructure which we can build upon the foundations as the foundations themselves.” suggests that in 1928, at the Oxford Congress of Orientalists, Sayce was consciously dialoguing with 59

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Bibliography Alaura, S., 2020: Austen Henry Layard and Archibald Henry Sayce. An Anatolian Perspective. In S. Ermidoro / C. Riva (eds): Rethinking Layard 1817–2017. Proceedings of the Conference held in Venice, 5th‒6th March 2018. Memorie ‒ Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti. Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti. Venezia. Pp. 25‒61. Alaura, S. / Bonechi, M., 2018: Archibald Henry Sayce and his Papers at The Queen’s College, Oxford. The Queen’s College Library Insight 8: 14‒20. –– in print: Dreaming of an International Discipline ‒ Archibald H. Sayce, Cosmopolitanism and Assyriology at Oxford. In H. Neumann / S. Fink (eds): Towards a History of Assyriology (64ème Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, “The Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient Near East”, Universität Innsbruck, Juli 16–20, 2018). Investigatio Orientis. Münster. Belton, R.L., 2007: A Non-Traditional Traditionalist: Rev. A.H. Sayce and His Intellectual Approach to Biblical Authenticity and Biblical History in LateVictorian Britain. Diss. Louisiana State University. Baton Rouge. Birch, S., 1876: Inaugural Address, Delivered on Monday, September 14th, 1874, at the Royal Institution. In R.K. Douglas (ed.): Transactions of the Second Session of the International Congress of the Orientalists. Held in London in September, 1874. London. Pp. 1‒18. Budge, E.A.W., 1920: By Nile and Tigris: a narrative of journeys in Egypt and Mesopotamia on behalf of the British Museum between the years 1886 and 1913. London. –– 1925: The Rise and Progress of Assyriology. London. Cathcart, K.J., 1983: Edward Hincks (1792–1866) and the Decipherment of Cuneiform Writing. Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 7: 24‒43. –– 2011: The Earliest Contributions to the Decipherment of Sumerian and Akkadian. CDLJ 2011/1: 1‒12. Delitzsch, F., 1874: Assyrische Studien Heft I. Assyrische Thiernamen mit vielen Excursen und einem assyrischen und akkadischen Glossar. Leipzig. –– 1894–1896: Assyrisches Handwörterbuch. Leipzig. Ermidoro, S., 2020: Not Only Nineveh and Its Remains: A. H. Layard’s Contribution to Assyriology. In W. Sommerfeld (ed.): Dealing with Antiquity: Past, Present & Future. RAI Marburg. AOAT 460. Münster. Pp. 211‒224. Langdon, S.H., 1933: Archibald Henry Sayce as Assyriologist. JRAS 2: 499‒503.

Rawlinson’s statement read at the 1874 London Congress of Orientalists “What I complain of is […] that we have hitherto devoted ourselves to the sensational rather than the practical branch of the inquiry, and have thus built up a superstructure on insecure foundations.”, reported above n. 31.

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Layard, A.H., 1887: Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia including a residence among the Bakhtoyari and other wild tribes before the discovery of Nineveh. London. Lenormant, F., 1873: Études accadiennes I/1–3. Lettres Assyriologiques, seconde série. Paris. –– 1874: Études accadiennes II/1. Lettres Assyriologiques, seconde série. Paris. –– 1879: Études accadiennes III. Lettres Assyriologiques, seconde série. Paris. Matthews, R., 2002: Secrets of the Dark Mound. Jemdet Nasr 1926–1928. Iraq Archaeological Reports 6. Warminster. Norris, Ed., 1855: Memoir on the Scythic Version of the Behistun Inscription. JRAS 15: 1‒213. Possehl, G.L., 2010: Ernest J. H. Mackay and the Penn Museum. Expedition 52/1: 40‒43. Rabault-Feuerhahn, P., 2010: «Les grandes assises de l’orientalisme». La question interculturelle dans les congrès internationaux des orientalistes (1873–1912). Revue germanique internationale 12: 47‒67. Rawlinson, H.C., 1876: The Semitic Section ‒ Address. In R.K. Douglas (ed.): Transactions of the Second Session of the International Congress of the Orientalists. Held in London in September, 1874. London. Pp. 19‒24. Reade, J., 2015: Wallis Budge ‒ for or against? In M. Ismail: Wallis Budge. Magic and Mummies in London and Cairo. Kilkerran. Pp. 444‒467. Sayce, A.H., 1864: The Casdim and the Chaldees. Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record 4, October 1863: 165‒171. –– 1870: On an Accadian Seal. The Journal of Philology 3/6: 1‒50. –– 1872: An Assyrian Grammar, for Comparative Purposes. London. –– 1877: Lectures Upon the Assyrian Language, and Syllabary; Delivered to the Students of the Archaic Classes. London. –– 1923: Reminiscences. London. Schrader, E., 1869: Die Basis der Entzifferung der assyrisch-babylonischen Keilinschriften. ZDMG 23: 337‒374. Smith, G., 1875: Assyrian Discoveries. An Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh, during 1873 and 1874. New York. Thureau-Dangin, F. / Barrois, A. / Dossin, G. / Dunand, M., 1931: Arslan Tash. Paris. Vaux, W.S.W., 1850: Nineveh and Persepolis: An Historical Sketch of Ancient Assyria and Persia, with an Account of the recent Researches in those Countries. London. (4th ed. 1855). Worthington, M., 2009: Sayce, Archibald Henry. RlA 12/1: 107‒108. Zaina, F., 2020: The Urban Archaeology of Early Kish. 3rd Millennium BCE Levels at Tell Ingharra. Orientlab Series Maior 5. Bologna. Zettler, R.L., 1998: Ur of the Chaldees. In R.L. Zettler / L. Horne (eds): Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur. Philadelphia. Pp. 8‒19.

In Search of Meaning Ramesses II in his Court of the Luxor Temple Emanuele Marcello Ciampini Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia The self-presentation of the kingship is a fundamental support for that concept of power, which has represented a topic in the activity of Mario Liverani; thus, I hope he might accept this note on an organic architectural and statuary ensemble in the Luxor Temple, dated to Ramesses II. The temple of Luxor The ramesside court at Luxor is a single compound in the plan of the temple. It stands in front of the sanctuary, built by Amenhotep III:1 here, in the most secret rooms of the building, the divine cult merged together with a very sophisticated doctrine of the nature of the kingship, embodied by the living royal ka (kA-nsw anx).2 Thus, the sanctuary became the best seat for the Festival of Opet, during which the king celebrated his union with this abstract concept of the power; at the end of the ritual union, he was no more simply the ruler, but rather a physical personification of the divine kingship, or also an “effective image of Amon” (tit imn), as stated by some royal names.3 A direct consequence of this speculation is the concept of the royal image: in the Theban area, as well as in other centers of Egypt and Nubia, Amenhotep III used to celebrate his divine nature by means of a statuary, in which the representation of the physical body of the king, and his divine status are merged together.4 The history of the sanctuary started before Amenhotep III, as clearly confirmed by the scenes reproducing the Festival of Opet (infra) in the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut: Lacau / Chevrier 1977–1979, 154–169. 2 For this doctrine in the temple of Luxor is still valid the study of L. Bell (1985). 3 See Thutmosis I (von Beckerath 1999, 135: T4), Amenhotep III (op. cit., 143: T6) and Sethi I (op. cit., 149: H21); the concept of tit expresses a consubstanziality of the royal person with the divine substance, and can identify the solar nature of the king, see tit ra, “effective image of Ra”, in the names of Amenhotep III (op. cit., 141: H5; 143: T5), Ramesses I (op. cit., 149: T6) and Sethi I (op. cit., 151: T10). 4 Beside the study of Bell (note 2), we can mention Bell 1997 and 2002. The meaning of the statuary in the concept of the divine kingship can be sumarized by the quartzite 1

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The foundation of the ramesside court at Luxor The architectural plan of Ramesses II at Luxor materialized in a colonnaded court that ensured a monumental access to the sanctuary of Amon in Opet;5 we are dealing with a coherent compound, which joined the temple with a royal palace, built just in correspondence of the east side of the court. Its foundation is celebrated in an inscription describing the structure and the main features: ir.n.f m mnw.f n it.f imn-ra nb nswt tAwy nb pt [...] ra-ms-sw mr-imn Xnm nHH m pr imn m inr HD nfr n rwD wsxt.s m xft-Hr ipt.f pHr.ti m wxaw sbAw snwt m aS xnt-S ndbw m Hsmn stt Xnm.n.s xntw nb anx wDA snb m biAt mAT inr km (Kitchen 1979, 607). “He (i.e., the king) made as his monument for his father Amon-Ra, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, Lord of Heaven [… making for him the temple] ‘Ramesses-Merimen united with Eternity in the Estate of Amon’6 in white and fine sandstone; its large court is in front of his (i.e., Amon of Luxor) shrine, surrounded by columns, and its doors and flagpoles are made in highquality wood from the Lebanon, chiseled with copper from Asia. It comprises statues7 of the ‘Lord’,8 live, protection and health, of quartzite, red granite and black granite.” The description of the structure, embellished by precious materials, mentions a specific feature, the royal statues, which actually characterizes the court. This impressive presence of the king surely represents a ramesside feature, according to which the royal monumental image of the king is part of the open courts. Generally, royal statues are placed against the pillars of the porticos, realizing a perfect fusion between statuary and architecture. In the Luxor court, the concept of the royal representation does not focus this fusion, but rather its nature that

7 8 5 6

statue of Amenhotep III from the temple of Luxor: el-Saghir 1992, 21–27; Ciampini 2011–2012, 129. On the concept of the kingship and the royal ritual at the New Year Festival see also Ciampini 2016. This aspect of Amon inhabited the southern rooms of the temple: Brunner 1977. The official name of the court. The determinatives of Xntw (“statues”) specify the shapes: seated, standing and Osirian. This title of the statues identifies the divine ipostasis of Ramesses II in Nubia, see infra and note 23.

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s. eems to represent the rule for the statues ensemble and other epigraphic patterns of the same court. Statues as representation of royal deity According to the Egyptian mind, a statue represents specific aspects of a subject; the best sample of this concept in Luxor court is the statue of Ramesses’ royal ka, called ra-n-HqAw, “The god Re of the rulers”;9 nevertheless, the whole statuary program of the court can be read as a celebration of a unique royal entity in his several forms. Each form stresses a specific element of the kingship, briefly described in epithets added to the royal names; we mention here some of these texts, as evidence of elements for depicting the divine king Ramesses. Statue D (Kitchen 1979, 630). (On the left shoulder) ra-ms-s(w) mr-imn mr imn “Ramesses-Merimen, beloved of Amon”. Here, the epithet mr imn, added to the royal name, identifies a specific aspect of the king, i.e. the representation of his royal ka (see infra). Statue E (Kitchen 1979, 630). (On the right shoulder) wsr-mAat-ra stp.n-ra ra n HqAw / (On the left shoulder) ra-ms-s(w) mr-imn ra n HqAw “Usermaatre-Setepenre, Re of the rulers / RamessesMerimen, Re of the rulers”. (On the back pillar) ir.n.f m mnw.f n it.f imn-ra irt n.f Xnty wr n sA.f wsr-mAatra stp.n-ra ra n HqAw sA-ra nb-xaw ra-ms-s(w) mr-imn mry imn-ra nsw nTrw Dt “He has made as monument for his father Amon-Re, the making for him a great cult image of his son, Usermaatre-Setepenre, Re of the rulers, the son of Re, lord of the crowns Ramesses-Merimen, beloved of Amon-Re, king of the gods, forever!” The focus of these inscriptions is the identification of a cult image of the king, representing the incarnation of the divine kingship. This concept, identified with the royal ka, is labelled with the dogmatic title, which merged the royal names and the name of the statue: “Re of the rulers”. The last part of this complex elaboration frequently appears in a shorter form “Beloved of Amon”: it means that often this title did not identify the king, but his cult image. The origin of this doctrine, connected with the Luxor temple, dates back at least to the thutmoside period, as confirmed by the scenes on the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut at Karnak.10 Statue F (Kitchen 1979, 630). (On the back pillar, left) nsw-bit nb tAwy wsr-mAat-ra stp.n-ra sA-ra nb-xaw ra-ms-s(w) mr-imn mry mnw-imn xnty-ipt.f “The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, lord of the Two Lands Usermaatre-Setepenre, lord of the crowns Ramesses-Merimen, beloved of Min-Amon, foremost of his sanctuary”. Kitchen 1979, 630. Lacau / Chevrier 1977–1979, 162, 166, 168, 171.

9

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(On the back pillar, right) nsw-bit wsr-mAat-ra stp.n-ra sA-ra nb-xaw rams-s(w) mr-imn mry mwt wrt nbt pt “The king of Upper and Lower Egypt Usermaatre-Setepenre, the son of Re, lord of the crowns Ramesses-Merimen, beloved of Mut, the great, mistress of heaven”. The inscriptions of the pillar celebrate the connection of the king with Amon of Luxor and his paredra Mut. Here, the two deities might represent the aspects of the primeval creator, housed in the temple and celebrated as origin and patron of the royal power. Beside these texts, that represent a description of the king in connection with the divine world of the temple, some other inscriptions on Ramesses statues might celebrate the divine profile of the king, as representation of the gods (see infra, statue H). Statue G (Kitchen 1979, 630). (Back pillar, epithets of the king) ir Axt m ipt-swt wn psDt m rSwt “Who makes what is useful at Karnak, and the Ennead rejoices (for it)”. mw nTry n nsw nTrw sxaa.f Hr nst.f tp tA r nb wan tA nb “The divine substance11 of the gods’ king (= Amon), whom he (= Amon) crowns on his throne upon the earth, so that he could be the unique lord of the entire world”. These statements summarise the role of the king upon the earth; he acts for the gods as son of Amon, called mw nTry, a pregnant expression that describes the inner nature of Ramesses (see note 11): his physical body transforms by means of a divine essence, represented by the crown given by Amon.12 This short description, with the mention of Karnak, recalls the coronation and legitimation scenes on the walls of the hypostyle hall of Karnak, i.e. the seat of the royal rituals.13 Statue H (Kitchen 1979, 631). (Back pillar, epithets of the king) rnn imn m wDH Hr awy mwt nbt pt r nsw iT tAw nbw “He (i.e., the king) whom Amon nursed as a child in the hands of Mut, mistress of the heaven, so that he could be a king who conquers all the lands”. wAH ib r irt mnw m ipt n it.f imn qmA nfrw.f smnx rA-pr.f m kAt nHH “Whose heart is stable in making monuments in the sanctuary of his father Amon, who creates his perfection,14 who (= king) benefits his sanctuary with neverending works”. Litt. “the divine progeny”; the title identified the king as part of a divine family, whose essence is supposed to be a kind of constant flow, that linked the divine entities; it can also represent the link between the sun god Re and his son, the king. 12 It is striking to note the role of the crown in the transformation of the essence of the person-king, who becomes the concept-king, see the role of the crown in the Roman and Medieval ideology: Kantorowicz 1989, 289–329. 13 For the coronation and confirmation scenes in the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, see Nelson 1981, pll. 52, 69, 70, 74, 79, 106, 150, 192, 200. 14 The term nfrw, “perfection”, is traditionally used in substitution of his direct mention; the grammars read in it a linguistic protection, which abstains from the direct mention of sensitive entities (king or god) in the texts. 11

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The first statement definies Ramesses as natural son of the divine couple of Thebes. We are dealing with a ramesside elaboration of a well-known tradition, whose best samples date back to the 18th dynasty: the divine origin of the king is described in a mythic context, which transforms his human father in a divine incarnation.15 Thus, the activity of Ramesses in Luxor becomes the natural result of a true son of the gods; the legitimation of the royal work depends on the divine will, which creates the physical shape of the king, in Egyptian qmA nfrw.f. Thus, the divine essence of the king in the court is described by means of the same statues of the king; we may now wonder, whether his divine manifestations in a specific architectural context could represent a collection of aspects of the royal power, that is the concrete presence of the divine ruler on the earth. The court as seat for the divine manifestation of the king The function of the court as seat for the celebration of the king, coming from the inner rooms of the sanctuary, is stressed by several items; the statues and their inscriptions represent the best indicator for this issue, but the same architectural space is described by some other dedication texts, concerning the doorway of the court and the pylon. An inscription on the eastern doorway refers its own name as: sbA aA nswbit wsr-mAat-ra stp.n-ra dwA rxyt nb anx.sn (Kitchen 1979, 610, northern and southern jamb) “The great doorway: ‘the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Usermaatre-Setepenre, is the one whom the whole mankind adores, and they live’”; the passage (sbA) opens to a court, where the mankind can access to adore the appareance of the king. Thus, in this part of the temple the effective actor is the king, just after his transformation as incarnation of the divine kingship. The same concept repeats in a second inscription on the passage of the pylon, where the court is described as: st smnH sDm sprwt nTrw rmT (Kitchen 1979, 607) “A place of supplication and of hearing the prayers by gods and men”. The description of the ramesside court in the foundation text and its own name (supra) state the function of this space as independent compound in the temple, being at the same time a place for those forms of personal piety, typical in the ramesside religion’s phenomenology. The core of this cult place is the divine king, represented by his statues; he is praised by the men, rmT or rxyt, the last traditionally part of the temple decorum. The foundation text of the court describes it as “place of supplication (smnH)”, where “the prayers (nsprwt) are heard”; the same terms used are typical in those Theban contexts where acts of popular religion are performed (see the Eastern temple at Karnak, also represented in a scene of the temple of Khonsu).16

Brunner 1964; the myth of the divine birth of the king is also known in monuments of Ramesses II: Desroches Noblecourt 1990–1991. 16 For a general presentation of the Eastern Temple at Karnak and its use until the Roman 15

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Thus, several elements contribute to the nature of a new architectural space as specific element in the celebration of the divine king; it perfectly fits with the function of the temple of Luxor where, during the Festival of Opet, the doctrine of the divine kingship was embodied by the image of the royal ka. The appearance of the new king, merged with his royal ka, was here worshipped by the mankind; this statement supports the interpretation of the court as specific and independent cult space, stressing also its role in the connection between the inner rooms and the eastern royal palace (see supra). The statues in the court are part of this concept, but they also represent one of the media, useful for the celebration of the divine king: antoher medium is represented by the same name of Ramesses, elaborated as divine icons, engraved on the eastern architrave of the court. The royal names as divine icons The celebration of the kingship in the ramesside court is also stressed by a wellknown long frieze on the eastern architrave of the portico;17 we are dealing with an elaboration of the five royal names, built by means of divine icons. The long row of deities, represented moving from the entrance of the court to the doorway leading to the inner sanctuary, respects the classical decorum of the temple: according to this, the king is represented moving towards the inner part of the temple, where he is welcomed by the gods. In the case of the frieze, the gods representing the royal names facing the inner of the temple: it means that they are actual parts of the royal essence. Statues and iconic rendering of the royal names are both media for stressing the nature of the king: both the languages celebrate the status of his person, after the ritual performed in the inner rooms of Luxor, and what seemed to be part of the exoteric union of the physical body of the king and the divine concept of the kingship (i.e., the royal ka) became the core for a celebration of the divine kingship by the mankind. The concept creates a refined correspondence in the decorative patterns of the court: the statues represent the divine essence in the royal aspects (i.e., each statue is a specific aspect of the royal deity), whereas the divine icons represent the divine multiplicity in the unique image of the king. On the Ramesses icon A meaningful link connects the image of the king and the gods in the court of Luxor: to the royal statues, representing specific aspects of Ramesses as god and king, corresponds the divine icons in the eastern architrave frieze, representing

period see Klotz 2008; for the scene of the cult in the same structure, called msDr sDm, “the hearing ear”, see Epigraphic Survey 1979, pl. 29. 17 Kitchen 1979, 612–613, integrated by Boraik 2008; analysis of this iconic writing in Ciampini 2011–2012, 141–146.

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the several aspects of the divine world, united in the names of Ramesses. In this organization of the decorative programme, we could recognize an evocation of that deity concept, typical of the ramesside period, and summarized a statement concerning the name, the appearance and the body of the god, identified with Amon (the name), Ra (the appearance) and Ptah (the body).18 It is surely striking to recognize the strong link between physical shape and name in the concept of the ramesside god; it means that the deep essence of the deity manifests in several ways: some of them are physical and intelligible, such as the body and the appearance (“face” in the text), others are hidden concepts, such as the divine name. The court becomes the best place for a divine manifestation of the king, and seems to confirm the traditional meaning of the temple of Luxor as seat for the king legitimation; probably, the ramesside tradition reflects an evolution in the concept of the temple, which became not only the screenplay for the Festival of Opet, but also a true seat for coronation and legitimation (see for instance the coronation of Horemheb).19 When Ramesses appears in his court, at the end of the Festival of Opet, he is a true divine manifestation, and his deep nature is represented by the statues (above all, the ka-statues) and the iconic writing on the eastern architrave. The nature of the king’s manifestation As already noted, the manifestation is a central concept in the ramesside speculation; it is the core in the so-called ba-theology and defines the system in organizing the world.20 In the court of Luxor, the royal manifestation realizes by means of statues and iconic writing, but these forms represent only one of many solutions, with which the ramesside culture defines the complexity of the cosmos. The concept of the manifestation is the core in those speculations, centered on the nature of the deities; a good sample for the role of the manifestation can be found in the Litany of Ra, whose main invocations have been connected with the use of xprw, “manifestation”, in the 18th dynasty royal names.21 The multiplicity of the solar xprw can have several meanings: it represents the many forms of the solar god, but also the many forms of the kingship, embodied by the sequence of the kings; Rolf Gundlach (see note 21) supposes that the true xprw of the sun god Ra is the kingship, whereas the king is the “effective image” of the god. This position of the king is part of a wider concept of the kingship, which is not an abstract idea, but rather a concrete presence in the world. We can identify the

Pap. Leiden I 350, 4.22: imn rn.f m imn ntf ra m Hr Dt.f ptH: Assmann 2001, 238. This concept represents a theological construction of the divine reality. 19 Kemp 1991, 207 and fig. 72. 20 For the ba-theology see Assmann 2001, 238–239. 21 Gundlach 2003, 19–20. 18

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kingship in those kings list: in the list, the ancestors are at the same time an earthly representation of the divine collegium in the Litany of Ra, and an image of that abstract concept of the divine power, identified with the royal ka. The correspondence between the solar manifestations and the ancestors of the kings list can be found in the version of Litany of Ra in the Ramesses temple at Abydos; here, the solar manifestations end with a group, comprising the direct ancestors of Ramesses, i.e. the father Sethi I, the mother Tuia and the grandfather Ramesses I.22 The royal family is explicitly part of the solar forms, stressing the nature of the kingship as current manifestation of the divine essence;23 the same concept can be found in the Stela of the Year 400, where the founder of the family is identified with the god Seth.24 All these data can offer the evidence for the earthly manifestation of the deity, i.e. the king, as ruling power;25 we can now understand the meaning of a gallery of images, like the court of Luxor is; a place for the celebration of the divine and ruling king, where he is worshipped by the mankind (supra); the role of Ramesses, incarnation of the divine kingship (the statues) and, at the same time, image of the gods collegium (the icons in the writing of the royal names), can be understood as part of the ideology, that celebrates the divine origin of the kingship, even outside of Egypt. Political use of the king’s manifestation The nature of the kingship as mediator between gods and men is well defined in the decorative programme of the ramesside court at Luxor; nevertheless, this use of the royal icon knows a wide diffusion also outside of Egypt, where it also acquires a political significance. This use can be recognized in the representation of the king in Nubia, where the royal icon plays a fundamental support for the ideological message. In this perspective, a typical use of the royal image is given by the dromos of Uadi es-Sebua, where statues, sphynx and historical reliefs celebrate the effective presence of the Egyptian power in the south. Other evidence from Nubian monuments confirms the role of the royal image as true divine manifestation. On the façade of the small temple at Abu Simbel, the statue at north of the entrance is called: ra n HqAw (Kitchen 1979, 765), “Ra of the rulers”;26 it bears the same name we have seen on the statue of the royal ka in the court at Luxor (above, statue E), and testifies to the use of a specific iconographical Mariette 1880, pl. 17, at the end of lower row. See above the concept of the mw nTry and note 11. 24 Ciampini 2014, 204–205. 25 The strong connection of king and god has been detected in Goebs 2011, especially regarding to the ways of manifestations (xprw) of the creator god and his earthly reply, i.e. the king, during the ritual; an invocation to the sun god identifies the king as alter ego of the cosmic deity, in whom Ra and Osiris are united: Hornung 1975–1977, vol. I, 107–112. 26 For the reading of the statue in the writing of the name, see Ciampini 2011–2012, 135. 22 23

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model, representing the divine effective presence in the body of Ramesses. The full celebration of the divine image of the king in Nubia is found in the temple of Aksha, dedicated to Ramesses nb tA-sti “Lord of Nubia”.27 The political nuance of this cult is clear enough: Ramesses is celebrated as true and divine lord of the whole region, and his presence in the temple is part of the temple’s life. An inscription of the sanctuary runs: sbA aA wsr-mAat-ra stp.n-ra ir.n.f m mnw.f n Xnty.f anx tp tA-sti rn.f nfr ir.n Hm.f wsr-mAat-ra Dsr Sfyt (Kitchen 1979, 774) “The great doorway of Usermaatra-Setepenra, which he has made as his monument for his living Xnty-statue28 in the Land of Nubia; the perfect name, which his majesty has made is: Usermaatra, whose dignity is renown”. In this case, the physical image of the king is part of the construction of the sacred space; here, his statue play a role, very close to that of the god, but at the same time it represents the effective presence of the Egyptian power in Nubia. Some final remarks The interpretation of the gallery of royal images in the court at Luxor let us suppose a refined speculation about the concept of the kingship and its role in representing the deity on earth. This abstract meaning of a historical figure (the king) is a typical feature of the late New Kingdom ideology, and foresees what has been studied by Philippe Derchain in the ritual scenes of the Graeco-Roman temples:29 here, the figure of the king is deprived of any historical aspect. If we compare the late context with the documentation of ramesside period, we can recognize a correspondence with what is a trend to the abstraction of the royal institution; in ramesside period, this trend is represented to the concept of the king as atemporal image of the god, whereas in Graeco-Roman temples his role is now only ritual. The abstract concept of the kingship, connected with the doctrine of the royal ka, finds its natural location in that temple of Luxor, where the union of the king with his divine and royal essence is performed. We are dealing with a concept of the kingship, called theological politics, whose nature is described in an Amon hymn; here, the king is a god’s incarnation, and his body represents the physical presence of the god upon earth30. By means of this conception, the king is the ka of The divine nature of this aspect of Ramesses is confirmed by the lack of the cartouche in the writing of the royal name. 28 The term here used in identifying the royal statue in the temple of Aksha (Xnty) is the same of the representation of the royal ka of Ramesses (see above, statue E). 29 Derchain 1997. 30 Assmann 1994, 194. The uniqueness of the creator god Amon in the southern rooms of Luxor and the concept of the cosmic deity in a text of personal religion (solar hymn of Suty and Hor), has been analyzed, with some interesting suggestions, in Gulyás 2009; we can just note here, that the lack of any mention of the king in the solar hymn might depend on the direct identification of the pharaoh with the god’s manifestation. 27

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the god: a new concept of the power on earth, in which the historical body of the kingship transforms in the image of an abstract concept. The images of Ramesses in the court of the temple of Luxor offer a clear evidence of this evolution of the royal doctrine, centered on the physical representation of a divine and eternal power, embodied by an historical king. Bibliography Assmann, J., 1994: Der Amunshymnus des Papyrus Leiden I 344, Verso. Or. 63: 98–110. –– 2001: The search for god in ancient Egypt (Engl. transl). Ithaca / London. von Beckerath, J., 1999: Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen. MÄS 49. Mainz. Bell, L., 1985: Luxor temple and the cult of royal ka. JNES 44: 251–294. –– 1997: The New Kingdom ‘Divine’ Temple: The Exemple of Luxor. In B.E. Shafer (ed.): Temples of Ancient Egypt. London / New York. Pp. 127–184. –– 2002: Divine Kingship an the Theology of the Obelisk Cult in the Temples at Thebes. In H. Beinlich / J. Hallof / H. Hussy / Ch. von Pfeil (eds.): 5. Ägyptische Tempeltagung. Würzburg, 23.–26. September 1999. ÄAT 33.3. Wiesbaden. Pp. 17–46. Boraik, M., 2008: Inside the Mosque of Abu el-Haggag. Rediscovering long lost parts of Luxor temple. A preliminary report. Memnonia 19: 123–149. Brunner, H., 1964: Die Geburt des Gottkönigs. Studien zur Überlieferung eines altägyptischen Mythos. ÄA 10. Wiesbaden. –– 1977: Die südlichen Raüme des Tempels von Luxor. AV 18. Mainz am Rhein. Ciampini, E.M., 2011–2012: Osservazioni sul linguaggio dell’icona nella cultura faraonica. Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche 35–36: 99–170. –– 2014: Dinastie e trasmissione della regalità. Aegyptus 91 (on the cover: 2011), 197–208. –– 2016: The King’s Food. A note on the Royal Meal and Legitimisation. In P. Corò / E. Devecchi / N. De Zorzi / M. Maiocchi (eds.): Libiamo ne’ lieti calici. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Lucio Milano on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday by Pupils, Colleagues and Friends. AOAT 436. Münster. Pp. 115–126. Derchain, Ph., 1997: La difference abolie. Dieu et Pharaon dans les scènes rituelles ptolémaiques. In R. Gundlach / Ch. Raedler (eds.): Selbstverständnis und Realität. Akten des Symposiums zur ägyptischen Königsideologie in Mainz 15.–17.6. 1995. ÄAT 36, Beiträge zur altägyptischen Königsideologie 1. Wiesbaden. Pp. 225–232. Desroches Noblecourt, Ch., 1990–1991: Le mammisi de Ramsès au Ramesseum. Memnonia 1: 25–46. Epigraphic Survey 1979: The Epigraphic Survey, The Temple of Khonsu, vol. I. OIP 100. Chicago.

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Goebs, K., 2011: King as God and God as King. Colour, Light, and Transformation in Egyptian Ritual. In R. Gundlach / K. Spence (eds.): Palace and temple. Architecture, decoration, ritual. Cambridge, July, 16th–17th, 2007. 5. Symposium zur ägyptischen Königsideologie = 5th Symposium on Egyptian Royal Ideology. Königtum, Staat und Gesellschaft früher Hochkulturen 4.2. Wiesbaden. Pp. 57–101. Gulyás A., 2009: The Solar Hymn of Suty and Hor and the Temple of Luxor: a Comparison of God-Concept. In R. Preys (ed.): 7. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung. Structuring religion. Leuven, 28. September – 1. Oktober 2005. Königtum, Staat und Gesellschaft früher Hochkulturen 3.2. Wiesbaden. Pp. 113–131. Gundlach, R., 2003: Sethos I. und Ramses II. Tradition und Entwicklungsbruch in der frühramessididischen Königsideologie. In R. Gundlach / U. Rößler-Köhler (eds.): Das Königstum der Ramessidenzeit. Voraussetzungen, Verwirklichung, Vermächtnis. Akten des 3. Symposiums zur ägyptischen Königsideologie in Bonn 7.–9.6. 2001. ÄAT 36.3. Wiesbaden: Pp.17–53. Hornung, E., 1975–1977: Das Buch der Anbetung des Re im Westen (Sonnelitanei), voll. I–II. AH 2–3. Genève. Kantorowicz, E.H., 1989: I due corpi del Re. L’idea di regalità nella teologia politica medievale (Ital. transl.). Torino. Kemp, B.J., 1991: Ancient Egypt. Anathomy of a civilization (2nd ed.). London. Kitchen K. L., 1979: Ramesside Inscriptions: historical and biographical, vol. II. Oxford. Klotz, D., 2008: Domitian at the Contra-Temple of Karnak. ZÄS 135: 63–77. Lacau, P. / Chevrier, H., 1977–1979: Une chapelle d’Hatshepsout à Karnak, voll. I–II. Le Caire. Mariette, A., 1880: Abydos. Description des fouilles, vol. II. Paris. Nelson, H.H., 1981: The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, vol. I, part 1. The Wall Reliefs. OIP 106. Chicago. el-Saghir, M., 1992: Das Statuenversteck im Luqsortempel. Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie (Band 6). Mainz am Rhein.

Three Amarna Notes Scribal Training, Scribal Hands and Tablet Provenance Yoram Cohen Tel Aviv University More than twenty years have passed since Mario Liverani’s annotated translation of the Amarna letters into Italian.1 From this landmark publication in 1998 to our present day, several important monographs which directly deal with the Amarna corpus have appeared. Mentioned chronologically by year of publication, these include: a petrographically-based provenance study of almost all the Amarna tablets (including the schooling materials) by Yuval Goren, Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na’aman;2 an analysis of the greetings and salutations formulae of the letters by Jana Mynářová;3 a palaeographical study of scribal hands by Juan Pablo Vita;4 and, last but not least, a new edition, translation and commentary of all the Amarna letters by Anson Rainey.5 Every study made use of its own methodology and expressed its own views, but each, to various degrees, drew conclusions regarding the history and society of Late Bronze Age Canaan. They have demonstrated that while the Amarna corpus is one of the best studied of all cuneiform corpora, much remains to be discussed about these letters, and, where my interest lies, to analyze them as sources for revealing the use and distribution of cuneiform in Canaan. In this respect the collection and publication of all the cuneiform sources from Southern Canaan, viz., the Land of Israel, by Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima is a crucial addition to the discussion.6 This paper is composed of three independent critical notes regarding 1.) scribal schooling, 2.) scribal hands and 3.) tablet provenance of the Amarna letter corpus. Liverani 1998. Research for this paper was supported by an Israel Science Foundation Grant (no. 241/15; “The Production and Dissemination of Scholarly and School Textual Materials during the Late Bronze Age: An Integrated Research Project”; together with Prof. Yuval Goren, Ben Gurion University of the Negev). Abbreviations follow The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. 2 Goren et al. 2004. 3 Mynářová 2007. 4 Vita 2015. 5 Rainey 2015 (published posthumously). 6 Horowitz / Oshima 2006, according to which cuneiform sources from Canaan will be cited. Cuneiform sources published since will be provided with full references. 1

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Although each subject is treated separately, each in fact has a strong bearing on the next and all are interrelated because they address the topic of textual production in Canaan from a broader socio-historical point of view. Because of space limitations, evidence brought forth is illustrative rather than comprehensive. Obviously, a full recourse to the extensive literature at hand is impossible, hence only the most pertinent sources will be cited. 1. Scribal schooling Letter writing in Canaan, as elsewhere in the cuneiform world, was the result of scribal training and expertise. Enough evidence permits us to conclude from the data provided by the Amarna letters themselves that they are to a certain degree the result of formal learning in the scribal school. A recent study demonstrated how the actual execution of the individual cuneiform signs upon the clay was remarkably stable throughout the millennia of cuneiform writing, regardless of the place or period.7 Each sign, no matter its simplicity or complexity – from two strokes, e.g., the sign maš, up to eight or nine strokes, e.g., the sign ki – was the result of a fixed order of wedges produced by the stylus impressed upon the clay. Thus, in spite of regional peculiarities and the natural evolution of cuneiform sign forms throughout time and place, the individual signs found on the Amarna letters were produced by exactly the same technique as elsewhere. Such an expertise points out to a systemized learning process and not the result of haphazard attempts upon the occasional tablet. The opening formulae and epistolary manners of the letters (with all their differences) are a further indication of a stable scribal tradition that may have been, at least in part, learnt at the school.8 No clear-cut examples of model letters have been found in Canaan,9 but EA 342 and EA 380 are possibly such tablets: they were probably written at Akhetaten/Amarna for the purpose of scribal instruction, along with other schooling materials (i.e., lexical lists and Mesopotamian belles

Taylor 2015. The variations of the opening formulae are presented in detail by Mynářová 2007. 9 Aphek 7 (Singer 1983 = Singer 2011, 147–172; Horowitz / Oshima 2006, 35–38), a letter sent by Tagḫulinu the Hittite diplomate to his Egyptian counterpart, Haya, ca. 1230 is a bona fide document. The suggestion that the letter is a product of the scribal school at Aphek (Na’aman / Goren 2009, 463–465), because the petrographic analysis suggests its clay is local, is unlikely given the historicity of the document. It could have well been an archival copy. EA 367, 369 and 370 seem to be archival copies of letters sent by the Pharoah to the rulers of Canaan. It has been suggested that the cylinder seal letter (Beth shean 2) was meant to serve as a scribal aide-memoire for writing down epistolary opening phrases, but this suggestion has not found approval; see Rainey 1998, 240, who also compares the clay cylinder seal letter to EA 355, a similar object, whose meaning is opaque, as is consequently, its purpose; see Izre’el 1997, 41–42. 7 8

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lettres) found in the archive.10 Higher literacy abilities can also be demonstrated in the letters. It is impossible to engage here in detail with the data but chief features can be mentioned: the use of glosses as an expression of scribal erudition,11 the use of complex logograms,12 technical terms,13 proverbs,14 common phraseology,15 and poetic language or imagery.16 These all demonstrate a level of literacy which goes beyond the basic use of cuneiform. Of course, this is not to claim that literacy was wholly acquired at the scribal school. Other environments for the transfer of knowledge to the novice scribe can be imagined: administration within the royal court, an intimate engagement with travelling diplomats and merchants and encounters with agents of local oral wisdom. Apart from the data supplied by the letter corpus, supporting evidence for scribal fluency in Southern Canaan is seen in the distribution of schooling materials, albeit rare, such as lexical lists,17 and a variety of Mesopotamian compositions, which are typical of richer contemporary schooling environments, such as found in Hattuša, Ugarit and Emar.18 Administrative documents and letters (found in

Izre’el 1997, 20–21; Mynářová 2007, 59. The identification of model letters is always a tricky issue; for evidence of such letters at Emar, see Cohen 2009, 63–64. 11 The purpose of the glosses in the Amarna corpus (and elsewhere in the Canaan cuneiform remains, e.g., Hazor 10) is a much debated issue. Vita 2012 has argued that rather than seek a purely functional linguistic purpose for the glosses, one can view them as signs of scribal knowledge; see further on the issue of glosses von Dassow 2004, with previous literature. 12 E.g., Moran 2003 (EA 337, perhaps from Beqa; Vita 2015, 42–43); and see the discussion which follows. 13 For technical terms, e.g., Na’aman 1977 (EA 266 from Tagi; see §2). 14 Cohen 2013, 224–31, with previous literature. 15 Consider, e.g., the distribution of the phrase “day and night” (i.e., “always”) found in letters from Gezer (EA 292, 293, 294?), Yurṣa (EA 315), Ashkelon (EA 326), Byblos (e.g., EA 69, 73, 74 and more), and Mitanni (EA 20); it is also common in Mesopotamian literature; see CAD/M2, 294–295. For textual producation at Gezer, Yurṣa and Ashkelon, see §2. 16 E.g., EA 264 from Tagi, ruler of Ginti-kirmil; Izre’el 1995, 2416–7; Liverani 1998, 120, n. 27. Further north, similes are common to the Byblos correspondence; e.g., Marcus 1973. An exceptional poetical expression is found in EA 147 (from Tyre); Siddall 2010; Liverani 1998, 147–151, with previous literature. 17 Lexical lists include Aphek 1 and 3, Ashkelon 1 and Hazor 6. Further north what looks like a lexical list was found at Kumudi (Na’aman 2005); otherwise Northern Canaan is even poorer in cuneiform archaeological finds than Southern Canaan. 18 Mesopotamian scholarly materials include a fragment of The Epic of Gilgamesh (Megiddo 1), a multiplication table (Hazor 9), three inscribed liver omen models ( Hazor 2–3; and Hazor 17 = Horowitz et al. 2010), and two very small fragments that were identified as sentences from a law collection (Hazor 18 = Horowitz et al. 2012; Vukosavović 2014). This is the only evidence of a Mesopotamian law code ever found 10

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situ throughout Canaan and dated to the Middle to Late Bronze Age) complete the picture.19 As a demonstration of scribal literacy within the context of the scribal school, I bring one solitary example from the Amarna letter corpus, whose circumstances and consequently, ramifications, according to my knowledge, have previously not been fully understood. The scribal peculiarities found in the Jerusalem letters (EA 285–291) of the scribe of the ruler Abdi-Heba have long been recognized: their “Northern” or “Assyrian” features, idioms and imagery have all been highlighted.20 One of the recurring phrases in the letters to the Pharaoh runs as follows (with minor variations): “Behold, as for me, neither my father nor my mother installed me in this place. The strong arm of the king installed me in the house of my father.” There is no problem in understanding the phrase and it is not our intention to discuss its political implications.21 Rather I wish to draw attention to the spelling of the words “my father” and “my mother” in the three times the phrase occurs. In EA 286: 9–10, they are spelled as lúa-bi-ia and munusú-mi-ia. However in EA 287:26–27 and EA 288:13–14 we find the spelling lúad-da-a-ni and um-mi-ia. In addition, note that we probably need to read EA 228: 15 as é lúad-da-[a-ni], in contrast to EA 286: é lúa-bi-ia.22 It is obvious that lúad-da-a-ni is to be taken as Sumerographical writing, which means “his father”, but not “my father”, with a-ni denoting the Sumerian 3rd person possessive marker.23 The question that arises is why this mistake on behalf of the scribe. And further, why use this Sumerian syntagm for such a common word? As Moran had already understood, this form is a logogram with a frozen suffix; moreover, it is a learned form, typical of lexical lists.24 The point, however, does not stop here and can be pursued further. It can be argued that the Jerusalem scribe picked up this Sumerian syntagm during his

outside of Mesopotamia. Administrative documents were recovered at Gezer (Gezer 1), Hazor (MB: Hazor 5, 7 and 15?; LB: Hazor 11, 14 and 16), Hebron (Hebron 1), Jericho (Jericho 1), Megiddo (Megiddo 6 = Cogan 2013), Shechem (Shechem 2), and Taʽanakh (Taʽanakh 3, 4, 4a, 7, 12 and 14). A few letters were also found in several sites throughout Southern Canaan: Aphek (Aphek 7), Beth Shean (Beth shean 2), Gezer (Gezer 2), Hazor (MB: Hazor 8 and 12; LB: Hazor 10), Jerusalem (Jerusalem 1 = Mazar et al. 2010; Jerusalem 2 = Mazar et al. 2014), Taʽanakh (Taʽanakh 1, 2, 5, 6 and more fragments) and Tell el-Hesi (EA 333, in spite of the Amarna number). 20 Moran 1975; Hess 1989. 21 See Liverani 1998, 95, n. 121 and 97, n. 126. 22 Thus Rainey 2015, EA 288:15, following Knudtzon 1907–1915, 868, n. h. 23 The reading was established by Ungnad 1916, 181 (EA 3:7, for which see below) and 186 (EA 288) in his review of Knudtzon 1907–1915. 24 Moran 1975, 163, n. 52; id. 1992, 329, 7. See also Huehnergard 1987, 48, n. 2. The criticism against Weippert 1974 is not justified because he accepts Ungnad’s reading; see note above. 19

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school days. The first tablet of the unilingual lexical list Ura contains a sequence of family members which runs as follows:25 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

dumu dumu-a-ni dumu-munus-a-ni šeš šeš gal šeš bàn-da šeš-a-ni nin9-a-ni ad-da-a-ni ama-a-ni

‘son’ ‘his son’ ‘his daughter’ ‘brother’ ‘eldest brother’ ‘junior brother’ ‘his brother’ ‘his sister’ ‘his father’ ‘his mother’

The same sequence with its Akkadian translation is also found in the ur-ra=ḫubullu lexical list (formerly commonly known as ḫar-ra=ḫubullu), the bilingual successor of the Ura list.26 Both lists were staple materials of scribal schools in the Western Periphery, Canaan included, with the first tablets of the list most frequently copied by students.27 This is probably the source of the syntagm This sequence (here numbered sequentially but independently of the place of the entries in the Ura list) is based on an Old Babylonian “Sippar Phrasebook” tablet (CBS 01862 = P230219), an Old Babylonian Ura 1–2 tablet (MHET 1/2 38 = P332880) and the unilingual version of Ura from Emar (Emar 541, A = Gantzert 2008, 51 = P271318; the entry in question is spelled a bit differently: ad-a-ni). The ‘P’ no. refers to the CDLI no. at the Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts; http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/ dcclt/. A unilingual version of Ura 1 is also known from Ugarit, but it contains only entries (1)–(6) before breaking off; Thureau-Dangin 1931, 231 and pl. 49. The history of Ura is complex: the source of the first tablet was the “Sippar Phrasebook”, which was incorporated into the list already in the Old Babylonian period and what was, starting from the Middle Babylonian period, the opening section of the lexical list; see Veldhuis 2014, 156–157, 188–194. There is no doubt that this was the Ura version in question during the times of the Jerusalem scribe on account of the near-contemporary Ugarit and Emar manuscripts. 26 The bilingual version is found in MSL 5, 9–41, see p. 17. The bilingual version ur-ra=ḫubullu 1 was also found in Emar. The family members sequence is very partly preserved; from the few entries that remain it seems that it was perhaps organized somewhat differently; Emar 541, I = Gantzert 2008, 62. 27 In 14th century Canaan either Ura 1 or ur-ra=ḫubullu 1 was known. Ashkelon 1 is a fragment of ur-ra=ḫubullu 1, reconstructed as a trilingual tablet, i.e., containing [Sumerian]-[Akkadian]-Canaanite columns. Hazor 6 is an excerpt of either ur-ra= ḫubullu 2 or Ura 2: only the Sumerian is preserved, so it is not known if the tablet was bilingual or even trilingual. 25

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(l. (9)), which was displayed whether consciously or not by the Jerusalem scribe. One, however, should not accuse the Jerusalem scribe of provincialism for his misuse of Sumerian. In EA 3: 7, sent from Kassite Babylonia, the same grammatically incorrect use of almost the same syntagm is found. When the Kassite king speaks about his own daughter, his scribe in order to write Akkadian mārtiya ‘my daughter’ (in the genitive case) put down the Sumerographic writing dumu-munus-a-ni-ia. The syntagm dumu-munus-a-ni, “his daughter” too is attested in the opening lines of Ura 1–2, (3). The Babylonian scribe, like the Jerusalem scribe, must have picked up this syntagm back in his school days. To conclude, we find a good example of scribal literacy among the Amarna scribes which is directly the result of training in the scribal schools. 2. Scribal hands Speaking about scribal literacy in Canaan is one way of understanding textual production in the Amarna age. Another way is to examine the palaeography of the letters, that is, the shape and form of the cuneiform signs, as well as their arrangement along the oblong tablet of clay. Such a task was recently undertaken by Vita, following the pioneering footsteps of Knudtzon, with the advantage over him of having recourse to high-resolution digital photography. The identification of individual scribal hands – the objective of Vita’s study – was achieved by detecting slight variations in the cuneiform signs, which, according to his underlying hypothesis, are sufficient for revealing each scribe’s fingerprint. Supporting evidence for identification includes spelling conventions, the use of the Akkadian syllabary, and of course, the content of the document itself.28 To remind the reader, in the Amarna letter corpus, as was the norm in other letter corpora of the ancient Near East, the scribe (usually) remained anonymous, hence there is only his product itself – the tablet – to reveal his identity. The objective of the identification of individual scribes was primarily to pinpoint specific letters whose origin is not obvious. Where details are missing, the attribution of the letter to an individual scribe’s handwriting can tell us its origin. Additional information can be derived: the number of scribes active in each city and even their movement from one urban center to the next in service of the local kings can be surmised. First, some of the results of Vita’s study pertaining to a group of cities along the coast and southern Shephela will be examined. Then a brief caution about Vita’s methodology will be offered. The city of Gezer is represented by some thirteen letters sent to Egypt by the city’s rulers: Milki-ilu sent five letters, EA 267, 268, 269, 270 and 271; Baʽalšipṭi sent three letters, EA 272?, 292 and 293;29 and Yapaḫu sent five letters, EA

28 29

The methodology, as well as its pitfalls, are all detailed by Vita 2015, 4–9. There is some discussion regarding the attribution of EA 294. Vita 2015, 78–79 (with previous literature) attributes it to Baʽal-šipṭi of Gezer. But Rainey 2015, 1134–1135,

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297, 298, 299, 300? and 378.30 Vita identifies one scribe working for Milki-ilu, but does not deny that there is a possibility that the same scribe wrote also the letters of Baʽal-šipṭi and a single letter of Yapaḫu, EA 297. The rest of the letters of Yapaḫu, according to Vita, were written accordingly: EA 300? by ‘Scribe 3’ of Yidia, ruler of Ashkelon; and EA 298, 299, and 378 by ‘Scribe 4’ working under Šubandu, probably another ruler of Ashkelon.31 ‘Scribe 3’ wrote Yidia’s EA 321 and perhaps was also the scribe of four more letters, EA 300, 307, 308 and 309, which were also sent from Ashkelon.32 ‘Scribe 4’ of Šubandu was responsible for six letters from Ashkelon, EA 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 and 306. Two more scribes from Ashkelon – ‘Scribe 1’ and ‘Scribe 2’, if they are indeed to be differentiated and not the same scribe – wrote additional four letters, EA 323, 324, 325 and 326. Moreover, ‘Scribe 2’ of Ashkelon contributed his skills elsewhere: he wrote EA 315 for Pû-Baʽal, the ruler of Yurṣa.33 As much as the Ashkelon scribes wrote letters for Gezer, as well as for other cities, Milki-ilu’s scribe also spread his wings. It was perhaps at Gezer that he wrote EA 273 and EA 274 for munusnin.ur.maḫ.meš (‘The Lady of the Lions’; phonetic reading unknown), the queen of Ṣapuma.34 He wrote three letters, EA 278, 279 and 280, for Šuwardata, the ruler of, probably, Gath.35 Interestingly 1599, assigns EA 294 to Zimredda of Lachish. Vita 2015, 75–84. EA 296 may possibly also belong to the Gezer corpus; Vita 2015, 79–80. However, Liverani 1998, 104, n. 158, suggests Gaza as the source of the letter. Goren et al. 2004, 292–294 and Rainey 2015, 1601 consider that EA 296 and EA 294 (see note above) were produced in Ashdod. 31 Although Šubandu’s city is not mentioned in the letters, it is assumed that it was Ashkelon; Goren et al. 2004, 297, 299. 32 Vita 2015, 91 and 103–107. However, Goren et al. 2004, 311 assume a Gaza origin for EA 307–309. Vita 2015, 96 also suggests that ‘Scribe 3’ of Ashkelon wrote EA 329, a letter from Zimredda. Goren et al. 2004, 289 suggest that the letter was written for Zimredda by the Ashkelon scribe at Gaza. Three letters, EA 330, 331 and 332, written by the same scribe, were sent by Šipṭi-Baʽal, who was probably the ruler who followed Zimredda; Vita 2015, 96–97. 33 Vita 2015, 91. Two more letters were sent from Yurṣa: EA 314 and 316. The city is usually identified with Tell Jemmeh, south of Ashkelon (35 kms) and south of Gaza (10 kms). 34 Vita 2015, 116–119, 80–81. He considers (ibid.) that the queen “must have been in exile in Gezer: in EA 274 she informs the pharaoh that her town has been taken by the ‘apīru”. The location of Ṣapuma is probably in the vicinity of Gezer (e.g., Goren et al. 2004, 276–277 and 289–291; Belmonte Marín 2001, 246), but it was suggested to identify it with Tell es-Sa’idiya, on the east bank of the Jordan river, 40km south of the Sea of Galilee (e.g., Liverani 1998, 123). 35 Vita 2015, 86–89. The rest of Šuwardata’s letters are EA 281, 282, 283 and 284, written by another scribe, and EA 366 yet by another. Abdi-Aširta, likely another ruler of Gath, sent EA 63, 64, 65 and 335. EA 64 was argued to be petrographically identical to EA 229; Goren et al. 2004, 284–286; Vita 2015, 88–89. However, EA 229 is very probably 30

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enough, EA 278 is identical in content to three letters, EA 275, 276 and 277. These letters come from Yaḫzib-Adda, a ruler of an unidentified place, but they were apparently also written by Milki-ilu’s scribe.36 And finally, it is suggested that this very same scribe also wrote EA 266, a letter from Tagi of Ginti-kirmil.37 In this case, it is obvious that the horizon of the scribe expanded beyond the region of the southern Shephela, because Ginti-kirmil, although its location is not known, was much to the north.38 We see in front of us a complex network of scribes spread over a rather welldefined geographical area of about a 90km perimeter running from Ashkelon to Gezer and Gath (and perhaps involving the cities of Gaza and Ashdod). Exceptions do exist: one scribe, that of Milki-ilu, wanders off further north (to Ginti-kirmil), while others venture a bit inland, to Lachish, or southwards, to Yurṣa.39 It is difficult to reconstruct the historical circumstances behind this spatial distribution of hands, but support for this scribal network can be found in another avenue. A proverbial saying appearing in three letters from the studied area runs as follows: “(Sooner would) a brick move from under its companion (brick) than I would move away from under the king’s feet, my lord.”40 The saying is not only articulated the same in each letter. The word “brick” is written with a Sumerogram sig4, which in turn is glossed over as la-bi-tu (in two of the letters). The letters in question are ones we have already discussed: EA 292 from Gezer, EA 296, perhaps from Gezer (or Ashdod or Gaza) and EA 266 from Ginti-kirmil. EA 292 and EA 266 were written, so it was surmised, by Milki-ilu’s scribe. Therefore, if Milki-ilu’s scribe was responsible for writing these three letters, his particularities were not limited to the way that he formed the signs on the clay. The choice of the same proverb for different rulers could be considered as his personal trademark.41 However, there is a possibility that such apparent similarities between the letters – in handwriting, orthography, glosses, and proverbs – were the result of a common training, as we have seen (under §1.), rather than the achievements of a certain individual. With this in mind, I turn to highlight a methodological problem that arises in view of Vita’s study. As noted above (under §1.), following a recent examination of the execution of the cuneiform signs throughout the centuries in many a place, it becomes questionable if the (overall slight) variations between the signs that form the base of a northern origin; see Mynářová 2013. Vita 2015, 81; Goren et al. 2004, 289–291. 37 Vita 2015, 84–85. Tagi sent two more letters to the Pharaoh, EA 264 and 265; Tagi is also mentioned by name in Beth shean 2; see note 9. 38 Ginti-kirmil was suggested to lie either in the northern Shephela, at Jatt, a small village just south of Baqa al-Gharbiyye or across the Carmel ridge on the Qishon river. For the respective positions, see Goren et al. 2004, 257 and Rainey / Notley 2006, 90. 39 For additional scribal networks, see Vita 2015, 135–137. 40 Cohen 2013, 227. 41 See Vita 2010, 876–877 on the similarity of these three letters. 36

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for determining individual hands are indeed sufficient.42 Because students learned to impress the signs on the clay the same way, is it really possible to distinguish one scribe from the other? Perhaps with the exception of the Jerusalem scribe, the letters in the Amarna corpus from particular sites in Southern Canaan may be too uniform to draw out individual hands with complete confidence?43 The identification of individual scribes may also result in a skewed impression regarding the number of scribes we identify per location. Generally speaking, if a consistent pattern with the finds is sought after, sites with a lesser number of documents will have a small number of scribes, but those with more documents will have a larger number of active scribes.44 Indeed, in Byblos we have 56 letters (at the least) and 9 scribes. What to make out of these numbers? Are they indicative of a historical reality or are we looking at an exponent distribution? If we consider the numbers as reflecting reality, i.e., the actual number of scribes in each location, then we may think that a city like Byblos may have had more scribes at the disposal of Rib-Adda than the rulers of the cities of Southern Canaan. Considering the commercial importance of Byblos, it seems to be a reasonable conclusion. Comparative data, however, may correct this impression. We can look at another commercial hub, contemporary with Byblos – Emar. It offers us the opportunity to assess the number of scribes employed by the offices of administration for over a period of four generations. We can surmise that per generation, the central authority, i.e., the palace, did not employ more than three or four scribes.45 Hence assuming eight different scribes for Rib-Adda for a period of about a generation (at the most) may seem to be an exaggerated figure. The exhaustive study of the cuneiform remains from Hattuša by Shai Gordin may teach us a lesson here.46 The detailed examination of the script of individual scribes, who, it is important to stress, are identified by their names, has revealed that their respective hands cannot be distinguished one from the other, as their handwriting is almost uniform. At the very least, though, we can speak of family circles among which different writing traditions can be identified. However, this is not to state that the identification of individual hands is impossible in certain circumstances. At Ugarit, Assyrian and Babylonian hands have been identified among the many documents which make up its archives;47 and Note 7. See the discussion by Vita 2015, 130–132 about two letters from Amurru, EA 169 and EA 170: their handwriting is similar, but the linguistic traits are worlds apart. A different problem is encountered around the letters of ‘Scribe 5’ of Mušihuna. He wrote seven very similar letters (EA 195, 201–206), but from seven different locations in the Bashan area; Vita 2015, 34–35. 44 Based on Vita 2015, 137–140. 45 Cohen 2009. 46 Gordin 2015. 47 Van Soldt 2012 identified an Assyrian scribe, Naḫiš-šalmu, active in the Ugarit bureaucracy and singled out a Babylonian scribal hand among the scholarly materials 42 43

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at Emar a script which is foreign to the city was detected in a cache of documents (letters and business documents).48 In both these cases, individual hands were identifiable because they stood out among an otherwise rather unified or standard mass of handwritings of, make no mistake, many different scribes. To conclude, when coming to think about the Amarna corpus, perhaps one should talk about scribal circles and identify individual hands with the necessary caveat given above.49 3. Tablet provenance The subject of this note is a critical examination of the tablet provenance study undertaken by Goren et al. 2004. By conducting a mineral analysis of the clay materials out of which the actual tablets were manufactured, i.e., a petrographical analysis, the aim of the study was to determine a geographic origin of the studied artifacts. The results of this provenance study led to a historical re-evaluation of the Amarna corpus. To be more specific, it offered alternative locations, at times unexpected, for the production of a rather large number of letters. However, it will be asked if the provenance of a certain tablet can be determined solely on the basis of its petrographical makeup without taking into account additional criteria.50 The in the Lamaštu archive. See also Oshima 2016 for another identification of a foreign, probably Babylonian, hand in Ugarit. Cohen / Singer 2006 singled out a letter from the Urtenu correspondence at Ugarit: because of its non-typical script, it was argued that the letter originated from the Middle-Euphrates region, very probably from Emar; see the note below. 48 Cohen 2004 identified a cache of documents which were written by the merchant colony at Emar. An individual scribe, called Kidin-Gula, may have written some of these documents, as they display a non-typical handwriting. 49 As recognized by Vita throughout his study; e.g., ibid., 50, when discussing Byblos hands: “… there is, unquestionably, a margin of error due precisely to the great palaeographic similarity between letters which could be variations by the same scribe or, more likely, the product of different scribes of the same school.” 50 An all-too-severe critique of the petrographical method of Goren et al. 2004 was offered by Gilbert 2017, who questioned their conclusions about the identification of Alašiya with Cyprus. In my mind, the identification still stands for various historical reasons. However, note that indeed their conclusion (Goren et al. 2004: 55–60) that the letter RS L.1 (Ug 5, no. 23; photo, p. 696), which was found in Ugarit, was produced in Alašiya/Cyprus, has brought question-marks from other directions. Malbran-Labat (apud Vita 1999, 498, n. 265) claimed that the letter RS L.1 bears no palaeographical relationship with other Alašiya letters found in Ugarit. Her statement can now be verified following the publication (including photos) of the Alašiya letters from the House of Urtenu; Lackenbacher / Malbran-Labat 2016, nos. 14, 15 and 16. This batch (to which Ug 5, no 22; photo, p. 700 is to be added) looks very similar to the Amarna Alašiya tablets, EA 33–40; see the photos in Hellbeing 1979, 100–101. Hence, all the Alašiya tablets display a uniform script and format, but RS L.1 is completely different.

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discussion will concentrate on the communication between local rulers in Canaan, the Egyptian administration and the Pharaoh. One of the key-contributions of Goren et al. 2004 was the reevaluation of the way by which local rulers of Canaan communicated with the Pharaoh. It was argued that rather than sending the letters to the Pharaoh via emissaries from their seat of power, on occasion, the rulers together with their own personal scribes left their strongholds and arrived to Egyptian administrative centers in Southern Canaan – to either Gaza, Jaffa or Beth Shean – to write their letters to the Pharaoh in front of the Egyptian governor.51 From these places the letters were then delivered to Egypt. As is generally acknowledged, four letters were sent from the rulers of Akko: EA 232, 233, 234 and 235?; they were written by four different hands, perhaps belonging to the same scribal school.52 According to Goren, Finkelstein and Na’aman, three Akko letters, whose clay composition could be analyzed, were written on tablets manufactured of clay which is not typical of the soils in the vicinity of Akko. However, the clay fits the mineral profile of Beth Shean and its vicinity.53 This means, they conclude, that the letters were written by scribes at the Egyptian administrative center of Beth Shean, over 70kms away from the coastal city. We have already discussed the textual production of the Jerusalem scribe of Abdi-Heba. Out of the seven letters he produced, one letter, EA 285, was analyzed to consist of materials typical of the Jordan river, hence sent from Beth Shean.54 As in the case above, here too, it was argued that Abdi-Heba left his city and travelled with his own scribe to Beth Shean, at a distance of over 80kms from Jerusalem.55

Perhaps one should reconsider a Carchemish origin for this letter, as already suggested by Yamada 1992. 51 Goren et al. 2004, 322–325; see below. 52 Vita 2015, 60–62. It is possible that EA 231 was also sent by a ruler of Akko; Knudtzon 1907–1915, 1301, n. 1; Vita 2015, 62. According to Vita, EA 231 does not resemble in its script the rest of the Akko corpus. In my judgement, the script indeed is a bit different but not by much. The opening formula is very similar to the rest of the Akko corpus. According to its petrographic analysis, EA 231 should be assigned to the Byblos area (Goren et al. 2004, 315), but the opening formula does not resemble the letters sent from there. 53 Goren et al. 2004, 237–239. The letters put under the microscope were EA 234, 235 and 232. 54 Goren et al. 2004, 268–269; furthermore they argued that EA 291 of the Jerusalem scribe was produced in Gezer. 55 See the note above. Rainey 2015, 1565 imagined a somewhat different scenario about how EA 285 came about to be produced: “the [Jerusalem] scribe had written a draft on wax in a diptych that he carried to the Egyptian military base at Beth-Shean, where it was copied onto local clay and sent via a caravan that may have gone to Acco or the

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A similar scenario was suggested to have happened at another Egyptian seat of government: Gaza. Two local rulers, Zitriyara and Bayawa, wrote a number of letters to the Pharaoh. The location of their cities is not known, but there is a very good reason to think that their seat of governance was in Northern Canaan and perhaps in the Beqa: the letters which they sent exhibit similarity to other northern letters.56 However, on the basis of the petrographical analysis, it is concluded that three letters of Zitriyara and one letter of Bayawa have been produced at Gaza. Therefore, it was assumed that Zitriyara arrived in Gaza all the way from the Beqa with his scribe. It was there the scribe wrote his letters to the Pharaoh.57 To conclude, these and more cases, to put it briefly, seem to reflect a peculiar administrative system in Canaan: local rulers travelled apparently sometimes with their own scribes all the way to Egyptian administrative centers, at times quite far from where they dwelled, and there on the spot wrote their urgent letters. This was done for “service or for negotiations and political manoeuvres” with the Egyptian rule.58 However, neither the Amarna letters themselves nor other textual evidence from Egypt or elsewhere support this scenario in any direct or oblique way, hence the question is: how far are we to go with this type of explanation when the broader Sharon plain [and from there to Egypt].” Since the handwriting is the same, it must have been the Jerusalem scribe that copied his own draft at Beth Shean, which obviously begs the question, why this complicated procedure when other letters were written on clay? 56 Zitriyara sent EA 211, 212, 213 and 214; Liverani 1998, 254 considers the letters sent from Southern Syria; see also Vita 2015, 45–46. Bayawa sent EA 215 and 216. Bayawa’s letters exhibit a script which is similar to EA 220, sent by a ruler called kúr-ur-tu-wa (vocalization uncertain) from a city called ⸢Zu?⸣-nu (location uncertain); Vita 2015: 100–101. As Mynářová 2012 demonstrated, some of the formulae of EA 220 may be considered northern (the letter did not undergo a petrographical analysis by Goren et al. 2004 because it is housed in the Cairo Museum; cf. Mynářová 2014, 28). Correct, however her reading of EA 220:6 from ṭi4-ṭi ‘clay’ to the unique im.meš ‘clay’ (CAD/Ṭ: 110). Consider also the special verbal form, EA 220:25: e-na-ṣa-ru, ‘I am guarding’, also found in EA 179:26 and EA 187:14, two letters from the Beqa; Vita 2015, 25–26. Moreover, there is also a relationship between EA 211 (from Zitriyara) and EA 215 (from Bayawa). They both exhibit similar but unique forms. E.g., EA 211:5: uzuša-ša-lu-ma and EA 215:5: ša-ša-lu-ma, ‘back’, a very rare word instead of the usual ṣēru; and EA 211:4: ši-ib-i-ta-an and EA 215:6: ši-ib-e-ta-an, ‘seven-times’, a very rare syllabic and an unconventional ‘broken’ spelling, always written with the digit 7. To conclude, if EA 220 (from kúr-ur-tu-wa) is northern and related to EA 215 and 216 (from Bayawa); and if EA 215 and EA 211 (from Zitriyara) are also related, then the letters can be considered as northern in origin. 57 Goren et al. 2004, 306–308: EA 211, 212, 213 (Zitriyara) and 215 (Bayawa). See ibid., 324. 58 Goren et al. 2004, 269 and 323–325; the quote is in ibid., 325. The conclusions have been reiterated by Mynářová 2014, who, perplexed by the results, brought about additional explanations for the special situation.

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historical context is taken into consideration? Akko had its own port and by way of ships could have easily sent its letters directly to the Pharaoh.59 And although we know of one definite case of a local ruler visiting Egypt (Aziru of Amurru), making the trip from the Beqa all the way to Gaza hundreds of kilometres away with one’s own scribe seems to be no easy feat. Indeed, it is with some difficulty that one can imagine Abdi-Heba and other rulers of Canaan criss-crossing the country, if some credence is to be given to their description of the precarious situation outside their city walls.60 The Labayu episode from central Canaan and activities of the kings-in-the-making from the nascant Amurru show us how life outside the confines of one’s city looked like. From the available documentation it seems that when local rulers left their city it was under force and not by choice. And while in exile they dictated their letters to scribes who were regularly employed by their host.61 In addition, the scribes of Southern Canaan may have moved about limited areas (see above §2), but as far as we can judge they did not play any political role as diplomats or emissaries.62 To conclude, the wide historical context on the one hand and the lack of supporting textual evidence on the other hand demands a reconsideration of the conclusions discussed here. 4. Concluding remarks These three Amarna notes offered us a critical view of some perspectives of the Amarna corpus. The first note discussed scribal schooling by looking at a single example that can be viewed as an illustration of the circumstances in which the cuneiform script was studied during the Amarna period. It shows us that while Canaan is poor in finds arriving from scholarly and school domains, there is little reason to suspect that cuneiform was not studied as elsewhere in the region. The second note widened our scope by concentrating on the scribal activity of the Amarna scribes. The work of a single scribe, the scribe of Milki-abi, was

Akko’s naval abilities are mentioned in the Ugarit correspondence; e.g., RS 34.147 = Malbran-Labat 1991, 23–25, no. 5; RS 19.42 = PRU IV, 77–78; Lackenbacher 2002, 336. 60 See also reservations of Vita 2015, 148–149 and some doubts even expressed by Goren et al. 2004, 237. 61 Yašdata, probably the ruler of Taʽanach, when in exile from his own city in Megiddo, dictated EA 249 to the scribe working for Biridiya, the ruler of Megiddo; Vita 2015, 66–69 and Goren et al. 2004, 247. Vita 2015, 68 also claims that EA 250 of the ruler Baʽal-ur.sag was also written by the Megiddo scribe, perhaps under similar conditions of Yašdata. See, however, Rainey 2015, 23–24 and 1565–1566. When Rib-Addu left Byblos for exile in Beirut, he made use of the local scribe; Vita 2015, 48 and 55–56. For another example, see above, n. 34. 62 For Egyptian royal scribes and officials referred to in the letters, see Mynářová 2014, 25–26. 59

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assessed within a network of nearby fellow scribes. Following this discussion, the question regarding our current possibility of identifying individual scribes was raised. With the available methodologies, it was concluded that perhaps under certain circumstances it is better to speak of scribal circles than of particular hands. The third note tackled the issue of tablet provenance reached by petrographical analysis. It sought to surface to discussion the way in which, and the place where letters from local rulers in Canaan were produced. It called to involve additional considerations when coming to assess the production of tablets and not to abandon traditional philological and historical criteria. The combined purpose of these notes was to sharpen our view regarding textual production and in particular letter writing in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age. There remains much to be discussed in view of recent scholarship, in spite of the fact that the Amarna letter corpus has been so closely studied for over a century. Addendum: since this article was submitted in 2018, Horowitz / Oshima 2006 has seen a new revised edition, published under the same title in 2018. Bibliography Belmonte Marín, J.A., 2001: Die Orts- und Gewassernamen der Texte aus Syrien im 2. Jt. v. Chr., Repertoire géographique des textes cuneiformes 12/2. Wiesbaden. Cogan, M., 2013: A New Cuneiform Text from Megiddo. IEJ 63: 131–134. Cohen, Y., 2004: Kidin-Gula – The Foreign Teacher at the Emar Scribal School. RA 98: 81–100. –– 2009: The Scribes and Scholars of the City of Emar in the Late Bronze Age. HSS 59. Winona Lake, Ind. –– 2013: Wisdom from the Late Bronze Age. WAW 29. Atlanta. Cohen, Y. / Singer, I., 2006: A Late Synchronism between Ugarit and Emar. In Y. Amit / E. Ben Zvi / I. Finkelstein / O. Lipschits (eds.): Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context: A Tribute to Nadav Na’aman. Winona Lake, Ind. Pp. 123–139. Gantzert, M., 2008: The Emar Lexical Texts. Maastricht. Gilbert, A., 2017: Why Alashiya is Still a Problem. In Ç. Maner / M. Horowitz / A. Gilbert (eds.): Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology: A Festschrift in Honor of K. Aslihan Yener. CHANE 90. Leiden / Boston. Pp. 211–221. Gordin, S., 2015: Hittite Scribal Circles, Scholarly Tradition, and Writing Habits. StBoT 59. Wiesbaden. Goren, Y. / Finkelstein, I. / Na’aman, N., 2004: Inscribed in Clay: Provenance Study of the Amarna Tablets and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology Monograph Series 23. Tel Aviv. Hellbing, L., 1979: Alasia Problems. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 57. Göteborg.

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Hess, R.S., 1989: Hebrew Psalms and Amarna Correspondence from Jerusalem: Some Comparisons and Implications. ZAW 101: 249–265. Horowitz, W. / Oshima, T., 2006: Cuneiform in Canaan: Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Times. Jerusalem. Horowitz, W. / Oshima, T. / Vukosavović, F., 2012: Hazor 18: Fragments of a Cuneiform Law Collection from Hazor. IEJ 62: 158–176. Horowitz, W. / Oshima, T. / Winitzer, A., 2010: Hazor 17: Another Clay Liver Model. IEJ 60: 133–145. Huehnergard, J., 1987: Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription. HSS 32. Atlanta, Georgia. Izre’el, S., 1995: The Amarna Letters from Canaan. In J.M. Sasson (ed.): Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. New York. Pp. 2411–2419. –– 1997: The Amarna Scholarly Tablets. CM 9. Groningen. Knudtzon, J.A., 1907–1915: Die El-Amarna-Tafeln. Leipzig. Lackenbacher, S., 2002: Textes akkadiens d’Ugarit. Textes provenant des vingtcinq premières campagnes. Littérature Ancienne du Proche-Orient 20. Paris. Lackenbacher, S. / Malbran-Labat, F., 2016: Lettres en Akkadien de la “Maison d’Urtēnu”: fouilles de 1994. Ras Shamra-Ougarit 23. Leuven. Liverani, M., 1998: Le lettere di el-Amarna. Testi del Vicino Oriente antico 2, Letterature mesopotamiche 3. Brescia. Malbran-Labat, F., 1991: Chapitre II: Listes. In P. Bordreuil / D. Arnaud / B. André-Salvini / S. Lackenbacher / F. Malbran-Labat / D. Pardee (eds.): Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville: les textes de la 34e campagne (1973). Ras Shamra-Ougarit 7. Paris. Pp. 17–25. Marcus, D., 1973: A Famous Analogy of Rib-Haddi. JANES 5: 281–286. Mazar, E. / Horowitz, W. / Oshima, T. / Goren, Y. 2010: A Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel in Jerusalem. IEJ 60: 4–21. –– 2014: Jerusalem 2: A Fragment of a Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel Excavations. IEJ 64: 129–139. Moran, W.L., 1975: The Syrian Scribe of the Jerusalem Amarna Letters. In H. Goedicke / J.J.M. Roberts (eds.): Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East. Baltimore. Pp. 146–166. –– 1992: The Amarna Letters. Baltimore / London. –– 2003: A Note on igi-kár, “provisions, supplies”. In J. Huehnergard / S. Izre’el (eds.): Amarna Studies: Collected Writings. HSS 54. Winona Lake, Ind. Pp. 297–300. Mynářová, J., 2007: Language of Amarna – Language of Diplomacy: Perspectives on the Amarna letters. Prague. –– 2012: North or South? A Note on the Provenance of EA 220. Egypt and the Levant 22: 375–381. –– 2013: Being a Loyal Servant: Egypt and the Levant from the Perspective of Juridical Terminology of the 18th Dynasty. Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtgeschichte 19: 79–87. –– 2014: Egyptian State Correspondence of the New Kingdom: The Letters of

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the Levantine Client Kings in the Amarna Correspondence and Contemporary Evidence. In K. Radner (ed.): State Correspondence in the Ancient World: From New Kingdom Egypt to the Roman Empire. Oxford / New York. Pp. 10–31. Na’aman, N., 1977: ašītu (Sg.) and ašâtu (Pl.) – Strap and Reins. JCS 29: 237–239. –– 2005: On Two Tablets from Kāmid-el-Lōz. ANES 42: 312–317. Na’aman, N. / Goren, Y., 2009: The Inscriptions from the Egyptian Residence: A Reassessment. In Y. Gadot / E. Yadin (eds.): Aphek-Antipatris II: The Remains on the Acropolis (The Moshe Kochavi and Pirhiya Beck Excavations). Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology Monograph Series 27. Tel Aviv. Pp. 460–471. Oshima, T., 2016: A Babylonian Marduk Prayer found at Ugarit (RS 94.2498). UF 47: 221–250. Rainey, A.F., 1998: Syntax, Hermeneutics and History. IEJ 48: 239–251. –– 2015: The El-Amarna correspondence. HdO 110. Leiden / Boston. Rainey, A.F. / Notley, R.S., 2006: The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World. Jerusalem. Siddall, L.R., 2010: The Amarna Letters from Tyre as a Source for Understanding Atenism and Imperial Administration. Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 2: 24–35. Singer, I., 1983: Takuḫlinu and Ḫaya: Two Governors in the Ugarit Letter from Tel Aphek. Tel Aviv 10: 3–25. –– 2011: The Calm Before the Storm: Selected Writings of Itamar Singer on the End of the Late Bronze Age in Anatolia and the Levant. Writings from the Ancient World Supplement Series 1. Atlanta. Soldt, W.H., van, 2012: The Palaeography of Two Ugarit Archives. In E. Devecchi (ed.): Palaeography and Scribal Practices in Syro-Palestine and Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age. PIHANS 119. Leiden. Pp. 171–183. Taylor, J., 2015: Wedge Order in Cuneiform: A Preliminary Survey. In E. Devecchi / G.G.W. Müller / J. Mynářová (eds.): Current Research in Cuneiform Palaeography: Proceedings of the Workshop Organised at the 60ᵗʰ Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Warsaw 2014. Gladbeck. Pp. 1–30. Thureau-Dangin, F., 1931: Vocabulaires de Ras-Shamra. Syria 12: 225–266. Ungnad, A., 1916: Review of Knudtzon 1907–1915. OLZ 19: 180–188. Veldhuis, N., 2014: History of the Cuneiform Lexical Tradition. Guides to the Mesopotamian Textual Record 6. Münster. Vita, J.-P., 1999: The Society of Ugarit. In W.G.E. Watson / N. Wyatt (eds.): Handbook of Ugaritic Studies. HdO 39. Leiden. Pp. 455–498. –– 2010: Scribes and Dialects in Late Bronze Age Canaan. In L. Kogan (ed.): Babel & Bibel: Proceedings of the 53rd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Volume 1: Language in the Ancient Near East 4/2. Winona Lake, Ind. Pp. 863–894. –– 2012: On the Lexical Background of the Amarna Glosses. AoF 39: 278–286. –– 2015: Canaanite Scribes in the Amarna Letters. AOAT 406. Münster.

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von Dassow, E., 2004: Canaanite in Cuneiform. JAOS 124: 641–674. Vukosavović, F., 2014: The Laws of Hazor and the ANE Parallels. RA 108: 41–44. Weippert, M., 1974: lúad.da.a.ni in den Briefen des Abduḫeba von Jerusalem. UF 6: 415–419. Yamada, M., 1992: Reconsidering the Letters from the “King” in the Ugarit Texts: Royal Correspondence of Carchemish? UF 24: 431–446.

City-States, Canton States, Monarchy and Aristocracy The Political Landscape of the Early Iron Age in Central Anatolia within the Context of the Eastern Mediterranean (11th–9th century BCE) Lorenzo d’Alfonso University of Pavia / ISAW-NYU* 1. Liverani and the political formations of the Early Iron Age In 2002 Mario Liverani published a contribution entitled: “Stati etnici e cittàstato: una tipologia storica per la prima età del Ferro”. In that contribution, he first introduces the territorial states of the ancient Near East in the Late Bronze Age (LBA: 1600–1200 BC), and the tribal components at their margins.1 Focusing on the aftermath of the end of the LBA, he then reconstructs the political landscape of the Early Iron Age (EIA) on a large area covering the eastern Mediterranean from the Balkans in the north to Libya in the south, and extending from the west to the Iranian plateau, beyond the Zagros. The major divide charactering the political landscape after the end of the LBA age regional great powers, is the survival of the institutions defining the latter east of the Euphrates, opposed to their disappearance west of the Euphrates, from the Aegean to the Sinai.2 Primary migrations of peoples – whose origin Liverani places in the Balkans –, and the internal socio-economic crisis of the territorial states are the causes of the profound political transformation of the eastern Mediterranean. Two types of political entities characterize the eastern Mediterranean in the EIA: the ethnic state and the city-state. I am very grateful to the editors for giving me the opportunity to participate in the volume in honor of Mario Liverani. For me, reading, assigning and commenting Mario Liverani’s works is repetedly enriching and exciting. This contribution benefits from discussions with my colleagues Marco Santini, Antonis Kotsonas and Nino Luraghi. In thanking them, I owe a special mention to Marco for a review of the work in an advanced state and several comments relating in particular to the interface with the Aegean world. While editing the proofs the new book of J. Osborne (2020) has appeared. While I know and appreciate the work of James so that much of the picture offered in the paper is aware of them, I was not able to include the rich contents of his book here. The responsibility for setting and conclusions is and remains entirely mine. 1 See also Mora 2003 on this specific issue. 2 Liverani 2002, 38–39. *

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Taking Syria and the Levant as a case study, Liverani suggests that SyroHittite and Levantine Iron Age city-states are a direct evolution of the ‘Small Kingdoms’ which, in the LBA, were subject to the hegemony of the great powers.3 The city-states “maintain the size, the institutional structure and the relationship with the agricultural hinterland” of the LBA ‘Small Kingdoms’ (Liverani 2003, 85: my translation). They exercise well-structured territorial control over an area of up to 800 km2, with a hierarchy of fortified settlements at the head of which is the capital of the polity with the sovereign’s palace. EIA ethnic states, on the other hand, are directly related to the tribal entities not subject to the hegemony of territorial states during the LBA. Definitely more innovative, authority and participation for the ethnic state derive from kinship ties and common ancestry. Ethnic states have a wider territorial extension than citystates, but, conversely, a lower population density. They also lack the presence of real urban centers, of a taxation system – at least in their initial phase –, and of a stable central authority. The latter, when existing, shows a “charismatic rather than hereditary/dynastic” nature.4 Political entities basing their unity on a linguistic, ethnic and religious identity are a new phenomenon of the post-Palatial Age. These elements existed in the territorial states of the previous era, in which, however, “there is no political or legal discrimination (…). Frequent mixed marriages, bilingualism, cultural and religious syncretism configure state formations in which belonging to an ethnic group is almost irrelevant when compared with territorial residence or political subjection” (Liverani 2002, 37: my translation). Liverani derives these two types of political formations from the study of the archaeological and textual data that characterizes EIA southern Levant and Syria. However, his reconstruction is also informed by studies of the post-Mycenaean, Aegean world. For that context, historians reconstructed a division between regions organized in city-states, in continuity with the Mycenaean world, and regions located north of the heart of the Mycenaean world (i.e. Peloponnese and Attica), organized in ethnic states.5 In doing so, Liverani suggests the existence of similar and comparable political trajectories in the post-Palatial age, which embrace the entire eastern Mediterranean from the Aegean, Anatolia, Syria and the Levant, west of the Euphrates (Fig. 1). In the same 2002 contribution, Liverani also introduces the definition ‘cantonstate’, indicating political formations built around a main urban center, which however have a territorial development of greater dimensions than that of the city-state. He recognizes the canton-state formation as a typical formation of EIA southern Anatolia.6

5 6 3 4

Liverani 2002, cf. also Liverani 1987. Liverani 2002, 42; Liverani 2003, 85. Snodgrass 1980. Liverani 2002, 42.

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On the other hand, Liverani avoids using the definition of ‘secondary state’ as a definition in its own right, analyzing instead the process of secondary state formation.7 The process refers to the development of political complexity of a community due to the impact often expansionist and military , exercised by another, greater and more complex, polity.8 2. Elements of theoretical and historiographic debate In the fifteen years after his contribution, the types of political formations proposed by Liverani were not the object of scholarly debate by historians and archaeologists of south-west Asia. However, a more general debate emerged on the conception and classification of ancient political entities. First, the use of the label ‘state’ for political formations of the pre-modern world has been the subject of much criticism. Within the neo-evolutionary scheme of early political complexity, ‘state’ represents the highest step of an evolutionary curve, preceded by band, tribe and chiefdom.9 After that the historical fallacy of the neo-evolutionary scheme, and the dependency from colonialism became clear, the scheme has been almost completely abandoned in scholarship.10 While Liverani started adopting the label ‘state’ in the 70s, when the neo-evolutionary scheme still held prominence in the anthropological debate, because of his focus on the historical context, already at that time11 he offered a discursive definition of the term ‘state’ (but also of the term ‘tribe’), outside of the evolutionary scheme. More recently, the adoption of the term ‘state’ for ancient polities has been criticized again, this time for the implicit elements bureaucracy, taxation, citizenship, physical borders etc., embedded in the common sense of the term. The term was coined in the modern era and so from its origin onwards bore in its semantics those elements typical of the modern state.12 As an alternative, the use of the terms ‘polity’ and ‘political entity’ has become widely accepted, particularly in anthropological archaeology.13 For the history of the ancient Mediterranean, however, also this definition has some downsides, since it clashes with the embedded meaning of community participation, and affiliation to a specific and unitary space and its decision-making process. These elements are all strongly tied with the unique experience of the Greek polis. Even the use of ‘polity’, and

Liverani 2002, 40–41. Price 1978, for the southern Levant Joffe 2002, for an overall overhaul and application to the Aegean Parkinson / Galaty 2007. 9 Sahlins 1968; Service 1962; Service 1975; for a synthesis see Trigger 2006, 386–392. 10 Yoffee 1993; Trigger 2003; Yoffee 2005. 11 Liverani 1976. 12 E.g. Berent 1996; Smith 2003, 94–102; Smith 2005; Yoffee 2005; Campbell 2009; Flannery / Markus 2012. 13 E.g. Campbell 2009. 7 8

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‘political entity’ therefore requires some clarification in our area of study.14 Some scholars who were aware of the debate, chose to keep the term ‘state’, but adopted it in a discursive and minimalist way,15 that is, providing explanatory definitions of the meaning of the term that are suitable for the historical contexts in which it is used.16 Besides these broad questions, some specific questions are more directly tied to the archaeological and historical research concerning the Eastern Mediterranean of the post-Palatial period. For the EIA southern Levant, state formation and ethnic identity still represent core questions.17 I. Finkelstein back in the late 80ies questioned the ethnic character of the peculiarities of the settlement pattern and of the material culture of the Canaanite highlands, seen otherwise as the archaeological evidence of the ethnic identity of ancient Israel. Contrary to what previously maintained, for Finkelstein the differences were not the expression of an ethnic identity of newcomers opposed to the population of the plain, but of a different socio-economic strategy developed in situations of particular need (climate change, pressure politics etc.), in parallel with similar processes visible during the ancient Bronze Age II–III and the Middle Bronze Age in the same region.18 Following Finkelstein’s work, the discussion on the formation of the ethnic identity of the communities of the internal hilly areas of the southern Levant has not stopped, but has focused again on the written sources of direct and indirect tradition. Together with the archaeological data, they would allow scholars to reconstruct the presence of small egalitarian communities united by real or fictional parental ties and by a local horizon of self-sufficient economy. These communities shared a group identity, although well integrated with some urban and cultural centers of the Canaanite area.19 In recent discussions, the formation of ethnic states has been moved down the 10th century BCE.20 The previous period is instead interpreted as an experimentation phase with different local horizons and the impossibility of defining ethnic boundaries between the highlands and the plain area, but also between one region and the other within the highland. D. Fleming has stressed that the opposition between the ethnic identity developed in the highlands – based on the tribal character of the pastoral groups and the fugitives inhabiting the highlands at the end of the LBA – and the urban identity of the plain should be

On the debt of political history studies to the Greek experience, cf. most recently Whitley 2020, 161–162. 15 The minimalist term is that used for example by Hansen 2000. 16 See e.g. Hansen 2002a. 17 See e.g. Joffe 2002; Killebrew 2005; Faust 2006; Fleming 2012. 18 Finkelstein 1988, 1996, 2019; Finkelstein et al. 2015. 19 E.g. Leehman 2004; Sergi 2019. 20 E.g. Faust 2006. 14

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revised. For Fleming there is no need for a neat separation of urban complexity and pastural, transhumant and tribal components in eastern Asia. Instead, the opposition is between polities organized as monarchies (=kingdoms), and collaborative politics. The tribal component and the resulting ethnic identity is often found in political entities based on one regime or the other, whether they have a strong urban character or not. The collaborative politics characterizing the political landscape of the Middle Euphrates during the second millennium BCE and the relevance of the transhumant pastoral component in most complex south-west Asian polities are offered as historical parallels for questioning the opposition between ethnic states and city-states for the southern Levant during the EIA. 21 Similar developments are visible in the studies of the Aegean area. The validity of the two opposing types ‘city-state’ and ‘ethnic state’ has been called into question on the basis of two elements. On the one hand, narratives of later sources informing on the EIA history, particularly on the colonization of the eastern shore of the Aegean and the foundation of the various poleis in the Greek area, have been widely deconstructed;22 on the other, a careful study of the presence of urban centers within ethnic states, north of Attica has contradicted the assumption that the ethnês do not have an urban culture.23 That said, a relationship with the previous Mycenaean political and administrative experience are still considered central to the development of city-states in the Peloponnese and in Attica, while its absence is still considered to have a bearing in the definition of the communities of the ethnês, particularly in north mainland Greece. For the Syro-Hittite region during the 12th–9th centuries BCE, the definition of city-state proposed by Liverani is widely accepted and unproblematically used.24 In addition to the distinctive features of this new political formations identified by Liverani, other characteristic features have been suggested: the adoption of an iconographic and stylistic repertoire developed from the Hittite legacy; the presence of orthostats with bas-reliefs and all-round statues decorating the main buildings of citadels, as well as the city and citadel Gates; the presence of monumental buildings and of squares within the urban centers; the definition of a recurring urban plan.25 Recent archaeological and textual data significantly modified the historical picture of the EIA in the region – above all the formation of

Fleming 2004; 2012; Porter 2012: Monroe / Fleming 2019. See e.g. Hall 1997; 2002; Rose 2008. 23 Morgan 2003; Hall 2007, 88–90. 24 E.g. Osborne 2014, 197–198. For the adoption of the Syrian-Hittite definition see §5 further on. On the definition of a city-state in a comparative spirit and its use by I. Thuesen for the Syro-Hittite sphere, within the influence of the Copenhagen crosscultural project on the polis vd. Hansen 2002b (see also the critical debate on the subject, e.g. Hölkeskamp 2004). 25 See Mazzoni 1995; Mazzoni 1997; Pucci 2008; Gilibert 2011; Osborne 2014. 21 22

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the kingdom of Palastina. These have contributed to a redefinition of the aspects of structure, size and distribution of settlements, architecture and material culture and on the reconstruction of dynastic lines and evenemenential history.26 However, a discussion of the political form of power has not yet been produced. The prevalence in the recent theoretical reflection of the concept of network, of the individual vs. group agency, and lastly the renewed attention to the impact of micro-scale processes on the organization of political formations has significantly reduced the attention towards the definition and characterization of social units in this region. While these new contributions have provided a perspective partly denied by the marxistic historiography dominant until the 80ies, they can hardly contribute to reconstruct the elements of collective memories and their role in defining the political ideas of a new era, in our case the EIA. In general, the use of ‘city-state’ and ‘ethnic state’ in the post-Palatial eastern Mediterranean is productive in the form of ideal types, from which concrete case studies differ one from another, with specific local developments. If considered as ideal types with heuristic value,27 the two definitions still bear wide applicability, particularly for investigating the legacy of the political cultures of the previous era in the new world, and discussing them in the context of new internal changes and external apports in areas of cultural contact (borderlands). They are also very important for setting the western Asian and the Aegean world in the same perspective, allowing us to explore local outcomes of the post-Palatial period from a common shared set of analytic tools. 3. Liverani and the political forms of post-Hittite Anatolia This contribution aims to present some thoughts on the characteristics of the political formations of the Anatolian plateau in the period from the fall of the Hittite empire (beginning of the 12th century), to the formation of new kingdoms with a regional dimension (Phrygia, Urartu, Assyria: 9th century BC). The political landscape of central Anatolia, deeply shaken by the political and environmental crisis of the end of the Bronze Age, was the subject of limited attention by scholars. This is due to the fact that for decades it was believed that after the fall of the Hittite capital there was a vacuum in central Anatolia, and a new phase of political complexity had only started again in the eighth century B.C.28 In the 2002 contribution, Liverani does not devote specific attention to

See e.g. Hawkins 2009; Venturi 2010; Weeden 2013; Dinçol et al. 2014; Wilkinson 2016; Giusfredi 2018; Marchetti / Peker 2018; Pucci 2019a. An excellent exception is Giusfredi 2010, 26–32. 27 On the awareness of the process of abstraction in the definition of ideal types, see already Liverani 1976, 280–281 and again 303. 28 Genz 2004, 36 offers an excellent summary of this. See also Summers 2017, which however substantially preserves this vision. 26

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central Anatolia, but he had dealt with it, albeit only in a limited way, in Antico Oriente. The hints in the book depict a marked difference compared to the SyroLevantine developments. After the fall of the Hittite empire, the situation of the Anatolian Plateau was characterized by a regression of political aggregation to simple village communities. Those developed, only at a later stage, into ‘ethnicnational’ states.29 More recently, in the English edition of the book, Liverani partially modifies his reconstruction, on the basis of new sources published in the late 1980s and during the 1990s. These documents support the existence of a semi-independent kingdom of Tarhuntassa, in the southern part of the Anatolian plateau, governed by a secondary dynasty of Great Kings related to the Hittite dynasty.30 Accepting a hypothesis by J. David Hawkins,31 Liverani proposes that, in parallel with Karkemiš, the other secondary branch of the Hittite dynasty in the kingdom of Tarhuntassa also survived the collapse of the Hittite empire: “In the territories dependent on Tarhuntassa and Karkemiš, a certain continuity of the imperial legacy was maintained. The area from the Konya plain to the Euphrates also experienced a division of land into local kingdoms, roughly mirroring the Hittite ‘provinces’ or vassal states” (Liverani 2013, 389). The Anatolian plateau would therefore be divided into two parts: one characterized by the continuity of previous Hittite provincial institutions, and a development similar to the one of the Syro-Hittite city-states; the other characterized by abandonment and destruction and then new developments independent from the Hittite political experience.32 In recent years, Liverani has actively participated in the excavations of Arslantepe / Malatya and published several contributions on the results obtained here for the Late Bronze and above all Iron Ages. In these contributions, however, he does not delve into changes in regimes and regional political complexity.33 Nonetheless, analyzing the Iron Age levels, he suggests relating the change of socio-political regime at the site and the surrounding region to a later phase than other regions of the Plateau: “It will be only with the 10th century BCE that a new cycle of urbanism and state formation (Middle Iron Age) will take place” (Liverani 2012, 334).

Liverani 1988, 736. See Snow 1987, 401–407; Snow 1992; Dinçol 1988; Got 1988; recently by d’Alfonso 2014. While revising the English of this contribution, a new Anatolian Hieroglyphic inscription has been published that likely will generate a debate and new interpretations of the IA in the Konya plain: s. Goedegebuure et al. 2020. 31 Hawkins 2002. 32 Similar reconstruction is offered by Bryce 1998, 386–387. 33 Liverani 2010, 2011, 2012. 29 30

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4. Recent developments on the post-Hittite political formations of Central Anatolia The study of the aftermath of the Hittite empire in Central Anatolia hardly exceded the level of reconstruction of local dynastic successions and the Assyrian impact on the region,34 and therefore the few notes of Liverani on political complexity are an excellent starting point for an insight in the political complexity of the region. In the past twenty years, new data has profoundly changed the interpretation of the transition from the LBA to the Iron Age on the Plateau (Fig. 2). The EIA occupation at Böğazköy – Büyükkaya has shown that two generations after the end of the empire the Hittite capital was transformed into a modest unfortified village, with rare remains of underground single-room houses (pithouses) and a subsistence economy.35 The hand-made red-painted ceramics with selected geometric motifs from the EIA layers of Böğazköy – Büyükkaya have recently been found at several other sites in North-Central Anatolia, never in contexts indicative of political complexity.36 Outside the settlements, in the countryside, there are no open-air religious or celebratory monuments that are attributable to communal authorities or religious institutions. This data confirms the regression of the political complexity of North-Central Anatolia from the pulsating center of an empire to an area presenting small villages with subsistence economy, at least until the late 9th century. BCE. It is not possible to ascertain if the large urban population decreased or transformed into transhumant movable communities leaving less archaeological evidence: these options are not mutually exclusive, and in fact both likely were realized. This northern development partly differs from the recent data of the excavations of Polatlı-Yassı Höyük / Gordion in the West-Central Plateau, and those of NiğdeKınık Höyük in the southern Plateau. Both provide strong evidence of urban centers in central Anatolia dating back to the late 11th–10th century BCE not found in the former core of the empire. They offer archaeological support to S. Melville’s observation that the mention of fortified cities in the inscriptions of Shalmaneser III are to be understood as the evidence of political dynamics preceding the Assyrian military campaigns and independent from them.37 Archaeologically, the

This is the main focus of the historical notations in Hawkins 2000 and Bryce 2012. Sagona / Zimansky 2009, 291–297, offer a more complex reconstruction of the social and economic changes that characterize the region, but less on the political sphere: “To classify them (ie the post-Hittite political entities) collectively either as city states or tribally controlled territories is inappropriate, and most of the known detail of their political history relates to confused and unstable dynastic succession” (Sagona / Zimansky 2009, 295). A political analysis is instead present in Giusfredi 2010, 26–32, and Melville 2010. 35 Genz 2004; Seeher 2018. 36 See lastly Yılmaz, in Ökse et al., in press, with reference to the previous bibliography. 37 Melville 2010, 89. 34

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two aforementioned sites are the result of profoundly different cultural processes. At Polatlı-Yassı Höyük, whose levels YHSS 7A&B and 6B have been investigated on relatively small areas, a gray ware suddenly appears immediately after the LBA occupation level 8. This is initially hand-made but already in Level 7A some gray ware forms become wheel-made. Shapes, making, and stamped decorations are strongly reminiscent of ceramic productions from northwestern Anatolia and Thrace. The hypothesis of linking the new elements of material culture of the YHSS 7 levels to the migration of people originating in Thrace appears now commonly accepted. Recently, new 14C analyses have made it possible to establish that the site became a well-organized and fortified urban center even as early as the 11th century BCE.38 West-Central Anatolia up to the Kızık-Irmak is characterized by the same material culture that emerges in Yassı Höyük,39 and the region corresponds to the one called Phrygia in Greco-Roman times. At Niğde-Kınık Höyük, in South-Central Anatolia, the fortification walls of the citadel were rebuilt about a century after the end of the Bronze Age, partially overlapping the circuit of the walls of the previous phase. Two large silos occupied the southern part of the citadel. The silos imply methods of organizing the collection, storage and redistribution of grain typical of the Hittite empire and which disappeared from the other regions of the Anatolian plateau throughout the Iron Age.40 Unlike Polatlı-Yassı Höyük, monumental buildings and statues or orthostats with figurative representations have not come to light at Kınık so far. Niğde-Kınık Höyük is the only site of South-Central Anatolia with a strong set of 14C covering the different phases of the Iron Age, but other excavations in the same region such as Ovaören-Yassıhöyük, Kaman-kalehöyük and Porsuk-Zeyve Höyük could belong to the same model of reorganization of urban communities dating to the late EIA.41 In this context it is worth considering the case of Alişar Höyük, on the eastern limits of the central plateau. Here between 1928–1932 the excavations have exposed the three levels of occupation of the Iron Age citadel. It is very difficult to reconstruct the exact stratigraphy of these levels. For example, levels of Late Bronze II have not been identified in the excavations of the mound, despite the presence of materials dating back to this period and the presence of a Late Bronze occupation on the site terrace.42 It is significant, however, that no traces of fire or destruction in these Late Bronze levels were reported, and that the Iron Age walls

Voigt / Henrickson 2000; Kealhofer 2005; Rose / Darbyshire 2011; Arslan / Hnila 2015; Kealhofer et al. 2019. 39 Summers 1994; 2014. 40 D’Alfonso et al. 2016; Castellano 2018; d’Alfonso / Castellano 2018; Lanaro et al. 2020. 41 E.g. Şenyurt / Aktaş 2018; Matsumura 2005; Pelon 1994. 42 See von der Osten 1937, Gorny 1994 and Matsumura 2005, 413–414. 38

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on the citadel were built over the Bronze Age walls, similarly to what happens at Kınık Höyük, Ovaören, and perhaps also at Porsuk-Zeyve Höyük. These elements suggest that the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age at Alişar followed the same course as South-Central Anatolia, rather than that of North-Central Anatolia, characterized by fire and a complete transformation of the social and political structures. It is impossible to reconstruct absolute dates for the three Iron Age levels of the citadel occupation of Alişar Höyük. However, the 4bM level is commonly dated to the 9th–8th cc. for the characteristic ceramic class, today commonly defined as Alişar-IV ware.43 For the previous level 4cM, von der Osten and Bittel suggested a dating between the 11th–9th century.44 Also chronologically, therefore, level 4cM is probably coeval with the occupation of Niğde-Kınık Höyük at the end of the second - beginning of the first millennium BCE (KH-P V).45 Unique case in Anatolia, the Iron Age citadel of Alişar Höyük was entirely exposed. A peculiar feature of the citadel, already emphasized by K. Bittel, is the total absence of monumental buildings and of decorated orthostats and statues,46 which are typical of the citadels of the Syro-Hittite city-states from the Upper Euphrates to Hama in central Syria. The elliptic citadel, with semi-axes of approx. 65 and 40 m, is of small dimensions. By the earliest Iron Age occupation, the town also included a lower city, which was surrounded by walls apparently during phase 4bM. The citadel had a surface of ca. 1800 m2 and the fortified lower city of about 8000 m2. With an extension of approx. 1 ha, the site was a rather small town, when compared to a regional center of the Plateau such as Kınık Höyük (at least 9 ha), to the ‘capitals’ of the Syro-Hittite city-states, wider than 35 ha, or to the Phrygian capital Gordion of ca. 50 ha (Fig. 3). However, the total absence of statues and decorated orthostats deriving from the Hittite tradition, not necessarily depends on the limited size of the site. Syro-Hittite sites along the southern slopes of the Taurus such as Coba Höyük / Sakçagözü and Karatepe Arslantaş, are small sites whose size is closer to that of Alişar Höyük and Kınık Höyük than to the one of the Syro-Hittite main urban centers. Nonetheless, these two fortresses were embellished with figurative orthostats and all-round statues.47 I consider the absence of statuary and relief-orthostats in the Early and Middle Iron Age levels of Alişar Höyük, Kaman-Kalehöyük, Ovaören and Kınık Höyük indicative of

See on this ware d’Alfonso et al. in press. Bittel (1937) also suggests the possible influence of Assyrian military architecture on the new south-eastern bastion as a criterion for dating. The current knowledge of defensive architecture of Iron Age central Anatolia is so por that caution is required. 44 Bittel 1937, 339; van der Osten 1937, 459. 45 For the stratigraphy of Iron Age Kınık Höyük see d’Alfonso / Castellano 2018; Lanaro et al. 2020. 46 Bittel 1937, 325. 47 See Plat Taylor et al. 1950; Çambel / Özyar 2003. 43

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a different form of power and relation with the Hittite political legacy dividing the Syro-Hittite city-states south of the Taurus and along the High and Middle Euphrates, from the urban centers of South-Central Anatolia, particularly between the 11th–9th centuries BCE. Revealing is the absence of relief orthostats on the urban gates, which instead became the focal point of the religious celebrations providing the legitimacy of monarchic power in the Syro-Hittite city-states.48 The same difference emerges from the comparison of the organization of space within the citadels between the two regions north and south of the Taurus. In Central Anatolia, Alişar Höyük is the only site for which this type of study is possible. From the plans of the different phases of level 4M it is possible to suggest the presence of a residential area made up of small single-room and two-rooms buildings (25–50 m2), built one adjacent to the other, especially in the north-east and south-east portion of the citadel. The agglomeration of buildings leaves two open common-shared areas in the western and eastern part of the citadel, while the well in the center of the citadel also appears as a shared facility. A passage between the two residential areas started from the center of the citadel and turned southwards to reach the access gate through the walls. Also in this case, the difference with the architecture of the citadels of the Syro-Hittite city-states is evident (Fig. 4). There are no monumental buildings of any kind at Alişar Höyük, and for sure nothing comparable with the residential buildings of the Syro-Hittite elites for which the definition bīt-hilāni is used.49 At Alişar it can be assumed that maximum two nuclei of extended families lived. Despite their residence inside a citadel surrounded by powerful walls and defensive ramparts, no set of artefacts distinguished, economically or socially, these extended families from the rest of the population living in the lower town. On the whole, social differentiation is less marked here than in the Syro-Hittite world. Moreover, the elites in no way claimed the legacy of the Hittite tradition, in opposition to what happens in the upper Euphrates and south of the Taurus. Based on the considerations presented above, three generations after the fall of the Hittite capital Hattusa, we are witnessing four different developments of political complexity between northern Syria and central Anatolia. In the western plateau, the formation of the kingdom of Phrygia begins with a decisive contribution by a group of migrants with their own culture and the creation of an ethnic identity in growing contrast to the developments underway in central and southern Anatolia. The developments of the sec. 11th–9th BCE in West-Central Anatolia are still very elusive. Evidence of political complexity is however present already from the 11th c. BCE in YHSS 7A with a strong western connotation; by the early 9th century clues for the reception post-Hittite

Mazzoni 1997; Gilibert 2015; Manuelli / Mori 2016. See most recently Pucci 2008, Osborne 2012, Novak 2014, Kertai 2017 and 2018, with reference to the previous bibliography.

48 49

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monumental art and material culture are also present.50 As to the northern Levant, Syria, and the Upper Euphrates areas, the reconstruction offered by Liverani is still valid. Here city-states developed and maintained the organizational characteristics of the previous small kingdoms subjected to the Hittite hegemony. While some major centers were abandoned (Alalah, Emar, Ugarit), others often arose not far from the previous ones. They are either new foundations or the result of reorganization and enlargement of previous minor centers (e.g. Kinaluwa vs. Masuwari). The political authorities residing in the urban centers adopted monumental art inspired by the Hittite tradition, although modified in order to respond to the ongoing social transformations (see §6 below). The evidence of Aegean elements on the Cilician and Levantine coast characterizes a selected number of shapes within the ceramic repertoire, particularly the set for pouring and drinking beverages; there is scarce to no evidence that an Aegean or even Mediterranean political legacy had an impact on any of the elements – urban plan, infrastructure, monumental art, writing, et. – defining the new political authorities.51 On the other hand, in South-Central Anatolia, at least from the end of the 11th century BCE, a reorganization of political complexity took place. About a century after the end of the Hittite empire, fortified cities developed in the region. If the infrastructure for storage and defense is in continuity with the territorial organization of the Hittite tradition, several other elements signal a distancing from the tradition of Hittite power. There is no trace of adoption of Hittite symbols of power at the sites, and at the same time, monumental buildings of secular or religious character within the citadel have not been found, nor assemblages of finds indicative of a marked social and economic differentiation within the city community. In southern Cappadocia, the rural monuments of Tavşantepe and Ivriz 2 could date back to this era and could in turn be indicative of the displacement of the celebrative space for festivals and rituals away from urban gates and city processional streets, to the extra-urban, open air context.52 In Anatolia there is very early evidence of places of worship in extra-urban areas and they had long been incorporated into the Hittite empire cultic activity, so to become a characteristic feature of the Hittite religion. However, in many regions they were an expression of the religiosity of local communities, both of towns and villages and of the transhumant and semi-mobile component of society.53 It can be assumed that in South-Central Anatolia these rural places of worship, often marked by Hittite monumental art, had maintained their function and the role of aggregation places

See among the others Sams 1989; Muscarella 1995; Kealhofer et al. 2019; Rose in press. See Mazzoni 1995, 1997, Weeden 2013, lastly Osborne 2020. On pottery see Pucci 2019b with reference therein. 52 See Lanaro 2015; d’Alfonso 2020. 53 See on this aspect Harmanşah 2014, with previous bibliography. 50 51

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for local communities. After the fall of the empire, some of them were also marked by new figurative art, this time, however, representing the expression of the new local authorities. 5. Syro-Hittite city-states and Anatolian cantons We have discussed evidence of the fact that Post-Hittite political formations north of the Taurus are different from the ones that developed along the Euphrates and south of the Taurus; thus, they require different definitions. The definition of Syro-Hittite city-state for the political entities developed south of the Taurus and along the Euphrates valley seems particularly effective because it refers to the traditional and localistic elements that constitute its characteristic feature.54 The Syro-Hittite city-states are characterized by the multiplicity of languages and cultures and therefore, following Giusfredi, are an antithetical development with respect to the ethnic / national state.55 For the political formations of South-Central Anatolia, north of the Taurus, I suggested to adopt Liverani’s definition of ‘canton-state’ (or cantons) and combine it with the adjective ‘Anatolian’. The definition of ‘Anatolian canton-states’ highlights the absence of a direct claim of Hittite political legacy, and instead the relevance of the geographical element, and a more balanced relationship between the urban and non-urban community (canton). Liverani had suggested that the political formations of central Anatolia had an ‘ethnic-national’ character. It is possible that common cultural elements existed and, in the case of the Anatolian canton-states, they developed an ethnic identity along the formation of borders with new expansive regional powers (Phrygia to the west, Assyria to the southeast and Urartu to the east).56 Elements loaded with ethnic identity can be considered the language, defined Luwian by scholars (the label however is problematic, since it never occurs in Iron Age texts), and

There is a long debate about the definition to be adopted for this historical-political context. Please refer to Pucci 2008, 1, note 1 and Osborne 2014 for a summary of the literature and discussion about it. Osborne’s proposed alternative, ‘Syro-Anatolian’, is more coherent given that it focuses on the geographical distribution of settlements and monuments characteristic of what he calls a coherent ‘cultural construct’. On the other hand, the reference to the Hittite tradition in the representation of power is a characterizing element of this ‘cultural construct’, beyond the reach of the different linguistic groups and from groups from distant regions that inhabited it. In addition, apart from the Upper Euphrates, this contribution wants to underline how Anatolia was essentially extraneous to this development for at least three centuries. 55 Giusfredi 2010, 29–30. Contra Joffe 2002, but without specific treatment. 56 See the interpretation of Central Anatolia as a ‘contested periphery’ in Melville 2010. Her interpretation of all evidence as indicative of secondary state developments dating to the 8th century BCE is contradicted by the new data from Polatlı-Yassı Höyük and Niğde-Kınık Höyük presented above. 54

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the spread of a new dark monochrome geometric painted (DMGP) ware;57 of particular significance, within this new ware, is the set of vessels with metopes representing stylized silhouette caprids filled with concentric circles motifs, probably associated with the circulation and consumption of wine.58 If this ethnic identity indeed developed in early 1st millennium Anatolia and strongly opposes the ‘multicultural’ Syro-Hittite city-states, there are no elements that support a derivation of the Anatolian canton-states from the fugitives and tribal groups dwelling at the margins of the Hittite empire during the end of the LBA. The most emblematic example is given by the Kaska, semi-nomadic groups that many believe were responsible for the dramatic end of the Hittite capital. Some scholars have linked the EIA hand-made red painted ware spread in North-Central Anatolia with these groups.59 Even accepting this association, the distribution of this pottery is not associated with any type of archaeological evidence of political complexity. There is therefore no basis for believing that the Kaska groups in particular, and the other tribal groups or the fugitives who lived at the margins of the Hittite empire had any part in promoting the ethnic configuration and the political character of the Anatolian canton-states. The definition of a new ethnopolitical identity in central Anatolia may instead originate from the freedom of the communities of the peripheral centers to reorganize their institutions,60 and subsequently from the convergence and alliance between the individual cantons. It is not appropriate to characterize the Anatolian cantons as chiefdoms, not so much for the type of authority, but rather because, as a political form, the chiefdom evokes a substantial lack of territorial and administrative organization, which instead characterize the Anatolian canton-states. The Assyrian sources note this difference between the Syro-Hittite city-states and the Anatolian cantons. They defined Syria, west of the Euphrates, from the 12th century onwards as the “Land of Hatti”, thus confirming the perception of continuity with the imperial Hittite political legacy. In contrast, they called SouthCentral Anatolia ‘Tabala’, a region that Salmanassar III described populated by twenty-four allied kings.61 Despite being closer to the former core of the Hittite empire, in the passages of the Assyrian texts relating to Tabala there is no reference whatsoever to the previous Hittite tradition. 6. Political regimes of Central Anatolia and the Aegean: monarchy and aristocracy Central Anatolia is located in the middle of the land routes that connect northern Summers 1994; 2014. D’Alfonso et al., in press. 59 Yılmaz in Ökse et al. in press, with reference to the previous bibliography. 60 For this first phase see. the general considerations of Giusfredi 2010, 30–31. 61 On sources relating to Tabala and Hatti see D’Alfonso 2012, with reference to previous literature. 57 58

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Syria and the Levant with the Aegean world. Most studies on the post-Palatial interconnectivity between the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean have focused on sea-routes and therefore deal with the Levantine coast and the Aegean world, leaving out the land-routes connections and the stories of the peoples of the inner lands.62 Along these lines, for the study of the political formations characterizing the EIA, it makes sense to reconsider the hypothesis of parallel developments proposed by Liverani, however adding Central Anatolia in this context. For the Aegean, the discourse on political formations of the period between the th 12 and the 9th centuries BCE focuses on two institutions, the monarchy and the aristocracy, both considered necessary premises for the formation of the polis. In this last section I would like to draw some points about monarchy and aristocracy within the Anatolian canton-states and the Syro-Hittite city-states, in order to examine the parallel developments of ‘the East’ and ‘the West’ in this period of experimentation of new forms of political organization prior to the Assyrian conquest, avoiding ancient prejudices and modern disciplinary divisions. In the Syro-Hittite area, local dynasties of kings or regents invested with monarchic power are attested as early as the 11th century BCE. It is very likely that the ruling Hittite dynasty in Karkemiš remained in power after the fall of the empire, thus promoting a model of monarchy based on the previous Hittite political experience, however receptive of the local Syrian tradition.63 Alongside the dynasty of Great Kings (later on Kings) of Karkemiš, a number of dynasties of kings as well as local governors were established between the 11th and 10th centuries. The social difference between the dynasties in power and their subjects is archaeologically visible in the selection of building materials, in the monumentality, in the organization of urban spaces and in the wealth accumulation of objects of minor arts. The ALEPPO 6 inscription64 dated to the 11th century BCE and carved by initiative of Taita, king of Palastina, for the visitors to the temple of the Storm-god, offers a clear representation of this social and hierarchical differentiation within the Syro-Hittite area between kings, governors and other lower-ranking individuals: He who comes to this temple to celebrate the (storm-)god: If he is a king, let him slaughter an ox and a sheep! But if he is the Son of a king or a Country Lord, or a River-Land Lord, let him slaughter a sheep! If he is a man of inferior status (subject?), let the offering be a bread and a libation. (ALEPPO 6, 4–11) The type of monarchic institution of the Syro-Hittite region is hardly found in the Aegean and in central Anatolia before the 9th century. It is possible that The setting of the relationship between east and west of Santo Mazzarino (1947) has a significant influence on the organization of this contribution. 63 See among other Giusfredi 2010; Weeden 2013; Giusfredi 2018; Marchetti / Peker 2018. 64 Hawkins 2011. 62

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Phrygia developed in a monarchy as early as the in 10th century BCE, and that this led to the secondary formation of a dynasty of kings in the region located immediately south and east of Phrygia, known as the Tuwadi dynasty.65 All the other dynasties of sovereigns of South-Central Anatolia are later, datable between the end of the 9th and the 8th centuries, and they are secondary formations in which even the Hittite cultural elements were probably of indirect derivation. They were reintroduced into Anatolia from the south, from the Syro-Hittite city-states as a consequence of the impact of the model of the Syro-Hittite cities on the one hand and Assyrian Empire on the other.66 The Anatolian canton-states likely grew from the reorganization of the communities and administrative structures of the southern territories of the empire on the Plateau. A similar process probably took place in the Aegean for the postMycenaean area (Peloponnese and Attica): “One of the likely side effects of the (Mycenean n.d.r.) collapse must have consisted of a breakdown of the palatial capacity to normatively define the contents of an “official” ideology, which (…) gave the members of Mycenaean communities a previously unknown degree of freedom to actively participate in reshaping such discourses or initiating entirely new ones” (Maran / Wright 2020, 117–118). The process of transformation of the Anatolian cantons, of a more egalitarian and communitarian nature, into the Neo-Hittite monarchies inspired by the SyroHittite and Assyrian political regimes, may be glimpsed in the genealogy of the first kings of the canton of Gurgum. Gurgum was located in the modern province of Maraş, on the Antitaurus and therefore in a borderland area between the Anatolian canton-states and the Syro-Hittite city-states. The earliest inscription from Gurgum, dated between the 11th–10th centuries. B.C., starts as follows: I am Larama, descendant of Astuwaramanza, son of Muwatalli (MARAŞ 8, 1)67 This passage is from the oldest Anatolian Hieroglyphic text whose protagonist does not carry an honorific title of sort, nor does he descend from individuals who can boast an honorific title. The ‘Syro-Hittite’ titulature of a Contry Lord of Malatya, who lived slightly earlier than or was even coeval with Larama, runs very differently: (Oh) great storm god, great Hepat, great Šarruma! (This is) Runtiyas, of the lineage of the Great King Kuzi-Teššub, the hero, the Karkemisite, son of PUGNUS-mili, Country Lord of Malatya (GÜRÜN, 1–3)68 D’Alfonso 2019; Kealhofer et al. 2019. See on this Özyar 2013 and Summers 2017. 67 Hawkins 2000, 252–255. The figure is confirmed today by the new inscription of Larama’s son, Muwizi, who, like his father, does not mention titles: I am Muwizi, son of Larama, descendant of Astuwaramanza. (MARAŞ 17,1–2: see Peker 2018). 68 Hawkins 2000, 295–299. 65 66

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Despite the fact that the incipit of MARAŞ 8 and GÜRÜN share the unusual anticipation of the founder of the lineage before the patronimic, the dynasty of the Country Lords of Malatya prides itself on the support of a triad of deities, and emphasizes the paternal titles and the title of Great King of the illustrious ancestor. These are all elements of legitimizing power which derive from the second millennium Hittite tradition. On the other hand, Larama of Gurgum, who adopts the Anatolian Hieroglyphic script to narrate his own deeds of the formation of a new canton-state, is not entitled to claim for himself or for his ancestors the title of King, of Country Lord or any another title whose legitimation descends from the direct relationship with the major deities of the Hittite pantheon and with the Hittite dynastic lines. His military endeavors characterize him as belonging to the new “social class of professionals of war” (Giusfredi 2010, 31), formed during the post-Palatial period in Anatolia. The adoption of the title of King by the house of Astuwaramanza occurred around the middle of the 9th century BCE with Halparuntiya II, perhaps as a secondary state formation produced by the Assyrian impact.69 The complex process of adjustment that led to the adoption of the royal title can be spotted by reading through the genealogy of a descendant of Astuwaramanza, Halparuntiya III: I am the tarwani-70 Halparuntiya, king of the Land of Gurgum, son of Larama, the tapariyalli-, grandson of Halparuntiya, the hero, great-grandson of the warpali- Muwatalli, pro-great-grandson of the tarwani- Halparuntiya, pro-pro-great-grandson of Muwizi, the hero, offspring of Larama, the tapariyalli-. (MARAŞ 1, 1–3)71 It is important to emphasize that the ancestors of Halparuntiya, king of Gurgum, are not defined * handawati-, king,72 but each one of them is qualified by a title or an epithet other than that of king. Significantly, the founder of the On the reigning dynasty of Gurgum and its chronology see. most recently Peker 2018, with reference to the previous bibliography. 70 The political significance of the tarwanate, whose study cannot be separated from the definition of monarchy and ‘aristocracy’ in the Anatolian and Syro-Hittite sphere, is deliberately left in the shadow of this contribution. On the tarwani- see Pintore 1979; Pintore 1983; Yakubovich 2002; Giusfredi 2009. 71 Hawkins 2000, 261–265. 72 From the inscription MARAŞ 4 we are informed that Halparuntiya son of Muwatalli and grandparent of Halparuntiya who commissioned MARAŞ 1 had already assumed the title of king in 853 BCE (Hawkins 2000, 250–251, 256). The titles and epithets of MARAŞ 1 are therefore not to be taken literally. However, the adoption of titles other than kings, Son of kings and Lord of the country betray a distance from the Hittite tradition. In the same way, the decision to associate the title of tapariyalli to the founder of the family (here Larama and no longer Astuwaramanza), however, has a foundational value for the family itself. 69

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family, identified here as Larama, who with his conquests helped found the canton of Gurgum, bears the title of tapariyalli-. The title tapariyalli- becomes, for this dynasty, honorary and de facto implies monarchic value, as it is for the title of Country Lord (REGIO.DOMINUS) in Karkemiš and Malatya. This notwithstanding, the fact that the inscription of ALEPPO 6 of the 11th century reported above lists a series of political titles in hierarchical order, implies that the sacral and dynastic legitimation of royal monarchic power was still highly maintained in the Syro-Hittite region. The curse clauses of the SULTANHAN inscription (F3–4) and the incipit of the KARABURUN inscription (1) contrast the tapariyalli- with the king, and both indicate a lower rank of the former vis à vis the latter. Some royal dynasties and in particular the one of Gurgum, must have negotiated internally and in the relationship with the political entities of the region the lack of sacral and dynastic legitimacy, given that they achieved their monarchic power as a lineage of a family of governors of local communities with a successful military record: these are the two elements featuring in the long genealogy of MARAŞ 1 presented above. Tapariyalli- is one of the few titles of the first millennium Anatolian Hieroglyphic inscriptions that was already present in the texts of the Hittite empire.73 In a forthcoming paper, Ilgi Gerçek brings convincing evidence that in the second millennium this term indicates local governors of the lowest level with whom the Hittite officials establish contact.74 The term is commonly translated as ‘governor’. It is therefore possible that these representatives of the small local communities within the Hittite empire, once the Hittite administration had ceased to exist, were able to maintain or renegotiate their authority within a local community, a community of which they were, however, full members because of direct ties of extended family and continuous attendance. The Hittite texts do not inform us that this office was hereditary in the second millennium, and perhaps the development of the office in a hereditary and a military one, is typical of developments in the post-Hittite age. Here the question arises whether the historical evolution and the political function of the basileus from the post-Mycenaean age up to the 8th century is somewhat similar and historically parallel to the evolution and political function of the tapariyalli- in the post-Hittite period. The Anatolian canton-states would then develop into monarchies similar to those of some regions of mainland Greece and the Aegean. In the Mycenaean texts, the basyleus (p/a-si-re-u) has a very similar function to that of the tapariyalli- of the Hittite texts. In the same way, as the monarchy in the Anatolian canton-states is a late and secondary phenomenon, the basileia of the

See Giusfredi 2010, 104–107, with bibliography. The dating of all occurrences to the 8th century does not seem correct. 74 Gerçek and d’Alfonso forthcoming. On the attestations see Pecchioli 1982, 437; Jasink 1998, 97–99. 73

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EIA towards the Homeric Age is in fact not a monarchy at all. It remains an open question whether the Homeric wanax and the basileus emerging as a prominent individual among other basileis are to be considered royal, monarchic figures of the post-Mycenaean age, or the result of the memory and of literary elaboration of the monarchy of the Palatial age. In this sense, it is worth noting that after the Mycenaean era the Aegean world did not know real monarchic models until the contact with Phrygia and Lydia.75 The genealogies of the besileis of Athens and of other poleis of Greece and the Aegean were reinterpreted as monarchic dynasties in later times. Besides their later legitimizing intent, they may in fact preserve memory of the same phenomenon of administrative continuity within small communities and growth of personal power by a local official and his family that parallels the case of the Anatolian canton-state of Gurgum.76 If the basileia dating to the post-Mycenaean age and the Homeric age should be separated from the idea of monarchy as a regime, it bears a much more direct relationship with the formation of the aristocracy.77 Apart from the idea of merit derived from birth and wealth and recognized within an urban community, the definition of aristocracy in the Greek context is also debated among classicists.78 The complexity of the topic and the lack of competence by this author on this matter should not be taken as a reason to once again avoid the analysis of two parallel, geographically and chronologically close processes. It makes sense here to consider the clues relating to the formation of an aristocracy in the Anatolian and Syro-Hittite contexts. For the 9th and 8th centuries BCE the study of iconographic apparatuses on orthostats in Syro-Hittite urban centers promoted by the central authority offer a large and recurrent figurative representation of the city’s elite as a social body.79 Moreover, the funerary stelae in the Syro-Hittite city-states as well

A separate issue deserves tyranny, which however is not based on dynastic and sacral legitimation and therefore whatever its origin has characteristics different from those discussed in this contribution. 76 On the post-Mycenaean and Homeric age basileia see Carlier 1984, and more recently Hall 2007, 120–127 and Luraghi 2013, with reference to the previous bibliography. Luraghi notes the importance of inheritance and community context in the exercise of the power of the basileis, particularly in the Homeric context. He stresses that often we speak of basileis in the plural, because of the presence of more than one basileus per town community (p. 133: cf. for the Syro-Hittite sphere the plural tapariyalinzi attestation, the governors, unfortunately fragmented, in JISR AL-HADID Frg. 3). Another important element common to tapariyalinzi is that the Aegean early basileia lack a divine sanctioned legitimacy: “the favor the gods show them does not make of them divine kings in any sense nor, more importantly, of monarchy itself a component of a divinely ordained social order, as it was in the ancient Near East” (Luraghi 2013, 133–134). 77 Antonaccio 2002; Hall 2007, 127–130. 78 See the debate reported in Whitley 2020. 79 Gilibert 2011. 75

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as in the Anatolian cantons offer, for the first time, the definition of a place marked by the figurative and textual representation of the rites for the perpetuation of the cult of the ancestors of non-royal families (Fig. 5). These monuments were previously the exclusive privilege of royal families, and D. Bonatz has interpreted this change as the result of the development of an aristocracy in these regions.80 The genealogies of individuals not belonging to the royal families but reported on monumental inscriptions are also a new feature of this new historical phase. The importance of ceramic assemblages for the circulation and consumption of wine are different in the Syro-Hittite city-states and in the Anatolian cantons, but in both areas they highlight the importance of exclusive secular rituals related to the consumption of wine that are not limited to the king’s court, but involve and define this new aristocracy.81 The high social status of these new elites is no longer granted by the service for the Palace and the blood ties with the royal family, as in the LBA, but it is claimed and built by prominent individuals for their families within urban communities. These are all the elements inherent to the political institutions that precede the formation of a distinct identity between the East and the West in the Mediterranean, between the late 8th and the 5th century, and that can be useful to identify parallel lines of development that, in spite of local variants, were to make the ‘experimental’ horizon of the turn of the 2nd millennium in the entire eastern Mediterranean from Greece to Sinai much more coherent than the way it is often represented, precisely along the lines of what Mario Liverani had already envisioned twenty years ago. Bibliography Antonaccio, C.M., 2002: Warriors, Traders, and Ancestors: The ‘Heroes’ of Lefkandi. In J. Munk Høtje (ed.): Images of Ancestors. Aarhus. Pp. 13–42. Arslan, C. / Hnila, P., 2015: Migration and integration at Troy from the end of the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In N. Stampolidis et al. (eds.): NOSTOI: Indigenous cultures, migration and integration in the Aegean Islands and Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze and the Early Iron Age. Istanbul. Pp. 185–210. Berent, M., 1996: Hobbes and the ‘Greek Tongue’. History of Political Thought 17: 36–59. Bittel, K., 1937: The citadel and the lower Fortress. In H.H. von der Osten (ed.): The Alishar Höyük Seasons of 1930–32. Chicago. Pp. 290–338. Bonatz, D., 2000: Das syro-hethitische Grabdenkmal: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung einer neuen Bildgattung in der Eisenzeit des nordsyrischsüdostanatolischen Raums. Mainz.

See Bonatz 2002; Bonatz 2016. See Pucci 2019b, d’Alfonso in press.

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–– 2003: Oltre la Bibbia, Storia antica di Israele. Roma / Bari. –– 2010: Il salone a pilastri della Melid neo-hittita. Scienze dell’Antichità 15: 649–675. –– 2011: The Pillared Hall of Neo-Hittite Melid: a New Link in the Development of an Architectural Type. In C. Lippolis / S. de Martino (eds.): Un impaziente desiderio di scorrere il mondo. Firenze. Pp. 91–112. –– 2012: Melid in the Early and Middle Iron Age: Archaeology and History. In G. Galil et al. (eds.): The Ancient Near East in the 12th–10th Centuries BCE. Culture and History. Münster. Pp. 327–344. –– 2013: Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. New York. Luraghi, N., 2013: One-Man Government: the Greeks and Monarchy. In H. Beck (ed.): A Companion to Ancient Greek Government. Chichester. Pp. 131–145. Manuelli, F., Mori, L., 2016: The King at the Gate. Monumental Fortifications and the Rise of Local Elites at Arslantepe at the End of the 2nd Millennium BCE. Origini 39: 209–241. Maran, J. / Wright, J.C., 2020: The Rise of the Mycenaean Culture, Palatial Administration, and its Collapse. In I. Lemos / A. Kotsonas (eds.): A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean. Chichester. Pp. 99–132. Marchetti, N. / Peker, H. 2018: The Stele of Kubaba by Kamani and the Kings of Karkemish in the 9th Century BC. ZA 108/1: 81–99. Matsumura, K., 2005: Die eisenzeitliche Keramik aus Zentralanatolien aufgrund der Grundlage der Ausgrabung von Kaman-Kalehöyük. Tesi di dottorato inedita, FU, Berlin. Mazzarino, S. 1947: Tra Oriente e occidente. Ricerche di sotria greca arcaica. Firenze. Mazzoni, S., 1995: Settlement Pattern and New Urbanization in Syria at the Time of the Assyrian Conquest. In M. Liverani (ed.): Neo-Assyrian Geography. Roma. Pp. 181–91. –– 1997: The Gate and the City: Change and Continuity in Syro-Hittite Urban Ideology. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Die orientalische Stadt: Kontinuität, Wandel, Bruch. Saarbrücken. Pp. 307–38. Melville, S. 2010: Kings of Tabal: Politics; Competition, and Conflict in a Contested Periphery. In S. Richardson (ed.): Rebellions and Peripheries in the Mesopotamian World. Winona Lake. Pp. 87–109. Monroe, L. / Fleming, D.E. 2019: Earliest Israel in Highland Company. Near Eastern Archaeology 82/1: 16–23. Mora, C. 2003. Gli stati territoriali nel Vicino Oriente nel II millennio a.C.: metodi di funzionamento e difficoltà di applicazione. In C. Bearzot et al. (ed.): Gli stati territoriali nel mondo antico. Milano. Pp. 3–19. Morgan, C., 2003: Early Greek States Beyond the Polis, London / New York. Muscarella, O., 1995: The Iron Age Background to the Formation of the Phrygian State. BASOR 299/300: 91–101.

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Neve P., 1987. Die Ausgrabungen in Boğazköy-Hattuša 1986. ArAnz 81–412: 754–755. –– 1992. Hattuša – Stadt der Götter und Tempel. Neue Ausgrabungen in der Hauptstadt der Hethiter. Mainz. Novák, M., 2004. Hilanu und Lustgarten. Ein ‘Palast des Hethiter-Landes’ und ein ‘Garten nach dem Abbild des Amanus’. In M. Novák et al. (eds.): Assyrien, in Die Außenwirkung des späthethitischen Kulturraumes. Münster. Pp. 335–371. Osborne, J., 2012: Communicating Power in the Bīt-Ḫilāni Palace. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research: 368, 29–66. –– 2014: Settlement Planning and Urban Symbology in Syro-Anatolian Cities. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24/2: 195–214. –– 2020: The Syro-Anatolian City-States: An Iron Age Culture. Oxford. Otten, H., 1988: Die Bronzetafel aus Böğazköy: ein Staatsvertrag Tuahalijas IV. Wiesbaden. Ökse, T. / Czichon, R. / Yılmaz, M., in press: Cultural Borders at the Northern and Eastern Edges of the Central Anatolian Plateau during the Second and the Pre-Classical 1st Millennium BCE. von der Osten, H.H., 1937: I. The Period of the Hittite Empire. In H.H. von der Osten, The Alishar Höyük Seasons of 1930–32. Chicago. Pp. 1–285. Özyar, A., 2013: The Writing on the Wall: reviewing sculpture and inscription on the gates of the Iron age citadel of Azatiwataya (Karatepe-Aslantaş). In S. Redford / N. Ergin (eds.): Cities and citadels in Turkey: from the Iron age to the Seljuks. Leuven. Pp. 115–135. Parkinson, W.A. / Galaty, L., 2007: Secondary States in Perspective: An Integrated Approach to State Formation in the Prehistoric Aegean. American Anthropologist 109: 113–129. Pelon, O., 1994: The Site of Porsuk and the Beginning of the Iron Age in Southern Cappadocia. In A. Çilingiroğlu / D.H. French (eds.): Anatolian Iron Ages 3. London. Pp. 156–162. Pintore, F., 1979: Tarwanis. In Carruba, O. (ed.): Studia Mediterranea Piero Meriggi dicata. Pavia. Pp. 473–494. –– 1983: Seren, Tarwanis, Tyrannos. In O. Carruba et al. (eds.): Studi orientalistici in ricordo di Franco Pintore. Pavia. Pp. 285–322. Du Plat Taylor, J. / Seton Williams, M.V. / Waecther, J., 1950: The Excavations at Sakce Gözü. The Excavations at Sakce Gözü. Iraq 12: 53–138. Porter, A., 2012: Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of the Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society. Cambridge. Price, B., 1978: Secondary State Formation: an Explanatory Model. In R. Cohen / E.R. Service (eds.): The origin of the state. Philadelphia. Pp. 161–186. Pucci, M., 2008: Functional Analysis of Space in Syro-Hittite Architecture. Oxford. –– 2019a: Excavations in the Plain of Antioch, Volume 3. Stratigraphy and Materials from Chatal Hüyük. Chicago.

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–– 2019b: Cultural Encounters during the LB II and IA I: Hittites and ‘Pelesets’ in the Amuq (Hatay) Turkey. Asia Anteriore Antica 1: 169–194. Rose, Ch.B., 2008: Separating Fact from Fiction in the Aeolian Migration. Hesperia 77/3: 399–430. –– in press: Troy and Phrygia during the Iron Age. In L. d’Alfonso / K. Rubinson (eds.): Borders in Archaeology: Changing Landscapes in Anatolia and the South Caucasus ca 3500–500 BCE. Leuven. Rose, Ch.B. / Darbyshire. G. (eds.), 2011: The New Chronology of Iron Age Gordion. Philadelphia. Sagona, A. / Zimansky, P., 2009: Ancient Turkey. London / New York. Sams, G.K., 1989: Sculpted Orthostats at Gordion. In K. Emre et al. (eds.): Anatolia and the Near East: Studies in Honor of Tahsin Özgüç. Ankara. Pp. 447–454. Sahlins, M.D., 1968: Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Seeher, J., 2018: Büyükkaya II. Bauwerke und Befunde der Grabungskampagnen 1952–1955 und 1993–1998. Berlin / Boston. Sergi, O., 2019: The Formation of Israelite Identity in the Central Canaanite Highlands in the Iron Age I–IIA. NEA 82/1: 42–51. Service, E.R., 1962: Primitive Social Organizations. New York. –– 1975: Origins of the State and Civilization. New York. Smith, A., 2003: The Political Landscape. London. Smith, M.L., 2005: Networks, Territories, and the Cartography of Ancient States. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95/4: 832–849. Snodgrass, A. 1980: Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. London. Summers, G.D., 1994: Grey Ware and the Eastern Limits of Phrygia. In A. Çilingiroğlu / D.H. French (eds.): Anatolian Iron Ages III. London. Pp. 241– 252. –– 2014: East of the Halys: Thoughts on Settlement Patterns and Historical Geography in the Late 2nd Millennium and First Half of the First Millennium B.C. In H. Bru / G. Labarre (eds.): L’Anatolie des peuples, des cités et des cultures (IIe millénaire av. J.-C. – Ve siècle ap. J.-C.). Paris. Pp. 41–51. –– 2017: After the Collapse, Continuities and Discontinuities in the Early Iron Age of Central Anatolia. In A. Schachner (ed.): Innovation versus Beharrung. Was macht den Unterschied des hethitischen Reichs im Anatolien des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr.? (Fs J. Seeher, BYZAS 23). Istanbul. Pp. 257–274 Şenyurt Y.S. / Aktaş, A., 2018: Ovaören 2015–2016 yılı kazıları. KST 39/2: 571– 586. Trigger, B.G., 2003: Understanding early civilizations. Cambridge. –– 2006: A History of Archaeological Thought. Second edition. Cambridge. Venturi, F. (ed.), 2010: Societies in transition. Evolutionary Processes in the Northern Levant between the Late Bronze Age II and the Early Iron Age. Bologna.

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Voigt, M.M., 2012: The Unfinished Project of the Gordion Early Phrygian Destruction Level. In Ch.B. Rose (ed.): The Archaeology of Phrygian Gordion, Royal City of Midas. Philadelphia. Pp. 67–100. Voigt, M.M. / Henrickson, R., (2000): Formation of the Phrygian State: the Early Iron Age at Gordion. AnSt 50: 37–54. Weeden, M., 2013: After the Hittites: The Kingdoms of Karkamish and Palistin in Northern Syria. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London 56/2: 1–20. Whitley, J., 2020: The Re-Emergence of Political Complexity. In I. Lemos / A. Kotsonas (eds.): A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean. Chichester. Pp. 161–186. Wilkinson, T. (ed.), 2016. Carchemish in Context: The Land of Carchemish Project, 2006–2010. Oxford. Yakubovich, I., 2002: Labyrinth for Tyrants. Studia Linguarum 3: 93–116. Yoffee, N., 1993: Too Many Chiefs? (or, Safe Texts for the ’90s). In N. Yoffee / A. Sherratt (eds.): Archaeological theory: who sets the agenda? Cambridge. Pp. 60–78. –– 2005: Myths of the Archaic State. Cambridge.

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Fig. 1. Spread of the Early Iron Age political formations in the ‘large’ Eastern Mediterranean (source: Liverani 2002, Fig. 6)

Fig. 2. Early Iron Age political developments in different regions of Central Anatolia (adapted from d’Alfonso 2020, Fig. 1–7)

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Fig. 3. Differences in urban plan and surface area between Syro-Hittite and Anatolian cities. Syro-Hittite cities (source: Osborne 2014, Figs. 3 and 6): A) Zincirli Höyük / Samal; B) Tayınat Höyük / Kinaluwa; C) Tell Ahmar / Mazuwari; D) Tell Al-Rifa’at / Arpad; E) Tell Jerablus / Karkemiš; F) Karatepe / Azatiwataya. Anatolian cities: G) Polatlı-Yassı Höyük (source: Voigt 2005, Fig. 9); H) Niğde-Kınık Höyük; K) Alişar Höyük (source: Osten 1937, Fig. 311).

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Fig. 4. Buildings within the citadels of Syro-Hittite vs. Anatolian cities. A) small agglutinative houses at the citadel of the Anatolian site of Alişar Höyük (source: von der Osten 1937, Fig. 335). A1 is in scale with B, the smaller scale of A2 shows the plan of the buldings within the citadel. B) Monumental buildings and their courts at the citadel of the SyroHittite site of Zincirli Höyük (source: Pucci 2008, Pl. 1)

Fig. 5. Non-royal funerary stele from Maraş (south Anatolia) dating to the early first millennium BCE. A) Stele from the Maraş Museum Nr. 1040. H. 0.88 m. Basalt (source: Bonatz 2016, Fig. 9); B) Stele from the Adana Museum, Nr. 1756. H. 1.02 m. Basalt. (source: Bonatz 2016, Fig. 8).

The Materiality of the Cuneiform Tablets and the Puzzle of the Hittite Historical Geography Stefano de Martino University of Torino Archaeometric analyses on the cuneiform tablets are a new and very productive research field. Physical analysis (Petrography) and chemical investigations (Instrumental Neutron Activation Analyses) had already been experimented in the seventies of last century,1 but they have become more frequent, when portable X-Ray flourescence analysers started to be used; in fact, this apparatus has the advantage that it can be easily carried to any place where the cuneiform tablets are preserved and does not require any destructive process.2 Obviously, the chemical analyses rely on comparative databases, which unfortunately are not available for all the regions of the ancient Near East. Moreover, the results of said analyses are fully reliable, only when many tablets can be examined.3 The most significant results reached by the scientific team led by Y. Goren concern the analysis on the cuneiform tablets originally preserved in the archives of Akhetaten (Tell el Amarna). The outcome of this research appeared in several publications and offered important elements for the identification of the places where the tablets might have been written.4 Y. Goren and his collaborators recently examined 81 cuneiform tablets found at Ḫattuša and Tell el Amarna using the portable X-Ray flourescence analysers in order to determine regional differences in the clay of these documents. According to the results of this research, the analysed tablets could be divided into five groups, corresponding to different geo-political regions, namely Ugarit, Mittani, Babylonia, Ḫattuša and Egypt.5 An American and Japanese team conducted chemical analyses on a large group of cuneiform tablets, which are part of, respectively, the British Museum

3 4

See the first analyses of this kind, Artzy et al. 1976; Dobel et al. 1977. See Goren et al. 2011. Goren et al. 2004, 14–15. See, for example, Goren et al. 2003; Cohen-Weinberger / Goren 2004; Goren et al. 2003; Goren et al. 2004; Goren et al. 2011. 5 Goren et al. 2011. 1 2

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and the Yale University collection. The researchers concentrated their work on tablets, which come from Mesopotamia and central Turkey, aiming at discovering regional differences in the chemical composition of the texts produced in these territories. E. Uchida, D. Niikuma and R. Watanabe (2015) used portable X-Ray fluorescence analysers and examined 634 cuneiform tablets, bullae and seals. They classified the analysed tablets into groups that refer to four regions of the Near East, namely the upper stream area of the Tigris and Euphrates river, the lower stream area of the Tigris and Euphrates river, the northern and central areas in Turkey, and its southern area. Although these results seem to coincide with those reached by Y. Goren and his team, at least concerning the macro-areas from which the studied tablets came, E. Uchida, D. Niikuma and T. Watanabe (2015, 187) argued that the two teams conducted the calibration of the portable X-Ray fluorescence in a different way. Hence, the concentration of elements, such as for example copper, titanium and calcium, is much higher in their analysis than in that conducted by Y. Goren. Since the calibration is an important component for the reliability of the results, Uchida, Niikuma and Watanabe concisely concluded their publication by stating that “the results obtained in Goren et al. (2011) are not correct because the pXRF was not calibrated using standard materials”. Philologists, who have no familiarity with chemistry and physics and can only trust the results of scientific analyses, may be disconcerted by said statement that will undermine their need for an objective truth. Another field of research that is often at the centre of debate is the historical geography of the ancient Near East. Concerning Anatolia, the recently published book Hittite Landscape and Geography, edited by M. Weeden and L.Z. Ullmann (2017), gives an exhaustive treatment of all the available data on the historical geography of ancient Anatolia and is an indispensable tool for hittitologists, notwithstanding there are questions, which remain without any sure answers. Thus, it is understandable that new difficulties arise, when one attempts to solve historical and geographical problems by means of the archeometric analysis on the clay of cuneiform tablets. This is the case of the location of the region of Arzawa and of the cities of Milawanda and Apaša, in western Anatolia. The place name Milawa(n)da, though only mentioned in three Hittite documents, has been for a long time at the centre of the scientific debate. E. Forrer (1924, 5) assumed that Milawa(n)da corresponded to the classical Milyas, whereas B. Hrozný (1929, 329) argued that said city was located where Miletus was. The identification with Milyas can be excluded, because Milawan(d)a was an important harbour and a mercantile hub, which difficultly could be located along the rocky coast of Lycia. Moreover, the Yalburt inscription offers a description of said region and does not mention Milawanda.6 Instead, the identification of Milawa(n)da with Miletus was accepted on a

6

Gander 2017a, 268–269.

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linguistic ground7 and is supported by the archaeological evidence, as well; in fact, Hittite texts document that Milawa(n)da was, at least for a certain period, politically tied to Aḫḫiyawa and the excavations of the Late Bronze Age levels at Miletus indicate a significant Mycenaean presence at this site.8 Lastly, J.D. Hawkins (1998, 26) argued that the itinerary to Milawa(n)da, as described in the so called “Tawalaga Letter”, confirms the aforementioned assumption. The Comprehensive Annals written by Muršili II relate that he reached Milawa(n)da before having defeated the ruler of Arzawa;9 thus, those researchers who do not share the identification of Milawa(n)da with Miletus state that the Hittite king could not have arrived at Miletus before he conquered the whore territory of Arzawa, and, consequently, Milawa(n)da should be searched in a more southern region.10 This objection is, in my opinion, not relevant; in fact, the ruler of Arzawa might have no more controlled the whole Meander region, although it was very close to the core of his kingdom, when the Hittite king moved against him. The aforementioned “Tawagalawa Letter” is the draft of a letter to be delivered to the King of Aḫḫiyawa.11 Only the third tablet of this long letter written in Hittite has been preserved, and its main topic is the refuge that the ruler of Aḫḫiyawa granted to Piyamaradu. The latter personage was a member of the royal family of Arzawa, who received hospitality at the court of Aḫḫiyawa and raided western Anatolian territories under the Hittite control. Though the first and second tablets are not preserved and, thus, the incipit is also lost, most researchers argue that Ḫattušili III is the author of this letter.12 The letter was written when the Hittite king was in Milawa(n)da;13 hence, this document seemed to be particularly interesting to Y. Goren, who analysed the clay the tablet. Optical mineralogical investigations demonstrate that the fabric of this tablet presents similarities to the Samian pottery; moreover, instrumental neutron activation analysis concurs “with reference material from the Eastern Aegean costal area south of Ephesus”. These results “fit very well with the text itself” and support the assumption that the tablet of the “Tawagalawa Letter” was actually produced at Miletus,14 thus, hopefully, winning the resistance of those researchers, who are still reluctant to accept the localisation of Milawa(n)da at Miletus.

See D. Hawkins (1998, 30–31 n. 207), who refers to the statement of A. Morpurgo Davies. 8 Niemeier 1998; Günel 2017, 119–120. 9 Del Monte 1993, 77–78. 10 See Gander 2017, 268, with previous literature. 11 Beckman et al. 2011, 101–122. See now Heinhold-Krahmer / Rieken 2020. 12 Beckman et al. 2011, 119–120. 13 De Martino 2010; see Taracha 2015 for a different point of view. 14 Goren et al. 2011, 693–694; Gander 2017a, 269. 7

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The question concerning location of the city of Apaša is more complicate. Uḫḫa-ziti ruler of Arzawa resided in Apaša, when the Hittite king Muršili II marched with his army against him, as the Annals of Muršili II document,15 hence, Apaša may have been the royal residence. The identification of Apaša with the classical city of Ephesus was supported by the assumption that the core of Arzawa presumably corresponded to the fertile and well-connected region of the Meander valley and its capital was on the nearby coast.16 Archaeological investigations in the Bronze Age levels at Ephesus and Ayasoluk, which is at about 5 km far from Ephesus, demonstrate that there was a settlement there at that time.17 The location of Apaša at Ayasoluk/Ephesus is shared by those researchers who accept the reconstruction of the historical geography of western Anatolia that is generally proposed. In fact, the three countries, which Muršili II created after having defeated Arzawa, namely the Šeḫa River Land, the country of Mira and the country of Ḫapalla, may be located, respectively and from north to south, into the valley of the river Hermos, into the valley of the Meander river and in the region laying between Mira and Ḫatti. The recent interpretation of the Hieroglyphic inscriptions on the Karabel relief supports the hypothesis that said monument marked the northern border of Mira and the road connection into the Šeḫa River Land.18 Hittite sources also suggest that the polity of Wiluša should be at the north of the Šeḫa River Land and close to it. The equation of the Hittite place name Wiluša with the Greek Ilios is now generally accepted;19 despite this, the assumption of identifying the site of Hisarlık Höyük with the Wiluša/Ilios/Troy remains at the centre of a stormy scientific debate.20 After the publication of M. Korfmann’s archaeological results and the catalogue of the exhibition Troia Traum und Wirklichheit (2001) some researchers contested the interpretation of the ruins of Hisarlık Höyük/Troy VI, as those of an important city and trade hub, arguing that “Korfmann has not even proved that late Troy was a city at all”.21 A complete different point of view was expressed by other archaeologists and philologists,22 who shared the proposed identification of Wiluša with Hisarlık Höyük by means of the Hittite textual evidence and the archaeological data.23 Notwithstanding, S. Heinhold-Krahmer contested said assumption and proposed a location of Wiluša

Del Monte 1993, 22, 79; Beckman et al. 2011, 15, 33. Hawkins 1998, 1. For a different location of Apaša, see Freu 1998, 115–116. 17 Niemeier 1998, 41–42; Büyükkolancı 2000. 18 Hawkins 1998. 19 Hajnal 2003; 2011. 20 See the proceedings of the Conference edited by Christoph Ulf (2003). 21 Hertel / Kolb 2003. 22 Easton et al. 2002; Jablonka / Rose 2004. 23 See also the literature quoted by Beckman et al. 2011, 132. 15 16

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in south western Anatolia (2003; 2004a; 2004b; 2013), which, instead, can be hardly accepted in consideration of our knowledge of the geography of this part of the Hittite kingdom.24 M. Gander (2017a; 2017b), following Heinhold-Krahmer, recently challenged the aforementioned traditional geographical reconstruction of Western Anatolia and proposed that Wiluša may be either in the coastal region in front of the island of Lesbos, or south of Miletus; moreover, Arzawa corresponded to the classical Lydia and the Šeḫa River Land was located in the Meander valley. Gander tried to support his alternative reconstruction of Western Anatolian geography recurring to the results of the archaeometric analysis on the clay of the tablet EA 32. This tablet preserves a letter sent by the Arzawean king Tarḫundaradu to Amenhotep III (EA 32) and deals with the marriage between a daughter of the Arzawean king to the Pharaoh.25 Y. Goren analysed the clay of the letter EA 32. Although the results of these analysis were compared to the composition of a huge amount of pottery consulting the whole Bonn data bank, “no sample with an exactly similar composition was found and therefore the paste of the tablet was not used to produce any of the pottery samples measured. However, many samples of a western Anatolian group with not very different elemental abundances were filtered out by search (and only these). It turned out that the tablet has a composition which is closely associated to a group of samples which was published as group ‘G’” (Goren et al. 2004, 46–47). Y. Goren, I. Finkelstein and D. Na’aman assumed that the pottery of the group ‘G’ may be assigned to workshops in Ephesus. Instead, M. Kerschner (2002) recently contested the result of Goren’s analysis and stated that the clay of the letter EA 32 is only comparable to that of the pottery produced in the region of classical Lydia, near Kyme. M. Gander (2017a; 2017b, 270) trusted Kerschner’s results and, consequently, concluded that “at least at the time of Tarḫundaradu, the capital of Arzawa was not at Ephesus but north of it, in classical Lydia”; thus, this statement could confirm Gander’s assumption that Apaša may be located in Lydia and his new presentation of the historical geography of western Anatolia. Though M. Gander deserves the merit of having given the opportunity for an up-to-date and productive scientific debate on the geography of western Anatolia, conclusive evidence, however, has not yet been adduced to prove his point. In fact, firstly, we have only one tablet at our disposal and this is not enough for getting reliable archaeometric responses, secondarily, there is no agreement concerning the analysis of the provenance of the group ‘G’ pottery. Lastly, if one shares Kerschner’s statement, we cannot rule out the supposition that EA 32 was sent from a place different from Apaša and located on the Lydian coast, where the

Hawkins 1998. Liverani 1999, 406–408; Rainey 2015, 326–331. The tablet EA 31 is a letter sent by the Pharaoh to Tarḫundaradu on the same topic.

24 25

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king of Arzawa resided at that time. The mobility of the king of Arzawa is demonstrated by a letter, which was sent by a Hittite official to King Tutḫaliya II/III and found at Ortaköy/Šapinuwa. This tablet documents that the royal family of Arzawa was in the city of Ḫappuriya,26 at the border between Ḫatti and Arzawa, where the Arzawean ruler, presumably, gathered his army there, in preparation for an attack against the Hittites.27 The assumption that the king of Arzawa may occasionally have resided on the coast of Lydia is not in contrast with the fact that said region became the core of the Šeḫa River Land after the Hittite conquest of Arzawa, because the country of Šeḫa and that of Mira, as well, were not kingdoms before the time of Muršili II, but only “dukedoms”;28 thus, the Šeḫa River Land may have been a small polity and not reached the coastal zone, which, instead, remained under the Arzawean control. Hence, in conclusion, the site of Ayasoluk/Ephesus remains the better candidate for the location of the Hittite city of Apaša. Bibliography Artzy, M. / Perlman, I. / Asaro, F., 1976: Alašiya of the Amarna Letters. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 2: 171–182. Beckman, G.M. / Bryce, T.R. / Cline, E.H., 2011: The Ahhiyawa Texts. Atlanta. Büyükkolancı, M., 2000: Excavations at Ayasuluk Hill in Selçuk/Turkey. A Contribution to the Early History of Ephesus. In F. Krinzinger (ed.): Die Ägäis und das Westliche Mittelmeer. Beziehungen und Wechselwirkungen 8. bis 5. Jh. v. Chr.. Wien. Pp. 39–43. Cohen-Weinberger, A. / Goren, Y. ,2004: Levantine-Egyptian Interactions During the 12th to the 15th Dynasties Based on the Petrography of the Canaanite Pottery from Tell El-Dab’a. Ägypt und Levante 14; 69–100. Dobel, A. / Asaro, F. / Michel, H.V., 1944: Neutron Activation Analysis of the Location of Waššukkanni. Orientalia 46: 375–382. Easton, D.F. / Hawkins, J.D. / Sherratt, A.G. / Sherratt, E.S., 2002: Troy in recent perspective. Anatolian Studies 52: 75–109. Forlanini, M., 2007: Happurija, eine Hauptstadt von Arzawa?. In M. Alparslan / M. Doğan-Alparslan / H. Peker (eds.): VITA, Festschrift in Honor of Belkıs Dinçol and Ali Dinçol. Istanbul. Pp. 285–298. Forrer, E., 1924: Vorhomerische Griechen in den Keilschrifttexten von Boghazköi. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient Gesellschaft 63: 1–21. Freu, J., 1998: Les relations entre Troie et le monde Hittite. In L. Isebaert / R. Lebrun (eds.): Quaestiones Homericae. Louvain. Pp. 95–118. Gander, M., 2017a: The West: Philology. In M. Weeden / L.Z. Ullmann (eds.):

Süel 2001. Forlanini 2007. 28 Hawkins 1998, 16. 26 27

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Hittite Landscape and Geography. Leiden / Boston. Pp. 262–280. –– 2017b: An alternative View on the Location of Arzawa. In A. Mouton (ed.): Hittitology Today: Studies on Hittite and Neo-Hittite Anatolia in Honor of Emmanuel Laroche’s 100 Birthday. Istanbul. Pp. 163–190. Goren, Y. / Bunimowitz, Sh. / Finkelstein, I. / Na’aman, N., 2003: The Location of Alashiya: New Evidence from Petrographic Investigation of Alashiyan Tablets from El-Amarna and Ugarit. American Journal of Archaeology 107: 233–255. Goren, Y. / Finkelstein, I. / Na’aman, N., 2003: The Expansion of the Kingdom of Amurru According to the Petrographic Investigations of the Amarna Tablets. Bulletin of the American School of the Oriental Research 329: 1–11. –– 2004: Inscribed in Clay, Provenance Study of the Amarna Tablets and Other Near Eastern Texts. Monograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University 23. Tel Aviv. Goren, Y. / Mommsen, H. / Klinger, J., 2011: Non-destructive provenance study of cuneiform tablets using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF). Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 684–696. Günel, S., 2017: The West: Archaeology. In M. Weeden / L.Z. Ullmann (eds.): Hittite Landscape and Geography. Leiden / Boston. Pp. 119–133. Hajnal, I., 2003: Troia aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht. Die Struktur einer Argumentation. Innsbruck. Hawkins, J.D., 1998: Tarkasnawa King of Mira ‘Tarkondemos’, Boğazköy Sealings and Karabel. Anatolian Studies 48: 1–31. Heinhold-Krahmer, S., 2003: Zur Gleichung der namen Ilios-Wiluša und Troia-Taruiša. In: Chr. Ulf (ed.), Der Neue Streit um Troia. Eine Bilanz. München. Pp. 146–168. –– 2004a: Ist die Identität von Ilios mit Wiluša endgültig erwiesen?. Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 46: 29–57. –– 2004b: Emil Forrers Lokalisierung von heth. Wiluša – Eine Richtigstellung. In D. Groddek / S. Rössle (eds.): Šarnikzel. Hethitologische Studien zum Gedanken an Emil Orgetorix Forrer. Dresdener Beiträge zur Hethitologie 10. Dresden. Pp. 373–378. –– 2013: Zur Lage des hethitischen Vasallenstaates Wiluša im Südwesten Kleinasiens. In M. Mazoyer / S.H. Aufrère (eds.): De Hattuša à Memphis. Paris. Pp. 59–74. Heinhold-Krahmer, S. / Rieken, E., 2000: Der ›Tawagalawa-Brief‹. Beschwerden über Piyamaradu. Eine Neuedition. Untersuchungen zur Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 13. Berlin / Boston Hertel, D. / Kolb, F., 2003: Troy in clearer perspective. Anatolian Studies 53: 71–88. Hrozný, B., 1929: Hethiter und Griechen. Archiv Orientální 1: 323–343. Jablonka, P.J. / Rose, C.B., 2004: Late Bronze Age Troy: A Response to Frank Kolb. American Journal of Archaeology 108: 615–630. Kerschner, M., 2002: Die nichtlokalisierte chemischen Gruppen B/C, E, F, G und ihr Aussagewert für die spätgeometrische und archaische Keramik

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des nördlichen Ioniens und der Äolis. In M. Akurgal / M. Kerschner / H. Mommsen / W. Niemeier (eds.): Töpferzentren der Ostägäis: Archämetrische und archäologische Untersuchungen zur mykenischen, geometrischen und archaischen Keramik aus Fundorten in Westkleinasien. Wien. Pp. 72–92. Liverani, M., 1999: Le Lettere di el-Amarna. Le lettere dei «Grandi Re». Brescia. del Monte, G., 1993: L’Annalistica ittita, Brescia. de Martino, S., 2010: Kurunta e l’Anatolia occidentale. In I. Singer (ed.): ipamati kistamati pari tumatimis. Luwian and Hittite Studies presented to J. David Hawkins on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday. Tel Aviv. Pp. 44–49. Niemeier, W.D., 1998: The Mycenaeans in Western Anatolia and the Problems of the Origin of the Sea Peoples. In S. Gitin / A. Mazar / E. Stern (eds.): Mediterranean People in Transition. Jerusalem. Pp. 17–65. Rainey, A.F., 2015: The El-Amarna Correspondence. Leiden / Boston. Süel, A., 2001: Ortaköy Tableteri Işığında Batı Anadolu İle İlgili Bazı Konular Üzerine. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie Würzburg, 4.–8. Oktober 1999. StBoT 45. Wiesbaden. Pp. 670–678. Taracha, P., 2015: Mycenaeans peer(s) of the king of Ahhiyawa? A note on the Tawagalawa Letter. In A. Müller-Karpe / E. Rieken / W. Sommerfeld (eds.): Saeculum. StBoT 58. Wiesbaden. Pp. 279–297. Uchida, E. / Niikuma, D. / Watanabe, T., 2015: Regional Differences in the Chemical Composition of Cuneiform Tablets. Archaeological Discovery 3: 179–207. Ulf, Chr., 2003 (ed.): Der Neue Streit um Troia. Eine Bilanz. München. Weeden, M. / Ullmann, L.Z., 2017: Hittite Landscape and Geography. Leiden / Boston.

The “Eastern Turkey in Asia” A Digital Edition of the Map Series IDWO 1522 Francesco Di Filippo Istituto di Studi sul Mediterraneo (ISMed), CNR, Roma* This contribution offers an overview of the digital edition of the “Eastern Turkey in Asia” maps (also known as IDWO 1522), from the historical milieu in which it originated, to the georeferencing process of the series as a whole. The original dataset consists of 50 cartographic sheets (scale 1:250,000) dating to the beginning of the 20th century, initially intended for military use only, covering much of present-day eastern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and western Iran. In order to better appreciate the resulting georeferenced map and facilitate comparing the present-day cultural and physical geography to the early 20th century one, an original Web mapping application has been developed (http:// magma.cnr.it/resource/map/eta/). It rests on what has come to be known as a “Slippy Map” type interface (e.g., Google Maps) that allows users to pan and zoom the map quickly, giving the illusion of a continuous globe.1 The “Eastern Turkey in Asia” (IDWO 1522) The “Eastern Turkey in Asia” (IDWO 1522) is a remarkable series of maps – indeed, the major cartographic work for Middle Eastern geography between the

Ten years ago, Mario Liverani and I discussed the possibility of redesigning the maps accompanying his Atlante Storico del Vicino Oriente antico and making them available using web technologies. He entrusted me with his collection of topographical maps of Syria and the Levant. At the time, however, the idea had to be shelved. Much has changed since then, and a new project has emerged as part of the research activities of the Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean (ISMed) of the CNR. The “Materiali per la Geografia del Mediterraneo Antico” (MAGMA) is a digital repository for resources concerning the Historical Geography of the Ancient Mediterranean. This paper is the first public contribution of this new CNR project. It is also a token of my gratitude to Liverani, to whom I would like to express my sincere thanks for having introduced me to the study of the ancient Near East. My hope is that he will appreciate this outstanding view of the Cradle of Civilization, which can only be fully rendered through the dialogue between historical sources and web technologies. 1 For an overview see Brotton 2012, chap. 12. See also Novak / Ostash 2022. *

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end of the 19th century and the outbreak of the First World War. It was originally published by the British War Office for military purposes, as the label “for official use only” promptly shows. The maps resulted from an array of covert survey activities by Francis Maunsell and other British officials from 1880 onwards. The sheets – 50 in total – show much of present-day eastern Turkey, Iraq, north-western Iran, and Syria at an unprecedented level of detail (scale 1:250,000), as well as at an adequate horizontal accuracy. Since their declassification and availability to a broader audience, they have been of great value to historians and archaeologists focusing on the Fertile Crescent and adjoining regions. Most notably, the Near East emerging from the “Eastern Turkey in Asia” maps is not yet affected by modern hydrological changes, which dramatically reshaped the whole region in the past hundred years. This fact alone explains their extraordinary evocative power to scholars involved in all periods of Near Eastern history. The map offers a view at a glance of the historical geography of the Near East. However, the information provided must be critically evaluated because of the numerous changes that affected the region over millennia. This is not to say that the map is useless in terms of the historical reconstruction of the remote past. On the contrary, it may offer precious insights, albeit of general nature, approaching the matter from the right point of view. Maunsell’s work records, in fact, a wealth of information in terms of both social and cultural geography at the turn of the 19th century, which would otherwise be lost. For instance, the practice of mentioning toponyms in their traditional (i.e., non-normalized according to current criteria) forms gives us a hint to the great variety of ethnic groups and languages that characterized the region just before the rise of nationalisms that wiped out long-standing traditions.2 Without the maps, the name of many toponyms would have been lost forever, due to several factors: dislocation of people, political interests, sedentarization processes, etc. Furthermore, Maunsell reports the presence of several high-mobility social groups, i.e., nomads and semi-nomads, also pointing out their main displacement locations. Roads, mountain trackways and passes, fords, and other factors affecting mobility (such as swamps, marshes, flooding areas), as well as natural resources along these thoroughfares, are also carefully registered. This ambitious compilatory work was in fact meant to trace and evaluate the very complex mobility network of the Middle East, which may impact military activities. On this ground, the maps of “Eastern Turkey in Asia” are to be considered as an enlarged graphical expansion of a “handbook”, i.e., the typical documentary source in use at that time, which was usually accompanied by rough sketch maps and selected pictures.3 Such “manuals” were essentially lists of routes

Radner 2006, 275–276. See for instance Routes in Persia, Section II (1895, Capt. J.V. Agnew), Gazetteer of Central Asia, Part V (published between 1868 and 1873, Maj.-Gen. Sir C. Macgregor),

2 3

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with the synoptic scheme of travel times, sometimes enriched either by pertinent information on the availability of resources or by concise descriptions of sociocultural aspects of the traversed regions. The knowledge of the manifold variables involved in the mobility of men and goods was perceived as a fundamental strategic advantage in case of conflict. As an added bonus, the production of such handbooks required less time compared to conventional cartographic publications, as well as it was moderately inexpensive to produce.4 Further considerations on the value of this cartographic series are offered below. They concern two different, yet mutually related, aspects of the map, namely: 1) the historical milieu in which it originated – which in turn impacts its content; 2) the digitization process (hardcopy sheets’ acquisition, georeferencing, collection of geomatic information), which aims at both preserving and at providing full digital access to such information, within a modern state-of-the-art spatially georeferenced system. Tracing the history of “Eastern Turkey in Asia” British survey activities of the Ottoman Empire started already at the beginning of the 19th century. However, the collection of topographical data for military purposes was carried out systematically only from the 1840s onwards through a series of triangulations from the Mediterranean coast to Jerusalem.5 Although these early surveys were of great interest to the British imperial policy – let us think, for instance, of the mapping of the Sinai region in the 1850s – all of them were funded by private donations or sponsored by non-governmental organizations, such as the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). As a further shared feature, early expeditions were not, by and large, motivated by military reasons. Instead, they were the product of genuine theological and archaeological interests.6 Given the strategic significance of the regions involved, the unwillingness of the Treasury to finance such undertakings may be explained in terms of political convenience. In case of troubles, the British empire could rightfully claim its distance from such private initiatives. In practical terms, however, the government still supported these early projects through the Ordnance Survey – a body which offered logistic support to the surveyors by supplying them with all necessary equipment at no expense. From the end of the 1880s, a more ambitious reconnaissance project was carried out in North-Eastern Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. It was undertaken by Francis Maunsell and many other British officers, installed in consular posts in

and The Defence of India: A Strategical Study (1884, Maj.-Gen. Sir C. Macgregor). Hamm 2014. 5 Collier / Inkpen 2001. For an overview on Near Eastern map practices from Napoleon expeditions onwards see to Franz 2008, 142–148. 6 Collier / Inkpen 2001. 4

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Eastern Anatolia and Kurdistan. Maunsell was clearly aware of the sensitivity of his work: “please do not publish any remarks on my movements, as the Turkish Government is so particular they might take the subject up if they thought I was exploring the country. They imagine that between exploration and annexation is only a very short step” (Maunsell 1900).7 The role already played by the PEF in the Levant was now taken on by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), providing accompanying letters, as well as equipment. As in the case of early surveyors, this arrangement was dictated by political reasons: shall problems arise, Maunsell’s work was to be dismissed as the product of an over-enthusiastic amateur explorer, with the ultimate goal of publishing his accounts in a popular scientific journal.8 The ambitious program of mapping Mesopotamia and the Caucasus was in fact very timely, especially in light of the political tensions of that time. Unlike most of the previous military mappings, which had been drafted in response to an impending menace, the new project had been planned in great advance as a means to intervene in support of the Ottomans against Russia.9 In doing so, such an endeavour was meant to gather the necessary information on routes and topography of a virtually unknown area yet of extraordinary strategic value. Throughout the 19th century, Britain was in fact focused in countering any potential threat from Tsarist Russia in its ever-growing military power and political influence. Although these frictions were mainly played out in Central Asia and Afghanistan, as a means to defend India (“Great Game”, Hopkirk 1990), adjoining regions such as the Caucasus and Mesopotamia played a fundamental strategic role. These regions were under the formal jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottomans were gradually losing their grip due to the increasing foreign competition over their economy and peripheral territories. British intelligence was also concerned with the progress of the German-backed Baghdad Railway, which posed an open challenge to their empire’s economic and political influence in Mesopotamia. A further element of concern was the ability of the Turks to contain the ever-increasing Russian military pressure in the Caucasus. The political and economic instability of the “sick man of Europe” at the turn of the century was giving substance to the so-called “Eastern Question”, i.e. the century-old problem of how to avoid a Great Powers’ war in the event of the This concern is a general trait of the military explorers in the XIX century and emerges from innumerable accounts. See, for instance, Lieutenant Arthur Conolly’s considerations in his journey across the Caucasus in 1829. He suggests that an excellent disguise for a European gentleman – however well he spoke the native tongue of the crossed regions – was not as a native at all, but as a doctor, preferably French or Italian. An Englishman (or a Russian for that matter) caught trying to imitate natives would automatically be assumed to be a spy preparing the way for an invading army (Hopkirk 1990, chapter X). 8 Maunsell 1894, 1901, and 1906. 9 Collier 2013; Hamm 2014. 7

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disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, Britain’s government feared a void of power in the region, as a political crisis could pave the way for Russia to get a long-awaited Mediterranean port10 or even grant it access to India through the Caucasus and the Euphrates valley.11 At the same time, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire could very well signify the end of the British presence in the region. Mesopotamia, and especially the area of the Persian Gulf, constituted a sub-imperial sphere of influence, where economic factors mangled with defensive needs, with particular regard to India.12 The loss of such a strategic position in the Near East could also compromise a possible offensive route against “Russia’s soft underbelly” through the Caucasus. Were Britain to have constructed a railway from the Persian Gulf to Mosul, it would have held a means of replying to any Russian threats.13 All this considered, the British interest was to delay, as much as possible, the imminent crisis at the end of the 19th century. Although the Ottoman Empire was perceived as irrevocably doomed, Britain intervened more than once in order to provide direct support to the Turkish military forces: in 1840, during the war against Mehmet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt; in 1877, during the Russo-Turkish clash. On the latter occasion, the idea of mapping Eastern Turkey emerged. British officials operating at Constantinople as military advisors drew attention to the lack of suitable cartography and the necessity of mapping Anatolia in view of a possible intervention in the area.14 Although British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury was aware of the issue and approved the scheme, such an enterprise failed because of the lack of necessary funds.15 However, thanks to its assistance to the Ottoman Empire, Britain was granted to maintain its presence in Turkey. Diplomats were dispatched there, many of them installed in consular posts in crucial locations of Eastern Anatolia. Among them was Francis Maunsell. After a short surveying experience in Gibraltar, he moved to the Middle East in 1888. There, Maunsell was to collect information on routes crossing throughout Mesopotamia, Eastern Anatolia, and Western Persia. Between 1888 and 1892, he undertook a series of journeys across the vast and highly strategic area between the Persian Gulf and the Russian Caucasus. He eventually wrote down the results of his survey activity in a secret report in 1893, labelled “Military Report on Eastern Turkey in Asia”.16 As in the case of other contemporary intelligence products, Maunsell provides very detailed military geography. The type of data and interpretations followed a well-established model, which British intelligence

Collier / Inkpen 2001. MacGregor 1884. 12 Hamm 2014, 889. 13 Maunsell 1906, apud Cohen 1978. 14 Home 1878 apud Collier 2013. 15 Collier 2013. 16 Maunsell 1892–1894. 10 11

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seems to have borrowed from the Austrian armies.17 It was based on the form for route descriptions, providing relevant information on logistics, path conditions, availability of provisions for travellers, and possibly the estimated time to fit the described routes for military purposes. “Polat (4,350 feet), the seat of a mudir, is a small place among the mountains containing 220 houses of the Karaterzili or Melali Kurds, a numerically weak tribe who pays taxes and supplies recruits. To the north is a district with several semi-independent Kurdish tribes occupying the Akche Dagh district (…). Until lately this country was well wooded, but, owing to want of supervision, the forests have now been destroyed. An easy horse track leads from Polat, over some spurs to the south-east and then down an easy valley to Surgu (18 miles). It might be made passable for wheels with little trouble. The route from Polat to Albistan is only difficult while crossing the Devrent Pass between Polat to Hassan Ali. From Polat to Malatia is easy for wheels, as also down the plain to Arga.” (Maunsell 1892–1894).18 “… from Erzerum plain to Otli are two routes through the Gurji Boghaz, which become rough tracks as they approach Olti, and would take at least a month to make fit for guns.” Likewise, Delibaba pass is described as “an important passage from a strategic point of view, the possession of which is of great value in a campaign. A force holding the pass acting against an advance from Russia, has the advantage of interior lines” (Maunsell 1892–1894).19 From 1901 onwards, Maunsell seems to have retired from field survey activities. Probably, as suggested by the Military Intelligence, he was appointed Military Attaché in the British Embassy in Constantinople for the purpose of compiling the results of his journeys into the official “Military Report on Eastern Turkey in Asia” with accompanying maps.20 He drafted the first set of 22 cartographic sheets as a complement to his report already between 1893 and 1894 – IDWO 1058, 1059, 1060, 1061, and 1061a.21 However, he likely assembled his renowned series of maps – the IDWO 1522 “Eastern Turkey in Asia” – during his stay in Constantinople, i.e. from 1901. Unfortunately, the exact date when he began to work on this series is still

Brackenbury 1874. Polat, Akche Dagh, Surgu, Albistan, Devrent pass, Hassan Ali, Malatia. For the route between Elbistan and Polat, and how different sources disagree on its practicability, refer to Ramsey 1890, 273–274 (apparently, he mentions Devrent pass with the name of Ola Kaya) and routes 86 and 87 in A Handbook of Asia Minor, Volume IV/2. “Cilicia, Antitaurus, and North Syria” of 1919. 19 Erzerum, Otli, Gurji Boghaz (“Georgian Gate”, modern Gürcü Boğazı), Delibaba pass (alt. name Velibaba pass = Tahir pass, cf. Sinclair 1989, 234–235). 20 Hamm 2012, 60. 21 Jewitt 1992. 17 18

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being determined. Still, it must be at least 1900, as it is also proved either from publication years of individual sheets or from the cited sources, which date between 1837 and 1900. Despite these uncertainties, the history of this fascinating map series may be outlined as follows. On the assumption that Maunsell started his production at the beginning of the 20th century, the first set of sheets was already finished in 1902. This initial set of the “Eastern Turkey in Asia” portrayed the Ottoman Empire from the Sivas province to the Turko-Persian Frontier in the east, which corresponds approximately to the modern border between Turkey and Armenia. Its north-south extension stretched from the Black Sea to the Iraqi area North-East of Baghdad, where the Diyala river crosses the Zagros mountains. In contrast, the coverage on the Euphrates river halted further North, approximately at the great bend of the river, at the current lake Assad region. Interestingly, the vast area between these two southern fringes, namely the steppe of the Khabur basin, is entirely absent in the first edition of IDWO 1522. This early map coverage clearly shows that the primary purpose of “Eastern Turkey in Asia” was to provide British intelligence with an updated view of the Caucasus and the adjoining mountain areas, from the Northern stretch of the Zagros range to the Gulf of Iskenderun (Antioch).22 Although Russian military pressure originally prompted the War Office to engage in this cartographic series, the geopolitical context changed considerably over time. This fact led to modifications in the initial publication project. For the whole 19th century, Britain’s policy was to provide support to the Ottoman Empire in opposition to Tsarist Russia’s plans. The new century, however, brought about radical changes in the balance of power. Britain was rightfully unwilling to return to its Crimean War-era intervention policy to delay Turkey’s collapse.23 Also, in 1906, a border dispute between British-controlled Egypt and the Turkish government, the so-called “Taba affair”, marked a watershed in Anglo-Turkish relations, thoroughly changing the nature of British relationship with the Ottoman Empire.24 Finally, with the establishment of the Tripartite Entente, Russia ceased to be an immediate menace. Thus, IDWO 1522 lost its strategic priority. In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, both Turkey and Germany became a severe threat to the British interest in the Middle East. Accordingly, IDWO 1522 regained momentum. As new pieces of evidence became available, some of the 34 sheets published between 1901 and 1902 received significant

The original extent of the mapping project can be evaluated thanks to the accompanying map to an article published by Maunsell in The Geographical Journal (Maunsell 1906). At that epoch, the IDWO 1522 was covered by military secret. Yet, he gives ample description of sources and methods employed for the production of the 1:2,000,000 map attached to the contribution, although Maunsell never mentions the 1:250,000 series, of course. 23 Farah 2003. 24 Sheffy 2014, 6–8. 22

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revisions. Most notably, since 1915, the original coverage was extended by 16 maps at the same scale (1:250,000) to include the whole course of the Euphrates, as well as the area south of Baghdad down to Nasiriyah. Despite the modifications, the series name and its reference number remained unchanged.25 Compiling the “Eastern Turkey in Asia” When Maunsell started the production of the “Eastern Turkey in Asia”, Intelligence Division’s guidelines had already recommended a scale of at least 1:250,000 for any military map.26 The accompanying cartographic sheets of Maunsell’s Military Report on Eastern Turkey in Asia were compiled on such a scale indeed. Nevertheless, contemporary criticism labelled the map as inadequate for modern warfare. Several sheets were “inconsistent in quality and amount of detail shown”.27 In addition, most maps had a limited geometric accuracy compared to contemporary products. Except for coastlines and inner regions directly surveyed, the average horizontal error lies between 5000 and 1000 meters, and almost all sheets introduce substantial geometric distortions.28 This problem was undoubtedly due to several factors. First, the mapping enterprise of such a vast geographic area relied upon a series of covert reconnaissance activities. “In Oriental countries there are many obvious difficulties in the way of detailed or accurate surveys, and maps have therefore to be compiled from reconnaissance work and less perfect data than in countries whose Governments themselves undertake the surveys. A great deal can be done by fixing positions with a 6-inch sextant and half-chronometer watch, which can be utilized to check the ordinary reconnaissance done by compass and time distance” (Maunsell 1906, 163).29 Secondly, at that time, no organization or government body could coordinate intelligence-gathering efforts at such a large scale. British covert activities in the Ottoman Empire were fragmented among three separate institutions: the War Office, the Government of India, and the Foreign Office. Each of them worked as a separate unit with its interests and often with overlapping strategies and targets.30 As far as the involvement of the War Office in the Middle East is concerned, before Maunsell’s work, information on territories and routes was often gathered by civilian consular officials acting on

Arnaud 2015. Hamm 2014, 885. 27 Survey of India 1925 apud Collier / Inkpen 2001, 144. 28 Computed through the open-source software MapAnalyst (Jenny 2006, Perthus / Faehndrich 2013). 29 The first official “modern” triangulation of Asia Minor started only in 1925 when the General Directorate of Mapping was established by the newly formed Republic of Turkey (Mugnier 2016). 30 Hamm 2014. 25 26

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their own initiative. Also, when the Levant Consular Service became aware of the issue and started taking action, it was to face the lack of personnel trained in both intelligence-gathering activities and topographical surveys. Maunsell himself complained that none of the appointed officials had provided him with sketches or information on routes for the compilation of his handbook, despite War Office guidelines. Likewise, he also reported that no one had produced any “description of towns, races, customs of people or anything regarding the people with which they are constantly in touch” (Maunsell 1904 apud Hamm 2012, 61). This passage makes clear that Maunsell considered cultural factors of primary significance for compiling his Report – possibly as important as geographic information proper. The genesis of Maunsell’s masterpiece shows that IDWO 1522 must be considered as a 19th century product rather than a 20th century one. Although many of its sheets were updated or compiled from scratch up to the end of the First World War, there are no traces of the many technological improvements brought about in those years. For instance, the accuracy of these maps indeed suffers from the lack of aerial photography, which was, in fact, currently employed for surveying Palestine and Mesopotamia from the very beginning of the First World War.31 Also, Maunsell did not apply any military grid system to his maps: IDWO 1522 continued displaying the commoner geographic grid made by the intersection of parallels and meridians. An improved reticular system was already introduced in the last decade of the 19th century to facilitate the rapid location of toponyms. At the outbreak of war, the military grid further developed as a grid of metric coordinates in order to expedite the positioning on the map, as well as to allow for the artillery to be ranged on unseen targets.32 None of these early 20th century topographic mapping innovations impacted “Eastern Turkey in Asia”. Maunsell mostly relied on his own observations, as well as on reconnaissances and triangulations undertaken either by other British militaries residing in Turkey or by Vice-Consuls dislocated all over the country. In addition, Maunsell’s sources include earlier cartographers such as Heinrich Kiepert (1818–1899) and Richard Kiepert (1846–1915), as well as several celebrated scholarly explorers such as von Oppenheim, Strecker, Hinrichs, Puchstein, Sarre and Herzfeld, Brzozowski, Sachau, Musil, and Gertrude Bell:33 “… these maps were compiled from the best available source material but at the turn of the century this rarely meant large-scale maps derived from systematic survey. More often, reliance was placed on a pot-pourri of such sketch maps, travellers’ itineraries, and anecdotal material as was available for the area” (Jewitt 1922, xii). It is worth stressing, however, the sharp distinction between the first edition

Collier 2002, 162–163. Collier / Inkpen 2001, 144–145. 33 For an exhaustive list of sources, refer to the index of the individual sheets at http:// magma.cnr.it/resource/map/eta/. 31 32

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of the “Eastern Turkey in Asia” (1901–1902: sheets 1–29, 32–35, and 38) and the subsequent additions and corrections of individual sheets (1914–1918: sheets 30–31, 36–37, and 39–49). The first edition is, for the most part, the result of direct observations made by Maunsell himself or by other officers.34 It was also the result of earlier triangulations made by the British Admiralty for the coast, as well as by Russian occupation forces for inner areas during the short-lasting invasion of the Turkish Caucasus in the 1870s.35 The supplementary sheets – especially the ones realized between 1914 and 1918 – were integrated either on the basis of the reduction of proper, although of smaller scale, cartographic works (e.g. Kiepert, Hinrichs) or derived by a variety of maps and sketches usually accompanying the reports of those travellerexplorers in the Orient that were trained in the use of cartographic devices. Although the first set is sometimes characterized by the “unsurveyed area” label, especially concerning elusive intra-mountains valleys, it shows a substantial geographic accuracy. On the contrary, the second set shows less consistent horizontal geometric precision. Georeferencing the “Eastern Turkey in Asia” Georeferencing is a computational technique for embedding digitized historical cartography into modern Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Doing so provides a means to transform traditional maps from mere archival documents into proper digital data. In other words, this approach allows for evaluating historical sources as a new set of information within the scope of a spatially referenced system and, consequently, performing a broad spectrum of analysis. Georeferencing relies on the elementary principle that the matrix of pixels of a raster image (i.e., the digitized map) can be remodelled by means of a geometrical transformation process. Different algorithms exist to accomplish such a task,36 whose choice profoundly impacts the final results. The process also depends on the definition of an array of Ground Control Points (GCP), linking the pixels of the digital map to real-world geographic coordinates. The selection of a suitable transformation algorithm, as well as of a set of GCPs, is a fundamental step in the acquisition of new spatially referenced data, and it must be addressed on a case-bycase basis. All this considered, the digitization, georeferencing, and dissemination through the web of “Eastern Turkey in Asia” posed several problems. The map series IDWO 1522 spreads over 50 cartographic sheets. Each sheet is framed with margin strips containing no geographical information. Nevertheless, the simple juxtaposition of adjoining sheets proves that Maunsell had conceived

Maunsell 1901 and 1906. Collier 2013. 36 For a comprehensive list of available algorithms see Brovelli / Minghini 2012, 101–102 (with bibliography). 34 35

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the IDWO 1522 as a coherent whole. More in detail, there is a perfect match between corresponding features located at the edge of adjoining sheets (i.e., rivers, levels, routes). Despite this uniformity in the overall plan, Maunsell’s reconnaissances and triangulations are not always correct: “In the western portion of Turkey in Asia many of the large towns have been fixed sufficiently accurately by previous travellers and surveys, and further observations tend to show their positions are very closely correct. Sivas, Erzingan, Kharput, Malatia, Karahissar, and Tokat are instances of this; further positions were fixed in relation to these, and reconnaissance work undertaken through the lesser-known parts of the country” (Maunsell 1906, 163). This level of accuracy certainly suited early 20th century standards, but it is now of little value, as the georeferencing process aims to generate a map compliant with modern standards. In addition, as already pointed out, many areas of the Middle East had been reduced from sources at a smaller scale, often with a scanty degree of confidence, and never directly surveyed by Maunsell itself or other British officials trained in cartography. In this regard, we should keep in mind that at the turn of the 19th century, to fill up gaps, these kinds of maps were realized by employing “… a pot-pourri of such sketch maps, travellers’ itineraries, and anecdotal material as was available for the area” (Jewitt 1922, xii). It can be safely stated that large areas of IDWO 1522 are highly conjectural, resulting from the assimilation of a multitude of sources, and not always reliable. Finally, it must be noticed that the unevenness of graphic rendering of individual sheets is not always predictable, resulting in a random horizontal error of reference points and geometric distortion of graphic features. One shall now return to the problem of the true nature of Maunsell’s work – an issue which, in turn, impacts our digitization effort. The question arises as to whether we shall consider “Eastern Turkey in Asia” as a genuine cartographic work, providing us with unique data for ancient landscape reconstruction, or we shall rather approach it through the prism of historical criticism. The actual value of Maunsell’s work must probably be seen primarily in its capacity to sheds light on the complex cultural geography of the Fertile Crescent during the pioneering phase of its archaeological re-discovery, as well as on its many actors. From this perspective, Maunsell’s work must be considered in its semantic unity, primarily profiting from the plenty of information that it provides to the scientific debate on cultural geography, historical toponomastic, and route descriptions. Only secondarily can it be evaluated as a proper cartographic source. Going back to the current project, a transformation algorithm capable of preserving the geometric proportion of the original composition has been employed. The project’s first goal is indeed to produce a new digital cartographic edition of “Eastern Turkey in Asia”, providing a continuous and zoomable map as in modern geographical web applications (e.g., Google Maps). At the same time, however, the final result must preserve all data for inquiries in historical geography, history of cartography, and Near East explorations alike. The sheets of IDWO 1522 have been individually georeferenced, identifying GCPs at the intersections of the geographic grid (at step distances of 0.25 degrees

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from one another) and evenly distributed across the whole series of maps. In order to preserve the above-mentioned metric and semantic continuity between adjoining sheets, the thin plate spline transformation algorithm (TPS) has been applied. It belongs to the family of the so-called “exact transformation algorithms”, which guarantee that the position of all reference points of the digitized map coincides with selected Ground Control Points (GCP).37 As a second step, the obtained georeferenced images have been processed with a semi-automatic procedure for mosaicking the sheets, clipping away the margin strips that frame each map, which are devoid of any geographical information. Accordingly, the final georeferenced object is the geographic grid only – other features have limited geographic correspondence with entities in the real world.38 The final result is a digital georeferenced model that preserves both the shape and proportions of the original composition, yet it can be easily compared to modern maps. Bibliography Arnaud, J.L., 2015: Eléments pour une définition des séries cartographiques. Documentation et Bibliothèques 61/4: 148–158. Brackenbury, C.B., 1874: Report on the Departments of Foreign Staffs, Corresponding with the Intelligence Branch of the Quartermaster-General’s Department. WO33/49. London. Brotton, J., 2012: A History of the World in Twelve Maps. London. Brovelli, M. A. / Minghini, M. / Valentini, L., 2011: Web Services and Historical Cadastral Maps: the first Step in the Implementation of the Web C.A.R.T.E. System. In A. Ruas (ed.): Advances in Cartography and GIScience. Vol. 2. Berlin. Pp. 147–161. Brovelli, M.A. / Minghini, M., 2012: Georeferencing Old Maps: A PolynomialBased Approach for Como Historical Cadastres. e-Perimetron 7/3: 97–110. Cohen, S., 1978: Mesopotamia in British Strategy, 1903–1914. International Journal of Middle East Studies 9/2: 171–181. Collier, P., 2002: The Impact on Topographic Mapping of Developments in Land and Air Survey: 1900–1939. Cartography and Geographic Information Science 29/3: 155–174.

Historical maps are usually georeferenced through global, non-exact algorithms (e.g., polynomials), which help reduce processed image distortions by evenly distributing errors. The Thin Plate Spline transformation (i.e., a local, exact algorithm) is usually avoided because it introduces significant deformations in areas without GCPs (Brovelli et al. 2011). However, in our case, since an array of GCPs is evenly distributed across the map, the result shows a statistical error that is comparable to polynomial transformations. 38 The average horizontal error is within 1000 and 5000 meters. This measure has been computed through the open-source software MapAnalyst (Jenny 2006, Perthus / Faehndrich 2013). 37

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— 2013: The Military Map of the United Kingdom and Its Impact on Mapping in the Twentieth Century. The Cartographic Journal 50/4: 324–331. Collier, P. / Inkpen, R., 2001: Mapping Palestine and Mesopotamia in the First World War. The Cartographic Journal 38/2: 143–154. Farah, C.E., 2003: Anglo-Ottoman Confrontation in the Persian Gulf in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 33: 117–132. Franz, K., 2008: The Ayyubid and Mamluk Revaluation of the Hinterland and Western Historical Cartography. Mamlūk Studies Review 12/2: 133–158. Hamm, G., 2012: British Intelligence and Turkish Arabia: Strategy, Diplomacy, and Empire, 1898–1918. PhD Thesis, University of Toronto. — 2014: British Intelligence in the Middle East, 1898–1906. Intelligence and National Security 29/6: 880–900. Hopkirk, P., 1990: The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia. London. Jenny, B., 2006: MapAnalyst – A Digital Tool for the Analysis of the Planimetric Accuracy of Historical Maps. e-Perimetron 1/3: 239–245. Jewitt, A.C., 1992: Maps for Empire. The First 2000 Numbered War Office Maps 1881–1905. London. MacGregor, C.M., 1884: The Defence of India: A Strategical Study. Simla. Maunsell, F.R., 1892: Military Report on Eastern Turkey in Asia. Compiled for the Intelligence Division of the War Office. London. — 1900: Letter to Scott Keltie dated 2nd September. Correspondence Files, RGS Archives. — 1901: Central Kurdistan. The Geographical Journal 18/2: 121–141. — 1906: Notes to Accompany Lieut.-Colonel Maunsell’s Map of Eastern Turkey in Asia. The Geographical Journal 28/2: 163–165. — 1894. Kurdistan. The Geographical Journal 3/2: 81–95. Mugnier, B.J., 2016: Grids and Datums. Republic of Turkey. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 82/9: 671–674. Novak, A. / Ostash, V., 2022: Digitizing Historical Maps and their presentation in Online Map Collections. e-Perimetron 17/1: 33–44. Perthus, S. / Faehndrich, J., 2013: Visualizing the Map-Making Process: Studying 19th Century Holy Land Cartography with MapAnalyst. e-Perimetron 8/2: 60–84. Radner, K., 2006: How to Reach the Upper Tigris: The Route through the Ṭūr ʿAbdīn. State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 15: 273–305. Ramsay, W.M., 1890: The Historical Geography of Asia Minor. London. Sheffy, Y., 2014: British Military Intelligence in the Palestine Campaign, 1914– 1918. London. Sinclair, T.A., 1989: Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Vol. 2. London.

Archaeology in the Sahara Before and after the “Arab Spring” Savino di Lernia Sapienza Università di Roma .Premise This contribution is inspired by the stimulus that Mario Liverani exerted on my experience as an Africanist archaeologist working in the Sahara. It is a reflection on the ways we practice archaeology, and more in general how we work in foreign countries in the context of long-term projects. Mario joined us in Libya in 1996, replacing Fabrizio Mori (the founder of the mission in 1955), and left the Sahara around ten years later. In this relatively short time, he launched a new and fresh research programme on the historic phases of SW Libya, mostly centred on the analysis of the Garamantian civilization,1 promoted an international conference on “Arid Lands in Roman Times”,2 led the excavation of Aghram Nadharif3 and coordinated the survey of the Fewet necropolis,4 both sites near the small town of Ghat (Fig. 1). I think he liked the desert – and once he told me that “the Tadrart Acacus is one of the most beautiful places on Earth” – but his soul always remained attached to the history of the Ancient Near East. Together with Mario Liverani and Mauro Cremaschi (Fig. 2), I have experienced Libya before, during and after the UN-EU embargo, definitively lifted in 2004. I have seen the Tadrart Acacus – inserted in the list of Unesco World Heritage Sites since 1985 – initially void of tourists, that became more than 100,000 every year before the beginning of the “Arab Spring” in 2011. Then, the upsurge of the civil war, Gaddafi’s fall and the (still on-going) turmoil and violence. Now the Tadrart Acacus is void again, but not only of tourists: the few kel Tadrart Tuaregs that have been living there for a long time have been decimated by the shortage of fuel, food and medicines: out of a dozen family living there before 2011, only two remain.5

3 4 5 1 2

Liverani 2000. Liverani 2003. Liverani 2005. Castelli et al. 2005. Ali Khalfalla, personal communication, September 2018.

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This short contribution collects some personal reflections, with the aim to underline the theoretical uncertainties of the last years. I would add that this manuscript is not thought to be indexed or impacted – something Mario never liked – and I hope that this is exactly what he would expect from me. In any case, it is something that best represents what I would comment on my job, also in the light of what I’ve done over the years with him (and thanks to him). Before the “Arab Spring” One of my recurring dreams, as a child, was to work in the desert as a physician and to own a Land Rover 109, possibly white and with iron rims. Let’s say that I went close to it, even if the Land Rover that I used for archaeological excavations (and not to treat people) in Libya, on the border with Algeria, was a green Defender, and had “special” rims, those that my Tuareg friends couldn’t remove with levers (much better those of the Toyota, which disassemble in a moment). If I were to trace a comprehensible path of how Saharan archaeology has changed, or not changed at all, or how the Sahara itself has changed (or not), the metaphor of off-road vehicles can help. My first Saharan experiences (1990), following the Archaeological Mission in the Acacus and Messak of the University of Rome La Sapienza, in the heart of the North African desert, are in fact knotted around a romantic concept of Saharan travel and work. The long journey started from Rome and then by ferry from Civitavecchia, to Cagliari, Trapani until Tunis. And then the southern Mediterranean coast – Sousse, Gabes, Tripoli – and then southwards, up to Ghat in the core of the Sahara (Fig. 1). Thousands of kilometres by road and off-road, exhausting queues at the ferry, panic at the various North African borders with incomprehensible customs agents, often greasy and aggressive. I drove an old Land Rover, long step, petrol, beautiful and uncomfortable: a true “wreck”, as Ali Khalfalla, my Tuareg friend, calls these cars, if compared to their Toyota Land Cruiser. For years, and in part still today where the Sahara is still accessible, “Westerners” have continued and continue to face the Saharan spaces travelling with an idealised image of a vehicle, the Land Rover, functional to their memory and embodying their dreams: but in the real world and for a very long time, almost forty years now, the Sahara has been the prerogative of Japanese cars, used by local people because they are better, more reliable and comfortable, although greatly less fascinating. But in the collective imagination the Sahara is the Land Rover, just as Saharan archaeology is a mythical and aesthetic space, made of long trips riding a dromedary and making adventurous discoveries. Saharan archaeology was aesthetic and aristocratic, constituting an authentic anomaly within the scientific world of the 20th century. Strictly anchored to post-colonialist criteria until very recently (French in Algeria, Spanish in Morocco, Italians in Libya, English in Egypt …), the very idea of archaeology in the Sahara seems immutable, at least to an external

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observation. It is difficult to produce a history of archaeological research in the Sahara – the pioneering phase of travellers and explorers, the first experiences related to military expeditions, the construction of organized missions. It is easier to express, instead, fragments of personal sensations, only to represent individual values, and not methodological analysis. It is as if there were different levels in dealing with and expressing this cultural reality, in which the past of archaeological practice, when compared with what is done today on the field and in the laboratory, expresses a change in the object of study (the Sahara, and its archaeology) and at the same time the subject (researchers, and their own individual and scientific maturity). Of course, the sum of the changes does not produce a square change, but rather – at least in my experience – a process of awareness of slow maturation. My first works in the Sahara were directed towards the analysis of the interface between climate change and cultural trajectories (what better place than the Sahara’s climate swing of the last 10 thousand years?): a solid, inter- and multi-disciplinary work, linked to specific terrain strategies and sophisticated laboratory analysis. Between 1990 and 1999, together with Mauro Cremaschi, geologist at the University of Milan, we built dozens of maps with the distribution of prehistoric and protohistoric archaeological sites: low-resolution satellite maps with uncountable red dots, to represent human testimonies, in relation to a landscape that changed over time. Reflecting now on our maps – full and empty at the same time – it is evident how they approach, totally unconsciously, to that idea historically formed with Strabo,6 of a Sahara “like a leopard skin” or of an “archipelago”, where the immense void (the Sahara = our satellite map) is dotted (the spots of the leopard, the islands of the archipelago = our dots). Today, our research is no longer exclusively archaeological, but it entails a multidimensional and multidisciplinary strategy. To do this, the archaeological practice of the 1990s (and even less that of previous generations) was not enough: yet, an emic vision was necessary, integrating archaeological aspects with ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological and ethnostorical information. So, if for a decade the study of the relations between climate and ancient societies obsessively dominated my research in the Sahara (and my idea of the archaeological Sahara), later it completely vanished when my attention was struck by the notes of Corrado Zoli.7 In his notes on the Tuaregs of the Fezzan written approximately one century ago, Zoli emphasized how the historical and social memory of climatic events was based on droughts, and surprisingly not on rains (as any “westerner” would have thought). Among the Tuaregs, the mnemonic construction of meteorological and climatic phenomena (in a hyper-arid place like

Strabo 1856. Zoli 1926.

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the Sahara today), stood in tracing, reinforcing and transmitting the “dry” periods, and not the rainy ones! For this reason, I am no longer strongly attracted by the dynamics of adaptation of ancient societies to climate change: if with difficulty I accept the perspective of the Tuaregs of the last century, how could I evaluate that of thousands of years ago? For this reason, today, I would no longer make an archaeological map of the Acacus with a satellite photo and a thousand red dots. Rather, I would try to build a living, dynamic map, where each place is linked to another by a dense web of paths, sacred areas, pools for water, crossings for animals, places to sleep and areas to hide. A map sunk in time of the most remote prehistory, but made alive and dynamic through the re-vitalization that the Tuaregs, who today continue to live in those areas, make daily. An analogous process of personal change, which reflected at the time a different perception of the phenomena at stake, concerns the attitude to be followed towards the problems connected with the tourist and industrial exploitation of archaeological sites, such as the Tadrart Acacus and surrounding regions. Until the end of the embargo, which hit Libya in the 1990s, there were very few tourists throughout the country, and even fewer in desert areas. For a complex series of phenomena, the end of the 1990s was an authentic turning point in Libyan policies towards tourism, which in a few years became one of the assets (more political than economic) of Gaddafi’s “new Libya”. Until immediately before the 2011 war, the Acacus was visited by more than 100,000 people a year (where the year begins in October and ends in April …). At the beginning of this process, the Libyan Department of Antiquities asked the Italian Mission of Sapienza University of Rome to lay down a project for an archaeological park in the Acacus and Messak area, in order to tackle the problems that were looming on the horizon.8 The ideas were always the same: various recommendations (don’t do that, don’t go there, etc.), definitions of areas closed to tourists, creation of a museum and the like. The main idea, not explicit (but we were perhaps not even aware of it) was to preserve the places for future generations, reconciling the exploitation of tourism and the need of infrastructures with the protection of the places. But, again, the Acacus is not a prehistoric cave closed for millennia and reopened by chance a century ago or so, like Lascaux in France or Altamira in Spain. The Acacus (i.e., the Sahara) is a living, dynamic landscape, where caves with paintings and engravings are today inhabited by Tuaregs who build huts there, where gueltas (local names for rainfed water pools) are systematically exploited to water the animals – and where, quite often, if not every time, in doing this they add Tifinagh writings (a LibycoBerber alphabet) and theoretically “damage” the prehistoric engravings, artistic signature of the herding groups who 4000 years ago brought their animals in the same place.9 The off-road tracks full of tourists are the same as those of animal transhumance, and the most beautiful areas for us westerners often become the

Liverani et al. 2000. Di Lernia 2008.

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landfills of Tuareg villages. How should we deal with these interactions? Is there a sustainable form? Does this word, sustainable, still make sense? For decades, rock art was ignored by the people who lived in these places: when I asked Amghar Kanduish in 1990 who produced the Acacus rock art, he replied jinun, the spirits. The same question asked to a young Tuareg today would yield the current scientific interpretation … They tell us what we want to hear.10 In April 2009, a Libyan driver fired by an Italian tour operator took revenge on what he suffered irreparably damaging some rock art sites: Ti-n-Lalan, Ti-n-Anneuin, Awiss.11 Yet another paradox: in order to preserve we need to increase knowledge, then knowledge is used to claim actions or attract attention. Thirty years ago, the same person fired from the same tour operator would have broken the car of his employer, or shattered the windows of his house: today, he attacks rock art. After the “Arab Spring” Only a couple of years later, 2011, the rise and developments of the “Arab Spring” and the instability of the entire Mediterranean basin have radically changed the archaeological scenario. It also dissolved the concepts of conservation of cultural heritage routinely considered universally valid until recently. If twenty years ago the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan could seem an isolated case, the systematic destruction and continuous looting of cultural contexts, religious sites and archaeological artefacts seems a specific trait of what happens in neighbouring countries, such as Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya. The radicalization of the conflicts and the intensification of radicalism in many countries in North Africa and the Near and Middle East pose new challenges for undertaking scientific activities in highly tormented regions (at least seen from our perspective). Although today the menace seems less serious, it would be another serious mistake to consider it as overtaken. In the specific case of Libya, there is political instability, with the presence of 2 governments (and in fact two departments of antiquity) and a still strongly divided territorial dynamics, between East (Benghazi), West (Tripoli), and South (Sebha). If immediately after the fall of Gaddafi’s regime at the end of 2011 Libya enjoyed a “quiet”, although very short, period, later the tragic developments have seen an escalation of the conflict that does not seem to end. Within this framework, no activity was carried out in the country since 2011 – isolated in the international arena and torn apart in socio-institutional structures. The activities that have been carried out by our and other foreign missions have therefore radically changed their nature: mostly focussed on the training of Libyan personnel, digitization of archives and publication of archaeological

See Aime 2011 for his comments on Marcel Griaule reports on the Dogon. Di Lernia et al. 2010.

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materials. Although in a non-systematic and “unofficial” way, we have recorded and catalogued the main forms of damage and vandalism against the Libyan cultural heritage, including illicit trafficking of archaeological materials. In the lack of fieldwork and independent assessments of the real conditions of cultural heritage – especially from the south – most of what we know comes from our friends and colleagues in Libya, together with what is available through the monitoring of online resources, including the most popular social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.). On the basis of this information, after 2011 we count at least five distinct levels of threats and harmful actions: i) cross-fire, or damage from bombardment, mortars, etc.; ii) vandalism; iii) illegal excavations for trafficking of archaeological goods; iv) illegal infrastructure and construction; v) deliberate destruction. Looking back over time at the impact of specific forms of damage and despite the methodological fragility of the available data, we have recorded between 2014 and 2016 a sharp increase of deliberate destruction of cultural heritage (not only archaeological, but also historical, artistic and religious). There is therefore a significant relationship between the increase of the Libyan conflict and actions of “cultural cleansing” against rock art, Sufi sanctuaries, mosques and so on.12 Therefore, it was not an isolated phenomenon, but rather a planned “military” action towards the vestiges of a past (even recent) considered blasphemous and hence to be erased. As it is well known, this aspect is well recognized in Syria and Iraq, and unfortunately it seems to assume general characteristics in the Mediterranean.13 Despite the shock caused by the destruction of these segments of the cultural heritage, it should not be forgotten that every devastated shrine or every scourged statue often corresponds to one or more vehicles loaded with exhibits of extraordinary value, which will be sold (on western markets) and thus finance the activities of radical groups. In this context, and as I had the chance to point out on several occasions, archaeological activities cannot be considered isolated elements, and must be part of a broader political and cultural scenario. Beyond the simple consideration that archaeology, as theorized and practiced until 2011 no longer exists, at least in the areas affected by the “Arab Spring”, and that therefore we have actually entered a “post-colonial” phase, it seems legitimate to wonder what kind of archaeology we have to practice, in what forms, and with what interlocutors. It will be necessary to rethink critically, I believe, the very concept of “cultural heritage”, and the criteria for protecting, defending and safeguarding broad areas of cultural cooperation will have to be reviewed. To conclude, in a paper of several years ago Mario Liverani14 commenting our

Di Lernia 2015. E.g. Rayne et al. 2017. 14 Liverani 2008, 363. 12 13

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book “La memoria dell’arte”, wrote “Riflettendo su questi problemi mi ritorna sempre in mente (non posso farne a meno) la metafora del bambino che per capire come funziona una bambola o un giocattolo lo apre, lo squarta per mettere a nudo il meccanismo interno. Quando finalmente ha capito, il giocattolo non c’è più, è rotto, non è più ricomponibile né fruibile.” Following the same metaphor, the Sahara is our toy – not completely broken, yet – but surely not understood, either. Bibliography Aime, M. 2000: Diario Dogon. Torino. Castelli, R. / Gatto, M. C. / Cremaschi, M. / Liverani M. / Mori, L. 2005: A preliminary report of excavations in Fewet, Libyan Sahara. Journal of African Archaeology 3 (1): 69–102. di Lernia, S. 2008: Una memoria finale. In S. di Lernia / D. Zampetti (eds.): La Memoria dell’arte. Le pitture rupestri dell’Acacus tra passato e futuro. Firenze. Pp. 369–372. di Lernia, S. / Gallinaro, M. / Zerboni, A. 2010: Unesco World Heritage Site vandalized. Report on damages to Acacus rock art paintings (SW Libya). Sahara 21: 59–76. Liverani, M. 2000: The Garamantes: a fresh approach. Libyan Studies 31: 17–28. –– (ed.) 2003: Arid lands in Roman times. Papers from the International Conference (Rome, July, 9th–10th 2001), AZA Monographs 4. Firenze. –– (ed.) 2005: Aghram Nadharif. The Barkat Oasis (Sha ‘abiya of Ghat, Libyan Sahara) in Garamantian Times, AZA Monographs 5. Firenze. –– 2008: Un futuro possibile – reale o virtuale. In S. di Lernia / D. Zampetti (eds.): La Memoria dell’arte. Le pitture rupestri dell’Acacus tra passato e futuro. Firenze. Pp. 363–367. Liverani, M. / Cremaschi M. / di Lernia, S. 2000: The “Archaeological Park” of the Tadrart Acacus and Messak Settafet (SW Libya). Sahara 12: 121–140. Rayne, L. / Bradbury, J. / Mattingly, D. / Philip, G. / Bewley, R. / Wilson, A. 2017: From Above and on the Ground: Geospatial Methods for Recording Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa. Geosciences 7 (4):1–31. Strabo 1856: The geography of Strabo. Bungay. Zoli, C. 1926: Nel Fezzan: note e impressioni di viaggio. Milano.

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Fig. 1. Map of the Tadrart Acacus massif and Messak plateaus, the area of research in southwest Libya licensed to Sapienza University of Rome.

Fig. 2. Mario Liverani and Mauro Cremaschi sampling a profile near Ghat (1999).

Factions, Fictions and Frictions Assurbanipal’s Letters to the Babylonian Citizens Frederick Mario Fales Università degli studi di Udine . ario Liverani, master historian of Ancient Near Eastern political propaganda M and communication, taught his students and followers how to read historiographic texts from Assyria, Babylonia, and elsewhere through the fundamental approach of focusing on the ancient authors (or: authoring sources) of the documents themselves, so as to perceive – with an attentive study of their own words, in the widest possible sense – how they might have slanted the narrative of events to serve their (present/future) self-interest from the ideological and propagandistic point of view.1 This productive approach, which eventually led to the breakdown and demise of the previous historiographical edifice of ultimately Positivistic origin – based on the naive and uncritical acceptance of Assyrian res gestae as historical sources conveniently scripted for us moderns – is now considered by and large the mainstream one in this field of research, even by those who have always held in disregard, or worse, terms such as “ideology” or “propaganda”. And, of late, a full presentation of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions along his own methodological guidelines in book form, with the novelty of a wide comparative outlook on other cultures of Antiquity and their historiographical traditions/results, has laid the final cornerstone of Liverani’s decades-long scholarly endeavor.2 And yet, as a perusal of the current literature proves, the historian’s battle to continue casting a critical gaze on ancient Near Eastern sources, despite their often fragmentary and laconic character, is far from over – and perhaps it will never be. I thus wish to fete Mario once again with this contribution,3 in which I pursue a personal quest on political jargon in the specific horizon of Neo-Assyrian epistolography and its implications.4 Far from believing that letters in NA (and their coeval exemplars in NB) were conceived on the spur of the moment, and written out in a sometimes cavalier manner, with the terminology for interpersonal and political relations based on a sort of “fuzzy logic”, I maintain that there was a

See Liverani 1973 as the first of a vast number of studies on the matter. Liverani 2017. 3 See already Fales 2015. 4 Fales, 2000; 2009. 1 2

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quite coherent set of lexical choices – of which senders and addressees alike were fully cognizant – behind such messages, and all the more so in the relatively few extant exemplars “signed” by the kings themselves. The points to keep in mind in looking for markers of such choices are, in my opinion, three. In the first place, the lexical corpus within these letters shows features only partially in common with the ones exhibited by the Royal Inscriptions of the same age and the same empire, written in Standard Babylonian; i.e. what must be sought are the remains of a specific Sprachgut and phraseology for epistolary jargon of political content in NA (and in NB at least up to 612 BC).5 Secondly, this jargon seems to have one of its main hubs around a relatively fixed set of key concepts, which have to do with the ways and means of communicating political intentions and choices (“words”, “messages”, “speaking”, “writing”, etc., together with a number of adjectival specifications of positive or negative meaning), and with the concrete factual outcomes of alliance/submission and fealty, or rebellion and treachery, vis-à-vis Assyrian royalty and the Assyrian state.6 And finally, the inherent possibility for heavily nuanced/charged (sarcastic, angry, etc.) or downright ambiguous formulations – i.e. for what is at times dubbed “political speak” or even “doublespeak” in modern contexts – is relatively open in this body of evidence, and should be taken into specific account in view of its interpretation and historical evaluation. As a side note: all these items are, in my opinion, not only worthy of investigation per se, but also as an explicit intellectual reaction to the antipodal simplification of “epistolary” strategies for political communication which is taking place under our very eyes. Paradoxically forced, as we are in the early 21st century A.D., to evaluate world events from a bewildering technical horizon in which 140-character messages (“tweets”), sent out/received through countless interconnected computer networks for outreach worldwide in real time, may constitute the crucial difference between war and peace, political hate and favor, wealth and ruin, we can certainly find an additional – and even somewhat critically “militant” – commitment to assess with the necessary care and awareness these richly expressive 2800-year-old political letters in cuneiform.7 A case in point is that of the quite different vocabulary on the ideal and practice of being an “Assyrian” attested in the relevant corpora, as examined in Fales 2015. 6 See e.g. the two contributions quoted in fn. 4, above. 7 For the record – and perhaps in view of a hopefully not so remote future in which these elucidations will appear utterly “archeological” – it may be noted that “Twitter (/ˈtwɪtər/) is an online news and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as “tweets”. Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters, but on November 7, 2017, this limit was doubled for all languages except Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Registered users can post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface, through Short Message Service (SMS) or mobile-device application software (“app”). Twitter, Inc. is based in San Francisco, California, and has more than 25 offices around the world” (https:// 5

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To demonstrate the above points, I have delved into the group of a dozen (complete or fragmentary) letters sent by king Assurbanipal (668–627 BC) to the citizens of Babylon, dating to the crucial period of the four-year war between the ruler of the Assyrians and his older brother Šamaš-šumu-ukīn, king of the millennially revered city of Southern Mesopotamia.8 Some of these texts have been known since the ABL edition of Harper of a century ago or from the K. Collection catalogues,9 while others have been added more recently,10 and all have now found a complete and rewarding publication in volume XXI of the Helsinki State Archives of Assyria (SAA) textual series.11 Most philological issues surrounding these texts may thus be considered to have been satisfactorily solved, and what remains open for discussion is their historical interpretation.12 Now, the entire group of 72 letters authored by Assurbanipal at our disposal (a much greater corpus than those of his royal predecessors) has recently been tackled with great thoroughness and ample technical knowledge by Sanae Ito, a Japanese scholar formed in Assyriology in Helsinki, in a doctoral dissertation of 2015, focused on the royal image and political thinking of the last great Assyrian king.13 The gist of Ito’s dissertation was also taken up in her introduction to SAA XXI,14 while the king’s messages to the Babylonians were discussed in detail in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter; accessed July 2018). Obviously, Assurbanipal had no “tweets” at his disposal to be rapidly digitized and sent off in real time. Despite the Nineveh king’s status and fame as the most powerful ruler of his age throughout the widest territorial empire created so far, his communicational assets merely comprised unlimited clay sources for the fashioning of rectangular tablets and compliant scribes to write thereon his utterances upon dictation, together with scores of messengers on horseback to disseminate them at the utmost speed hither and thither, following his day-to-day requirements. On the other hand, this comprehensively slow-paced technology for the king’s transmission of orders (see e.g. Fales 2013) did not prevent the king from couching detailed messages directed to his subjects or antagonists, in which the full gamut of his personal preferences and political decisions were given vent. In sum, it would be unjustified to believe that Assurbanipal’s letters were not meant, upon their arrival, to have an impact on the recipients such as to arouse their strong reactions, whether amicable or hostile – quite similarly to what U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweets manage to achieve on his compatriots or foreign addressees nowadays. 9 ABL 301, 571, 926, 1146, 1165. See also 83-1-18, 51, K. 995, K. 2031. 10 CT 53, 248; 496; CT 54, 357; 424. 11 Parpola 2018, nos. 1–12. 12 Just to give a single example of how radically our cognizance of these texts has changed for the better, with the aid of the computer-aided technology and the well-organized international teamwork that has gone into the SAA project for the last thirty years, I refer to W.L. Moran’s generous but painstaking attempt to solve ABL 301, one of the letters presented here (Moran 1991). 13 Ito 2015. 14 SAA XXI, xiii–xxxix. 8

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a further article, with an introductory section by S. Fink.15 On the other hand, going backward in time, it is clear that a certain part of Ito’s interpretation may be referred to an article by S. Parpola of 2004, relevant to the political relations of the citizens of Babylon with Šamaš-šumu-ukīn and to Assurbanipal’s efforts ca. 652, at the outset of the rebellion, to veer the favor of this political group toward allegiance to Assyria, as shown by two letters (K. 2931 = SAA XXI, 2; ABL 301 = SAA XXI, 3), mutually very close in content and spirit.16 Specifically, the Finnish scholar argued that, from these epistolary efforts of the Assyrian king, “it is … evident that Assurbanipal tried at all cost to avoid an all-out war with Babylonia”,17 making more than one attempt “to resolve the conflict peacefully”.18 It is thus with Parpola’s presentation of events as reflected in these two letters that I take amicably issue here, especially since his approach proves to have substantially influenced Ito’s view some fifteen years later, in particular when she states that “Assurbanipal applied an appeasement policy towards the citizens of Babylon even during the revolt of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn. Remarkably, his peacetime policy did not change but had continuity and stability, and aimed at resolving the conflict peacefully. For that purpose, from the beginning of the revolt to the period when Babylon was put under siege, Assurbanipal tried to persuade the citizens of Babylon not to side with Šamaš-šumu-ukīn using political rhetoric”.19 An even more outspoken view of the Assyrian king as a “humanist on the throne” is presented by Ito and Fink: “Assurbanipal stresses his humanity by showing mercy and granting favour in several of his royal letters and inscriptions; he forgave rebels and sometimes he even re-installed previously rebellious kings in their office. It is natural that he intends to be a more acceptable overlord towards the conquered peoples to avoid further conflict with them, but there he presents himself as a king who believes in the good intentions of human beings, again as someone “who does good to everybody”, as someone who believes in the good intentions of human beings – even in the case of his former enemies”.20 My personal reading-out of the relevant textual material is based on a more cautious and skeptical approach. I suggest that Assurbanipal’s two main letters to the Babylonians at the time of the Šamaš-šumu-ukīn revolt reflected a subtle strategy of entreaty, even comprising self-defensive stances, which thereupon gave way to innuendos of the “carrot-and-stick” variety, with the ultimate aim of forcing the recipients to recant any idea of not siding unconditionally with the Assyrians – thus avoiding to face inavoidably dire military consequences. Thus, as much (or, better, as little) as may be made out of the political context in

Ito 2017. Parpola 2004. 17 Ibid., 229. 18 Ibid. 19 Ito 2015, 201. 20 Ito / Fink 2017, 83–84. 15 16

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detail, I dare propose that this complex diplomatic “game” by the Assyrian king was deliberately planned to keep this particular body of addressees out of harm’s way, presumably in view of their usefulness in the long or short run regarding local policy.21 In sum, the two quoted letters should imply a more tortuous line of political reasoning on Assurbanipal’s part than the mere wish “to resolve the conflict peacefully”, and most certainly do not particularly prove that he acted in the outspoken belief “in the good intentions of human beings”, as per previous evaluations. And, as will be seen, a third letter of this group (ABL 571 = SAA XXI, 4) lends further substance to my thesis. We may thus start out by a perusal of K. 2931 (= SAA XXI, 2) and ABL 301 (= SAA XXI, 3), both addressed by Assurbanipal to the Babylonians.22 K.293123 “[I have heard] the words [that th]is [non-br]oth[er] has concoct[ed] – that he has spoken (them) to you and that you have believed [him].24 I swear by Aššur (and) Marduk, my gods, that I did not know, nor have said a word of what he has spoken to you, nor has anybody given me such advice!25 They are nothing but lies and vain words which he has invented and spoken for his own purposes.26 And look at him now! After his revolt, as soon as I had robed (in purple) all the Babylonians who were captured in the first fighting and taken into my presence, and had tied a mina of silver to the waist of each of them with the words, “it is to be spent on bread and water,” [I sen]t them to Babylon, and having written a writing-board, I placed it in their hands and said, “G[ive it] to the Babylonians [and] tell them [thi]s word:27

See e.g. the description of the pro-Assyrian Babylonians as “the troop which I have put together for Bēl” (ki-iṣ-ru ša a-na dEN / ak-ṣur), ABL 301, Rev. 16–17 – and below, for comments. 22 Only minimal changes in the translations have been made to Parpola’s version in SAA XXI. The references to the texts in the following discussion will be made according to their “old” numbering and not to their location/order within SAA XXI, for the sake of greater clarity in telling them apart. 23 The beginning of the tablet is missing, as is the end (possibly two lines are lost on both sides). 24 L. 1’: ˹dib?-bi?˺ [šá l]a ŠE[Š a-g]a-a ib-lu-l[u al-te-me-šú-nu] / ki-i id-bu-[b]a-ku-nu-ši u at-tu-nu ˹taq-qí-pa-šu˺. 25 Ll. 2’–5’: ina ŠÀ AN.ŠÁR dAMAR.UTU DINGIR.MEŠ-iá at-te-me ki-i mim-ma / maal id-bu-ba-ku-nu-ši a-mat ina ŠÀ-bi i-du-u / aq-bu-ú u mam-ma im-lik-an-ni. 26 Ll. 5’–6’: al-la gab-bi pir-ṣa-a-te / ù šá-ra-a-te a-na ṣi-bu-ti-šú ˹ik-kil˺-am-ma id-bu-bu. 27 Ll. 7’–14’: ù šu-ú en-na-ma ul-tu ik-kìr LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ / ma-al šá ina di-ik-te maḫ-ri-ite ú-ṣab-bit-u-ni / a-na IGI-ia i-bu-ku-ú-ni ki-i ú-lab-bi-šu / 1 MA.NA.TA.ÀM 21

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“[This] non-brother has alienated you [from] your [wet nu]rse, [but he is going to have a ha]rd time. Once this with […]. […] your […] I do not see […]. [……] the enemy, help […]. [……] I will not let (him) live. […… no] mercy […].”28 ABL 30129 “The king’s word to the Babylonians. I am well; you can be glad.30 The words of wind that this non-brother has spoken to you have been related to me. I have heard them; they are but wind, do not believe him. I swear by Aššur (and) Marduk, my gods, that I have never thought in my heart or said by my mouth any of the detestable things that he has spoken against me.31 It is nothing but a scheme that he has devised in order to make the name of Babylonians, who love me, detestable along with him.32 But I will not listen to it. Your brotherhood with the Assyrians and your privileged status which I established remain valid until the present day; you are close to my heart. Correspondingly, do not listen to his vain words, do not taint your name which is in good repute before me and the whole world, (and) do not make yourself culpable before the divinity.33

KUG.UD ina MURUB4-šu-nu ki-i ú-rak-ki-su / um-ma a-na NINDA.ḪI.A u A.MEŠ in-na-ad-˹di˺ ana KÁ.DINGIR.RA.[KI] / [a]l-˹ta˺-par u GIŠ.ZU ki-i al-ṭur a-na ŠU.2šú-n[u] / [al-ta-ka]n um-ma a-na LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ in-[na-ma] / [a-mat a-g]a-a qíba-niš-šu-nu-ti. For the initial anacoluthon, of uncertain interpretation, cf. Parpola 2004, 233. 28 Ll. 14’–21’: um-ma la ŠEŠ [a-ga-a] / [la–pa-an MÍ.Š]À?.ZU-ku-nu up-ta-ri-is-ku-nu[ši] / [x x x x-r]a-aṣ-ṣa 1-˹šu˺ a-ga-a it-ti [x x x] / [x x x x x]-bi-ku-nu la am-mar um-ma [x x x x] / [x x x x x x-r]u LÚ.KÚR a-a-la [x x x x] / [x x x x x x x] ˹ul˺ ú-bal-l[aṭ] / [x x x x x x x x x] re-e-˹mu˺ [x x x] / [x x x x x x x x x] ˹x x˺ [x x x x x]. 29 This letter is complete, with 24 lines on the obverse, 21 on the Reverse. Previous versions by Parpola 2004, and by Frame, Oppenheim, Pfeiffer are noted in the apparatus (SAA XXI, p. 5). Reference should also be made to W.L. Moran’s presentation in Studies Tadmor (1991). For the translation given here, cf. fn. 21, above. 30 Ll. 1–3: a-bat LUGAL a-na LÚ.KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI.MEŠ / DI-mu a-a-ši ŠÀ-ba-ku-nu / lu-u DÙG.GA-ku-nu-ši. 31 Ll. 3–11: dib-bi ša šá-a-ri / ša la ŠEŠ a-ga-a id-bu-bak-ku-nu-ši / gab-bu id-dab-bu-ú-ni al-te-me-šú-nu / šá-a-ru la ta-qi-pa-šu ina ŠÀ aš-šur / dAMAR.UTU DINGIR.MEŠ-iá at-ta-ma ki-i / dib-bi bi-iʾ-šu-ú-te ma-la / ina UGU-ḫi-ia id-bu-bu ina ŠÀ-bi-iá / ku-uṣṣu-pa-ku ù ina pi-ia / aq-bu-ú. 32 Ll. 11–13: al-la nik-lu šu-ú / it-ti-kil um-ma šu-mu šá LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ / ra-i-mani-šu it-ti-ia lu-ba-iš. 33 Ll. 14–24: ù a-na-ku ul a-šem-me-ši / ŠEŠ-ut-ku-nu ša it-ti / KUR-aš-šur u ki-din-nuta-ku-nu šá ak-ṣu-ru / ad-di UGU šá en-na šu-ú / it-ti ŠÀ-bi-ia at-tu-nu / ap-pit-tim-ma šá-ra-te-e-šu / la ta-šem-ma-a šu-un-ku-nu / ša ina IGI-ia u ina IGI KUR.KUR gab-bu / ba-nu-ú la tu-ba-ʾa-a-šá / ù ra-man-ku-nu ina IGI DINGIR / la tu-ḫaṭ-ṭa-a.

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I also know another matter that you have been pondering in your hearts: “Now, the very fact that we have taken hostile action against him will be a burden on us” – it will not be a burden; it is nothing, since the name is very good.34 Though the very fact that you have sided with my opponent is like placing a burden on yourselves, and violating a treaty is a matter (which comes) before the divinity.35 Now then I am writing to you: if you do not wish to stain yourself with him in these matters, let me quickly see an answer to my letter. May this man whom Marduk has rejected not deprive my hands of the troop which I have put together for Bēl.36 The month of Ayyāru (II), 23rd day, eponym year of Aššūr-dūru-uṣur (652). Šamaš-balāssu-iqbi delivered (it)”.37 Analysis and commentary General

Both these letters, retrieved in Nineveh, are written out in Neo-Assyrian script but in the Neo-Babylonian dialect (although ABL 301 has more Assyrianisms than any other letter in this group).38 The comparison between K. 2931, 1’–6’ and ABL 301, 3–12 bears out a significant parallelism in wording and tone, as was shown in detail by Parpola (cf. also the diagram in fig. 1, below),39 whereas the remainder of both shows an equally marked difference in the arguments brought forth by Assurbanipal. Date

K. 2931 is not dated, but its contents – which refer in ll. 7’–14’ to an early armed clash with some Babylonians – suggest that it could have preceded ABL 301, which is dated to 23/II/652 BC (Rev. 19–21). On the other hand, on the basis of R. 1–7: ù šá-ni-tú a-mat ša it-ti ŠÀ-bi-ku-nu / ku-uṣ-ṣu-pa-ku-nu a-na-ku i-di / um-ma [[um-ma (eras.)]] en-na-a áš-šá-a / ni-it-te-ki-ru-uš a-na bil-ti-ni / i-ta-ra ul bil-tu ši-i / ia-a-nu šu-ú ki-i šu-mu / bab-ba-nu-ú. In R. 3, um-ma was written twice by mistake, then erased. 35 R. 7–11: u áš-šá it-ti / EN-da-ba-bi-iá ta-ta-ši-iz-za / šu-ú ki-i šá-kan bil-te / ina UGU ra-me-ni-ku-nu u ḫaṭ-ṭu-u / ina ŠÀ a-de-e ina IGI DINGIR. 36 R. 12–18: a-du-ú al-tap-rak-ku-nu-ši / ki-i ina dib-bi a-ga-nu-te it-ti-šú / ra-man-ku-nu la tu-ṭa-ni-pa / ḫa-an-ṭiš gab-ri ši-pir-ti-ia / lu-mur ki-iṣ-ru ša a-na dEN / ak-ṣur si-kip-ti d AMAR.UTU / a-ga-a ina ŠU.2-ia la i-ḫi-ib-bil. 37 R. 19–21: ITI.GUD UD-23-KÁM lim-mu maš-šur-BÀD-PAB / mdšá-maš-TIN-su-iq-bi / it-tu-bil. 38 See Ito 2015, 77, for a list of the 14 Assyrianisms in this text. Perhaps the most notable one is in the salutatio (l. 1), where *abat is used for *amat. 39 Parpola 2004, 234 (Appendix). 34

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the close initial correspondences, Parpola correctly posed the problem whether, as an alternative to having been written in sequence, they could have been “two draft versions of the same letter, only one of which (ABL no. 301) was actually sent out”.40 This point cannot be factually demonstrated, but is decidedly not to be ruled out, also because other texts authored by the same king in the SAA XXI group of letters to the Babylonian region have come down to us in more than one exemplar or draft copy.41 In any case, in K. 2931 the Assyrian ruler refers to a prior message on a wooden writing-board which he claims to have sent to the recipients (GIŠ.ZU ki-i al-ṭur, l. 12’). Addressees

On the basis of the complete exemplar ABL 301, both letters were most likely addressed to the LÚ.KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI.MEŠ, “the people/citizens of Babylon, the Babylonians”. Ito refers this label back to the city assembly, which would have continued its function as administrative body even after the ascent to the throne by Šamaš-šumu-ukīn.42 However, although the formal existence of an institutional body of citizens may be surmised from some contemporary epistolary contexts, other cases point to a more fluid political situation, based on distinct factional allegiances to the cause of Assyrian overlordship or to that of local independence.43 Going back to the reign of Tiglath-pileser III, one of the Nimrud letters describes a situation in which “the citizens” of Babylon (DUMU-TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ) came out before the city gate to deal with the Assyrians, while the representatives of the Chaldean rebel Mukīn-zēri stood menacingly by, and in the end the gate itself was not opened.44 Closer in time, moreover, a decided rift between pro- and anti-Assyrian factions in Babylon is attested during the reign of Esarhaddon; this king sent out a harsh letter of reprimand to “the non-Babylonians” (la LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ), contrasting them with “the Babylonians who are my servants and love me” (LÚ. TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ/ARAD. MEŠ-iá ù ra-im-a-ni-ia).45 This very wording finds a close parallel in the LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ / ra-i-ma-ni-šu of ABL 301, 12–13;46 Ibid., 229. See SAA XXI, nos. 8–9, and especially nos. 22–25. The use of the NA script also points to draft copies in our case. 42 Ito 2015, 6, 50–55; also, ead., SAA XXI, Introduction, xx. 43 See Barjamovic 2004, 60. 44 SAA XIX, 98. Cfr. Barjamovic 2004, 60, 65–66; see also Fales 2011, 102 no. 3. The important issue of “opening the city gate” to the Assyrians makes its appearance also in SAA XXI, 4, as will be said below. 45 SAA XVIII, 1, ll. 2, 21–Rev. 1. This letter is considered by Barjamovic (2004, 61) as sent out by Assurbanipal, but S. Reynolds, in her textual edition (SAA XVIII, xxi), attributes it to Esarhaddon, in agreement with Frame 1992, 80. 46 The third-person suffix here is justified by its insertion in a (fictitious) clause of direct speech, attributed to Šamaš-šumu-ukīn, and thus refers to those who “love” Assurbanipal; 40 41

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thus, all said and done, it may be suggested that Assurbanipal’s letters were directed to the philo-Assyrian “party” within the leading families of Babylon, whether it was united in an institutional body or not. As will be seen further on, in any case, this point is of a certain importance, since it implies that, in his letters (including the crucial message of SAA XXI, 4), the Assyrian king was in the process of dialoguing only with this particular faction in the city, and by no means with the entirety of the local population, as Ito seems to believe.47 The “non-entity”

A further common feature between the two letters is the insulting disdain which Assurbanipal casts on Šamaš-šumu-ukīn, in two ways: by deliberately avoiding the mention of his name, and by defining him a “non-person” (specifically a “nonbrother”, lā aḫu).48 The same expression is also used in SAA XXI, 5, a fragmentary letter relevant to the possible escape of the enemy king from Babylon.49 As noted above, this use of lā, implying the contemptuous exclusion of a specific subject from any form of factual and ideological consideration, was already employed in letters from Esarhaddon’s time. Lexical and thematic clusters Defamatory words

The first lines of both texts are centered on the notion of the “words” (dibbī) of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn, which Assurbanipal disparagingly refers to as having been “concocted” / “made up” (*balālu, “to mix”, K. 2931, 1’), or as “words of wind” (dibbī ša šāri, ABL 301, 3, 6) – in both formulations, then, as utterances devoid of any consistency/concreteness.50 Such words had been delivered directly (whether orally or in written form) to the Babylonians: although their content is not given, it may be presumed that they conveyed warnings about the Assyrian king’s hostility to the city and its people, and – possibly – indications on his threatening intentions see below. Ito 2015, 206, on SAA XXI, 4: “It is remarkable that there were still some Babylonians who supported Assurbanipal inside the besieged city and that they had kept up contact with Assurbanipal”. 48 K. 2931, 1’; ABL 301, Obv. 3. The English rendering with “non-” (followed by adjectives or nouns; cf. e.g. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/non) is in my opinion preferrable to the “no-brother” used by Ito 2015 and SAA XXI (see however Moran 1991, 320). The translation by Oppenheim (1967, 169), “that unbrotherly brother of mine” (also taken up by Frame 1992, 138), is in my view exceedingly long-winded, and it moreover does largely away with the abrasive sense of disdain, close to an actual damnatio memoriae, which percolates in this letter. 49 Ito 2015, 50, with reference to Parpola 2014, 232–233. 50 For the concept of “wind” as a metaphor “for lies, vanity, or nothingness” in Mesopotamian literature, cf. recently Finn 2017, 27–29. 47

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to wreak havoc on both.51 In K.2931, it is further explicitly stated that they were “believed” by the recipients. In sum, it was this transmission of a(n allegedly) derogatory message by Šamaš-šumu-ukīn to the Babylonians, and its reception by the latter, which constituted the diplomatic raison d’être of both letters by Assurbanipal: a potential situation of unrest and lack of fealty had been thus created, and it needed to be adequately countered. Self-defense: fake news

Having been apprised – presumably through a local pro-Assyrian source – of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn’s communicational coup and its successful outcome, Assurbanipal is thus first and foremost placed in the uncomfortable position of having to flatly deny having ever thought/spoken any menacing ideas/words of his own against the Babylonians. He does this by the most solemn means, i.e. by swearing a formal oath “by Aššur (and) Marduk, my gods” (K. 2931, 2’; ABL 301, Obv. 7–8)52 to the effect that (a) he was not privy to the communication itself, and that most certainly he was not involved in its contents, either directly or by proxy (K. 2931, 2’–5’), or, otherwise stated, (b) that he had never conceived any thoughts such as were attributed to him, nor transmitted them orally (ABL 301, Obv. 9–11). The Assyrian king thereupon winds up his argument of self-defensive rebuttal – to the overall effect that he had nothing to do with this distressing set of “fake news”53 – by shifting the blame squarely on his antagonist. This argument is carried out either in general terms of accusation (“They are nothing but lies and vain words which he has invented and spoken for his own purposes”, K. 2931, 5’– 6’),54 or through the more pointed charge of a “scheme” (niklu), set deliberately in motion to sully the reputation of the pro-Assyrian Babylonians (ABL 301, Obv. 12–13). In the latter case, the sub-text runs to the effect that the locals were duped, although they might have not caught on to this move of the rebel to drag them down in shame with himself. See “the detestable things (dib-bi bi-iʾ-šu-ú-te) that he has spoken against me” in ABL 301, 9. It may be also recalled that a quote from a message of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn to the Babylonian citizens, inciting them to resist – in the name of the gods who are on their side – against a possible attack by the Assyrian king and his Babylonian cronies (“your brothers who [are] in Assyria”) was reproduced for Assurbanipal’s benefit in SAA XVIII, 164, 9’–12’. 52 On this combination of deities in Assurbanipal’s letters, cf. Ito 2015,108. 53 Just for the record: as in the case of Twitter and “tweets” (fn. 7, above), “fake news” is nowadays used as a technical term for “a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news), although of course, in the more general acceptation of misinformation by any means and on multiple media, it has a long history from Antiquity onward. 54 See Ito 2015, 202, on this passage. 51

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Reply 1: K. 2931

From this point on, the two letters diverge substantially, but show the common features of a counter-argument by Assurbanipal, meant to persuade the Babylonians to disavow their brief ensnarement by the rebel king, which has implicitly led to a friction of sorts with the Assyrian Crown. In K. 2931, 7’–14’, Assurbanipal builds this counter-argument by recalling his goodwill on the occasion of an early hostile encounter, when not only he did not punish the Babylonians whom he had captured, but sent them back home with trappings almost worthy of a foreign diplomatic delegation, together with a message on a wooden writing-board for the entire population. The latter is, unfortunately, quite fragmentary, but seems to hold a reference to the Babylonians’ betrayal of Ištar of Nineveh, and a threat of dire consequences for the rebel and his supporters in case of future troubles: “[This] non-brother has alienated you [from] your [wet nu]rse, [but he is going to have a ha]rd time. Once this with […]. […] your […] I do not see […]. [……] the enemy, help […]. [……] I will not let (him) live. […… no] mercy […].”55 In a nutshell, it would seem that here Assurbanipal is countering Šamaš-šumu-ukīn’s present words of hostility, by recalling that he himself had sent out a similar and opposite warning to the Babylonians in the recent past – but it is admittedly difficult to draw a definite judgment on the basis of the badly preserved ending of the text.56 Reply 2: ABL 301

The second of the two replies, fully preserved, differs greatly from the other one, mainly because it is devoid of any concrete informational feature, but is based solely on rhetorical arguments. For almost a half of the tablet’s length, Assurbanipal allows himself a relatively explicit “carrot and stick” line of discourse, alternating statements of open reassurance with menacing intimations to his correspondents: the overall message is that no definite crisis between Assyrian kingship and the Babylonians has been opened, but things have come perilously close to the brink of political rupture, and they must be quickly and radically managed. Two sequential “movements” may be singled out in this approach. In the “first movement” (ll. 14–24), Assurbanipal reassures his Babylonian correspondents to the effect that, despite his antagonist’s all-out attempt to turn their political estimation to shame, the value of their alliance with Assyria – established

Ito 2015, 111, explains clearly the identification of the “wet nurse” with Ištar of Nineveh, on the basis of esoteric and learned texts from Nineveh indicating that she was the wet nurse of Marduk himself, and the fact that the goddess was also worshipped in Babylon. 56 The lack of punishment for these rebels could have been based on the existence of the kidinnūtu in favor of Babylon, established by Assurbanipal at the beginning of his reign and implying numerous rights of protection, immunity, exemption, and possibly safeguarding from bloodshed (see Ito 2015, 163 ff.). This privileged status is also recalled in ABL 301, 16. 55

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long since through the institution of a privileged status (kidinnūtu) – remains a strong, stable feature of their reputation: no single act of misplaced belief in the rebel’s “vain” words can mar this condition. The corresponding “stick” is briefly presented, and it is meant to have a particularly harsh impact in the holy city, viz. that to persevere in this attitude implies a sin against ilu, “the divinity” (presumably Marduk himself). The “second movement” (Rev. 1–11) is more complex, because it is based on political anxieties rhetorically attributed to the Babylonians themselves – to which the Assyrian king provides a double answer, again amicably reassuring on one hand, but implacably censorious on the other. Assurbanipal imagines that his correspondents, even while yielding to his injunction to recant their previous commitment to Šamaš-šumu-ukīn (or on the verge of doing so), may be riddled with doubts that this slip will come at a price, a political onus (biltu) which they will be made to pay to the Assyrian king.57 Once again, the royal author chooses a double answer: per se, there will be no “burden”, thanks to the long-established good name of the Babylonians, and the alliance will drift effortlessly back to its previous status. On the other hand, the temporary swerve of favor toward the rebel’s discourse and actions “is like placing a burden on yourselves” and the outright violation of a treaty is fated to come “before the divinity”. This counterargument (the “stick”) is easier to understand in its second member – implying a collective fault of treaty violation vis-à-vis Marduk, which must again have been particularly felt in the holy city of Babylon – than in the first one, where its possible interpretation as a sense of collective self-guilt might carry anachronistic implications. Perhaps, all said and done, the two clauses were meant to be generally hendiadyc, i.e. the self-perceived “burden” of the group could only require full atonement in front of the city god. This would make the “second movement” by and large parallel to the previous one, as already perceived by W.L. Moran.58 Finale

It is now time for the conclusive rally. If a decision to return back under the fold of Assyria has been reached, a letter of reconciliation by the Babylonians must follow straightaway. On his part, the king can only wind up his letter with the encouraging auspice that “the troop which I have put together for Bēl” may be reinstated under his guidance, to counter “this man, whom Marduk has rejected”. Thus, the ending carries something of a war-cry, albeit in quite cultured terms, to reassemble under the banner of support for the Assyrians.

It may be recalled that W.L. Moran based to some extent his interpretation of ABL 301 by suggesting that, instead of biltu, “burden”, the word pištu (Bab. piltu), “insult, reproach” should be read in this passage (1991, 323–324); but this suggestion was considered less likely by Parpola 2004, 227, fn. 4. See now also De Zorzi 2019. 58 Moran 1991, 324. 57

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Summing up, in my opinion there is very little in these two letters which – at an attentive view – indicates an “appeasement policy towards the citizens of Babylon even during the revolt of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn”, such as pointed out in previous interpretations.59 Judging from his lexical choices – relevant to “words of wind” (dib-bi ša šá-a-ri), “lies and vain words” (pir-ṣa-a-te / ù šá-ra-a-te), and then again “his vain words” (šá-ra-te-e-šu) – Assurbanipal would seem to have been in a fury upon having learned of the rebel king’s message to his pro-Assyrian faction in the city, and even more angered by the fact that these people had paid heed to such an utterance. A morose mood should also have reigned over the section of his replies, in which he was forced to invoke before the gods his total ignorance of his antagonist’s derogatory message, and claim to have had no part in its contents, as utterly “fake news”. After this denunciation, his tone seems to change toward a somewhat rigid bonhomie, aimed at winning back his self-established “troops” from the teeming and volatile hubbub of the Babylonian political arena. This is done, as said above, by alternating reassuring confirmations on the Babylonians’ unchanged status of privilege and favor in his eyes, and subtle hints that the community of recipients was in danger of casting itself in a negative light before the city god Marduk – unless it repented with the utmost haste. And repent indeed it did, as it would seem from a further letter. Some two years later (between early 650 and early 648), when Babylon had come fully under siege, Assurbanipal sent an urgent message to the pro-Assyrian faction (ABL 571 = SAA XXI, 4),60 with permission for it to make an attempt to negotiate the surrender of the city, so as to avoid a foreseen bloodbath. The text runs thus: ABL 571 “[The king’s word to the Babylonians: I am well]; you can be glad. [The day] you see this [letter], speak [with] your hearts, take with you any number of the Babylonians, your brothers, whose hearts you know and whom you can vou[ch for], and come over before Milki-r[āmu], the chief tailor, and Aššur-da[’’inanni], the commander-in-chief, because they are about to throw (their forces) agai[nst] Babylon, in accordance with what you (previously) stated:61 Ito 2015, 201. As recognized also by Ito (2015, 8), “the letter is presumably addressed to the part of the citizens of Babylon who were pro-Assyrian and had exchanged letters with Assurbanipal to save Babylon from massacre”. 61 Ll. 1–15: [a-mat LUGAL a-na LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ] / [DI-mu a-a-ši ŠÀ-ba-ku-nu] / lu-u DÙG.GA-ku-nu-š[i? UD-mu šá] / an-ni-tu tam-ma-ra [x x it-ti] / ŠÀ-bi-ku-nu duub-b[a!] / TA ŠÀ LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.[MEŠ] / ŠEŠ.MEŠ-ku-nu man-nu i-b[a-áš-ši] / ša ŠÀba-šu-nu ti-d[a-a] / ù pu-us-su-nu tan-áš-[šá-a] / ina ŠU.2-ku-nu ṣab-ta et-q[a!] / al-ka ina IGI mmil-ki-r[a-am] / LÚ.GAL-ki-ṣir maš-šur-KA[LAG-an-ni?] / LÚ.tur-tan áš-šá-a 59 60

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‘Let us go and speak to our brothers, rend our garments, take heart and discuss with them the matters (or: claims) by which they have destroyed themselves and through which we can snatch Babylon from the hands of the enemy. Perhaps Babylon can still be saved from massacre’.62 Now then I am writing to you: remember these words of yours, come, line up, speak with your brothers, and let us snatch the city from enemy hands so that it will not be subjected to plunder.63 If it requires kind words, speak kindly, and if it requires harsh words, speak to them harsh words.64 If Marduk wants to keep them alive, let them open [the city gate] on friendly terms; if n[ot], I have prayed to Aššur and Marduk, my gods, and [my] gods […]. However, let the city not be left on its own (and) i[n] enemy [hand]s […]” (rest lost).65 Analysis and commentary General

This letter, again in NB but in NA script, is broken at its beginning and end for about two lines’ length, but it is commonly accepted that it was sent by Assurbanipal to the same recipients (LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ = “the men/citizens of Babylon, the Babylonians”) as the previously examined texts. Layered utterances

Somewhat similarly to the two texts seen above, this letter has at its center a stratification of messages (cf. Fig. 2). Here, it appears that the representatives of the pro-Assyrian faction had previously written to the king, suggesting that they could attempt a political negotiation on their own with their opponents, the supporters of Šamaš-šumu-ukīn – and/or with other groups dwelling within the walled compound of the holy city – so as to explain to them the tragic military situation that was building up against Babylon, and persuade them to surrender. ina x[x x] / TIN.TIR.KI i-nam-d[u-ú] / ŠÀ-bu-ú šá taq-ba-a. Ll. 15–Rev. 2: um-[ma] / ni-il-lik-ma it-ti ŠEŠ.MEŠ-n[i] / ni-id-bu-ub TÚG.kab-ru-tii-ni / nu-šar-riṭ ṣur-ru ni-iṣ-bat / dib-bi ša ina ŠÀ-bi ra-man-šú-nu / iḫ-pu-ú u šá ina ŠÀ-bi TIN.TIR.KI / la-ŠU.2 LÚ.KÚR ni-ik-ki-mu / it-ti-šú-nu nid!-bu-ub / mìn-de-e-ma TIN.TIR.KI la-pa-an / da-a-ki in-né-ṭi-ir. 63 Rev. 2–8: en-na / a-du-ú al-tap-rak-ku-nu-ši / ḫu-us-sa-ma dib-bi-ku-nu a-ga-nu-tu / al-ka-ma šu-ud-dir-a-ma / it-ti ŠEŠ.MEŠ-ku-nu du-ub-ba / URU ina ŠU.2 LÚ.KÚR néki-ma / la ib-ba-áš-ši ḫab-a-lu. 64 Rev. 9–12: ki-i šá dib-bi DÙG.GA.MEŠ dib-bi / DÙG.GA.MEŠ du-ub-ba ki-i šá dib-bi / šip-ṣu-te dib-bi šip-ṣu-ú-te / it-ti-šú-nu du-ub-b[a]. 65 Rev. 13–20: ki-i dAMAR.UTU TIN-su-n[u?] / ṣi-bu-ú ina KA DÙG.GA [KÁ.GAL] / lip-tu-ú u ki-i i[a-a’-nu] /AN.ŠÁR u dAMAR.UTU DINGIR.MEŠ-e-[a] / ú-ṣal-li-ma DINGIR.MEŠ-e-[a x x] / ù URU ša? ram-ni-š[u x] / i[na ŠU].˹2˺ LÚ.KÚR la ú-mašš[ar] / [x x x x] ˹x˺ [x x x x x]. 62

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Assurbanipal, although with some reluctance – since he refers to this endeavor almost as an afterthought (ŠÀ-bu-ú šá taq-ba-a, “in accordance with what you (previously) stated”, l. 15) at the end of a long-winded clause of his personal orders – judges the Babylonians’ move worthy of being pursued. He thus replies by enjoining his correspondents to establish contact first and foremost with the commandants of the Assyrian troops (who were presumably encamped outside the city) getting ready to begin an all-out siege.66 This done, they should by all means go forth with their attempt to dialogue with “any number of the Babylonians, your brothers,67 whose hearts you know and whom you can vouch for” (ll. 5–8), by explaining the need to save the city from an ineluctably dire fate, caused by the obstinate resistance of the enemy Šamaš-šumu-ukīn. The “Babylonian” and the “Assyrian” versions

There are small, but significant, differences between Obv. 15–Rev. 2 and Rev. 2–12 of this letter, i.e. between the (apparently verbatim) quote of the rather subdued program of the pro-Assyrian Babylonians on how to carry out a dialogue with their fellow citizens, and its decidedly more rousing reiteration by Assurbanipal. These differences, which carry a decided political flavor, have not hitherto been set in evidence as such. The Babylonian correspondents of Assurbanipal had proposed to go before their fellow citizens with the required humility (“rend our garments”) and with self-given courage (“take heart”),68 so as to discuss with their opponents their “own/specific matters” (or: claims, words: dibbī … ramānšunu), whose negative implications had brought the political-military situation to a head. This dialogue – they claim – might lead to a decision for collective action, so as to take the city back from the rebel king and his followers. In this way, they conclude, Babylon may yet be saved from “a massacre” (da-a-ki). Assurbanipal’s own perspective on this “mission” is subtly different. The prearranged words of reconciliation should be surely kept in mind by the pro-Assyrian faction, but there is to be no show of humility, rather of a diplomatic delegation characterized by its numbers and by formal ranking (“come, line up”). The overall This same situation, of small groups of people allowed to exit the walled compound for specific parleys with the enemy forces, as opposed to the formal and definitive opening of the city gate for the enemy’s entrance, is e.g. drawn in SAA XIX, 98 (see fn. 44, above). See also the episode of the Assyrian Chief Cupbearer in 2 Kings 18, 17 ff. 67 Or, perhaps better, “brethren”, in the sense of belonging to the same cultural and religious local community of long standing (“whose hearts you know and whom you can vouch for”), regardless of differences in political sympathies. 68 L. 18: ṣur-ru ni-iṣ-bat. Ito (2015, 206–207) renders ṣurru as the “obsidian knife”, following Parpola 2004, 229, and views the Babylonians’ self-slashing with this instrument as an act of “mourning and repentance”. But, in fact, the newer interpretation by both authors in SAA XXI focuses (correctly) on ṣurru II, “interior, heart” (CDA, 341b). 66

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scope, of course, remains that of regaining control of the city by depriving the rebel king of his base of supporters – however, in case of failure, not a massacre is to be foreseen, but generalized “plunder” (ḫabālu). What was the reason behind this terminological deviation from the Babylonian allies’ own words? Although other plausible explanations (or one of disregard) may be certainly brought forth, I would particularly like to focus on a well-known Biblical passage, bearing the Assyrian Chief Cupbearer’s parting words to the besieged Jerusalemites: “Thus said the king of Assyria: make your peace with me and come out to me, so that you may all eat from your vines and your fig trees and drink water from your cisterns, until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of grain [fields] and vineyards, of bread and wine, of olive oil and honey, so that you may live and not die”.69 This virtual manifesto for the advantages of long-range deportation, against the prospect of being slain during the armed conquest of the city (“so that you may live and not die”), is used in the context of Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem to entice the besieged to surrender unconditionally. In our text, however, the design to raid Babylon extensively, in case of diplomatic failure, and to deport at all events its hostile inhabitants to Assyria might have been at the back of Assurbanipal’s mind when glossing his local allies’ proposed assignment.70 “Kind words” and “harsh words” a special assignment

Finally, as a pivotal departure from the original program of the pro-Assyrian faction, comes the last, unequivocal, command by the king: “If it requires kind words, speak kindly, and if it requires harsh words, speak to them harsh words” (Rev. 9–12). Now, I have discussed at length elsewhere the implications of the (not infrequent) epistolary clause dibbī ṭābūti issīšu(nu) dabābu, “to speak kindly to him/them”, a technical expression of Assyrian foreign policy, through which “we see the opening, maintaining or final offer of diplomatic or in any case friendly relations between Assyria and a number of polities beyond its “inner” borders, for the purpose of a peaceful modus vivendi, destined to create ever-spreading areas open to unrestricted movement of people and goods”.71 To the contrary, “harsh words” (dibbī šipṣūti) are not clearly attested elsewhere in the NA letter corpus.72 But this is somewhat beside the point here. The point is rather, in my opinion, that with this double command to “speak kind/harsh words”, Assurbanipal is 2 Kings 18: 31–32. On the implications of this passage for the overall question of pax assyriaca, I refer to Fales 2008. 71 Fales 2009, 39. 72 In Fales 2009, fn. 36, I suggested that the first speech of the Rabshakeh on behalf of the Assyrian ruler (2 Kings 18:19–25) might be viewed as an example of “harsh words”, due to it contents and overall menacing tone. 69 70

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bestowing upon his Babylonian allies the status of diplomatic representatives of Assyria on his own behalf. Just for this brief and special occasion, probably, but with no hesitation, he is naming them the Assyrian king’s “voice” – and, even more implicitly, he is equating them to full-fledged “Assyrians”. This is a unique and unparalleled privilege in exchange for their years-long fealty to Assyria, through thick and thin. It is consequently difficult to imagine that these people were not destined, in the king’s intentions, to survive the fall of Babylon, and in fact to man Babylonian affairs on Assurbanipal’s behalf once the storm of war had settled – as could be already surmised from the earlier epistolary exchange of theirs with the Assyrian king. The “final countdown”

After this crucial utterance, the letter ends quite hastily, and – due to some breaks – not with complete clarity. It seems that here Assurbanipal has – at least explicitly – ceased evaluating what his Babylonian recipients might accomplish from the point of view of their dealings, and is in the process of enunciating what the gods have ultimately in store for the fate of the city. If it is the gods’ will to save Babylon, so be it: the city gates will be opened on a “friendly” basis; if it not so, Assur and Marduk will intervene (but how? here there is a slight break). To be sure – runs the last legible sentence in the text – the city can no more be left in this situation of isolation and hostility: it is time to clean matters up, one way or another. The “final countdown” for Babylon has begun. I conclude this reading-out of three letters (SAA XXI, 2–4) sent out – or merely prepared as drafts – by Assurbanipal and addressed to the LÚ.KÁ.DINGIR.RA.KI. MEŠ / LÚ.TIN.TIR.KI.MEŠ during the war with his brother Šamaš-šumu-ukīn, by resuming the following main points: (a) The addressees did not represent the entire population of Babylon, but only the pro-Assyrian faction within the main families of the city, or alternatively within the city assembly. So much is crystal-clear from ABL 571 (= SAA XXI, 4), of ca. 650–648 BC, and can with no difficulty be projected backward in time to the previous letters of ca. 652 BC (K. 2931 = SAA XXI, 2, and ABL 301 = SAA XXI, 3). (b) This small corpus shows a significant evolution in political (and military) circumstances. In the earlier pair of letters, Šamaš-šumu-ukīn demonstrates to have a certain power to wield over elders/authorities of Babylon, to the extent that he can send out a message to the pro-Assyrian faction therein, presumably denouncing Assurbanipal’s malicious intentions towards the city, and urging the recipients to renounce their fealty to him. Some two years later, the “final countdown” leading to Assyrian attack is so near, that the pro-Assyrian faction takes it upon itself – as stated in the third letter – to have a hand in persuading their opposite numbers to yield to the inevitable circumstances, and to abandon Šamaš-šumu-ukīn’s foolhardy plan of armed resistance.

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(c) The three letters altogether point to the fact that Assurbanipal was very keen to maintain constantly tip-top relations with the faction that, presumably since the time of his father Esarhaddon, had sworn allegiance to Assyria, and honored the kidinnūtu that had been bestowed upon it. This P.R. “game” of the Assyrian ruler entails possibly not decisive, but nonetheless politically evident, costs – which differed under the changing circumstances. In the first case, he is forced to take a formal oath before the gods that he had no hand in any previous (hostile) plan, or communicative act of his own, such as was “falsely” implied/ denounced by Šamaš-šumu-ukīn’s message to the Babylonians. In the second case, he is forced to bestow a diplomatic cover to the pro-Assyrian Babylonians’ mission to deal with its opponents, i.e. the capacity to use “kind words” or “harsh words”, as the case may be, on his behalf, as if they were official representatives of the Assyrian state. (d) To sum up, these letters cannot be taken to indicate that Assurbanipal aimed at an “appeasement policy towards the citizens of Babylon”, as Ito and Parpola maintain. Hate for Šamaš-šumu-ukīn seeps from every line of this correspondence; and the possibility of a long-term plan for deportation of those Babylonians who had sided with him is implied in the later message, as seen above. Moreover, the pro-Assyrian faction was also aware that a dire outcome for the city was in store, unless last-minute negotiations led to the peaceful “opening of the gates”. However, since this did not eventually occur, the rebel king was destined to burn within his own royal palace, as Assurbanipal’s own royal inscriptions indicate.73 Bibliography Barjamovic, G., 2004: Civic Institutions and Self-Government in Southern Mesopotamia in the Mid-First Millennium BC. In J.G. Dercksen (ed.): Assyria and Beyond. Studies presented to Mogens Trolle Larsen. Leiden. Pp. 47–98. De Zorzi, N., 2019: Literature as Scholarship: Some Reflections of Repetition with Variation and the Construction of Meaning in the Šamaš Hymn. Kaskal 16: 159–182 Fales, F.M., 2000: bīt bēli: an Assyrian Institutional Concept. In E. Rova (ed.): Patavina Orientalia selecta. Padova. Pp. 231–249. –– 2008: On Pax assyriaca in the 8th–7th Centuries BC and Its Implications. In R. Cohen / R. Westbrook (eds.): Isaiah’s Vision of Peace in Biblical and Modern International Relations. New York. Pp. 17–35.

See the references to Assurbanipal’s annals given in SAA XXI, Introduction, xx, fn. 29. Of a certain interest in this connection are other letters by Assurbanipal to the Babylonians which indicate that a “manhunt” of sorts for the rebel king – whose sole designation, other than “he”, is the spiteful moniker “the cripple” (LÚ.ḫum-mur) – was underway during the turmoil of the conquest of the city, for fear that he should escape: see SAA XXI, nos. 18–21.

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–– 2009: “To Speak Kindly to him/them” as Item of Assyrian Political Discourse. In M. Luukko / S. Svärd / R. Mattila (eds.): Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars. Neo-Assyrian and Related Studies in Honour of Simo Parpola. Helsinki 2009. Pp. 27–40. –– 2011: Moving around Babylon: On the Aramean and Chaldean Presence in Southern Mesopotamia. In E. Cancik-Kirschbaum / M. van Ess / J. Marzahn (eds.): Babylon: Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident. Berlin. Pp. 91–111. –– 2013: Time in Neo-Assyrian Letters. In L. Feliu et al. (eds.): Time and History in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Barcelona, July 26–30, 2010. Winona Lake. Pp. 91–100. –– 2015: Ethnicity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire: A View from the Nisbe (II): “Assyrians”. In M.G. Biga / J. Cordoba et al. (eds.): Homenaje a Mario Liverani. Isimu 11–12 (2009–2010). Madrid. Pp. 183–204. Frame, G., 1992: Babylonia 689–627 B.C.: A Political History. Leiden. Finn, J., 2017: Much Ado about Marduk: Questioning Discourses of Royalty in First Millennium Mesopotamian Literature. Berlin. Ito, S., 2015: Royal Image and Political Thinking in the Letters of Assurbanipal. Dissertation, University of Helsinki [https://helda.helsinki.fi/ handle/10138/153821]. –– 2017 (with an introduction by S. Fink): Assurbanipal the Humanist? The Case of Equal Treatment. SAAB 23: 67–90. Liverani, M., 1973: Memorandum on the Approach to Historiographic Texts. Orientalia NS 42: 178–194. –– 2017: Assyria: the Imperial Mission. Winona Lake. Moran, W.L., 1991: Assurbanipal’s Message to the Babylonians (ABL 301), with an Excursus on Figurative Biltu. In M. Cogan / I. Eph’al (eds.): Ah, Assyria… Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor. Jerusalem. Pp. 320–331. Oppenheim, A.L., 1967: Letters from Mesopotamia. Chicago / London. Parpola, S., 2004: Desperately Trying to Talk Sense: A Letter of Assurbanipal Concerning his Brother Šamaš-šumu-ukīn. In G. Frame (ed.): From the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea. Studies on the History of Assyria and Babylonia in Honour of A.K. Grayson. Leiden. Pp. 227–234. –– 2018, The Correspondence of Assurbanipal. Part I. Letters from Assyria, Babylonia, and Vassal States. SAA XXI. Helsinki.

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Fig. 1. Synopsis of the beginning sections of SAA XXI, 2 and 3.

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Some Reflections on the Nişantaş Inscription and Related Issues Massimiliano Marazzi / Natalia Bolatti Guzzo Università di Napoli Suor Orsola Benincasa Much has been written in recent decades on the final period of the Hittite kingdom and on the political events that characterize it, and certainly much remains to be written.1 In the following notes we wish to offer some new details and brief reflections originating from the analysis of the Nişantaş Inscription made possible by the preliminary results obtained through 3D scanning procedures during the three initial survey campaigns carried out in Hattusa. The survey work at Nişantaş2 Since 2014, as part of a collaboration between the Euro-Mediterranean Interinstitutional Center of the University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut of Istanbul, an intensive survey has been carried out at Hattusa by means of innovative 3D scanning instruments and procedures. Among the areas considered for the development and testing of these new scanning techniques were the quarters of the Südburg and Nişantepe, where particular attention was given to surveying the two monumental hieroglyphic inscriptions located respectively in Kammer 2 and on the rock surface of Nişantaş. In the case of the latter, in particular, manipulation in a virtual environment of the models generated through different and parallel scanning procedures has allowed us to see entire sequences of signs that are otherwise undetectable to the naked eye, making it possible to identify meaningful shapes in all the lines that make up the inscription. Even if the work of punctilious reading and interpretation of the inscription is just beginning (in fact we have concentrated so far only on the detailed reading and autography of the first two lines), a series of considerations concerning both

1 2

See for example Singer 2000 and 2009, Giorgieri / Mora 2010, Mora 2011 and 2016. The Italian mission at Hattusa (of the University of Naples SOB, under the coordination of C. Pepe) is supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation; preliminary reports are published in Marazzi et al. 2016, Bolatti Guzzo et al. 2017, and Bolatti Guzzo et al. 2017.

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the methods followed and the concrete possibility of identifying the individual signs (or sequences of them), can already be highlighted.3 Model generation and manipulation procedures Parallel scanning based on differentiated technologies has enabled us to acquire various three-dimensional models, each with its peculiar properties (volumetry, resolution, curvatures, etc.). The upload of these different models (reproducing entire rows, blocks, or parts of lines) in a virtual display environment has successively given us the ability to create (through particular manipulation procedures such as elimination of texture, rotation on different axes, static and dynamic lighting according to multiple light source orientations, mathematical distortion on the 3 spatial axes) the ideal conditions for an accurate analysis of the rock surface and the reading of the stillpreserved signs.4 This procedure has been conducted also on the central and lower parts of the inscription (appearing almost completely “smooth” with a visual examination), and has even allowed us to proceed with the inspection of the left side of the inscribed surface, which is today, due to a slow yielding of the rock, partially slipped downwards and practically separate from the right side, which has remained in its original position (Pl. 1). Processes for identifying strings of recurrent signs For this left portion of the inscription, practically illegible to the naked eye and scarcely considered in all the attempts at reading undertaken to date,5 but fundamental to the understanding of the text (given its bustrophedic character), it was essential to compare the sequences of clearly identifiable signs with similar recurring sequences on the right surface (see Fig. 1). Also important was the identification of the passages in which the deeds of Suppiluliuma’s father Tuthalija are somehow returned to in the text, as probably indicated by the recurrence of the name MONS.TU (“Tuthalija”) or the epithet tá-ti (“father”) on different lines (see Fig. 2). In fact, as appears clear already from the analysis of the first two lines (for a preliminary autography, transcription and 3

4 5

On the occasion of the International Workshop “Documentation, Interpretation, Preservation & Presentation. Innovative Digital Technologies in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology, Epigraphy and Cultural Heritage Preservation”, held at the University of Würzburg (Department of Ancient Cultures/Ancient Near Eastern Studies) on March 24–26, J.D. Hawkins presented a preliminary autography limited to the text on the right surface (his work will be published in the volume on the Nişantepe excavations of P. Neve (curated by J. Seeher for the monographic Series Boğazköy-Hattuša). In addition to the works already mentioned in note 2 see also Repola et al. 2017. The only attempt at reading this part of the inscription is in Steinherr 1972.

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translation of which see Pl. 2), the Hittite king Suppiluliuma alternates paternal res gestae with his own personal enterprises, comparing the former with the latter and emphasizing what he himself brought to fulfillment (an element of particular interest in view of what we will consider below). Linked with the celebration of the res gestae (of both kings, father and son) is also the recurrence of the deity under whose protection these are performed: (DEUS) SOL.SOL+ra/ri – the Sun goddess of Arinna – which represents a further element of particular significance in this context (see Fig. 3). Finally, the repeated use of the verb mu-wa/i- “to defeat” (or, in some cases, of the logogram DELERE “to destroy”) must be taken into account in relation to the countries/cities/peoples conquered by the Hittite army. This last informative datum takes on, from a historical point of view, special importance for the comprehension of the character of large sections of the text. The identification of toponyms/ethnonyms apparently mentioned as the object of the conquests is still at an early stage.6 However, we would like to highlight here some instances that, although detected at this stage just as isolated readings and therefore not yet contextually analyzed, can nevertheless already be considered particularly relevant. The first instance that deserves attention is that of VITIS(URBS) (= Wiyanawanda), certainly attested on l. 4 of the right surface and on l. 3 of the left surface. It is interesting to note that both occurrences are accompanied by the determinative URBS (“city”) (instead of REGIO “land”, as in the hieroglyphic inscription of Yalburt), and they are therefore consonant with the cuneiform sources, providing a further datum in the discussion of this toponym after the publication of the Südburg inscription by J.D. Hawkins, where the determinative is completely lacking (see Fig. 4) .7 Another two examples acquire particular significance not only in comparison with the Yalburt and Südburg Inscriptions, but also in the context of the historical scenario in which our inscription is placed. The first is represented by the recurrence of Lu-ka(REGIO)-za/i(?) on l. 6 of the right surface (twice, one after the other), directly reflected by the attestations of the same toponym in Yalburt (block 9) and Südburg (here lacking both the determinative and the phonetic complementation, see Fig. 5). The second is represented by the (so far unattested) sequence SUPER(= sara/i , ser)-tá-ní (REGIO), which occurs with fair certainty at least twice (on l. 4, left stone, and on l. 6, right stone; here possibly also on l. 8) (see Fig. 6).

6

7

A series of very interesting reading proposals concerning the right surface is contained in the preliminary autography of J.D. Hawkins presented by the DIP&P Workshop in Würzburg (see note 3). After the fundamental contributions of Poetto 1993, p. 75ff. and Hawkins 1995, p. 29, see the discussion in Schürr 2010 and 2014, Gander 2014 and Simon 2018.

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Some preliminary reflections 1. KBo 12.38 and the inscription of Nişantaş

From the fundamental contribution by H.G. Güterbok (1967) to the most recent considerations by Singer (2009), the cuneiform text KBo 12.38 has been compared several times with the inscription of Nişantaş.8 The most widespread opinion, which dates back to the edition of H.G. Güterbock, is that the text KBo 12.38, internally subdivided into 2 distinct parts separated by a double paragraph line (the first part including column I up to about the middle of col. II; the second from the middle of col. II until the end of col. IV), represents the cuneiform version of two hieroglyphic inscriptions: one consisting only of the narration of the enterprises of Tuthalija IV, the other dedicated exclusively to those of Suppiluliuma II. This last king would be, according to this view, the author/commissioner of both these documents. The confirmation that the first inscription was affixed on a statue of Tuthalija IV, commissioned by Suppiluliuma and placed in a sanctuary dedicated to the memory of his father (na4hé-gur SAG.UŠ) and built by Suppiluliuma himself, has been sought in the final note contained at the end of closing lines of the first cuneiform section (II 4’–21’). Consequently, the identification of the two presumed hieroglyphic inscriptions represented by the two sections of the cuneiform text would be configured as follows: 1) the first part of the cuneiform text would correspond to the inscription originally affixed on the postulated lost statue, whose base should be identified with that found at Yekbaş (which still preserves the relief of two feet), and should be placed on the north side of Chamber B at Yazılıkaya where the excavations have actually brought to light a podium of dimensions roughly compatible with such a base; this part of the rock sanctuary would assume, according to this reconstruction, the function of the memorial (na4hé-gur SAG.UŠ) of the King Tuthalija built under the reign of his son Suppiluliuma; 2) on the other hand, the second inscription has been generally identified with that of Nişantaş, and the memorial (na4hé-gur SAG.UŠ) mentioned in the first paragraph of col. IV would consequently be identified with the one erected by Suppiluliuma for himself when he was still alive; it would then correspond to the new monumental arrangement characterizing the Nişantepe area during its last phase of construction. Reconsidering the whole question in a contribution published in 2004,9 we put forward some reasons in favour of a decidedly more complex comparison between the two compositions – the cuneiform text on the one hand, and the two supposed hieroglyphic texts on the other – presenting at the same time a detailed philological reanalysis of KBo 12.38. The salient points established 9

See Bolatti Guzzo / Marazzi 2004.

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therein – in our opinion still valid today – can be summarized as follows (refer to the cuneiform text in Pl. 3–4 with the transcription and integrations of Güterbock 1967; a possible new fragment, perhaps belonging to the beginning of col. I, bearing only the title LUGAL.GAL and a few other insignificant signs is now published as KBo 49.245): 1) It is precisely the integration proposed by Güterbock at col. II 4’–5’, where ALAM becomes the object of mTu-ud-ha-li-ja-aš U[L DÙ-at (?)], that leads us to exclude a direct connection between this dynast and the statue.10 Generally, the resumption of the theme of the construction of the na4 hé-gur SAG.UŠ in § 1’ of col. IV has been automatically connected to Tuthalija, on the basis of the introductive sequence nu=ši, while the subsequent theme of the erection of the statue in col. IV, § 2’ has been likewise connected to Tuthalija, interpreting the personal pronoun in [AL] AM-Š[Ú … (confirmed by the 3D model now present in the “Portal” of Mainz)11 as also referring to this king (in parallel to the previous =ši) . On closer inspection, however, neither in the first nor in the second case it is possible, on the basis of what is actually extant in the text, to establish with certainty such a relationship, especially if, as we will discuss in major detail below, the two sections that compose the cuneiform text are both to be regarded as military accounts illustrating the successes of both the dynasts. 2) On the other hand, the act expressed with an-da-an gul-šu-un in col. II 14’, i.e. in the penultimate paragraph of the first cuneiform composition, does not necessarily refer directly to the statue mentioned in the previous paragraph. Actually, the syntactic relationship expressed by the anaphoric form kī=ma=za ALAM on line 4’ suggests that in the preceding (now lost) paragraphs of col. II, both the foundation of the sanctuary na4hé-gur SAG. UŠ and the dedication in it of the statue were already mentioned. And it cannot be a mere coincidence that the last lines preserved in § 1’ of this same column clearly refer to formulas of inalienability probably concerning the (already reported construction of the) na4hé-gur SAG.UŠ.12 The following §§ 2’–4’ do not seem to represent anything other than an appendix aimed at the self-celebration of Suppiluliuma as a successful continuer of his father’s policy. We are therefore inclined to think that the implicit referent

In the reconstruction of the text made by H. Otten, Tuthalijaš is interpreted as a genitive dependent on ALAM. 11 See the 3D model in https://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/hetkonk/3dprp. php?p=548%2Ft. 12 II x+2’ iš-pár-za-a-i x[ …3’[n]a-ah-ha-an-za [… ; in our aforementioned contribution of 2004 (p. 162f.) we have already pointed out the similarity of these formulas with those preserved at the end of the so-called “Apology” of Hattusili III (see IV 88 of the edition Otten 1981). 10

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of an-da-an-gul-šu-un is the sanctuary (hence an architectural or natural surface associated to it) and not specifically the statue placed therein. 3) If the statue is not necessarily in direct relation with the person of Tuthalija and if the inscription is not intended as executed on its surface, and consequently if, moreover, the two cuneiform compositions do not indicate with certainty two series of separate and different events over time (a fact that G. Steiner had already clearly highlighted), but can represent complementary aspects of a single narrative thread framed in the act of foundation of the sanctuary,13 it will be necessary to reconsider both the religious-political value of the na4hé-gur SAG.UŠ, and the actual function of the statue itself. 4) Some other relevant elements, even if external to the cuneiform text, support the previous analysis: a. statues as a support for hieroglyphic inscriptions do not seem to exist in the epigraphic tradition of the Hittite kingdom; all the monumental hieroglyphic inscriptions attested in the capital (on which see below), being datable without any exceptions, as far as we currently know, between the reigns of Tuthalija IV and Suppiluliuma II, are inserted in a precise program of “monumental celebration” of royalty and are executed on architectural elements (including stela and bases of stela/altars) or rock surfaces connected with important building complexes (as seems to be the case of Nişantaş). b. As recently demonstrated by J. Seeher,14 it is very unlikely that the Yekbaş base can be connected to Chamber B of Yazılıkaya and with the podium found there. c. In addition to the citations contained in KBo 12.38, the monument defined as na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ clearly appears in § 10 of the so-called Bronzetafel. This passage (for the interpretation of which we follow the proposal by R. Stefanini 1992)15 reads: “For the question of the na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ, my father, on the advice of Marassanta, decided ‘Kurunta shall not approach the na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ’. And my father made a tablet for Marassanta, and Marassanta still has it. My father, however, did not know how the wording/ text of the na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ is inscribed (that is) ‘abode of the StormGod’, and that (consequently) it is not possible to take the na4hé-kur SAG. UŠ away from Kurunta in the future. (…) When then, I Tudhaliya, the Great King, became King, I sent a man (there), and he could see how the

About the patterns that characterize this new typology of celebrative compositions, besides Bolatti Guzzo / Marazzi 2004, cf. already Mora 1999 and successively Marazzi 2006, 110 with note 9. 14 Seeher 2011, in particular pp. 159ff. 15 See also HED s.v. park(iya)-, HEG s.v. park-, and BGH s.v. kundari. 13

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wording/text of the Storm-God’.”16

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hé-gur SAG.UŠ is inscribed (that is) ‘abode of the

na4

d. That the sanctuary may also have had the function of “imperial memorial”, as is commonly believed, is irrelevant in this case.17 Important is its designation as “kuntarra of the Storm-God”, as the hieroglyphic inscription affixed to its structure (indicated by the verb gulš-) clearly testifies. It is most likely, therefore, that the erection of the new na4hé-gur SAG.UŠ mentioned in KBo 12.38 – originally commissioned by Tuthalija and completed by Suppiluliuma together with the placement of a statue – was also dedicated to a specific divinity, and, as a consequence, that the statue too must have had a similar cultic purpose. 2. Some new evidence from Nişantaş

Although our reading of the Nişantaş inscription is still far from being completed, the data at our disposal may be useful in redefining the problem of the comparison (and the hypothesized identification) of the two compositions contained in KBo 12.38 with two different hieroglyphic inscriptions, one of which would be that of Nişantaş. A series of cursory reflections in this regard can already be formulated: 1) The text of Nişantaş does not focus on a specific military campaign conducted against Cyprus by Suppiluliuma (nor by Tuthalija); 2) on the contrary, it narrates a series of military victories and conquests of various cities, regions and peoples first achieved by Tuthalija and then accomplished by Suppiluliuma, who is also the author of the inscription. As a consequence, the king presents himself as the triumphant successor of the paternal policy, a pattern syntactically marked through the insertion in the flow of the principal narration, where Suppiluliuma’s actions are described in the 1st pers. sing., of brief periods in the 3rd pers. sing., where the father Tuthalija is presented as the actor of the narrated events; 3) the main recurring divinity under whose protection and with whose favor the res gestae are performed appears to be the Sun Goddess of Arinna

A-NA A-WA-AT na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ-ia-kán A-BU-JA mMa-ra-aš-ša-an-ta-aš KAxU-za 92 kar-ap-ta mdLAMMA-aš-wa A-NA na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ le-e ma-an-ni-in-kuwa-an 93 nu A-BU-JA A-NA mMa-ra-aš-ša-an-ta ṬUP-PU i-ja-at na-at mMa-ra-aš-šaan-ta-aš 94 har-zi e-ni-ma A-BU-JA Ú-UL ša-ak-ta A-WA-AT na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ-kán 95 ma-ah-ha-an ŠA dU ku-un-ta-ar-ra an-da-an gul-ša-an-za 96 na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ-kán ma-ah-ha-an zi-la-ti-ja A-NA mdLAMMA 97 pár-ki-ja-u-wa-an-zi Ú-UL ki-ša-ri … 99 ma-ah-ha-an-na ú-uk mTu-ut-ha-li-ja-aš LUGAL.GAL LUGAL-iz-zi-ah-ha-at 100 nu an-tu-uh-ša-an u-i-ja-nu-un nu-kán A-WA-AT na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ 101 ma-ah-ha-an ŠA d U ku-un-ta-ar-ra an-da-an gul-ša-an-za na-an a-uš-ta. 17 In a vicious circle, Otten 1988, p. 42f., bases the interpretation that the na4hé-kur SAG.UŠ is a kind of “imperial memorial” on the text KBo 12.38. 16 91

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(which also occurs as one of the principal deities in KBo 12.38); 4) among the cities/countries/peoples conquered/subdued appear some toponyms also mentioned in the inscriptions of Yalburt and Südburg. In the present context, however, it would be of great interest to find some hints of a scene of operations extending to the coastal and maritime area, which might be the case if the sequence identified as SUPER-tà-ní(REGIO) could actually be read as /Šertani/. In light of what has been discussed so far, it does not seem plausible (as was already noted in our 2004 publication) to consider the two compositions contained in KBo 12.38 as the direct cuneiform version of two separate hieroglyphic inscriptions (not at least of any of those already known). Whether we regard them as two different narratives referencing events separated in time, or – as seems to us more probable – as two compositions that, in different ways, present the same events related to both kings (appearing thus thematically close to the Nişantaş inscription), the fact remains that they show a “structure” similar to the celebrative-historical narrative inaugurated by the new genre of the so-called “long” hieroglyphic inscriptions.18 Therefore, as we have already argued in our 2004 contribution, they appear to represent more a “cuneiform” calque of a genre that at that time was essentially spreading through the hieroglyphic documents, than a cuneiform “canovaccio” conceived to be transposed in hieroglyphic (or viceversa). In this light, the statement made by Suppiluliuma at the end of the first composition in KBo 12.38 appears of particular relevance. It reads: nu A-BU-JA mTu-ud-ha-li-ja-aš 12’ LUGAL.GAL GIM[-a]n a-ša-an-za LUGAL-uš 13’ e-eš-ta nu-kán QA-TAM-MA a-ša-an-da 14’ LÚ-na-tarHl.A anda-an gul-šu-un II.11’

“And just as my father Tuthalija, great king, a true king was, in the same way I incised true deeds”. This assertion – which could also fit the character of an inscription like Nişantaş, provided that its hieroglyphic text was not exclusively focused on the Cypriot events –, not only represents, together with the aforementioned passage in the Bronzetafel, one of the few direct allusions in the cuneiform literature to the execution of monumental hieroglyphic texts; but, if carefully read, it also expresses an important semantic nuance. In the current translations of this passage, since Güterbock’s treatment onwards, the second sentence is usually restored “… (his) true deeds”,19 thus automatically referring the inscription in question to the sole activities of the father Tuthalija. In fact, the text does not contain this explicit reference, but a comparison, focused on the parallelism ašanza/ašanda, between the “true/right” royalty of the father and the narrated actions, which,

18 19

To the references already cited in note 13 should also be added Marazzi 2010. Different is the interpretation in Otten 1962.

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since they are ašanda, are worthy of a true king as well. The allusion implied by this comparison seems to refer better to the res gestae of the son (conducted in the wake of the paternal ones) than to those of the father. Such a reconstruction leads us directly to that game of alternation between the res gestae of Tuthalija and those of Suppiluliuma that seems to characterize the narrative structure of the inscription of Nişantaş. 3. The inscription of Nişantaş in the context of the last monumental development of Hattusa

In a recent contribution20 on the urban and architectural renewal of the capital during the last phase of its development, between the reigns of Tuthalija IV and Suppiluliuma II, it has been pointed out that the monumentalizing process, which was concentrated between the Südburg-Nişantepe area and the area of Büyükkale, was highlighted through the execution of a series of large hieroglyphic inscriptions marking the nodal points of access/connection to the main political-religious building complexes (see Fig. 7).21 These building activities, begun by Tuthalija IV (as also evidenced by the inscription found in the area of Büyükkale),22 were continued by Suppiluliuma II, whose two hieroglyphic inscriptions, Nişantaş and Südburg, not only represent a landmark in the new architectural assessment of the area, but serve also as a powerful medium to celebrate the Hittite kingship, lastly embodied by Suppiluliuma, through a double and parallel undertaking: – the inscription of Nişantaş celebrates, through the alternating narrative of the paternal deeds and those of the son, the continuity of the “true” kingship (as defined in KBo 12.38) in the royal dynasty; moreover it reveals the full capacity of Suppiluliuma to emulate, and in some respects to exceed, the paternal achievements; – the Südburg Inscription, in its turn, celebrates the king, describing him as brave and pious, as evidenced by the narrative covering the wall of Kammer 2, and the whole monument points to him as the legitimate descendant of the royal family, under the auspices of his most famous – and not by chance homonymous – ancestor, Suppiluliuma I, whose deified representation is placed at the entrance of the structure, in front of the wall containing the inscription (just as with the Tuthalija-relief in the sacred complex building V in the Oberstadt, see Fig. 8).23

See Marazzi 2019. It is likely that similar monumental inscriptions also decorated the buildings located at the entrance to the rock sanctuary of Yazilikaya, as the fragments of inscribed orthostats found during the excavations in this area would testify (see Bittel 1975, p. 184f.). 22 See the discussion in Marazzi 2019. 23 We believe that the case of the representation of Suppiluliuma I deified in the Kammer 2 of Südburg can be compared with the representation of a deified Tuthalija in building A of the temple complex V in the Oberstadt (for which see the discussion in Marazzi 2019). 20 21

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As a consequence, the archaizing features that characterize this last inscription must be regarded as the result of a deliberate stylistic choice: not least, among the others, the selection of the archaic variant of the sign PURUS (for suppi-) in the writing of the king’s name, with a clear (and meaningful) reference to the graphic conventions used by his predecessor.24 Postscriptum In the time elapsed between the delivery of the manuscript (2018) and the correction of the proofs, several contributions have appeared on the subject dealt with herein; among them we ought to mention in particular: – About the SÜDBURG inscription: Marazzi, M., 2020: PORTA, PORTA2 und „Hofeingang“ in den Hieroglypheninschriften des 2. Jts. v. Chr. In M. Cammarosano / E. Devecchi / M. Viano (eds.): talugaeš witteš. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Münster. Pp. 301–315. – About the Nişantaş inscription: Bolatti Guzzo, N. / Marazzi, M., 2019: Die beschriftete Felswand von Nişantaşı. In A. Schachner (ed.): Die Ausgrabungen in Boğazköy-Ḫattuša. AA 2020/1. Pp. 51–52 and Figg. 58–59. Hawkins, J.D., 2019: The Rock Inscription of Nişantaş (BOĞAZKÖY 5). In P. Neve (ed.): Die Oberstadt von Hattuša. Die Bauwerke, III. Berlin. Pp. 137–147. Bolatti Guzzo, N. / Marazzi, M., 2020: The Sign for “Wine”/“Vine” in Anatolian Hieroglyphic: A Formal Analysis. In M.E. Balza / P. Cotticelli Kurras / L. D’Alfonso / M. Giorgieri / F. Giusfredi / A. Rizza (eds.): Città e parole, argille e pietra, Studi offerti a Clelia Mora. Bibliotheca di Athenaeum 65. Santo Spirito (BA). Pp. 119–136. Bolatti Guzzo, N. / Marazzi, M., in press: 3d Scanning Technologies and Procedures: New Results in the Field of Hittitological Research. Studia Hethitica, Hurritica et Urartaica 1. Bibliography Bittel, K. (ed.), 1975: Das hethitische Felsheiligtum YAZILIKAYA, Berlin. Balza, E. / Mora, C., 2011: ‘And I built this Everlasting Peak for him’. The Two Scribal Tradition of the Hittites. AoF 38: 213–225. Bolatti Guzzo, N. / Marazzi, M., 2014: Storiografia hittita e geroglifico anatolico: per una revisione di KBo 12.38. In D. Groddek / S. Rößle (eds.): Šarnikzel. Hethitologische Studien zum Gedenken an Emil O. Forrer. Dresden. Pp. 155– 185.

24

Pace Oreshko 2013; for a detailed discussion see again Marazzi 2019.

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Bolatti Guzzo, N. / Marazzi, M. / Repola, L., 2017: Constructing and Representing: A New Project for 3D Surveying of Hattusa. In M. Alparslan / M. Alparslan / A. Schachner (eds.): The Discovery of an Anatolian Empire. Istanbul. Pp. 313–336. Bolatti Guzzo, N . / Marazzi, M. / Repola, L. / Schachner, A. / Tilia, S., 2017: The “Hattusa Project”. A German-Italian cooperation for the Three-Dimensional Documentation and Representation of an UNESCO Archaeological Site. News from the Lands of the Hittites 1: 17–50. de Martino, S., 2006: Relations Between Ḫatti and Alašiya According to Textual and Archaeological Evidence. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Ḫattuša − Boğazköy. Das Hethiterreich im Spannungsfeld des Alten Orients, 6. Internationales Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft. Würzburg. Pp. 247−263. –– 2007: Il trattato tra Ḫatti e Alašiya, KBo XII 39. In M. Alparslan / M. DoğanAlparslan / H. Peker (eds.): Vita. Festschrift in Honor of Belkıs Dinçol and Ali Dinçol. Istanbul. Pp. 483−492. Gander, M., 2014: Tlos, Oinoanda and the Hittite Invasion of the Lukka Lands. Some Thoughts on the History of North-Western Lycia in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. Klio 69: 369−415. Giorgieri, M. / Mora, C., 2010: Kingship in Ḫatti during the 13th Century: Forms of Rule and Struggles for Power before the Fall of the Empire. In Y. Cohen / A. Gilan / J.L. Miller (eds.): Pax Hethitica – Studies on the Hittites and their Neighbours in Honour of Itamar Singer. Wiesbaden. Pp. 136−157. Güterbock, H.G., 1967: The Hittite Conquest of Cyprus Reconsidered. JNES 26: 73−81. Hawkins, J.D., 1995: The Hieroglyphic inscription of the sacred pool complex at Hattusa. Wiesbaden. Marazzi, M., 2006: Luvio, Luvii e Luwija revisited. OrNS 75: 107–114. –– 2010: Scrittura, percezione e cultura: qualche riflessione sull’Anatolia in età hittita, Kaskal 7: 219−255. –– 2019: Schriftlichkeit und königliche Zelebration in Hattusa gegen Ende des 13. Jht. v. Chr.: Über die sogenannten „langen“ Hieroglypheninschriften. In N. Bolatti Guzzo / P. Taracha (eds.): “And I Knew 12 Languages”. A Tribute to Massimo Poetto for His 70th Birthday. Warsaw. Pp. 332−355. Marazzi, M. / Bolatti Guzzo, N. / Repola, L., 2015: 3D-Scanning in Hattuša. In Die Ausgrabungen in Boğazköy-Hattuša 2015, AA: 24−42. Mora, C., 1999: Una nuova scrittura per la storia. Iscrizioni e monumenti nell’ultimo periodo dell’impero ittita. In E. Gabba (ed.): Presentazione e scrittura della storia: storiografia, epigrafi e monumenti. Como. Pp. 23−42. –– 2011: The LÚMEŠ SAG at the Hittite Court. In M.G. Biga / J.M. Cordoba / C. del Cerro / E. Torres (eds.): Omaggio a Mario Liverani, fondatore di una nuova scienza. ISIMU 13. Madrid. Pp. 15–24. –– 2016: Activities and Roles of Court Dignitaries towards the End of the Hittite Empire. In Š. Velhartická (ed.): Anatolian Studies in Honor of Jana SoučkováSiegelová. Leiden / Boston. Pp. 221–232.

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Oreshko, R.N., 2013: Hieroglyphic Inscription of the King Suppiluliuma: Archaization or Archaic? VDI: 84–96 (in Russian with English summary). Otten, H., 1963: Neue Quellen zum Ausklang des hethitischen Reiches. MDOG 94: 1–23. –– 1981: Die Apologie Hattusilis III. Das Bild der Überlieferung. StBoT 24. Wiesbaden. –– 1988: Die Bronzetafel aus Bogazköy. Ein Staatsvertrag Tuthalijas IV. Wiesbaden. Poetto, M. 1993: L’iscrizione luvio-geroglifica di Yalburt. Nuove acquisizioni relative alla geografia dell’Anatolia sud-occidentale. Pavia. Repola, L. / Marazzi, M. / Tilia, S., 2017: Constructing and Representing: A New Project for 3D Surveying of Yazılıkaya – Hattuša. Intern. Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 42: 395–402. Schürr, D., 2010: Zur Vorgeschichte Lykiens: Städtenamen in hethitischen Quellen. Klio 92: 7–33. –– 2014: Lykische Orte und ihre Namen: Drei Namentypen. In P. Taracha / M. Kapełus (eds.): Acts of the Eighth International Congress of Hittitology, Warsaw, 5–9. Sept. 2011. Warschau. Pp. 760–762. Seeher, J., 2011: Götter in Stein gehauen. Das hethitische Felsheiligtum von Yazılıkaya. Istanbul. Singer, I., 2000: New Evidence on the End of the Hittite Empire. In E.D. Oren (ed.): The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment. Philadelphia. Pp. 21–33. –– 2009: “In Hattusa The Royal House Declined”. Royal Mortuary Cult in 13th Century Hatti. In F. Pecchioli Daddi / G. Torri / C. Corti (eds.): Central-North Anatolia in the Hittite Period. New Perspectives in Light of Recent Research. Acts of the International Conference held at the University of Florence, 7-9 February 2007. Roma. Pp. 169–191. Stefanini, R., 1992: On the Tenth Paragraph of the Bronze Tablet (II.91–IIl.3). AGI 77: 133–152. Steiner, G. 1963 [1962]: Neue Alašija-Texte. Kadmos 1: 130–138. Steinherr, F., 1972: Die Grosskönige von Nişantaş (Boğazkale). IM 22: 1–11. van den Hout, Th.P.J., 2002: Tombs and Memorials: The (Divine) Stone-House and Hegur Reconsidered. In K.A. Yener / H.A. Hoffner (eds.): Recent Developments in Hittite Archaeology and History. Papers in Memory of Hans G. Güterbock. Winona Lake. Pp. 73–91.

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Plate 1. a–b) 3D-models (without texture, generated by laser scanning) of the central (lines 2–6) and lower part (lines 7–10) of the right surface; c) 3D model (texturized, generated by othophotogtaphy) of the left surface (lines 2–4).

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Plate 2. Preliminary autography, transliteration and translation of the first two lines of the inscription.

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Plate 3. Autography of KBo 12.38, col. I–II with the transcription in Güterbock 1967.

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Plate 4. Autography of KBo 12.38, col. III–IV with the transcription in Güterbock 1967.

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Fig. 1. 3D-model of the left stone, lines 2–4, with references to groups of similar signs on the right stone.

Fig. 2. Occurrences of tá-ti and/or MONS.TU identified on the right portion of the stone. Possible traces of 3rd pers. pret. endings on the left stone compatible with a narration referring to Tuthalija.

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Fig. 3. Evidence of some textual passages characterized by the presence of (DEUS) SOL. SOL+ra/ri.

Fig. 4. Evidence of some textual passages characterized by the presence of VITIS(URBS).

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Fig. 5. Evidence of some textual passages characterized by the presence of Lu-ka(REGIO)-za/i.

Fig. 6. Evidence of some textual passages characterized by the presence of SUPER(= ser)-tá-ní (REGIO).

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Fig. 7. Distribution of major monumental hieroglyphic inscriptions between Büyükkale and the northern area of the Oberstadt in the period between Tuthalija IV and Suppiluliuma II (bibliographical references in the catalog of Marazzi 2019, ANHANG): 1) Südburg, Kammer 2 (ANHANG M7 / H5); 2) Nişantepe, Nordbau (ANHANG M * 25– * 27 / H23); 3) Nişantaş, rock inscription (ANHANG M7 / H5); 4) Büyükkale, Südwest-Tor (ANHANG M9A–B / H7); 5) Büyükkale, Torbau I (ANHANG M12–13 / 10–11); 6) Büyükkale, Torbau II (ANHANG M11 / H9).

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Fig. 8. a) Tuthalija-relief in the sacred complex building V of the Oberstadt (by Neve 1986); b) Südburg: deified representationat the entrance of Kammer 2.

Adapa at Khorsabad Interpreting the “Grand Royal Emblem” Paolo Matthiae Accademia dei Lincei, Roma The most impressive, and enigmatic, feature in the sculptural decoration of the complex figurative program of Khorsabad is the imposing figure in high relief of a standing personage, frontally represented from the waist up and with the head carved almost all-round, holding a lion cub at the waist by one hand and a curved weapon in the other, strangely attested in two iconographic variants in relation to at least two important and monumental entrances of the Royal Palace of Sargon II: the central gate to the main throne room VII (Fig. 1) and the great gate to the entire palatial complex (Fig. 2).1 The two variants are present in two slabs preserved in the Louvre Museum (AO 19861 and AO 19862), where nowadays they are exhibited in the “Cour Khorsabad” in a reconstruction only partially corresponding to the location of the original architectural context, whereas in the previous arrangement they were exhibited in an isolated position.2 While in both

1

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Both reliefs were discovered by P.É. Botta in 1843–1844, during the first excavation campaign of Mesopotamian archaeology and, as usual, masterfully drawn and reproduced by E. Flandin: Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pls. 30, 41, 46–47. Apparently, this image was originally present in the Khorsabad palatial complex only in four slabs decorating the centre of the two towers flanking the two entrances: the strong similarity between the two preserved reliefs is because both come from the right towers, while the two slabs of both left towers are lost. This figure, named “Löwenbezwingender Held” is the Type XIII of Kolbe 1981, 89–96, pl. X.2–3. As concerns Khorsabad discoveries and the exhibitions of Khorsabad findings at Louvre Museum see Fontan (ed.) 1994 and Caubet (ed.) 1995. AO.19861, from façade A, great entrance to the palace, slab 2, height 4.70 m, width 1.88 m: Botta / Flandin 1846–1850, pl. 46; Albenda 1986, 121, 158, fig. 7, pls. 14–15. AO 19862, from court VIII, façade n, front of throne room VII, slab 46, height 5.45 m, width 2.08 m: Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pls. 7, 30; Albenda 1986, 121, 158, fig. 8, pl. 16–17; Loud / Frankfort / Jacobsen 1936, fig. 45; Matthiae 1996, fig. 5.8. In Albenda 1986 the photos of both slabs (figs. 7–8) reproduce the old, not the actual, exhibition arrangement in the Louvre Museum. In the present arrangement, since 1993, in order to visually recreate the original position of the throne room relief (slab 46 of the wall A-B, façade n) it has been correctly exhibited behind a plaster cast of the winged human-

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r. eliefs the young lion is grasped by the left arm of the colossal human figure in an identical attitude,3 besides some minor elements the variants essentially concern the costume and the hairdressing of the personage. On the slab (AO 19862)4 discovered in front of the façade of the main throne room VII, the costume consists of an outer shawl, obliquely draped, with long flounces, covering the right shoulder and the left leg to the ankle, and beneath the shawl there is a fringed knee-length tunic. On both sides of the face, the wavy hair falls upon the shoulders and spreads outwards in two small swellings marked by ringlet rows. It is important to notice that both costume and hairdressing of this colossal slab figure correspond to the usual clothing and hairdo of court dignitaries in parade represented with Sargon II himself in several courts and rooms of the Royal Palace.5 By the antiquarian elements they wanted to represent the enigmatic personage as a “contemporary”. On the other slab (AO 19861)6 found, according to P.-É. Botta, at a long distance south-east (194 m), presumably where the main front entrance to the Royal Palace was (Fig. 3),7 the completely different costume is made up of a short-sleeved shirt

3

4 5

6 7

headed bull with front face turned to the right (slab 45 of the same façade n: Louvre AO 30043 [Danrey 2004, 320]), whose original, is now in Chicago’s Oriental Institute Museum, completely repaired with integrations, A 7369 (height and width 4.80 m: Loud / Frankfort / Jacobsen 1936, 42–55, fig. 56): Albenda 1986, 173–174, fig. 5; Matthiae 1996, 105–107, figs. 5.15–16. On this correct restitution of AO 19862 and the arbitrary placement of AO 19861 near the only winged bull transferred intact to Paris AO 19859, coming from Place’s excavations, city-gate 3, on the south-eastern city wall, see Fontan 1993, 77. The same attitude was employed for the figure decorating the centre of the left tower of the main entrance to the throne room VII, slab 55, lost, but clearly present in fragments at the time of P.É. Botta, given that E. Flandin reproduced in drawing the entire image; Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pl. 30. Apart from the direction of the personage towards the main entrance, the only difference with the preserved right relief is the unusual shape of the curved weapon, probably due to the carelessness of the artist. Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pl. 41; Albenda 1986, 52–53, 158, fig. 8, pl. 17. Matthiae 1994, 113–116, pls. 5.1–10; Matthiae 2012; Matthiae 2014a and particularly 2014b. Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pl. 47; Albenda 1986, 52–53, 158, fig. 7, pl. 15. Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pl. 46: in Flandin’s drawing only the remains of one tower with the two winged bulls walking in opposite directions and the central human figure with the lion cub are reproduced; this jutting block is clearly the right tower of a great portal, completely corresponding to the central gate to the throne room VII as only fallen fragments were noticed of the frontal winged bull lining the left jamb of the main entrance and of the left minor winged bull of a side right gate. Nothing else of the left tower, of a presumed side left gate, and of the other jamb of the side right gate was discovered by P.É. Botta. On the basis of this evidence it was safe to assume the presence there of an architectural device very similar to that of the throne room VII. Approximately on the same spot V. Place, who cleared the entire length of the wall

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and a knee-length skirt. The wavy hairstyle features three thick curls falling upon each shoulder at both sides of the face. In this case, no less clearly than in the previous case, both hairstyle and clothing have an evident figurative inspiration in ancient artefacts, from the late Early Dynastic until the Old Babylonian periods. The iconographic details of the colossal figure were selected in order to give the impression of a very ancient image, an “archaic” one.8 The figurative context of the colossal figures in the frame of other important adjacent sculptures, well documented for the finding in Court VIII, clearly is a function of the peculiar architectural context. In fact, the slab AO 19862 was inserted between two colossal figures of monolithic winged human-headed bulls9 with frontal face (Fig. 4), each one visually walking in an opposite direction. This composition device was only adopted at Dur Sharrukin in two cases as basic sculptural decoration of a couple of jutting towers at the sides of a monumental

8

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with this decoration, identified three gates – the larger central one named M and two side minor ones, named M’ and M” –, and explicitly identified his gate M as the gate discovered by P.É. Botta: Place 1867–1870, I, 90–91, and II, 22–23. Later on, having found traces of only one gate, whose size was similar to the entrance discovered by P.É. Botta, Loud / Altman 1938, 55 suppressed the existence of the two side minor gates, a solution accepted also by Margueron 1994, 148–149; Margueron 1995, 189, fig. 4. A definitely sound restitution of the main entrance to the palace is made difficult by the proximity of two important gates: the Gate B on the Citadel Wall/Inner City Wall, identified only by Chicago Oriental Institute’s expedition, from which probably come the colossal winged bulls and winged genii now at British Museum (BM 118808 and BM 118809), acquired in 1849 by H.C. Rawlinson after the departure of P.É. Botta from Khorsabad: Gadd 1936, 159–160; Loud / Altman 1938, 53–54; Albenda 1986, 41–42, 165–166 (the winged bulls [IM 72128, IM 72129] and winged genii [IM 72130, IM 72131] of Gate A, in excellent state of conservation, discovered by the American expedition, are now exhibited in the Iraqi Museum, Baghdad: Loud / Altman 1938, pls. 9–19, 46, Basmachi 1975–1976, 239, figs. 140–141). A most interesting detail proving this “archaic” figure was located intentionally by the artists of Dur Sharrukin in the time of myth is that he has naked feet, whereas the corresponding “contemporary” figure has the same sandals worn by the king and the dignitaries of the empire: Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pls. 12–20, 22–23, 40, 101, 103; Albenda 1986, pls. 18, 44–49, 74–76; Matthiae 1996, figs. 5.1–7. See also Ornan 2005a, 80–81, figs. 95–96. This mythical being usually is named aladlammu in Neo-Assyrian texts: Black / Green 1992, 52; Wiggermann 1992, 174. The production by the Dur Sharrukin workshops of the human-headed winged bulls of the palace and city gates was certainly challenging and impressive and was under the direct control of the king, according to the correspondence between Sargon II and Tabshar-Assur, where it is clear that the king followed the quarrying of the alabaster huge blocs and their transfer by river to the new capital and that the masennu minutely informed him about the size of the carried bulls: Parpola 1995b. Danrey 2004, 313–321 gives a careful description of the finding of all the human-headed bulls of Khorsabad by the French and American expeditions.

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portal flanked by two minor gates:10 first, definitely, for the façade n of the throne room VII on the south-west side of the great court VIII (Fig. 5);11 second, very plausibly, for the main southern entrance of the entire architectural complex of the Royal Palace (Fig. 6).12 Apparently, the colossal human figure might have had a function similar, or corresponding, to that of the winged genius usually following the winged humanheaded bull on the jambs of the gates because of his position behind both colossal bulls. However, his absence everywhere at Khorsabad in the inner sectors of the palatial gates, and the peculiarity of his exhibition in full evidence only on the outer part of two very meaningful gates of the Royal Palace, have rightly inferred that it had a special significance. So, even without trying to identify the significance, the complex of the three colossal figures was named “Grand Royal

The choice of this peculiar position for the gigantic images, “archaic” and “contemporary” of the personage with lion cub and curved weapon was clearly inspired by the decoration of the jutting towers flanking the main entrance of throne room B in Nimrud North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: here two reliefs (nos. ED.2 and ED.9) with a winged genius holding an animal (not a lion) in its left hand and a flowering plant in its lowered right hand were inserted between one colossal winged human-headed bull (nos. ED.1 and ED.10) and one colossal winged human-headed lion (nos. ED.3 and ED.8) walking in opposite directions: Meusziński 1979; Paley / Sobolewski 1992, 3–4, 8, 18, 20–22, fig. 5–7, 11, pls. 3–4; Paley 2008; Ataç 2010b. In any case, the subject of the central relief between the colossal winged human-headed bulls and lions is clearly completely different at Nimrud and Khorsabad. Another Khorsabad innovation is that the colossal human-headed bulls are with a frontal face: this posture is completely ignored at Nimrud. 11 About the throne room of Khorsabad within the general frame of the carved decoration of the royal palace, see Sence 2007, and particularly the sound observations trying to reconstruct its almost certainly unaccomplished relief decoration by Blocher 1999. Strangely enough, in a third case the jutting towers at the centre of the façade N of the secondary throne room 8 on the south west side of the outer court III in the rear sector of the palatial complex, where the three-portal system kept the figures of the two opposite human-headed bulls, but the central personage with the young lion was suppressed: Botta / Flandin 1849–1850, pls. 7, 24; Albenda 1986, pl. 35; Matthiae 1996, fig. 6.3. 12 As recalled supra at fn 5, in consequence of evidence discrepancy between the data provided by P.É. Botta / V. Place and G. Loud / Ch. Altman, two alternative restitutions have been proposed for the southern monumental entrance to the palatial complex (labelled Palace Terrace by Albenda 1986, 42–43): three gates, as proposed by the French diggers, and only one entrance, as suggested by American archaeologists, followed by Margueron 1994 and 1995, and recently by Kertai 2015, 95–96. However, the problem remains open, as not only the solution of G. Loud / Ch. Altman completely dismisses the evidence registered by the first diggers in their publications, but also overlooks some evidence mentioned by V. Place in few letters sent to French scholars, where he wrote that were found several fragments of at least two other colossal figures with the lion cub: this record suggested the possibility that “originally there was a heraldic composition on each side of all three gates of the terrace wall”: Albenda 1986, 43–44. 10

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Emblem”, recognising that it had to have an important meaning related to NeoAssyrian kingship.13 This opinion found support in the fact that the same complex of the three colossal figures in identical composition was known in the great rock relief of Sennacherib carved at Khinnis, since the beginning of the modern exploration of Assyria (Fig. 7).14 This monument is a huge cubic rock with a big relief with three frontal figures erected on a high podium, the central one representing a god and a king at both sides: on the side borders were the frontal images of two winged human-headed bulls. On both side faces of the rock are the three figures of the “Grand Royal Emblem”: on the left and on the right were the bodies of the humanheaded bulls whose frontal view was exhibited at the borders of the front face; the central figure was the personage of the Khorsabad portals in the “contemporary” version with Neo-Assyrian costume, the young lion grasped in one hand and the curved weapon in the other hand.15 Moreover, the same composition with the three colossal figures was employed by Sennacherib as decoration of the two jutting towers flanking the central portal of the “Grand Entrance” to the throne room I of the South-West Palace of Quyunjiq on the western side of court H, the outer court of the huge architectural complex of the new palatial building of Sargon II’s son at Nineveh.16 This decoration was found in a bad state of preservation by A.H. Layard, was anew excavated by T. Madhloom in the 1960s and restored in the 1990s when the Palace Site Museum was developed by the Iraqi cultural authorities. The remnants of this monumental entrance with a large lower sector of the left colossal winged bull (slab 10), a modest lower part of the central figure, clearly in the “contemporary” costume (slab 11: now completely disappeared), and a very limited rear sector of the right winged bull (slab 12), almost completely lost, were carefully studied by

The proposal was advanced by Albenda 1986, 101–102. Concerning this figurative decoration of the main entrance to the throne room, without any comment on the identity of the central human figure with the young lion Frankfort 1954, 77 stressed “a concentration of figures which produced an overwhelming impression of power”. For the reconstruction of the tower decoration, always according the drawings of P.É. Botta and E. Flandin, now see also Sence 2014, 111, figs. 24, 25, 111, pls. VI, VII, XXIX. 14 Layard 1853, 214 with figure; Bachmann 1927, 14–16, fig. 13, pls. 15–17 (photos); Jacobsen / Lloyd 1935, 44–49, fig. 12, pl. XXXIV; Börker-Klähn 1982, 207, n. 188 (drawing). The height of the monument, meaningfully named “Torrelief” by the German archaeologists is c. 8.00 m and the width c. 6.00 m. 15 Recently, in the context of the important “Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project” directed by D. Morandi Bonacossi, who carried out extensive field surveys and some soundings of the Neo-Assyrian canal network, essential clarifications were made, with the proposal of dating Maltai and Faideh reliefs to Sargon II on the base of antiquarian elements: Morandi Bonacossi 2018a, 2018b, and 2018c. 16 Layard 1853, 136. 13

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J.M. Russell in 1989–1990, immediately before the Gulf Crisis.17 That the central figure was of the “contemporary” variant is assured by one of the British Museum Original Drawings (Fig. 8),18 whereas the presence of the lion cub grasped exactly as at Khorsabad is made certain by the careful description of A.H. Layard, who rightly noticed the complete correspondence to the iconographic formulation documented by P.-É. Botta and E. Flandin.19 Two meaningful details of the iconography of the central figure of the so-called Royal Emblem are its gesture of grasping the young lion and the curved weapon held by the hand of the arm lying along the body. On one hand, the figurative elaboration of the personage, especially for the front face head and the six curls, is clearly descended from Old Akkadian prototypes, very probably intentionally used as models, of the mythical being of Enki milieu, named laḫmu in Akkadian texts, according the identification by F.A.M. Wiggermann.20 This being, at least since Early Dynastic III, but perhaps already from the Jemdet Nasr period, is a creature of fresh water, mythical domain of his lord, and his relation with the lion is largely attested in contest scenes and rarely by his representation in atlas posture.21 On the contrary, the position of the lion grasped to the laḫmu waist of the

Russell 1991, 13–14, 178, fig. 10; Russell 1998, 66–67, 218–219, pls. 5, 16–18; Russell 1999, 126, 129–130, 265–266, fig. 110. At the time of the presence at Quyunjiq of J.M. Russell, member of the University of California Berkeley Expedition directed by D. Stronach, in 1990, the strongly fragmented remnants of the carved slabs were in a state of severe degradation in comparison with the situation observed in 1965 by Madhloom 1967. See now also Lippolis (ed.) 2011, pls. 23–28. 18 Original Drawings I, 33 (se also II, 49b, where is clear the tunnel dig): Russell 1998, 66, figs. 16–17. 19 “The upper half of the next slab had been destroyed, but the lower still remained, and enabled me to restore the figure of the Assyrian Hercules strangling the lion, similar to that discovered between the bulls in the propylaea of Khorsabad, and now in the Louvre. The hinder part of the animal was still preserved. Its claws grasped the huge limbs of the giant, who lashed it with the serpent-headed scourge”: Layard 1853, 136. 20 Wiggermann 1981–1982: in this basic contribution the previous identifications of the naked hero figure with three curls (Gilgamesh, Tammuz, Nimrud, “Wilder Mann”, “Naked Hero”) are recalled. Regarding the gigantic figure with the young lion of the Khorsabad slabs the more diffused definition was “Gilgamesh-like”. Nowadays, an accurate setting up of the problems concerning the Gilgamesh image in visual representations is the collective volume Steymans (ed.) 2010, where Ataç 2010c concerns Gilgamesh’s image in Neo-Assyrian art. Already Lambert 1987, 44–45 had noticed that laḫmu figure was employed as Khumbaba in scenes most likely representing Gilgamesh’s heroic quests: this formulation is found in some Neo-Assyrian cylinder seals of Pierpont Morgan Library (Porada 1948, 83, no. 686, pl. CI), Gorelick Collection in Brooklyn Museum (Noveck 1975, 57, no. 41), and Cherkasky Collection in Metropolitan Museum, New York (Pittman 1987, 72, no. 72). 21 The variants of laḫmu image are numerous in Early Dynastic IIIB, particularly concerning face and hair, as already noted by Frankfort 1939, 59–60, pls. XII–XIII, 17

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palatial decorations of Dur Sharrukin and Nineveh is unique, without precedents. On the other hand, the curved weapon, a kind of gamlu, held in the laḫmu’s hand, either in the “archaic” or “contemporary” version, is identical to the weapon wielded by Shalmaneser III on his Istanbul Museum statue.22 This weapon is a typical royal weapon belonging to that weapon group bestowed by the divine world upon the king while ascending the throne as a guarantee of the gods’ favour.23 In particular, the curved weapon gamlu is considered one of the royal tools specifically related to cleansing and to the king as išippu na’du, “the exalted purification priest”.24 Clearly, the presence of the pet lion in the “contemporary” image and of the weapon in the “archaic” figure are visually anachronistic, incoherent, and incongruous. If the two details were deliberately kept in both pictures, it means that both were considered essential and the two different figurative versions of the personage had to be ideologically considered in a unitary way with reference to the ideal king’s image. The exceptional monumentality of the image at the same level of the colossal human-headed bulls, the enigmatic duality of its figurative formulation – “archaic” and “contemporary” –, the explicit royal characterization of the personage through the curved weapon, the unnatural and superhuman attitude of lion domination, and the location of the Great Royal Emblem only at the entrances to the palatial complex and the main throne room make it evident that the personage was conceived as a special relation to royalty. Furthermore, all these features definitely separate him from the other, always less monumental, mythical beings put at all the numerous gates of the royal palaces, either at Dur Sharrukin and Nineveh, with a general essentially apotropaic function.25 In other terms, the figure represented under the

who rightly observed that, like in stone vases of Jemdet Nasr, his main action also in cylinder seals was “restraining lions from their attack on cattle”: more rarely, laḫmu figure was represented taming lions in later Early Dynastic IIIB seals: Ibidem, pl XIIIa. The definite canonization of the laḫmu front face head and six curls was carried out in the Old Akkadian period: Boehmer 1965, 21. 22 Strommenger 1970, 16–17, n. S3, pl. 6a: the head and bust of this statue were strongly damaged and nowadays they are heavily reconstructed and repaired, but the lower sector where the curved weapon is original. An older shape of the same weapon is carried by Ashurnasirpal II in a well-known statue of the British Museum (BM 118871), found at Nimrud, Temple of the Bêlit māti: Layard 1849, 361–262; Layard 1853, II, pl. 52; Gadd 1936, 128; Strommenger 1970, 13–15, fig. 2a–d, pl. 1a–d: the shape of the royal weapon in this statue is similar to that usual in Ashurnasirpal II’s reign, as it also appears in the ivory plaque of the same king found in the North-West Palace, chamber EA, outside Gate E near the throne room B: Mallowan / Davies 1970, 2,16, pl. I. 23 Matthiae 2016. 24 Magen 1986, 69–73, pl. 14/1–3; CAD I–J, 242–243. 25 The iconological and historical evaluations recently advanced by Ataç 2010a, 173–183 about this large group of mythical beings, nearly all Mischwesen, are important. He

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guise of a laḫmu is a special image of Sargon II’s and Sennacherib’s kingship, invented at the time of Sargon II to visually proclaim a peculiar concept of the king and not at all an apotropaic being charged with the function of protecting the palatial gateways.26 If this hypothesis is correct, it is necessary to try to find in the official chancery inscriptions of both sovereigns who adopted the laḫmu figure in front of their main throne rooms some textual reference plausibly corresponding to that visual image. In effect, between all the Neo-Assyrian kings, only Sargon II and his successors, the great Sargonids – Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal – explicitly declare that the king has the knowledge and wisdom of Adapa,27 the first of the apkallû, the Seven Sages, who had the unparalleled merit of bestowing the civilization upon humankind.28 Only in the cylinder inscription of Sargon II the following speech is employed: LUGAL pīt ḫasīsi lē’i ini kalama šinnât apkalli, “the wise king, the master of all lore, the equal of the sage [Adapa]”, where, according to all interpretations, apkallu is clearly indicating not just anyone of the apkallû, but specifically

in part agrees with the theory – advanced by Ornan 2005b – that, since Sargon II’s time, in the palatial reliefs, the figure of the king did not mingle any more with the images of these mixed beings. It has to be noted that, among these mixed beings, Ataç 2010a, 174–175, figs. 120–121 counts incorrectly even the two gigantic human figures of Khorsabad object of the present contribution. However, Albenda 1994, 185–188 describes in general terms the colossal “hero” with the young lion of Khorsabad as an expression of the “permanence of the Assyrian kingship”, despite the fact that she mentions him among the “guardian figures”. 26 Recently Gansell 2016, 92–93 argued that Sargon II, representing the same character as “an archaic hero-type”, a laḫmu, and as a personage in the Neo-Assyrian style in the two gates, wanted to evoke, on one side, his legitimacy and, on the other, “a ligature between Sargon II, the era of Sargon of Akkad and, perhaps, the primordial universe described in mythology”. Her interpretation is, in part, not far from reality, but what has to be stressed is that, at least for the cultivated people of the court, the aristocrats and all the élites of scholars, the “heroic” personage created by the sculptors of Dur Sharrukin was certainly identified with a well-known figure of the mythical times of the origins. The problem of identifying even court dignitaries and high functionaries (particularly the magnates of the “royal cabinet”: Parpola 1995a; Mattila 2000) largely represented in the carved decorations of several rooms and courts of Khorsabad royal palace is the subject of the preliminary study by Matthiae 2014b, whereas the recent critical review of the court headgears by Reade 2009 is an essential contribution to this problem. 27 Before Sargon II, Ashurnasirpal II and Tiglatpileser III boasted to be endowed with wisdom only in general terms with reference to artistic works or palace building, but without any punctual mention of Adapa: Sweet 1990b, 51–53. 28 Sweet 1990a; Sweet 1990b; Izre’el 2001, 1–4. For Berossos’s story of the Seven Sages (Verbrugghe / Wickersham 1996, 44, 48, 71), based on an ancient Mesopotamian tradition (Reiner 1961; Van Dijk 1962) see now some critical evaluations by Haubold 2013; Lang 2013; Lanfranchi 2013.

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Adapa.29 In three chancery colossal bull inscriptions of Sennacherib, one of them very similar to one carved just on the same slabs forming the three figures complex of the Great Royal Emblem in front of the throne room I, Sargon II’s passage is amended as follows: dNinšiku [Ea] iddina karšu ritpāšu šinnatu ABGAL Adapa išruka palkâ ḫasissu, “the god Ea gave me wide understanding equal to (that of) the sage Adapa (and) endowed me with broad knowledge”.30 In a cylinder royal inscription of Esarhaddon, kept in several versions, the text wording is: iati m Aššur-ŠEŠ-SUM.NA MAN KUR Aššur.KI NUN nādu šinnat ABGAL adapa ša išruku rubū dNinšiku [Ea], “as for me, Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, pious prince, to whom the prince, the god Ea, gave (wisdom) equal to that of the sage Adapa”.31 Lastly, also in an inscription of one of the prisms of Ashurbanipal, a damaged passage is again remembering the king’s wisdom as equivalent to that of Adapa.32 From these chancery inscriptions two similar concepts are evident: first, two kings, Sargon II and Ashurbanipal, proclaimed they were given a wisdom equal to Adapa’s wisdom; second, the first successors of Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, pretended that the god Ea himself bestowed wisdom equal to that of Adapa upon them.33 Clearly, starting with the founder of Sargonids’s dynasty, as regards their exceptional wisdom they were all identical to Adapa in consequence of a special gift of Ea. So, according to a doctrine elaborated by Sargon II’s scholarly milieu, Sargon and his successors had the extraordinary privilege to be as sage as Adapa: they claimed to be a figure corresponding to the “archaic” Adapa of the mythical times, a kind of “contemporary” Adapa of the historical times.34 Why in text and image was Adapa chosen to extraordinarily exalt the figure of Sargon? The answer is in the specific peculiarities of Adapa’s wisdom according to the Mesopotamian mythical thought preserved in the poem “Adapa and the South Wind”.35

Fuchs 1993, 37, 292: the passage is in Cylinders Paris, London, and Chicago 1.1/38. Grayson / Novotny 2014, 57, 92, 96, nos. 43/4, 49/4, 50/4; Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 310. 31 Leichty 2011, 156, no. 77/45; Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 310. 32 Borger 1996, 176, 205 Prisma E, l. 2/8: šinnat ABGAL … “the equivalent (of the wisdom) of the sage [Adapa I acquired] …”. Text integration is founded on K 2694 + 3050, translated by Luckenbill 1927, 379, where, however, Adapa’s wisdom is defined as “the hidden treasure of all scribal knowledge, the signs of heaven and earth”: Weissert / Onasch 1993, 61, 71–72. See also Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 311–312. 33 Pongratz-Leisten 2015, 284–285, 455–457. 34 Only Fontan 1993, 77, as far as I know, observed in a quick remark that the gigantic image of both citadel and palace gates of Khorsabad had probably to be identified as Adapa rather than Gilgamesh, but without any argument. 35 We follow the last critical edition of this unfortunately fragmentary Akkadian poetic composition, where in the commentary large space is given to a discussion on previous different interpretations of the not few debated passages: Izre’el 2001. If many hints preserved in the Middle Babylonian Amarna version of the myth convincingly suggested 29 30

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First, the exceptional wisdom of Adapa, a native of Eridu, was a gift of Ea, the great god of Eridu, “broad of understanding, who knows the hearths of the great gods”: he “made him (his) follower among people”.36 Second, the essence of Adapa’s wisdom depended from the fact that Ea “perfected him with great intelligence, to give instruction about the ordinance of the earth”.37 Third, the special status of Adapa is finally proclaimed by the following speech: “At that time, Anu set Adapa at his service … he established his freedom from Ea. Anu set a decree to make his lordship be seen forever”.38 Apparently, the extraordinary intelligence of Adapa, a gift of his original lord Ea, was addressed to ensure the ordinance of the earth (only of earth and not of heaven, matter of the gods and not of a “seed of humankind” like Adapa), but, notwithstanding his sin of “breaking the South Wind’s wing”,39 as he ascended to heaven but unable to conquer eternal life, Adapa passed anyway under Anu’s lordship. The exceptional wisdom of Adapa40 was not an abstract concept, but it had two important characters especially attractive for the scholarly milieu of Sargon II’s court.41 On one hand, it was a divine gift, granted by the god of Eridu Ea, the wisest of the Mesopotamian pantheon, and approved by Anu, who received him in the heaven, in spite of his sin, providing a universal character. On the other hand, this divine gift was especially conferred to establish the ordinance of the earth, a job typical of the kingship’s functions. For the first point, Sargon II is the Neo-Assyrian king who explicitly and extensively explained his all-embracing wisdom, richness of understanding, and capacity for planning to the order and intervention of Ea (Lugalabzu) and Damkina (Ninmenanna).42 For the second

many years ago that its subject is an archaic one, probably already elaborated in an earlier Sumerian composition in the Old Babylonian period (Komoróczy 1964), later on such a redaction, similar to the Akkadian version, has been discovered at Tell Haddad (Cavignaux / al-Rawy 1993) and recently published: Cavignaux 2014. 36 Izre’el 2001, 9–10 (Fragment A, l. 6’), 34–35 (Fragment C, l. 4). 37 Izre’el 2001, 8–10 (Fragment A, l. 3’). 38 Izre’el 2001, 38–39 (Fragment D, ll. 9’–11’). See also Vorontsov 2012, 798–802. 39 Izre’el 2001, 38–39 (Fragment D, ll. 12’–14’). 40 Kienast 1973; Liverani 2004. 41 Parpola 2007; Postgate 2007; Fincke 2014; May 2017: in this last contribution special attention is put on the peculiar situation of Sargon II’s court where the vizier Sinakhusur, brother of the king, played an important role. 42 Luckenbill 1927, 63; Fuchs 1993, 39, 293 (Cyl. 1.1/47–49); Pongratz-Leisten 2015, 272. In many other Khorsabad inscriptions the workmanship of Ea, under the name Ninagal (the divine “blacksmith”) is evoked for the erection of the bronze lion bases of portico columns: Luckenbill 1927, 37, 42–43, 46–47,49, 53; Fuchs 1993, 69, 305 (Bull inscription 71), 79, 310 (Small Display inscription of Room XIV 37), 183, 340 (Annals 435), 239, 353–354 (Display inscription 153), 253, 268, 275, 357, 361, 363 (Pavement inscriptions S.2/33, S.4/111, S.5/9’). Before Sargon II, the only Neo-Assyrian king who referred to Ea with regard to his wisdom in relation to his re-foundation of Kalkhu is

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point, the ordinance of the earth was a typical prerogative of the Neo-Assyrian king, according to the ideology of the Assyrian world.43 At the court of Sargon II, who benefited from the active presence of distinguished scholars, particularly expert in the historical, even figurative, traditions both of Assyria and Babylonia, such as the famous scribe and astrologer Nabuzuqupkenu,44 the decision was taken to insert an eloquent visual allusion to this special prerogative of the king in the rich and complex program of the sculptured decoration of the Royal Palace. This decision has to be evaluated in the frame of the sophisticated scholarly milieu entrusted with conceiving the general architectural and sculptural project that was directly and assiduously coordinated jointly by the king himself and the masennu Tabshar-Assur.45 In particular, the presence of the imposing double figures of Adapa in meaningful places of the decorative program is consistent with the articulated system of the match of text and image at Dur Sharrukin.46

Ashurnasirpal II in the Banquet Stele: Grayson 1991, 289; only in another stone slab inscription of Ashurnasirpal II, that is a combination of display and annalistic materials, but not in the Standard Inscription, is it said that the wisdom of the king was “destined for him” by Ea, but not in relation to his building initiatives: Ibidem, 225. For the use of the name Ninmenanna/Ninmenna for Damkina in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian inscriptions see Tallqvist 1938, 414–415. 43 Lanfranchi 1991; Maul 1999; Joannès 2000, 56–70; Galter 2006; Matthiae 2007; Parpola 2010; Radner 2010; Parker 2011; Galter 2014; Parker 2014; Liverani 2017, 242–267. 44 Frahm 1999; Baker / Pearce 2001; May 2018. 45 Parpola 1995b: this important preliminary contribution rightly outlining the basic role of the king in designing and implementing Dur Sharrukin project leaves the problem of the real role played by Tabshar-Assur open: project architect of all the spatial plan, general coordinator of the governors’ tasks, monitor of specific works, or, more probably, responsible for all these different jobs? According to Joannès 2000, 74–79, the vizir Sinakhusur was trusted with a prominent role, but there is no evidence of this task for the king’s brother. 46 For the specific correspondence between the several chancery texts and the subjects of the sculptural decorations in the individual rooms of Khorsabad Royal Palace see Matthiae 2018. The issue is, of course, related to the general, delicate, matter of the audience having access to the royal palaces and of the target previewed by the redactors of the different kinds of chancery texts, recently explored, inter alios, by Liverani 2014 and Siddall 2017; some important considerations about audience in Neo-Assyrian royal palaces in the visual perspective may be found in Winter 1981; Porada 1986; Matthiae 1988; Bachelot 1991; Porter 1995; Lumsden 2004; and Liverani 1979 and Reade 1979 gave basic contributions to the issue of ideology, propaganda and their artistic expressions. However, recently the inappropriate definition of propaganda – a modernist trivialization – for the textual and visual documentation of the kingship concept in Neo-Assyrian palaces has been stressed in different ways: Matthiae 2014a; Bagg 2016; Nadali 2016, 44, 50; Siddall 2017. Peculiar cases of “propaganda” are those studied by Battini 1997 and 1998 for Khorsabad and Porter 2003 for Nimrud.

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Sargon II himself and the scholarly milieu present at court at Khorsabad considered their time to be the age of a new Sargon of Akkad and this extraordinary personality of the most ancient times was clearly the model to follow from the perspective of the Neo-Assyrian king.47 He not only adopted the same name, but also founded a new capital city like Sargon of Akkad, certainly in order to prove that he was undoubtedly a king destined for the same fame.48 The choice of representing Adapa’s character through the figure of the laḫmu was clearly determined by the full awareness within the scholarly milieu of Sargon II’s court that, generally in ancient times and particularly in Old Akkadian period, the laḫmu image, not rarely dominating lions, was closely related to the domain of god Enki/Ea and, very probably, was employed to depict an apkallu specifically, as Enki’s son.49 As it was necessary that palace visitors could easily identify a so imposing graven figure, the choice implied the awareness that, at least, for the contemporary Assyrian public it was not difficult to detect the identity of the laḫmu as the first and most prominent apkallu.50 On the other hand, if the humanheaded winged genii with dignitary’s attire were really representations of apkallû

This line of interpretation is followed by Van De Mieroop 1999, but in the Assyriological literature the interpretation that Sargon II, as an usurper not belonging to the royal family, assumed the name Sargon for legitimacy reasons prevailed for a long time, against the certainly limited but clear evidence that he was a son of Tiglatpileser III and a brother of Shalmaneser V: Unger 1933; Thomas 1993. Also the different meanings of the personal name in the Old Akkadian documents (Šarru-kēnu/kīn “King true/faithful/right/just”) and in the Neo-Assyrian writing (Šarru-ukin “The king has established order”: Vera Chamaza 1992; Frahm 2005) have been considered sometime a strong difficulty for attributing a programmatic value and an apologetical intention to Sargon II in taking the name of the founder of the Akkadian empire: Fuchs 2011. The issue was correctly interpreted very recently by Foster 2016, 278–279: “Sargon II was the first king in more than a thousand years to revive the name of Sargon, though in a somewhat different form (Sharru-ukin, rather than Sharru-kin). This was undoubtedly programmatic, as selecting a name, especially a throne name, was an important way of setting the tone for a reign”: the founding a new capital city, the leading of always victorious campaigns (Parpola 2003; Melville 2016), the marching to the sea, and in a few words the founding of a new empire was the ambitious program proclaimed since the beginning of his reign by Sargon II, taking his prestigious throne name: Radner 2005, 34–35. An important hint of the generalised, ideological and literary concern for the Akkadian period in the years of Sargon II is the strong interest for the literary works concerning Sargon of Akkad in his court milieu (Goodnick Westenholz 1997; Foster 2016, 244–286): between them at least one, Sargon’s Legend, was plausibly composed during Sargon II’s reign: Lewis 1980, 104–107. 48 Reade 1983, 48; Sence 2014, 96–98; Elayi 2017, 16–17. 49 Boehmer 1965, 42–43, nos. 158, 163 (?), 193ab, 197, 199, 212, 213, 215, 232 (for the relation to water), 236, 237, pls. XIV–XV, XVII–XIX, XXI. 50 Reade 2004 has provided evidence that Neo-Asyrian elite had good knowledge of some artistic works of previous periods, in particular a concerns Old Akkadian glyptic. 47

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since the time of Ashurnasirpal II,51 the “contemporary” variant introduced at Khorsabad is completely understandable. In the iconography chosen to represent the identification of Adapa with Sargon and later on Sennacherib, it is evident that the curved weapon, usually held by the king in the traditional royal statuary, was considered the best way to immediately suggest the royal character of the figure and the lion cub restrained at the waist, rather often represented dominated by the laḫmu in the Old Akkadian glyptic and seldom in the Neo-Assyrian glyptic,52 was the best way to visually render the firm control over the forces of nature by the king. If we were to try to guess why the “archaic” image of Adapa was chosen for the main monumental entrance and the “contemporary” image for the central gateway of the three-doors system of the throne room façade, we could suppose the following intention. In the first case, the visitor had to get the visual impression that the huge architectural complex was conceived by Adapa’s unrivalled wisdom, whereas in the second case, the visitor’s mind had to be visually filled by the expectation of being received by a king endowed with Adapa’s extraordinary wisdom.53 In a novel, extremely sophisticated, and original modality that is a kind of mirror play, the “archaic” figure at the main entrance of the Royal Palace was the image of Adapa incarnate as Sargon II and the “contemporary” figure at the central portal to the main throne room was the image of Sargon II as Adapa.54 This interpretation was advanced by Paley 1999 and is the base of the suggestive evaluations of Ataç 2010b. 52 The most interesting example is the cylinder seal of the British Museum, BM WA 89140 (Fig. 9), dating from the 8th century BC, where a hero, kneeling on one knee, is represented full-face, bearded, with hair in double curls on either side of his face and wearing kilt and skirt similar to the dress of the Khorsabad laḫmu: he grasps with one hand the lion’s mane and with the other its tail in the typical Atlas attitude: Collon 2001, 105–106, no. 201, pl. XVI. 53 See also Winter 1997, 378: “while in the Neo-Assyrian period the king does not claim to be a god, he is not averse to claims of having been divinely shaped, or, as in the letters of Esarhaddon’s exorcist, to being seen as the very likeness of a god”. 54 As concerns the adoption by Sennacherib of the figurative pattern of Adapa’s image between two winged human-headed bulls, for the two towers flanking the main entrance of his throne room, in the South-West Palace at Nineveh, it is not astonishing at all. As is well known, he was strongly inspired by the remarkable architectural accomplishments of his father at Dur Sharrukin, notwithstanding his abandonment of the new capital as a consequence of his unexpected death at war in Tabal, clearly considered a consequence of the famous “sin of Sargon” (Pongratz-Leisten 2015, 189–191), in order to avoid a cruel punishment by the divine world also for him: the adoption of the definition “palace without rival”, invented by Sargon II, for his new palace at Nineveh, it is a clear clue of this attitude: Fuchs 1993, 286–287, 372. Apparently more difficult to understand is the use of the same iconographic pattern for the rock relief of Khinnis in a completely different context, not architectural but natural. Nevertheless, it is fully comprehensible 51

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Nadali, C., 2016: Community and Individuals: How Memory affects Public and Private Life in the Ancient Near East. In D. Nadali (ed.): Envisioning the Past through Memories. How Memory shaped Ancient Near Eastern Societies. Cultural Memory and History in Antiquity 3. London / New York. Pp. 37–52. Noveck, M.I., 1975: The Mark of Ancient Man. Ancient Near Eastern Stamp Seals and Cylinder Seals: The Gorelick Collection. The Brooklyn Museum, May 1975 – May 1976. New York. Ornan, T., 2005a: The Triumph of the Symbol. Pictorial Representation of Deities in Mesopotamia and the Biblical Image Ban. OBO 213. Fribourg / Göttingen. –– 2005b: Expelling Demons at Nineveh: On the Visibility of Benevolent Demons in the Palaces of Nineveh. In D. Collon / A. George (eds.): Nineveh: Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, London 7–11 July, 2003. London. Pp. 83–92. –– 2007: The Godlike Semblance of a King: The Case of Sennacherib’s Rock Reliefs. In J. Chang / M.H. Feldman (eds.): Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context: Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by Her Students. CHANE 26. Leiden. Pp. 161–175. Paley, S.M., 1999: A Winged Genius and Royal Attendant from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud. Bulletin of the Miho Museum 2: 17–29. –– 2008: Creating a Virtual Reality Model of the North-West Palace. In J.E. Curtis / H. McCall / D. Collon / L. al-Gailani Werr (eds.): New Light on Nimrud. Proceedings of the Nimrud Conference 11th–13th March 2002. London. Pp. 95–207. Paley, S.M. / Sobolewski, P., 1992: The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest-Palace at Kalḫu (Nimrūd) III (The Principal Entrances and Courtyards). BaF 14. Mainz am Rhein. Parker, B.J., 2011: The Construction and Performance of Kingship in the NeoAssyrian Empire. JAR 67: 357–386. –– 2014: Hegemony, Power, and the Use of Force in the Neo Assyrian Empire. In B. Düring (ed.): Understanding Hegemonic Power of the Early Assyrian Empire. Leiden. Pp. 287–299. Parpola, S., 1995a: The Assyrian Cabinet. In M. Dietrich / O. Loretz (eds.): Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament. Festschrift für Wolfram Freiherr von Soden zum 85. Geburtstag. AOAT 240. Neukirchen-Vluyn. Pp. 379–401. –– 1995b: The Construction of Dur-Šarrukin in the Assyrian Royal Correspondence. In Caubet (ed.) 1995, Pp. 47–77. –– 2003: Assyria’s Expansion in the 8th and 7th Centuries and Its Long-Term Repercussions in the West. In W.G. Dever / S. Gitin (eds.): Symbiosis, Symbolism and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palestine. Proceedings of the Centennial Symposium, W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and the American Schools of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, May 29–May 31, 2000. Winona Lake, IN. Pp. 99–111.

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–– 2007: The Neo-Assyrian Ruling Class. In T.R. Kämmerer (ed.): Studien zur Ritual und Sozialgeschichte im Alten Orient. Beihefte ZAW 374. Berlin. Pp. 257–274. –– 2010: Neo-Assyrian Concepts of Kingship and Their Heritage in Mediterranean Antiquity. In G.B. Lanfranchi / R. Rollinger (eds.): Concepts of Kingship in Antiquity. Proceedings of the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop Held in Padova, November 28th–December 1st, 2007. HANE Monographs 11. Padua. Pp. 35–44. Pittman, H.,1987: Ancient Art in Miniature. Near Eastern Seals from the Collection of Martin and Sarah Cherkasky. New York. Place, V., 1867–1870: Ninive et l’Assyrie, avec des essais de restitution par F. Thomas, I–III. Paris. Pongratz-Leisten, E., 1999: Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien. Formen der Kommunication zwischen Gott und König im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. SAAS 10. Helsinki. –– 2015: Religion and Ideology in Assyria. SANER 6. Boston / Berlin. Porada, E., 1948: Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections, I. The Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library. Bollingen Series XIV. New York. –– 1986: The Use of Art to Convey Political Meanings in the Ancient Near East. In D. Castriota (ed.): Artistic Strategy and the Rhetoric of Power. Political Uses of Art from Antiquity to the Present. Carbondale / Edwardsville. Pp. 15–26. Porter, B.N. 1995: Language, Audience and Impact in Imperial Assyria. In Sh. Izre’el / R. Drory (eds.): Language and Culture in the Near East. Israel Oriental Studies 15. Leiden. Pp. 51–70. –– 2003: Intimidation and Friendly Persuasion: Re-Evaluating the Propaganda of Ashurnasirpal II. ErIs 27 (The Hayim and Miriam Tadmor Volume): *180– 191. Postgate, J.N., 2007: The Invisible Hierarchy: Assyrian Military and Civilian Administration in the 8th and 7th Centuries. In J.N. Postgate (ed.): The Land of Assur and the Yoke of Assur: Studies on Assyria 1972–2005. Oxford. Pp. 331–361. Radner, K., 2005: Die Macht des Namens. Altorientalische Strategien zur Selbsterhaltung. SANTAG 8. Wiesbaden. –– 2010: Assyrian and Non-Assyrian Kingship in the First Millennium BC. In G.B. Lanfranchi / R. Rollinger (eds.): Concepts of Kingship in Antiquity. Proceedings of the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop Held in Padova, November 28th–December 1st, 2007. HANE Monographs 11. Padua. Pp. 25–34. Reade, J., 1979: Ideology and Propaganda in Assyrian Art. In M.T. Larsen (ed.): Power and Propaganda. A Symposium on Ancient Empires. Mesopotamia. Copenhagen Studies in Assyriology 7. Copenhagen. Pp. 329–343. –– 1983: Assyrian Sculpture. London.

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E.Ch. Cancik-Kirschbaum / Th. Richter (eds.): Munuscula Mesopotamica: Festschrift für Johannes Renger. AOAT 267. Münster. Pp. 127–139. Van Dijk, J.J.A., 1962: Die Tontafeln aus der Grabung in E-anna. In UVB 18: 39–62. Vera Chamaza, G.W., 1992: Sargon II’s Ascent to the Throne: The Political Situation. SAAB 6: 21–33. Verbrugghe, G.P. / Wickersham, J.M., 1996: Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated. Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Ann Arbor, MI. Vorontsov, I., 2012: Adapas Licht. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg 20–25 July 2008. Winona Lake, IN. Pp. 795–804. Weissert, E. / Onasch, H.-U., 1992: The Prologue to Ashurbanipal’s Prism E. Or 61: 58–77. Wiggermann, F.A.M., 1981–1982: Exit Talim! Studies on Babylonian Demonology, I. JEOL 27: 90–105. –– 1992: Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts. Cuneiform Monographs 1. Groningen. Winter, I.J., 1981: Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs. Studies in Visual Communication 7: 2–38. –– 1997: Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Visual Dimensions of Assyrian Ideology. In S. Parpola / R.M. Whiting (eds.): Assyria 1995. Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project Helsinki, September 7–11, 1995. Helsinki. Pp. 359–381.

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P. Matthiae Fig. 1. Khorsabad: personage holding a lion cub, from Royal Palace, Court VIII, Façade n, slab 46 (drawing by E. Flandin, from Albenda 1986, pl. 117).

Fig. 2. Khorsabad: personage holding a lion cub, from Royal Palace, Façade A, slab 2 (drawing by E. Flandin, from Albenda 1986, pl. 115).

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Fig. 3. Khorsabad: personage holding a lion cub, from Royal Palace, Façade A, slab 2, Paris, Musée du Louvre, AO 19861 (from Matthiae 1996, fig. 5.16).

Fig. 4. Khorsabad: winged humanheaded bull with frontal face, from Royal Palace, Court VIII, Façade n, slab 45, Chicago, Oriental Institute Museum A.7369 (from Matthiae 1996, fig. 5.15).

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Fig. 5. Khorsabad: reliefs on the south-west wall of Court VIII, Façade n, Royal Palace (drawing by E. Flandin, from Loud et al. 1936, fig. 45).

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Fig. 6. Khorsabad: southern entrance, Royal Palace, Façade A (drawing by E. Flandin, from Albenda 1986, pl. 114).

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Fig. 7. Khinnis: reliefs on the front and side faces, “Torrelief” (from Börker-Klähn 1982, fig. 188).

Fig. 8. Quyunjiq: reliefs on the Grand Entrance to the Throne Room I, South-West Palace (Original Drawings of the British Museum, from Russell 1998, pl. 17).

Fig. 9. London, British Museum, Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal BM WA 89140 (from Collon 2001, pl. XVI 201).

Barley and Sheep in Kululu (Central Anatolia, late 8th century BC) Clelia Mora University of Pavia

Premise* “I Sumeri del terzo millennio avevano ben chiaro che la loro economia era basata sostanzialmente su due elementi: l’orzo e la pecora. Il componimento letterario neo-sumerico, in cui questi due elementi vantano a gara i rispettivi meriti per un primato di utilità rispetto ai bisogni della comunità umana, coglie perfettamente nel segno. Dobbiamo dunque chiarire, sia pure per grandi linee, come venga gestita sul piano tecnico e soprattutto organizzativo la produzione e redistribuzione di queste due risorse fondamentali, che costituiscono l’ossatura portante dell’intero sistema economico. Ovviamente i due elementi in questione hanno caratteristiche assai diverse e richiedono una diversa organizzazione del processo produttivo” (Liverani 1998, 45). These words were used by Mario Liverani to describe the foundations of the economy of ancient Mesopotamia in his fine book dedicated to the early urbanization phases, at the beginning of a chapter on “The administration of a complex economy”. The two basic resources – sheep and barley – have characterised the economic history of the Near East, crossing regional boundaries and millennia, as testified by numerous sources and studies.1 In this contribution, dedicated with gratitude to a scholar who has written fundamental works on the economic aspects of ancient near-eastern civilizations, I would like to emphasise the historical and administrative importance of a group of special economic documents written in hieroglyphic Luwian and found in the vicinity of Kululu by analysing and discussing some significant features. These documents probably date back to the late 8th century BC, and the major ‘protagonists’ are once again barley and sheep.

I would like to thank Federico Giusfredi for his comments and suggestions. Cf. for example the various contributions in the recent volume edited by Breniquet / Michel 2014.

* 1

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.Introduction (the historical background) In the last phase of its history, during the second half of the 13th century BC, the Hittite ruling dynasty found itself in a very troubled context due to a serious political and economic crisis.2 At the end of this difficult period, the Hittite reigning king – Suppiluliuma II – and his court abandoned the capital (late 13th or early 12th century BC), probably leaving only the poorest people, who continued to live in the city.3 Jürgen Seeher, who was the first to study this event in detail, made the following observation: “For reasons still unknown to us, before the end of the empire the decision was taken to relocate the residence of the ruling family and the sanctuaries outside the city […]. This means that the city was deprived of its principal functions as the centre of political power, civic administration and religion. Along with the functions went the various functionaries – royal family, priests, bureaucrats – and sooner or later a large number of people dependent on those functions also departed, such as craftsmen, tradesmen, suppliers, etc. They took with them a large portion of the inventory from the buildings which had been in use and were thereupon abandoned. A residual population of unknown size remained in the city. These remaining inhabitants, trying to cope with the novel situation, stripped the abandoned buildings of everything (except for the unusable cuneiform tablet and clay bullae archives and the stationary pithoi). This process may have gone on for some time” (Seeher 2010, 221).4 The sudden abandonment of the capital city, which had been the centre of the political and administrative activities of a large kingdom, caused the interruption of cuneiform documents and the scribal tradition in the Anatolian area. The consequences that this abandonment had on daily life and the survival of the population were far more serious. In the paper quoted above, Seeher analyses the archaeological evidence of the subsequent period and the arrival of newcomers: “The exodus of the ruling class – royalty and priesthood – deprived the city of its main functions and prompted a particularly rapid population drain. In the 12th century BCE new settlers appeared in the ruins of Hattusa, bearers of the Early Iron Age culture” (Seeher 2010, 220). The disappearance of a large and important political entity in the period after the end of the Hittite Empire (commonly called the ‘Dark Age’), the repercussions in terms of social and political reorganization, and the new political patterns that took hold in some Anatolian areas are all much-debated topics in the field of

Cf. Giorgieri / Mora 2010, especially p. 147. Seeher 2001, 2010. 4 An imaginary but evocative chronicle (almost a screenplay) of the ‘evacuation’ of the Hittite capital by the king and the court was proposed by T. Bryce (Bryce 2012, 9–11). 2 3

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Archaeology and Ancient History.5 The situation that emerges through historical and archaeological research varies for the different regions that were once dominated by the sovereigns of Hattusa. As mentioned above, a small community of people continued to live in the capital with a very low standard of living for a few decades; in the 12th century “new settlers appeared, bearers of a totally different culture” (Seeher 2010, 222).6 While there were deep changes in the social organization and material culture in the region of the capital (the core of the Hittite empire) and other nearby areas,7 evidence from southern regions seems to show different patterns, characterised by continuity and attempt to find new ways of development. In the Hittite kingdom of Karkemish, in northern Syria, the local kings – who were descendants of the Hittite dynasty – ruled for many decades in the 12th Century; later, this small kingdom became one of the most important political entities of the Neo-Hittite period, maintaining a leading political and cultural role in the region.8 In some centres of Cappadocia there are obvious aspects of continuity with the previous imperial phase in pottery production, territorial organization and public work (especially defensive walls).9 After the Dark Age, when written and monumental sources reappeared, a different model of state and society became successful in south-central Anatolia and in the south-eastern corner of the Anatolian peninsula. M. Liverani (2002) spoke of “triplice tipologia” characterizing the political entities in the Iron Age, i.e. regional states (corresponding to the ancient Great kingdoms), city-states or cantonal states (ancient small kingdoms) and ethnic states (ancient tribal formations). The organization and functioning of the ‘city/cantonal states’ that arose in this area seem however to show differences compared to the ‘small states’ from the previous era: “Dopo un paio di secoli, mal documentati e probabilmente turbolenti, l’organizzazione che si stabilizzò era un compromesso tra vecchio e nuovo modello, tra città e tribù. Lo stesso vale viceversa anche per i superstiti Cf. the numerous contributions by M. Liverani on the issues of the collapse of the regional system and the origin of the nation-states (for example Liverani 2002). 6 Cf. also Genz 2004, Yener 2013. 7 For the central-Anatolian site of Gordion / Yassi Höyük cf. the results of the survey conducted by Kealhofer (2005), showing a deep cultural change between the LBA and EIA (for more detailed comments see Mora / d’Alfonso 2012). 8 See, especially, Mazzoni 1981, Hawkins 2002, Aro 2013, Peltenburg et al. 2016. 9 See Matsumura 2005; 2008 (Kaman Kalehöyük), Dupré 1983, Pelon 1994 (Porsuk / Zeyve Höyük). Regarding Southern Cappadocia cf. Mora / d’Alfonso 2012, 391: “We were looking for both traces of continuity with the previous tradition, and any clues to suggest how, where and when the main centres were reorganized after the crisis”. This research confirmed what was previously assumed by some scholars (see for example Bittel 1983) and made it clear that Cappadocia was exposed to a less disruptive process of cultural and social change than the two northern areas around Gordion and Hattusa. 5

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stati territoriali, che conservarono la maggior parte delle vecchie strutture ma ricevettero una nuova caratterizzazione dalla crescita della componente tribale nella popolazione. Penso in particolare ad una diversa ideologia sociale (basata sulla giustizia), al diverso ruolo dell’assemblea, ad un diverso equilibrio tra contadini e pastori” (Liverani 2002, § 7). Continuity with the imperial age, at least in some relevant centres, is attested by the use of the Anatolian hieroglyphic script and Luwian language,10 by motifs and stylistic features in sculpture,11 by the similarity of some place names in the two periods,12 and by continuity in local cults. But, as Liverani pointed out (see above), the written sources also reveal a renewed society, from political and economic points of view. The inscriptions celebrate not only the local kings, but also lords, dignitaries and officials, and frequently speak of topics such as building activities, cultivated fields, pastures and vineyards. F. Giusfredi, speaking about the origin and the formation of the neo-Hittite kingdoms in his work on the ‘Sources for a Socio-Economic History of the NeoHittite States’, points out that: “As already noted, we cannot consider the Neo-Hittite states as the final reunion of a fragmented ‘national’ group, as we probably could assume to be true for the Semitic ‘secondary states’ of Aram, Israel and Phoenicia. We also cannot think of them as simple remains, as ruins of formerly stronger states: a wider spectrum of factors than a mere invasion or war influenced their own space and their own time. Neo-Hittite states were the adaptation of formerly local subsets of the southern kingdoms of the Hittite area of influence: Karkemiš, Tarhuntašša, Aleppo; they reduced their width and eliminated part of their internal and external (international) connections in order to survive the new circumstances of climate, the economy, international politics and, of course, but not only, to survive wars. In other words, they were simply a natural outcome of the southern part of Anatolian culture at the end of the Bronze Age” (Giusfredi 2010, 32). While it is difficult to draw a clear picture, even in outline form, of the historical events of these states (local sources are mainly represented by celebratory texts,

As suggested in a recent contribution, “It is indeed likely that the crucial political and cultural role played by the Luwian south territories during the last period of the Hittite Empire and the use of the hieroglyphic inscriptions had consequences on the following phase. The Neo-Hittite evidence of continuity can thus be interpreted not only as cultural heritage from the Empire period, but also as persistence of a (hieroglyphic?) scribal and artistic culture that for centuries had been deeply-rooted in the area” (Balza / Mora 2015). 11 Cf. Mazzoni 1981 and 2000; Aro 2010, 5; Mora / d’Alfonso 2012, 393 f.; Balza / Mora 2015. 12 Cf. Forlanini 2013. 10

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while the Assyrian sources give us partial indications),13 it is even more difficult to obtain information on the administrative organization and on the functioning of their economy. Some documents clearly suggest that these new political entities, whilst maintaining traditions from a distant past, benefitted from the fact that there were no longer any obligations to a ‘Great King’ and therefore took full advantage of the wealth and resources of their region, also to improve the well-being of the population.14 Unfortunately, the almost total absence of administrative and economic texts from Neo-Hittite documentation15 hinders a full understanding of the socio-economic aspects and development factors.16 The KULULU lead strips, between tradition and innovation As reported by T. Özgüç (1971, 111 f.), the lead strips were discovered accidentally by a villager from Kululu in his field; in 1967 they were acquired by the Ankara Museum. The exact findspot is actually unknown,17 and it is possible that in fact the material was found during an ‘unofficial’ excavation. In his preliminary report, Özgüç gives other interesting information about the finds and the treatment they suffered after the discovery: according to the discoverer, M. Yıldız, the lead strips were found “in a single roll, with the narrow ones arranged inside and the widest strip wrapped around the outside” (Özgüç 1971, 112). The relatives of M. Yıldız used the lead strips to make small bullets for guns, so the length of all the rolls measured by the archaeologists (87,8 cm.) didn’t correspond to the measurements declared at the time of discovery (approximately 2 meters). T. Özgüç also gives detailed sizes of the preserved rolls, the widest and longest of which is lead strip 1 (length: 37 cm, width: 5.2 cm, thickness: 1.2 mm). Overall, what remains consists of two quite well-preserved lead strips (1 and 2), two small fragments (fr. 1 and 3), and a joined text composed of lead strip 3+fr. 2. In his

For recent overview of the historical context cf. Hawkins 2000 (in different chapters, with reference to the various regions), Giusfredi 2010, 35 ff., Liverani 20114, 631 ff., Bryce 2012. 14 Cf. Masetti Rouault 2004, Mora 2012, Balza 2017. 15 Also in this respect the Neo-Hittite states maintain a certain continuity with the Hittite past. 16 For the economic aspect, some studies have tried to analyze different types of sources to gain useful and interesting information, especially since the 1980s. Cf. for example Mazzoni 1981, who focuses on the dislocation of the settlements marked by the presence of Luwian-hieroglyphic inscriptions and on the evidence related to the exploitation of iron (on this subject cf. also Wäfler 1983); on more ‘technically’ economic issues see especially Hawkins 1986 and Giusfredi 2010. To study the administrative aspect, we usually rely on the analysis of the categories of officials and their roles. In any case, the lack – or scarcity – of legal, administrative and economic documents represents a great limit in the understanding of historical processes. 17 Cf. Özgüç 1971, 111 f. 13

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book, Özgüç publishes excellent photographs of the pieces; he also focuses on the fragility of the material, which requires special precautions.18 The lead strips from Kululu represent, together with the lead strips found in Assur,19 the only documents of a purely economic-administrative nature from the Neo-Hittite states; this, in addition to the particularity of the lead support, makes them ‘documents’ of special interest. The first comment on the content of the strips was provided by E. Laroche, upon request from T. Özgüç.20 In these brief notes, Laroche gives a summary of the content of the strips, proposes a date around the end of the 8th century BC,21 and gives preliminary lists of personal and geographical names and a list of some selected words. From an archaeological point of view, the Kululu site was certainly an important centre of the Tabal Kingdom in the days of the kings Tuwati II and Wasusarma (8th century BC), as testified by the important archaeological and epigraphic material found on the mound.22 But the difficulty, so far, of clearly identifying the site with an ancient place name prevents us from being able to know and study its historical context. The most recent editions of the KULULU lead strips are Hawkins 1987 (with an update in Hawkins 2000) and Giusfredi 2010, two excellent contributions which present the transliterated text, translation, comments on the content and philological notes.23 In his contribution, Hawkins also presents copies of the texts (based on tracings of collated photographs of the strips).24 As far as the dating is concerned, it is generally agreed that the graphic style of the KULULU lead strips is linked to the so-called “Kululu style”, “the cursive style of the Late Period, which happened also to be used in Tabal for monumental purposes”25. Therefore, the dating is likely to be in the late 8th century, as Laroche already hypothesized (see above). Lead strips 1 and 2 seem to record assignments of commodities (quantities indicated by numbers) to individuals or representatives(?) of institutions (see

He remembers that “It is known that the 7 lead strips discovered in 1905 at Assur did not last and disintegrated into powder” (Özgüç 1971, 112). Actually the 5 letters from Assur that were kept at the Ancient Oriental Museum in Istanbul are lost, the two that are in Berlin (Vorderasiatisches Museum) are preserved (cf. Hawkins 2000, 533; Payne 2005, 110). 19 Cf. Andrae 1924 for the first edition, Hawkins 2000 and Giusfredi 2010 for the most recent. 20 Laroche apud Özgüç 1971, 114 ff. 21 The date is inferred from the ductus and shape of signs, i.e. “late stage of the Hittite hieroglyphs”. 22 Cf. Özgüç 1971, Özgüç 1973, Hawkins 2000, 431 f., Demanuelli et al. 2019. 23 See also the previous contributions by Erdem 1979 and Meriggi / Poetto 1982. 24 Hawkins 1987, 135 (cf. also Hawkins 2000, plates 286–289). 25 Hawkins 2000, 430 f. 18

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below). The commodities are barley in lead strip 1, sheep in lead strip 2.26 There are, however, important discrepancies in the interpretation of a crucial term in lead strip 1; this crucial term is the adposition / adverb transliterated CUM-ni.27 Hawkins translates it as ‘for’, but he uses ‘to’ in the few sentences in which CUM-ni is missing and there is the DARE-mina form.28 Giusfredi, on the other hand, prefers to translate CUM-ni as ‘from’, since attributing a similar meaning to the phrases in which DARE-mina is present would not make much sense.29 In this regard, it is worth mentioning the opinion expressed by Yakubovich, who shares Hawkins’ opinion and thinks that a situation of giving/distributing is described.30 I also agree with the hypothesis of considering the concise list on lead strip 1 as the description of a series of distributions, therefore the text probably deals with assignments rather than ‘registration of taxation’. Similar interpretation problems concerning texts of this type also arise for documents from the second millennium: cf. for example some texts edited and discussed by Siegelová (1986, 258 ff.). In this case they are also straightforward lists that follow the pattern ‘list of goods – individual / group of people / communities involved’. According to Siegelová, these are outgoing goods, delivered to different communities, whereas Kempinski and Košak (1977) think they are describing goods delivered to the collection centre by local communities.31 The purpose of the assignments in the Kululu documents is yet to be understood: is it a reward or an assignment connected to agricultural work, considering the type of goods?32 In his edition, Hawkins (Hawkins 1987) considers the structure of documents 1 and 2, i.e. the fact that they are divided into horizontal registers (three in lead strip 1, two in 2), which in turn are subdivided by vertical rulings into compartments; each compartment contains a single entry. This structure seems like a special format to allow a series of data to be compiled and consulted quickly, for administrative needs. Hawkins then lists the different types of elements that characterise the entries in each compartment.33 Although there are some differences, the scheme is quite similar in strips 1 and 2: after a town-name (only occurring in some of the first entries in lead strip 1), there is the numeral, the commodity involved (barley or sheep), the PN of the recipient,34 the post-position CUM-ni or the verb (indicating Cf. notes 33 and 35 below. Cf. Goedegebuure 2010, 312 ff., for the reading *ānni. 28 He points out that the reverse meaning would be possible, “but this interpretation does not seem likely” (Hawkins 1987, 140). 29 Giusfredi 2010, 195–196 30 Yakubovich (2011, 264) also refers to a formula found in KARKEMIŠ A11b+c § 18. 31 Cf. also Mora 2006, 138f. 32 Cf. some administrative documents coming from Maşat Höyük: HKM 109, 110 e 111 (cf. del Monte 1995, 122 ff., texts classified as ‘Testi agricoli’). 33 Cf. Hawkins 1987, 138 (lead strip 1), 146 (lead strip 2). 34 For the personal names in lead strip 1 cf. the useful prosopographic tables in Giusfredi 26 27

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the assignment or distribution); the qualifications of the recipient (patronym or status/occupation, or town-name) could be added. Here some examples of entries, from Hawkins 1987 (Lead strip 1): obverse 16: 22 *179 for Nanas Huliyas’ (son); obverse 28: 100 *179 for Wasumas, man of the town Zaka.35 Some examples of the type of status / occupations quoted in the texts are:36 arawan(n)i-, “free man”, hurnal(l)i-, “hunter”, uriyal(l)i-, probably an officer.37 The commodity recorded in lead strip 2 is sheep, written with the logogram OVIS.38 In entries 1 and 2 two personal names (of officials?) are quoted: these individuals “appear to be in charge of the delivery of the sheep” (Giusfredi 2010, 201). In this strip are referred to as recipients, in addition to personal names, also common nouns. These nouns include: the taru(t)-, statue, the hurnal(l)i-, hunter, the tarpal(l)i-, substitute(?),39 the *uriyal(l)i-.40 Regarding other possible comparisons with earlier (2nd millennium) documents, in addition to the Hittite inventory texts just mentioned, we can also refer to some cult inventories from the second half of the 13th century BC, both for the delivered commodities and for the references to the city communities.41 An interesting reference to the cult inventory text KUB 38.12 as an example of typical list of temple-personnel is made by Uchitel (1985, 115 ff.), who also emphasizes interesting analogies between KULULU lead strip 2 and some Mycenaean documents which also mention the ‘statues’, and observes: “The most noticeable feature of this text is that the “statues” themselves appear as the recipients of sheep together with the personnel attached to them, like the gods and other “heads of households” in the Mycenaean texts 2010, 282–283. For the attribution of meaning ‘barley’ to the logogram *179 cf. Hawkins 1986 and the discussion in Marazzi 1990, 158 f. Regarding the type of measure, here omitted, Hawkins (1986, 101, note 39) considers that “Since KULULU belongs to the same area and date as AKSARAY and SULTANHAN, it seems likely that in lead strip 1’s “numeral + *179-za” the measure tiwatalis is to be understood” (cf. also Giusfredi 2010, 198). 36 For professional titles and status indicators cf. Hawkins 1987, 141, and Giusfredi 2010, 197, 201. 37 For this office cf. the following note. 38 In entry 1 the logogram is accompanied by the full phonetic spelling. 39 But cf. the different suggestion by Yakubovich (2011, 265), who proposes a derivation from Luw. tarp- ‘to plough’, with reference to Morpurgo-Davies 1986; he then concludes by saying that “Among the beneficiaries of the distribution system reflected in the KULULU lead strips, there may have been farmers or petty landowners” (Yakubovich 2011, 265). 40 On this title / occupation cf. Giusfredi 2010, 135 f. Cf. also Pecchioli Daddi 2010, if there was a connection with the Hittite uriyanni- (see Giusfredi 2010, 136). 41 Cf. Hazenbos 2003, 205 ff. 35

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discussed. In fact the similarities between this text and some Mycenaean ones go even beyond this point: the text is opened by two personal names which stand outside the other groups of personnel, as happens in Fn 187 and Un 219; the donors of the offerings are mentioned only occasionally (Muwahis to Nis, Lalis to Parsatas), as in the case of Oi series from Mycenae.” (Uchitel 1985, 115). Further on, Uchitel observes: “The organisation of the cultic personnel in Mycenaean Greece shows the high degree of similarity with that of the Hittite Empire and the later Neo-Hittite kingdoms” (ibid., 120–121).42 Giusfredi (2010, 188) also refers to a possible parallelism that involves the Linear B Mycenaean archives, and quotes especially the list of households in KULULU lead strip 3+ (see further). Continuing this brief survey of the texts, fragment 1, also formatted into compartments, registers sheep assignments on one side, and unspecified ‘gifts’ on the other (perhaps generic assignments or ‘tributes’?)43 Fr. 3 reports a very small section of text: as Hawkins (1987, 155) pointed out, the most noteworthy features, amongst others, are: the form of the logogram representing the commodity, which is different from usual for barley, and the occurrence of a ‘king’ as recipient. Note that this is the only time a ‘king’ is mentioned in this group of texts. Lead strip 3+Fr. 2 is a list of goods (houses and oxen), men and women who belong or refer to a personal name quoted at the beginning of the line. In this case the document is also organised into compartments. First Laroche (apud Özgüç 1971, 115) quoted “a good parallel to these census-lists of houses”, referring to a royal donation of land tenures (KBo 5.7, rev. 28 ff.).44 Even the Neo-Assyrian real estate registration texts are quoted for comparison:45 this type of text is certainly much closer to our strips with regard to dating (8th–7th century BC). In a recent contribution Zs. Simon (2017) proposes an accurate analysis of the toponyms attested in the Kululu lead strips and suggests a possible identification, and location, for a small number of them, some of which are quite far from Kululu. Furthermore, as a result of one of these proposals of identification and localization, he suggests dating the strips to the first half of the 7th century BC. His analysis is very precise from a philological point of view, and very interesting in many

For comparison between Mycenaean documents and the Kululu lead strips cf. also Uchitel 1988. 43 See Giusfredi 2010, 206. 44 Cf. also Giusfredi 2010, 203. KBo 5.7 = LSU 1, is a list of donations to the hierodule Kuwatalla by king Arnuwanda I (1400 BC about). In a previous contribution (Mora 1977) I quoted KBo 5.7 along with some other texts that report lists of people dedicated to a deity, as an offer or fulfillment of a vow. 45 Cf. Giusfredi 2010, 203, with reference, among others, to Fales 1973 and Fales / Postgate 1995. 42

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respects. Nevertheless, with regard to the apparently ‘local’ content of the Kululu documents, which seem to deal with some ‘district’ issues, I think that the place names actually refer to small towns or villages that are very close to the place of discovery.46 The large quantity of commodities involved, to which Giusfredi also refers when hypothesizing that the KULULU lead strips 1 and 2 belonged to a public archive (Giusfredi 2010, 198, 201), do not seem to be incompatible with the hypothesis of a local range of action. Indeed, both the unit of measurement and the chronological span are missing: how many months or years were the goods assigned?47 Furthermore, the lack of indication of measurement units may be due to transactions in a restricted area, within which the same conventions were used and were known. To conclude, and to sum up this short survey, we still have to reflect upon the institution that issued the KULULU documents and the connections that these documents might have with the administrative practice in the Late Bronze period. First of all, it would be useful to consider an aspect that is often neglected but that may be important: according to the testimonies, the strips were found rolled up together. This may mean that probably there was a link between the different texts and that they were issued by the same institution. We know that documents of this type were also used in the first centuries of the I millennium BC by private individuals (see the strips of Assur or Kirşehir),48 but in the case of the KULULU strips, the content, the number of people involved and the quantities of goods mentioned seem to suggest that these documents were issued by a public authority. As Giusfredi suggests,49 lead strips 1 and 2 probably belonged to an archive pertaining to a public institution. If, as it seems, also lead strip 3+ was issued by the same institution (see above), we must consider that such an institution also managed real estate possessions and workers. It was, therefore, most probably, an institution that enjoyed economic autonomy, that could handle large quantities of goods, and that had, or was close to, political power. According to some references in the texts (especially the ‘statues’ in lead strip 2 = objects or places of worship?) and to some comparisons quoted above,50 the institution could be of religious nature. The different contents of lead strips 1 and 2 on the one hand, and of 3+ on the other may support this hypothesis: let us keep in mind, for example, the great and powerful religious institutions of the Hittite Anatolia during the LBA, which carried out various activities, which were protected by the political authority, which sided with different political or military factions and

Cf. Hawkins 2000, 431 for a similar hypothesis. Cf. for example the assignments to the farmers reported in some texts from Maşat (cf. above): the quantities are considerable, and their use is spread over three years. 48 Cf. Andrae 1924, Akdoğan / Hawkins 2010, Weeden 2013. 49 Giusfredi 2010, 198, 201. 50 Cf. the reference to Mycenaeans documents and the comparison between lead strip 3+ and LSU 1 (= KBo 5.7). 46 47

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enjoyed, as a reward, assignments of goods and personnel, and tax exemptions.51 Might the KULULU lead strips therefore be a testimony of continuity of the traditions and customs from the previous period? A certain type of continuity undoubtedly existed: as we have said, in the central-southern area of Anatolia the fracture between BA and IA was less drastic and destructive than in the northern area. As regards administrative aspects, moreover, we have mentioned as a comparison some documents from the Hittite kingdom period, so probably a certain tradition was preserved, through channels that we are not yet able to recognize. Nevertheless, changes and innovation in administrative practices should also be highlighted. We have already emphasised the particular format of the KULULU documents, which have different characteristics compared to the administrative texts from the second millennium. This format seems very useful and innovative in the context of the administrative documents coming from the Anatolian area: the subdivision of text through vertical lines into compartments containing a single entry (see especially the best preserved lead strips 1 and 2) makes the quantity of the assigned commodity and the place of origin of the recipient easily recognizable. In addition, on the obverse of lead strip 1 and on the lead strip 2 the compartments are grouped in sections by double vertical lines with a wavy line in the middle. According to Hawkins, in the lead strip 1 “this grouping appears to relate to the place-names” (Hawkins 1987, 138), while in lead strip 2 “the reason for the division into these groupings is not immediately apparent, but may concern the statues belonging to different towns mentioned in each section” (Hawkins 1987, 146). Each entry begins with the number and the logogram of the assigned goods; the determinative for ‘city’ and the signs indicating CUM-ni are clearly visible, usually at the end and in the middle of the small box. It is possible that with this system and these expedients, even people who were not experts in writing were able to understand the essential meaning of the documents and could collaborate in counting and administrative activities. As D. Charpin observed about cuneiform writing: “il est en effet très probable, vu la grande différence de genre littéraire, que certaines personnes étaient capables de lire et d’écrire des textes administratifs, mais pas des lettres. (…) Cette différence s’explique du fait que beaucoup de textes administratifs ne comportent que des chiffres, des logogrammes et des noms propres. Or, on a tendance à oublier, dans notre culture occidentale obnubilée par l’alphabet, que l’emploi des logogrammes, lorsqu’ils sont en nombre limité, est bien plus simple que celui des signes phonétiques”.52 The KULULU lead strips were surely written by expert scribes,53 but the Cf., for example, del Monte 1975, Imparati 1977, Mora / Balza 2010, with other references. 52 Charpin 2008, 42. 53 On the “Hieroglyphische Handschrift” on metal cf. Payne 2015, 122 ff. 51

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limited use of signs and variants, combined with the system of subdivision of the text into boxes, made it possible to use and read them – at least partially – even by not specialized people. For the moment, lacking similar documents from the second millennium, we can assume that it was an innovation, and a more practical use of writing, introduced in the Neo-Hittite period. Bibliography Akdoğan, R. / Hawkins, J.D., 2010: The Kirşehir Letter. A New Hieroglyphic Luwian Text on a Lead Strip. In A. Süel (ed.): Proceedings of the 7th International Congress of Hittitology (Çorum 2008). Ankara. Pp. 1–16. Andrae, W., 1924: Hettitische Inschriften auf Bleistreifen aus Assur. WVDOG 46. Leipzig. Aro, S., 2010: Luwians in Aleppo. In I. Singer (ed.): Luwian and Hittite Studies Presented to J. David Hawkins on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. Tel Aviv. Pp. 1–9. –– 2013: Carchemish Before and After 1200 BC. In A. Mouton / I. Rutherford / I. Yakubovich (eds.): Luwian Identities. Culture, Language and Religion Between Anatolia and the Aegean. Leiden / Boston. Pp. 234–276. Balza, M.E., 2017: «Personne ne remplissait la grange de Kubaba». L’accumulation des céréales dans les inscriptions hiéroglyphiques des seigneurs locaux néo-hittites. Res Antiquae 14: 1–12. Balza, M.E., / Mora, C., 2015: Memory and Tradition of the Hittite Empire in the post-Hittite Period. In A. Archi (ed.): Tradition and innovation in the ancient Near East: proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Rome 4–8 July 2011. Winona Lake. Pp. 427–437. Bittel, K., 1983: Die archäologische Situation in Kleinasien um 1200 v. Chr. und während der nachfolgenden vier Jahrhunderte. In S. Deger-Jalkotzy (ed.): Griechenland, die Ägäis und die Levante während der ‘Dark Ages’. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Wien. Pp. 25–65. Breniquet, C. / Michel, C. (eds.), 2014: Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean: From the Beginnings of Sheep Husbandry to Institutional Textile Industry. Oxford / Philadelphia. Bryce, T., 2012: The World of the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms. Oxford. Charpin, D., 2008: Lire et écrire à Babylone. Paris. d’Alfonso, L. / Mora, C. / Tomassini Pieri, B., 2011: Il passaggio dall’età del Tardo Bronzo all’età del Ferro in Cappadocia meridionale. In S. Mazzoni / F. Pecchioli Daddi (eds.): Ricerche italiane in Anatolia: risultati delle attività sul campo per le età del Bronzo e del Ferro. Firenze. Pp. 69–103. del Monte, G.F., 1975: La fame dei morti. Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 35: 319–346. –– 1995: I testi amministrativi da Maşat Höyük / Tapika. Orientis Antiqui Miscellanea 2: 89–138.

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Özgüç, T., 1971: Kültepe and its Vicinity in the Iron Age. Ankara. –– 1973: New Observations on Kululu. Anadolu 17: 19–30. Payne, A., 2005: Überlegungen zur Hieroglyphenschrift der Assur-Briefe. MDOG 137: 109–118. –– 2015: Schrift und Schriftlichkeit. Die anatolische Hieroglyphenschrift. Wiesbaden. Pecchioli Daddi, F., 2010: LÚuri(y)anni: una nuova ipotesi di identificazione. Orientalia 79: 232–241. Pelon, O., 1994: The Site of Porsuk and the Beginning of the Iron Age in Southern Cappadocia: In A. Çilingiroğlu / D.H. French (eds.): Anatolian Iron Ages 3. Ankara. Pp. 157–162. Peltenburg, E. / Wilkinson, T.J. / Barbanes Wilkinson, E., 2016: Carchemish in Context. Oxford. Postgate, J.N., 2005: Identifying the End of the Hittite Empire: Problems of Reuniting History and Archaeology at Kilise Tepe. Newsletter of the Department of Archaeology and History of Art, Bilkent University 4: 26–30. Seeher, J., 2001: Die Zerstörung der Stadt Hattuša. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie (Würzburg, 4.–8. Oktober 1999). Wiesbaden. Pp. 623 – 634. –– 2010: After the Empire: Observations on the Early Iron Age in Central Anatolia. In I. Singer (ed.): Luwian and Hittite Studies Presented to J. David Hawkins on the occasion of his 70th Birthday. Tel Aviv. Pp. 220–229. Siegelová, J., 1986: Hethitische Verwaltungspraxis im Lichte der Wirtschafts- und Inventardokumente. Praha. Simon, Sz., 2017: Philologische und geographische Bemerkungen zu den Toponymen der KULULU-Bleistreifen, Colloquium Anatolicum 16: 163–178. Uchitel, A., 1985: Mycenaean and Near Eastern Economic Archives. PhD Diss. University of London. –– 1988: The Archives of Mycenaean Greece and the Ancient Near East. In M. Heltzer / E. Lipiński (eds.): Society and Economy in the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 1500–1000 B.C.): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the University of Haifa from the 28th of April to the 2nd of May 1985. Leuven. Pp. 19–31. Wäfler, M., 1983: Zu Status und Lage von Tabal. Orientalia 52: 181–193. Weeden, M., 2013: A Probable Join to the “Kirşehir Letter”. AAS 18: 15–17. Yakubovich, I., 2011: Review of Giusfredi 2010. Orientalia 80: 259–265. Yener, K.A. (ed.), 2013: Across the Border: Late Bronze-Iron Age Relations between Syria and Anatolia. Leuven.

The “Fields of the Town” On the Shape of Public Land in Late Bronze Age Ekalte Lucia Mori Sapienza Università di Roma “Nei momenti in cui il regno dell’umano mi sembra condannato alla pesantezza, penso che dovrei volare come Perseo in un altro spazio. Non sto parlando di fughe nel sogno o nell’irrazionale. Voglio dire che devo cambiare il mio approccio, devo guardare il mondo con un’altra ottica, un’altra logica, altri metodi di conoscenza e di verifica”. 1 Italo Calvino, La leggerezza, Lezioni americane. Sei proposte per il prossimo millennio, p. 6 1. Introduction The study of the rural landscape, together with the interaction between urban and rural communities in the Near Eastern societies has been one of the many research fields that Mario Liverani opened and stimulated in his long and overflowing scientific production. It took the shape of a long-term research project, started in the Seventies of the last century and aimed at reconstructing an overall history of the evolution of the rural landscape in the ancient Near East utilizing, in his own words, all available documentary sources and analytic approaches, from texts to archaeology, from iconography to paleo-ecology and from technical developments to their ideological background.2 Among the many perspectives and subjects covered by this long-term research – which was recently resumed

1 “Whenever humanity seems condemned to heaviness, I think I should fly like Perseus into a different space. I don’t mean escaping into dreams or into the irrational. I mean that I have to change my approach, look at the world from a different perspective, with a different logic and with fresh methods of cognition and verification.” Calvino, Six memos for the next millennium, p. 7. 2 Liverani1996, 4–5; and again Liverani 2018, ix.

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in his volume Paradiso e dintorni3– the study of the shape of the ancient near eastern fields as recorded in tablets, played an important role and was the subject of Mario Liverani’s earliest article devoted to the topic of the rural landscape in 1988–89.4 At that time, the historical study of the rural landscape in the ancient Near East had been little addressed in comparison to what had been accomplished in other branches of historical research such as medieval and modern history, after the paradigm set by Marc Bloch in “Les carctères originaux de l’histoire rurale française” in 1931. The research by Liverani opened new ways of approaching legal and administrative texts devoted to the organization of agricultural production, focusing on the previously often neglected topic of the physical and topographic arrangement of the rural areas as a tool to investigate the mode of production and the social setting which produced different patterns of rural landscape.5 A perspective to which, according to him, still not sufficient attention is given: “È però un dato di fatto che l’attenzione prestata dai filologi al nostro problema è rimasta in generale assai scarsa: persino nello studiare documenti catastali, l’attenzione si è sempre soffermata sul meccanismo amministrativo, sull’organigramma burocratico, sugli aspetti tecnologici e sui livelli produttivi, e quasi mai sulla disposizione fisico-topografica delle unità rurali”.6 The visualization of the shape and size of fields in schematic maps produced by sketching in scale the numerous data provided by cadastral and legal documents turned out to be a useful tool for the reconstruction of a “theorical historical landscape”, which provided relevant data on the different organization of private and public land.7 As a student, I had the chance to participate in this broad research, which became the subject of my PhD study, thanks to the lessons and seminars carried 3 Liverani 2018. 4 “La forma dei campi Neo-sumerici” published in Origini Journal and re-elaborated for the Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture (BSAg 5) in 1990. 5 Liverani 1996, 3. 6 Liverani 2018, 8. 7 Liverani 1996. See also Liverani 2018, 18–19: “Questo paesaggio ‘storicizzato’, che è facile da studiare nell’odierna realtà, deve essere smontato e rimontato, epoca per epoca, in una griglia spazio-temporale il più possibile dettagliata. Ovviamente, il dettaglio concepibile per la remota antichità non è paragonabile a quello dei secoli più recenti: lo scenario è piuttosto una meta teorica che non una realizzazione effettiva Il tasso d’interpolazione tra dati scarsi e discontinui è purtroppo necessariamente alto. È necessaria una convergenza tra dati e strumenti d’indagine diversi tra di loro: filologici e archeologici. I dati ricavabili dai testi sono di gran lunga i più importanti. Basti pensare alla forma dei campi: se ne hanno numerose raffigurazioni (schematiche ma corredate dalle misure esatte) e ancor più raffigurazioni virtuali (campi di cui si forniscono le misure di lunghezza e larghezza)”.

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out by Mario Liverani.8 In the analyses of the urban and rural landscape at Emar9 I only briefly discussed as a comparative documentary example the smaller corpus from the close and culturally related site of Ekalte, which I had the intention of considering as a side project that never saw the light. Much has been published on that textual documentation from then,10 nevertheless the visualization of the topographic disposition of fields and rural areas may still add precious information of the social structure of the middle Euphrates valley in the Late Bronze age, as far as public/communal land is concerned. This short note is intended as a small tribute to my master for the invaluable teaching that I have received. 2. The fields of the town: the textual evidence “On the trails of rural communities”, to cite one of the many articles by Liverani on the topic,11 the small archives of the ancient town of Ekalte, located in the modern village of Tall Munbaqa, along the Middle Euphrates valley, provide an example of a small-scale rural landscape, shedding light on some aspects of the communal management of the agricultural land in the Late Bronze age and its reflection in the landscape. Much has already been written on the role of collective bodies such elders often paired with the city god, and “brothers”, in the town’s economic and juridical administration,12 and a limited, if even present, role of the palace and a local dynasty of kings attested at Emar, but apparently absent in Ekalte.13 Collective powers constituted an institutional framework originated already in the

Those lessons and the respectful master-student relation and long friendship that originated from that period is something that I treasure as one of the most relevant experiences in my formation process and for which I am most grateful. 9 Mori 2003; 2008. 10 For an updated general study on Ekalte see Torrecilla 2014 with previous bibliography. 11 “Sulle trace delle comunità rurali”, Liverani 1978; and already in 1975 “Communautés de village et palais royal dans la Syrie du IIème millénaire”, just to mention some early articles on the topic. 12 For a general analyses on the collective bodies of the middle Euphrates valley see the volume by Solans 2014. The topic was also discussed in a workshop dedicated to the role of kingship (Fleming 2012), and collective bodies such as “the city” (Faist 2012) and the “brothers” (Démare-Lafont 2012), also from the archaeological point of view (Otto 2012) at the 2008 Würzburg Rencontre Internationale d’Assyriologie. See also Torrecilla 2014, 45–47. For the “brothers” and the use of a “seal of the brothers” see also Mori 2020. For a different perspective, considering the town as a “kingdom” see Yamada 2015 with discussion. 13 For Ekalte this is even more evident than for Emar. No archaeological evidence of a palace was found in the acropolis (die Kuppe) and is almost absent in texts. Temples were located both in the acropolis and near city gates and were probably the center of the cultic but also social life of the town’s inhabitants. 8

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third millennium BC and typical of the Middle Euphrates region,14 which differed from other Late Bronze age cities such as Ugarit, Alalakh and Nuzi, where the opposition between the palatial and communal mode of production, object of many studies by Liverani,15 characterized the cultivated land.16 The small corpus represents thus an interesting example of a “history from below”, that sheds light on one “side of the coin”, the “shape” of communal land in the lack of a “great organization”. Among the corpus from Ekalte, composed of 97 texts,17 documents related to fields from which some information on the rural landscape is attested are 15 (see Appendix 1, plates 1–4). The majority (14) are sales of agricultural land (A.ŠÀ)18 while a single text register an exchange of property19 in which a field is given in exchange for an orchard in order to compact adjacent properties by the recipient of the orchard. In Ekalte fields represent the main real estate object of economic transaction while sales of different types of cultivated land (orchards and vineyards), threshing floors, and buildings (mostly ruins)20 are attested at a lower percentage.21 Haus P, located on the acropolis, seat of the ḫazannu and the elders of the town and probably functioning as the public administration archive,22 hosted the highest number of tablets (34 in total) in comparison to the other houses where private family archives where found, and 9 of the 15 texts related to fields came from that context.23 In Haus B and Haus C 2 field sales were found, while from Haus O a single document came from. Those were private houses all located in the excavation area called Ibrahim’s Garten, where an entire residential block

Viano 2010, 149. Liverani 1975; 1979; 1982; 1983; 1984; 1989. 16 See also Zaccagnini 1992; 1999. 17 89 tablets were found during the archaeological excavation of the site, 9 texts were attributed to the Ekalte corpus. See Mayer 2001 for the first edition of the tablets and Torrecilla 2014 for an updated study. 18 Texts Ek 3, Ek 4, Ek 5, Ek 6, Ek 7, Ek 8, Ek 12, Ek 13, Ek 47, Ek 48, Ek 62, Ek 73, Ek 83, Ek 96. See Appendix 1 and Torrecilla 2014, 87 Fig. 21. 19 Text Ek 18. 20 Kirṣītu, widely attested also at Emar, for which I proposed a translation as “ruin” (Mori 2003, 48–53), which I still consider valid. For a reading KIerṣetu “plot of land” see Zaccagnini 1992. 21 Field sales are the 46% of the total real estate sales, followed by ruins kirṣītu (17%), orchards and threshing floors (both 11%), vineyards (9%) and houses (5% – or even less if we consider that only one certain sale of a house together with an annex building bīt ḫablu is attested in Ek 9). See Torrecilla 2014, 87–93 for a list of real estate sales. 22 Mayer 2001, 4–5; Torrecilla 2014, 60. 23 For the list of tablets from Haus P see Mayer 2001, 5. 14 15

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was brought to light.24 Of the remaining two tablets, one came from the regular excavation but out of context while the other came from the antiquity market. 2.1. Shape and measure

In all occurrences, sales of fields are organized according to the standard format, typical of the cultural koiné of the middle Euphrates valley already attested in the Mari period.25 Similarly to the Emarite documentation, they conceptualize the agricultural plots as virtually rectangular, which represented an administrative simplification of an environmental reality that was certainly more varied as far as the shape of agricultural land was concerned.26 The adjoining properties are described identifying an upper and a lower “long” side (ÚS.SA.DU AN.TA and ÚS.SA.DU KI.TA) and two “short” sides (SAG), usually further determined as “first” and “second”, but not in a consistent way. The general identification of 4 adjoining properties of each plot of cultivated land would confirm the tendency to organize agricultural areas into rectangular or square fields with four sides, as it is the case at Emar. But in Ekalte the mention in several occurrences of plots bordering a “field of the town” on three and four sides (see in the following), may indicate larger sector of public agricultural land, not necessarily subdivided into plots until a single parcel is sold to an individual. The proximity of the river and the limited extent of the agricultural land in this area determined the arrangement of the rural area, and the orientation of fields. The identification of field sides was related to their location upstream and downstream with respect to the flow of the Euphrates.27 This is probably why the “upper” and “lower” sides are always identified as such while the fronts “SAG” are, sometimes, not further specified.28 The mental map of the scribes probably followed a standard sequence in describing each plot of land that started from North, “upstream”. As a matter of fact, in 7 occurrences a location to the north is indicated (ultēnītu/ultēniš), which is a peculiarity of the Ekaltean documentation. This northern orientation is generally attributed to the length (GÍD.DA),29 which is then further specified as having an upper and lower side and in a single case directly defines the “upper side” (ÚS.SA.DU AN.TA).30 Only in one text is the width (rupšu) that is locates to the north31. Two linear measures are generally provided for each field and defined

Machule 1990; 1995. Mori 2003, 98–100. 26 See Zaccagnini 1979, 77–78 and 121 on this topic for the Nuzi documentation and Mori 2003: 98–99. 27 Similarly to what is attested at Emar, see Mori 2003, 99. 28 In texts Ek 4 and Ek 5. 29 In texts Ek 4, Ek 8, Ek 12, Ek 13, Ek 47. 30 In text Ek 7. 31 In text Ek 83. 24 25

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according to the typical format of field sales in this region as length (GÍD.DA) and a width (rupšu). In a single occurrence these are given identifying the topographic location that delimited the field sold not using the “standard” format of long and short side and measuring according to liwītu instead of ikû:32 Ek 6: 2–3: “from the street which borders on the vineyard of Ipqī-Dagān, son of Apazinati, up to the field of IŠKUR-Ba‘la, son of Abda: 1 liwītu and 5 steps (metēqu) in length; from the field of the town which (…) up to the other field of the town 1 liwītu: its width”. The texts provide interesting information on several topographic features of the rural landscape in the river valley in proximity of the town and suggests a direct and detailed description of a specific reality used to locate the sold property. In 9 out of 16 cases the length of fields is longer than the width, and the ratio between the two measures tends to be 1:2 or 1:1.5.33 Five are the square fields attested, measuring either 1 square ikû or 1.5 square ikû, and in a single case (Ek 12) where the field is rectangular, the GÍD.DA measure is shorter than that of the rupšu. This is due, in this case, to the orientation of the field, as the shorter GÍD.DA is located to the north, and it is an interesting case that shows how the orientation prevailed over the definition of “long” and “short” that was often irrelevant, as the measure could be the same or, even inverted. The recurrence of the basic unit for field measurements, 1 ikû, probably represented the reference of a sort of basic unit of agricultural land.34 The divisions and acquisitions designed to consolidate a larger territory may well have involved the subdivision or multiplication of this base unit; smaller plots, when of regular shape, tend to be around half this size. The shape and dimension of fields in Ekalte is partly comparable to the ones attested in the Emarite texts with a significant difference. At Munbaqa we have a smaller variation of shapes, with no trapezoid fields,35 and a major degree of standardization as far as dimensions are attested. Field surfaces range from 2.5 to 0.5 square ikû, and we lack larger plots of lands, ranging from 10 to 30 ikû, which are attested at Emar and in several occurrences are purchased by a single member of the Emarite royal family.36 Texts from Ekalte show a tendency of an accumulation of real estate properties, at a smaller degree, in the hands of members of the elders’ collective body. In particular, Muḫra-aḫī son of Aḫīyanni, who is mentioned as ḫazannu of Ekalte, is the most active person in sales of real

In this occurrence I agree with Mayer 2001, 28–29, who considers the liwītu as equal to the ikû. 33 See Torrecilla 2014, 87 Fig. 21. 34 Mori 2008, 122. 35 Mori 2003, 102 Fig. 2b. 36 Of the 12 occurrences of larger plots, 5 are purchased by prince Iṣṣur-Dagān, son of Ba‘al-kabar, who is the most active attested individual as far as field sales are concerned. See Mori 2003, 105–106; 2008, 120–121. 32

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estates,37 and purchases different fields for a total preserved surface of 7.5 square ikû, but he is also mentioned as the owner of other 5 fields adjoining the sold lots. 2.2. Field locations

As in texts from Emar, the Ekalte documentation related to sales of fields often provide information on the location of plots and on specific features of the rural landscape in order to facilitate the identification of the given property within the rural landscape, in which topographical reference points would be more difficult to identify with precision than those of urban contexts (see Tab. 1). Text

Location of fields

Ek 3

A.ŠÀ i-na KÁ URUKI GI6.[PÀR]-ri i-tu KÁ er-i-a-u[m]

Ek 4

A.ŠÀ i-na KÁ GI6.[PÀR]-ri

Ek 5

A.ŠÀ [i-na KI.TA]-at-ti

Ek 6

A.ŠÀ i-na ra--ti KI.TA

Ek 7

A.ŠÀ i+na ra-qa-ti [ša] AN.TA

Ek 8

A.ŠÀ i-na KÁ GI6.PÀR-ri

Ek 12 Ek 13a

A.ŠÀ i-[na] ra-qa-ti KI.TA [Šu-l]i-DUB.BA A.ŠÀ i+na ra-qa-ti AN.TA-ti

Ek 13b

ša-nu-ú A.ŠÀ as-ra-t[i]-e-ma

Ek 18

A.ŠÀ ša KÁ URUKI

Ek 47a

A.ŠÀ i-[na] [za-ra]-ḫa-ti

Ek 47b

ša-nu-ú i-[n]a za-ra-ḫa-ti

Ek 48

A.ŠÀ.ḪI.A me-re-šu ša i-na ra-q[a]-ti ša É DINGIR-AD-ma

Ek 73

A.ŠÀ i-na ra-qa-ti ša KI.TA URUKu-ú-tiKI

Ek 83

A.ŠÀ i-na [ra]-q[a-ti AN].TA

Ek 96

A.ŠÀ ma-la ma-ṣú-ú i-na KÁ URUKu-ú-tiKI

The rural area was well defined and again, similarly to the Emar situation, fields were located in specific agricultural environment, where vineyards could also be cultivated, while orchards were sown elsewhere.38 Even when the same landscape feature is mentioned, for example the “lower river plain” (a field in Ek 12: and an orchard Ek 11: 16–17), fields and orchards are never attested as adjoining properties, differently from vineyards. Those are attested most frequently bordering fields (see appendix with plates in the following) but could

For a list of all documents in which Muḫra-aḫī is involved see Mayer 2001, 60; for his role in the assembly of elders see Torrecilla 2014, 59–60. 38 See the analyses on adjoining properties of fields in the following. See also Mayer 2001, 31–34. 37

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also be located close to orchards.39 Orchards were cultivated in selected areas, often one close to the other.40 As a matter of fact, in text Ek 11 an orchard located “at the river-flats at the lower border of the town of Kūtu” is surrounded by at least two other orchards and the same is true also in Ek 79 where “an orchard of the brothers” has two other orchards , as adjoining properties. In this tablet a location “in front of the city gate which (leads to) the water”, is mentioned, which would confirm a tendency of cultivating vegetable gardens in small plots close to the settlements, as it is the case at Emar.41 Fields could also be cultivated in proximity to a city gates, in particular, the Giparru gate, identified as the Nord-Tor excavated at Munbaqa. Three fields are in this area,42 and according to Mayer “Diese Felder konnten nur auf dem höher gelegenen Land vor dem Nord-Tor liegen – nicht in der Flußaue, das dies festgehalten worden wäre, und, allein von den Flächen her, nicht innerhalb der Stadt”.43 Extra-urban roads (KASKAL), which in the Emar documents are often related to city-gates,44 are not mentioned as adjoining properties of the fields located near the Giparru gate, but interestingly, threshing floors are often located in proximity to these types of pathways,45 which were certainly useful for the transportation of threshed cereals form threshing floors to storing areas. The presence of a cultivated area in the outskirts of the town, means that beside the main cultivation area (zarāḫatum), the land in proximity to the town could also be exploited in different ways as in the same area fields and vineyards are attested (if we consider the adjoining properties of those fields). Four are the texts mentioning the “sowing land” zarāḫatum: in only one occurrence two fields are attested,46 in the remaining cases vineyards are present.47 This would probably indicate a specific area, the main cultivated district to which no further reference needed to be added in legal text as the ancient inhabitants of the town probably knew what it referred to. It was probably located at the foot of the plateau,48 at a slightly higher level than the river-flats. As a matter of fact, the settlement of

For example, text Ek 45. Mayer 2001, 31–32; Torrecilla 2014, 90–91. 41 See Mori 2003, 139. 42 In texts Ek 3, Ek 4 and Ek 8; see Tab. 1. 43 Following Mayer 2001, 9, even if it is also true that in the Sumerogram KÁ is frequently attested in the Emar documentation as “irrigation district” or, more generally, “place with an access to water” (see below) and Mori 2010 44 See Festuccia / Mori 2010, 297–297. 45 In text Ek 17 two roads are border a threshing floor (“the road to the river-flats”, and road to Bīt-Šūli-tuppī. An unnamed KASKAL is mentioned in relation to a threshing floor in text Ek 85. 46 Text Ek 47, with two fields located in the same area (see Tab. 1). 47 Texts Ek 43, Ek 45, Ek 74. 48 Mayer 2001, 33. 39 40

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Munbaqa itself sits on a 5–10 m high mound that stretches along the riverbank. Between the settlement and the plateau there is a 1.5 km wide, shallow depression used as farmland.49 As Reculeau has noted for the Emar fields, the narrowness of the higher Pleistocene level of terrace in the region, together with the dependance on local water sources, led the ancient population of that region to cultivate plots in the lower part of the river valley, even though these were under the threat of the Euphrates’s flood.50 And this is attested at Ekalte, where the most frequent feature mentioned in relation to field location is the river-flats (raqqatu). The general term used to refer to the river valley in the Mari texts, ḫamqum, attested at Emar as ‘anqu only in a single text (TBR 3), is not present at Ekalte, but it was the location of the majority of the Ekalte fields attested in sales of those real estates. As a matter of fact, raqqatu, which is a synonym of the term usallum frequently used at Mari, was the place were apparently a sought-after type of soils was present, formed by the accumulated deposits of the river, and used for sowing fields and planting gardens.51 Differently from the “cultivation district”, the river-flats were located in several distinct areas of the lower river valley and their place had to be further specified in texts, usually in relation to their position up-stream (AN.TA)52 or down-stream (KI.TA)53 of the Euphrates. In some occurrences a toponym is also added: the lower river-flats of (Bīt)-Šūli-tuppī (Ek 12), and Kūtu (Ek 73), and the river-flats of Bīt-ilū-abūma (Ek 48), where a field under cultivation (A.ŠÀ merešu) is sold.54 These are the only toponyms attested in field locations, but it is reasonable to assume that we are dealing with a local sphere of influence, as the majority of fields are sold by the Elders and the city of Ba’laka whose territorial control was certainly at a small scale.55 Only for Kūtu, which according to Mayer could delimit the border of the Ekaltean territory, a location in the area of a 2 km far Tall al-‘Abd has been hypothesized.56 In this same area, a “door” (KÁ) is also attested (text Ek 96). In this case, the term is probably to be understood as an “irrigation

Werner 1998, 27–28. See Reculeau 2008, 139. 51 At Emar river-flats together with “marshy lowlands” (ḫurru) are the most attested specific features of the river valley mentioned as a location of fields, see Mori 2003, 113–114 and 131; Reculeau 2008, 138. 52 In texts Ek 7, Ek 13 for two fields and Ek 83, see Tab. 1. 53 In texts Ek 6, Ek 12, Ek 73, see Tab 1. 54 This specification is attested at Emar (Texts E6.3, E6.147, E6 116 and TBR 55), with the variant A.ŠÀ zi-ri, a “sown” field (Text E6.82); see Mori 2003, 131. 55 For the question of the sphere of territorial control of the town, also in relation to one or both sides of the river valley, which by the way remains an open question for the impossibility of reconstructing the actual meandering of the river in the Late Bronze age, see Mayer 2001, 10–11. 56 Mayer 2001, 11. 49 50

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district”, intended in a broader sense as a location where there was a kind of access to water. This has been proposed for the numerous occurrences of a KÁ from the Emar documents, where the term is frequently mentioned in relation to field locations and it is meaningful that in this case at Ekalte, in the middle of the field sold a well is present (EK 96: 9–10). 57 In this area irrigation was practiced through the use of small-scale devices. Canals are not attested, nor the river or wadis, as a topographic location of fields, differently from Emar,58 but an extra urban road (KASKAL) which “leads from the downstream to the slope of the plateau up to the Euphrates”59 is attested as a location of an orchard in text Ek 14, and as its back, while the river itself is at its front. Again, in text Ek 79 the width of an orchard located in front of the city gate area stretches “from the wall of the town up to the Euphrates”. Finally, a problematic occurrence in will Ek 92 where a vineyard at the “small channel of the water course” – if the reading by Mayer is correct –60 is mentioned. 2.3. Adjoining properties

In the 17 fields for which adjoining properties are preserved, often in all four sides (see Appendix 1), only three list two different properties for a single side, confirming the tendency of arranging cultivated parcels into quadrilateral plots. Differently from the larger corpus of legal documents from Emar and its vicinity, the sales of field found at Ekalte are more precise in describing which kind of adjoining property is present on each of the four sides of the cultivated plots (see Fig. 1). If we look at the two graphs with the percentage of adjoining properties from Ekalte and Emar, the main difference is that we do not have at Ekalte the high percentage of properties identified only with a personal name with patronymic, which represents the most recurrent case at Emar (34.8%). This is also true for the second most attested type of property at Emar: the “city/town” (URU.KI). The “town” represents the 18.9% of occurrences without further specification, together with a minor number of occurrences where we have fields owned either by single individuals (PN), or by family members (sons of PN) or by the town.61 I had suggested for Emar that the majority of those occurrences should probably be intended as fields, but no explicit mention is made.62

For KÁ as “irrigation districts” in Emar see Reculeau 2008, 133–136, with further specification in Mori 2010. 58 See the discussion on the term yardānu, maybe a canal or a wadi in Mori 2003, 115–117; Reculeau 2008, 132–133. 59 Ḫur.sag “the mountain” is used to define the slope linking the steppic plateau to the river valley, see Reculeau 2008, 136. 60 “… an der Rinne des Wasserlaufes” Mayer 2001, 153. 61 Mori 2003, 118. 62 Mori 2008, 124. 57

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At Ekalte the most recurrent adjoining property is a “field of the town” which represents 40% of all occurrences, followed by a field owned by a single individual (29%). In 11% of occurrences vineyards are mentioned63 and only 6% of the cases are represented by fields owned by family members. The presence of vineyards in the same cultivated area together with fields, well attested also at Emar, as we have mentioned above, is also confirmed by the best preserved of the three sales of a vineyards at Ekalte,64 text Ek 74, in which the property sold borders with another vineyard and two “fields of the town”. Two houses (bītu), maybe to be intended as rural building, are mentioned as adjoining properties of a field (second field in text Ek 13), and interestingly one of these is in the middle of a vineyard. And finally, a road (KASKAL) bordering a vineyard is attested as an adjoining property (in text Ek 6). Orchards are located in separate, devoted areas, often in proximity to settlements but also close to the river.65 In the 4 occurrences where they are sold, when adjoining properties are mentioned other orchards are often present, but never fields.66 The presence of fields owned by the “town” is related to the predominant role of the elders at Ekalte in the economic administration of the community, which is even more present here than at Emar for the lack of any antagonist economic and political poles.67 Similarly to what is attested at Emar, the elders of the town together with the city god (Ba‘laka and the elders of the city) represent the institution which sells the majority of real estates, not only fields, never being attested as buyers. Eleven of the 16 fields sold (not exchanged) are sold by them, and in 4 occurrences one of the elders, the ḫazannu Muḫra-aḫī son of Aḫīyanni is the buyer. As far as the rural landscape in concerned, in those occurrences in which the field sold is surrounded on all four sides68 or on three out of four sides69 by “fields of the town” we may hypothesize the presence of larger public agricultural areas, sometimes out of the zahāratu district, that elders manage and can sell to private individuals. For example, the area close to the Giparru gate, which is attested in three different field sales, where fields are surrounded by “fields of town” on three (Ek 3 and Ek 4) and two sides (Ek 8), and the sellers are always the elders themselves together with the city god. Nevertheless, the presence of fields owned by the elders is also scattered in almost all agricultural areas attested, even in

Following Mayer 2001, 75 for the rendering of the broken signs. Texts Ek 15, Ek 45 and Ek 74. The adjoining properties are preserved only in the last one. 65 See Mori 2003. 66 In text Ek 11, Ek 14 and Ek 79 they border with two other orchards. 67 Solans 2014, 149–156; Faist 2012, 113–118; Torrecilla 2014, 81–83. 68 In text Ek 73. 69 In texts Ek 3, Ek 4 and Ek 7. 63 64

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those cases in which the community body is not involved in the transaction, but mentioned as recipient of fines. For example, in text Ek 12 where the seller is a private individual and the location of the field is the “lower river-flats of Bīt-Šūli-tuppī”. In text Ek 18 a field surrounded by two “fields of the town” is given by a private individual in exchange for an orchard and in text Ek 96 a field in the “irrigation district of Kūtu” is sold by a private individual and borders with a “field of the town” on the two opposed “long sides”. Only four are the fields attested at Ekalte where there is no mention of a “field of the town” in the adjoining properties.70 Less attested, even if present, is the mention of fields and vineyards owned by family members as a collective property (field/vineyard of the sons of PN).71 At Ekalte, the majority of the occurrences of family-owned properties adjoining fields are located along the long sides (ÚS.SA.DU) and this could be related to the tendency of subdividing lengthways the inherited cultivated plots, which was the case also for the Emar fields.72 If we do not consider the “fields of the town”, from the preserved documents the rural area appears as parceled out in small plots owned by different people or families, as owners are generally different individuals, with different patronymics in the fields attested. The only tendency of compacting fields in the same area by a single owner is related to the activity of Muḫra-aḫī, who buys a field adjacent to his own property on one side (in text Ek12). The opposite is attested in text Ek 18, in which he exchanges a field part of a larger rural area owned by him and located close to the town gate (maybe the Giparru gate), for an orchard. 3. Conclusions The small corpus from Ekalte provides interesting information on the rural landscape surrounding the ancient settlement in which the role of communal land, owned by the elders of the town together with the city god, as we have mentioned several times, appears as predominant.73 What is mirrored in texts does not represent the whole reality of the cultivated land, and the actual size and shape of private fields, providing the subsistence of the Ekalte families, is scarcely attested.74 This is due to the fact that the majority of field sales record The two fields in Ek 13, sold by a private individual, one in Ek 48 – which is by the way sold by Ba‘laḫa and the elders of the town, a field in Ek 62 for which only the properties adjacent to the “long sides” are given and it is sold again by the city god and the elders and a field in Ek 83, in which only the “long sides” are given but is sold by a private individual. 71 In texts Ek 12, Ek 47a, Ek 48 (in which we only have the indication “the sons of Pilsu” and the “sons of Dagān-adī” for the upper long side and the second “front”; Ek 83. 72 See Liverani 1996, 33 fig. 20a; Mori 2003, 120–121. 73 Faist 2012; Solans 2014: 157. 74 As I noted for Emar, the surface attested for the majority of plots sold by communal 70

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transaction related to public land,75 and it is meaningful to underline that fields represent the most recurrent kind of property sold by the “town”. In the private realm, the kind of properties attested in sales are more varied and balanced in number among fields, threshing floors, vineyards, orchards, and ruins.76 Several occurrences from Emar suggest that the ownership of fields by the town collective institutions was at least partly originated by confiscation caused by an unspecified “fault” (ḫīṭu) incurred by its previous owner. This would mean that fields were the kind of property which was most frequently confiscated,77 even if the only ḫīṭu procedure attested at Ekalte, in text Ek 2, is related to a house.78 But considering the presence of larger plots of communal lands in areas out the main cultivation area (zarāḫatum), if our reconstruction is correct, this could also reflect a tendency of the “town” to exploit less developed areas. The small corpus from Ekalte describes a sort of homogeneous, small scale rural landscape, composed of “regular” plots of relatively small size in which the socio-economic structure is not affected, as far as the “mode of production” is concerned, by the fluctuation in political control of this region in the Late Bronze age. And represents an alternative model, probably more persistent in time in the historical long durée perspective, from the palatial one, extensively investigated by Mario Liverani. “…ma i sogni sono ancora sogni e l’avvenire è ormai quasi passato”.79 Luigi Tenco, Un giorno dopo l’altro, 1966 authority of elders, which were most often ranging from half to 2 ikû, were not sufficient to provide the subsistence of a nuclear family, which would need a minimum of 6 ikû, and were bought by private citizens probably in add further cultivated land to their existing properties (Mori 2008: 122). 75 See appendix in the following and Torrecilla 2014: 46 Fig. 8. 76 Torrecilla 2014, 84–85. 77 For the ḫīṭu clause see Solans 2013 with older bibliography. 78 Ek 2: 35–39 “The great ones and the small ones of the town have assembled about a fault by Igmil-Dagān and they have given his house to the temple of Dagān. The temple of Dagān protects the decree of the town”. 79 The lyrics of this song represent a warm memory related to my “longue durée” acquaintance with Mario Liverani. They were, in fact, written on his computer screen save and frequently flowed in front of me when I went visit him first to discuss my master and PhD dissertation and, later, matters related to the many projects for which I had the privilege of collaborating with him. In the hope of tearing a smile to my “Professore”, I’d like to mention another sentence which was famous among the students who frequented his small studio at Via Palestro, in Rome. It was written on a cartoon by Altan representing a sitting man asking to himself: “I wonder who the instigator of all the crap I do is”. This “memento” was always under our eyes when taking the History of the ancient Near East exam in front of him. And, I suspect, it was not by chance …

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Bibliography Démare-Lafont, S., 2012: Les «Frères» en Syrie à l’époque du Bronze récent. Réflexions et hypotheses. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Organization, Representation and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East. 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, 20–25 July 2008. Würzburg. Pp. 129–141. Di Filippo, F., 2008: Gli atti di compravendita di Emar. Rapporto e conflitto tra due tradizioni giuridiche. In M. Liverani / C. Mora (eds.): I diritti nel mondo cuneiforme. Mesopotamia e regni adiacenti. Pavia. Pp. 419–456. Faist, B., 2012: Die Rolle der Stadt im spätbronzezeitlichen Emar. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Organization, Representation and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East. 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, 20–25 July 2008. Würzburg. Pp. 111–128. Festuccia, S. / Mori, L, 2010: Road Networks in the Cities on the Upper Euphrates in the Late Bronze Age. An Interdisciplinary Approach Focusing on Archaeology and Epigraphic Sources. In P. Matthiae / F. Pinnock / L. Nigro / N. Marchetti (eds.): Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. 5 May – 10 May 2009, vol. I. Roma. Pp. 289–305. Fleming, D., 2012: Textual Evidence for a Palace at Late Bronze Emar. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Organization, Representation and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East. 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, 20–25 July 2008. Würzburg. Pp. 101–110. Liverani, M., 1975: Communautés de village et palais royal dans la Syrie du IIème millénaire. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 18: 146– 164. –– 1978: Sulle tracce delle comunità rurali. In margine ai lavori della Société J. Bodin. Oriens Antiquus 17: 63–72. –– 1979: Economia delle fattorie palatine ugaritiche. Dialoghi di archeologia NS 1/2: 57–72. –– 1982: Ville et campagne dans le royaume d’Ugarit: essai d’analyse économique. In M.A. Dandamaev / J.N. Postgate / M.T. Larsen (eds.): Societies and Languages of the Ancient Near East. Studies in Honour of Igor M. Diakonoff. Warminster. Pp. 250–258. –– 1983: Communautés rurales dans la Syrie du II millénaire a.C. In Les Communautés rurales. II: Antiquité. Recueils de la Société J. Bodin 41. Pp. 147–185. –– 1984: Land Tenure and Inheritance in the Ancient Near East: the Interaction between “Palace” and “Family” Sectors. In T. Khalidi (ed.): Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East. Beirut. Pp. 33–44. –– 1988–89: La forma dei campi neo-sumerici. Origini 14: 289–327. –– 1989: Economy of Ugaritic Royal Farms. In C. Zaccagnini (ed.): Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East. Budapest. Pp. 127–168. –– 1990: The shape of the Neo-Sumerian fields. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 5: 147–186.

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–– 1996: Reconstructing the Rural Landscape of the Ancient Near East. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 39: 1–41. –– 2018: Paradiso e dintorni. Il paesaggio rurale dell’antico Oriente. Bari / Roma. Machule, D., 1990: Tall Munbāqa, Die Spätbronzezeitliche Stadtanlage un die Häuser. In P. Matthiae / M. van Loon / H. Weiss (eds.): Resurrecting the Past. A joint tribute to Adnan Bounni. Istanbul. Pp. 199–214. –– 1995: Munbāqa, tall, B. Archaeologisch. RlA 8: 418. Mayer, W., 2001: Tall Munbāqa – Ekalte II. Die Texte. WVDOG 102. Saarbrücken. Otto, A., 2012: Archaeological Evidence for Collective Governance along the Upper Syrian Euphrates during the Late and Middle Bronze Age. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Organization, Representation and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East. 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, 20–25 July 2008. Würzburg. Pp. 87–100. Mori, L., 2003: Reconstructing the Emar Landscape. Quaderni di Geografia Storica 6. Roma. –– 2008: Information on Landscape from the Emar Legal Texts. In L. d’Alfonso / Y. Cohen / D. Sürenhagen (eds.): The City of Emar among the Late Bronze Age Empires. History, Landscape, Society. AOAT 349. Münster. Pp. 113–127. –– 2010: The City Gates at Emar. Reconsidering the Use of the Sumerograms KÁ.GAL and KÁ in Tablets found at Meskené Qadime. In M. Liverani / M.G. Biga (eds.): ana turri gimilli. Studi dedicati al Padre Werner R. Mayer, S.J. da amici e allievi, Vicino Oriente XV. Roma. Pp. 249–267. –– 2020: “Kunuk aḫḫī” the “seal of the brothers”: notes on the use of a collective seal at Ekalte during the Late Bronze Age. In F. Balossi Restelli / A. Cardarelli / G.M. Di Nocera / L. Manzanilla / L. Mori / G. Palumbi / H. Pittman (eds.): Pathways through Arslantepe. Essays in Honour of Marcella Frangipane. Roma. Pp. 369–378. Solans, B.E., 2013: La ‘falta’ (ḫīṭu) y la confiscación de bienes en los textos jurídicos de Emar y Ekalte. Aula Orientalis 31: 261–77 . –– 2014: Poderes colectivos en la Siria del Bronce Final. Monographica Orientalia 2. Barcelona. Torrecilla, E., 2014: Late Bronze Age Ekalte. Chronology, Society, and Religion of a Middle Euphrates Town. Saarbrücken. Viano, M. 2010: Community as individuals at Emar. Altorientalische Forschungen 37: 132–152. Werner, P., 1998: Tall Munbaqa. Bronzezeit in Syrien. Hamburg. Yamada, M., 2015: The Land of Aštata in the 14th Century B.C. before the Hittite Conquest. Orientalia 84: 276–291. Zaccagnini, C., 1979: The Rural Landscape of the Land of Arrapḫe. Roma. –– 1992: Ceremonial Transfers of Real Estate at Emar and Elsewhere. Vicino Oriente 8/2: 33–48. –– 1999: Economic Aspects of Land Ownership and Land Use in Northern

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Mesopotamia and Syria from the Late Third Millennium to the Neo-Assyrian Period. In M. Hudson / B.A. Levine (eds.): Urbanization and Land Ownership in the Ancient Near East, vol. II. Cambridge, MA. Pp. 331–352.

Fig. 1. Adjoining properties of fields from Ekalte and Emar.

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Different Degrees of Empathy On the Mobility of Images in Ancient Mesopotamia Davide Nadali Sapienza Università di Roma “The sculptured reliefs in the Assyrian palaces have also been read as an apparatus of imperial propaganda, which is certainly true. But the main question is about the “audience” (or addressees) of such a textual and iconic apparatus”.1 Images and pictures from ancient Mesopotamia have been at the centre of several analyses and studies: in fact, their visual character has been emphasized, that is images from the ancient Mesopotamia were eventually used to reveal the real face of ancient Mesopotamia. Strongly based and imbued with preconceived ideas of the ancient Orient, the images coming from the first excavation in Iraq (from the North in the Assyrian region and the South in the land of Sumerians) were the very protagonists and worthy delegates of the Mesopotamian past: from the mid-19th century, Mesopotamia was no longer imagined and represented through allusive, allegoric, and alluring pictures, but it presented itself with its own apparatus of images and material culture. This seemed to be the happy end of a long process of imaginations or even fantasies that caused, before the birth of the exploration in Mesopotamia, a thick – sometimes very solid – stratification of ideas and clichés: is that really so? Indeed, as one looks at the first archaeological explorations in Iraq,2 one can easily perceive that old clichés and preconceptions of the ancient Orient – more precisely of how the ancient oriental cities originally looked – were still valid and used during the period of the archaeological discoveries: in fact, oriental cities and ancient Mesopotamian landscapes were represented and visualized through the eyes and with the very same figurative language of the Western travellers of the 17th, 18th

Liverani 2005, 232–233. Larsen 1996.

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a. nd first half of the 19th century.3 The long lasting power of stratification of old images and commonplaces was stronger than the reality of archaeological ruins and this fact produced an Orient that was more the result of the analysts’ desire and thought rather than the scientific and neutral presentation of data.4 In this respect, ancient images have been treated in very similar way: looking for example at the context of the Assyrian bas-reliefs, these sculptures have been seen as part and sometimes as the result of the ideology of Assyrian political and cultural structures – that is in fact true – but also as the physical manifestation and practical exploitation of Assyrian propaganda – that is not totally true or an unquestionably valid argument.5 It seems to me that the confusion and the assimilation of ideology to propaganda developed a too-rigid interpretation of each Assyrian product and categorized images into predefined grids: images, as a practical instrument of the imperial propaganda, could have one precise function and target only, but this interpretation over-simplified the use, implication, and purpose of the process of making images in Assyria. As Liverani reminds us, the question – still open – is about the audience and, according to the type of audience, images need to be inflected and analysed accordingly, going beyond a unique line and key of explanation.6 Who were the recipients of the images within Assyrian society? First, is it correct to speak of ‘Assyrian society’? In the end, it seems that images were mostly addressed to specific groups (gods, future kings, members of the royal family, magnates and dignitaries, visitors), or even to a targeted addressee (the named god, the named king, the entrusted official): maybe the larger society, i.e. the Assyrian unnamed and anonymous people, was not aware of the images, at least not in the same way and at the same cognitive level of those living in

Bahrani 1998. As it is clear in the phase of the rediscovery of the ancient Orient at least up to the first half of the 20th century: indeed, one could even argue whether the season of models and stereotypes is really finished. See Matthews 2003, 1–26; Matthiae 2005, 3–32; Liverani 2013, 3–98. 5 See also Gillmann 2011–2012, 205–206. 6 Gillmann 2011–2012, 233; Artemov 2018. In this respect, the analysis by Porter of the programme of bas-reliefs in the throne room of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud and the steles of Esarhaddon at Til Barsip and Zincirli precisely pointed out the difference between ideology and propaganda, on one hand, and the different degrees of reading and interpretation of both images and inscription according to the context and the audience those monuments were thought to be for, on the other: as she has shown, the simple idea of propaganda for the bas-reliefs in the throne room of Assurnasirpal II must be, if not totally rejected, at least seen in the right perspective, while the propagandistic implications of the steles of Esarhaddon, once the historical and archaeological context is rightly taken into account, can be indeed reasonably shared. See Porter 2003, 59–79 (analysis of the steles of Esarhaddon), 81–97 (analysis of Assurnasirpal’s throne room); see also Porter 2010. 3 4

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the palaces and frequenting the royal court; Assyrian society might have even ignored the existence of images or it could have perceived them indirectly, as a repercussion via the replication of motifs and themes on items or objects: contexts that were different from the original place of display and function. For that reason, we can speak of different degrees of empathy: people interacted with images differently, depending on the level of their knowledge, integration, and familiarity with the visual communication as well as on the access to the images. Of course, the question of accessibility and therefore visibility of images is paramount: were the Assyrian bas-reliefs – that we can now easily see, from a very short distance, in museums and even on portable items such as mobiles, tablets and laptops – thought to be publicly seen at any time and by anyone? Even when images were accessible, this does not automatically imply they were visible: the degree of visibility also encompasses, paradoxically, an implicit degree of invisibility: images were not always visible, at all times, at all levels, for all. This aspect has been recently pointed out and considered for the supposed use of images for the propaganda of the Assyrian empire: if images were not visible, or were poorly visible, how can a propagandistic exploitation be implied?7 In this contribution, I wish to reflect on the degrees of empathy of images, more precisely on the emotional and sometimes even obsessive relationship viewers and owners entertained with images in ancient Mesopotamia: in particular, this diverse qualitative connection changes and is adapted according not so much to the type of image (the iconography) as to the dimension of the image and the context in which it is physically perceived and touched. Therefore, in this analysis, I will deal with the concept of migrating images,8 showing how images act as living organisms that come into the world, grow, transform, and finally die: images move and are moved, and this transfer modifies the nature of the image following different steps that consequently cause and define diverse stages of rapport that is translated into distinctive feelings and emotions. These thoughts on the use and categorization of images – that I am particularly honoured and happy to present to Mario Liverani – are principally based on the study of the iconography of the so-called sacred tree in Assyrian art:9 this special figurative theme is well-known and widespread in Assyrian culture and it perfectly fits in with the possibility of analysing the different contexts and, therefore, diverse implications of this picture in Assyrian society and on the items and places it is represented and displayed – from the official residences of the kings to the portable objects such as seals and clothes. Rather than proposing a new interpretation of this iconography, which is often associated with the image of the Assyrian king or with mythic figures such as human- or bird-headed winged geniuses, I will

Most recently, see Bagg 2016 and Nadali 2016. Mitchell 2015, 64–77. 9 For a general overview of the sacred tree in Assyrian art and its interpretation, see Giovino 2007. 7 8

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investigate the meaning of the sacred tree and the enlarged figurative group of the tree with either the Assyrian king or the geniuses, trying to suggest a definition of this special image that is encountered in various moments and spaces and it perfectly describes the dynamism of migrating images: the movement is not only a physical action – the relocation and appearance of the image elsewhere – but I would insist that it also implies a second step – the relocation necessarily affects the meaning and the relationship with viewers and owners on the cognitive and emotional levels. With the figurative theme of the sacred tree – the same concept and analysis can be applied to other examples – we are dealing with several pictures of the same image: therefore, what I would like to point out and investigate, is precisely the way in which this image is translated into a picture and which meaning it acquires according to the place and context it occupies and lives. Can the same image have more than one meaning and foster different and even contrasting emotions? Yes, if the image has more than one picture.10 In this respect, while the image of the sacred tree and associated figures (the king and/or the winged geniuses) is the immaterial archetype, each picture re-elaborates the model by materializing, reframing, scaling and adapting the image to the medium and the support, actually operating a kind of multiplication and mechanical reproduction of the original. Influenced by the analysis of objects made by W.J.T. Mitchell,11 I will try to apply his triangulated network of idol, totem, and fetish to the Assyrian sacred tree set: these definitions, born – as we are reminded by Mitchell – in a very precise moment of European imperial colonialism,12 obviously have a very specific meaning and, moreover, a very precise connotation in the way they define, categorize, and even judge the types of objects. Even if the terms are often confused and used as synonyms, they however indicate and distinguish three well diversified concepts and, because they are semantically and conceptually separate, they entertain distinct dialogues: as I will try to show, the sacred tree set is an idol, can become a totem, and finally can also be perceived as a fetish, having in common the same figurative pattern, but producing different effects on the viewers. The triad of idol, totem, and fetish derives from the approach of European imperial observation and judgement of the others: in this respect, it might be slightly contradictory to apply such a canon to ancient Mesopotamian artefacts and objects, actually replicating and imposing a Western parameter to ancient Near Eastern civilizations, denying the critiques I expressed at the beginning of

On the semantic difference between image and picture in the art historical discourse, see Belting 2001, 14–18, 2005. For the application of this linguistic and conceptual parameter to ancient Assyria, see Nadali 2012. 11 Mitchell faces this topic in his essay published in 2005 and further develops it more recently in a book published in 2015. 12 Mitchell 2015, 71. 10

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this contribution. In using the terms idol, totem, and fetish I do not want to express and give any qualitative evaluation and judgement of the image of the sacred tree, rather I want to focus on the meaning such types of images acquire in the different contexts in which they are used and displayed: as a consequence, the definitions of idol, totem, and fetish are not a label to qualify the aesthetic appreciation of the objects from an external point of view (the one of the analyst), but I think they might on the contrary point out a different way of looking at the ancient Assyrian images with a special focus on the re-use and adaptation of the same iconographic pattern within the same culture in a kind of inner-crossed-intericonicity. Intericonicity expresses the process of either intentional or accidental quotation of an icon that can in fact be simply replicated (keeping style, shape, content, and context) or readjusted (modifying style, increasing or reducing scale, undermining the original meaning via a re-contextualization). Even if idol, totem, and fetish are not Assyrian terms and, without a precise and clear semantic analysis, they can even cause misleading interpretations, they can however be useful keys to interpret Assyrian art differently, not of course with an automatic superimposition and uncritical application of the terms in their original and first meaning; on the other hand, the secondary implications of the allusion the terms suggest seem more promising in the case of analysing Assyrian art, particularly concerning the relations and degree of interaction between object/image and beholder and the different action, power, and control the image/ object exerts over the beholder with a consequent diverse emotional impact of empathy – even producing contrasting feelings, either joy or sadness, terror or awe, protection or adversity. Keeping this in mind, the use of idol, totem, and fetish will not be forced and imposed to identify and categorize, in a dogmatic way, ancient Assyrian images, but, on the contrary, it will be exploited to give a differentiated nuance of the same image – the Assyrian sacred tree – starting from the impact of the icon on the beholder. In the end, in order to avoid the application of an alien terminology to the ancient Near East, it will be more appropriate to ask whether it is possible to speak of idol, totem, and fetish. I myself would say no: however, it is not question here to make three distinct groups of ancient object and images that eventually enter the family of idol, totem, or fetish. Through the inferences inspired by the concepts of totemism, fetishism, and idolatry,13 the analysis aims to disclose the effect on people and beholders rather than identifying new categories or categorical definitions that, in the end, complicate instead of simplifying the issue of studying and judging images in non-Western cultures with strongly Western-imbued ideas, terms, visions, and opinions. Moreover, rather than being simply labels applied by the analysts with a heavy blemish on the interpretation, idol, totem, and fetish definitely describe more the attitude of the viewer and beholder toward the object and the icon, that is

Mitchell 2005, 188–196.

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they mostly define the way and level of attachment, respect and terror instilled by the image and how people perceive them, are affected by them, and treat them depending on several factors, such as the monumentality, the space, and the materiality of the image-bearing object.14 Mitchell states that “it is therefore important to stress that one and the same object (a golden calf for instance) could function as a totem, fetish, or idol, depending on the social practices and narratives that surround it”:15 it is with these words of Mitchell in mind that the exploitation of idol, totem, and fetish is carried out in this analysis. The Assyrian sacred tree as an idol What is an idol? It is probably impossible to find a unique answer and definition, while it would be much easier to collect a list of possible explanations and interpretations according to the cultural practices of different societies in different periods.16 Moreover, the consequent idea of idolatry has given the term ‘idol’ a negative or at least pejorative meaning with all implications on the bad use and lumbering presence of images. In general, it may be said that idols are the most representative and dominant images of power, either religious or political, and for that reason they are often perceived and seen with an aura of reverence, on one hand, and fear, on the other: this is why idols become the target of deliberate destruction, aiming at cancelling the image of an oppressive authority. In Mitchell’s words, “idols are the most powerful of imperial images”:17 how can we apply such a definition to the Assyrian sacred tree? In other words, when can the Assyrian sacred tree be considered and perceived as an idol? Idols are items that are usually worshipped with great respect: therefore, idols are icons of gods or political figures that acquire a special status, sometimes even divinized. Back to the Assyrian sacred tree, the image, built upon the symmetrical arrangement of the royal figures on each side of the tree in the throne room B of Assurnasirpal II in the North-West Palace at Nimrud (Fig. 1), can be regarded as an idol. In this case, the sacred tree has the value of idol twice: it is in fact worshipped within the picture itself by both the royal figures at the side and the double image of Assurnasirpal II on the adjacent slabs (B – 12 and B – 14) as well as by the king in the flesh and any visitor admitted into the throne room in the presence of Assurnasirpal II. The sacred tree acquires the role of a religious symbolic element, perhaps representing either Assyria itself or the Assyrian kingship, whose office is granted to the king by the god Assur, who is in fact present in the winged disk just above the tree.

Ginzburg 2015. Mitchell 2005, 188. 16 On the role of idols and the consequent behaviours of people in front of them, see Ellenbogen / Tugendhaft 2011, 1–10. 17 Mitchell 2015, 72. 14 15

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It is interesting to notice that this image occurs twice in the throne room, exactly in two focal points:18 behind the throne dais on the eastern side and in a niche just in front of the central gate, where the throne was temporarily placed on special occasions. The symbolic value of the tree is therefore emphasised by the fact that, when the king is seated on the throne, his body actually covers the tree: that is the tree is the king, the king is the tree, the tree and the king are the manifestation of the Assyrian kingship, on the symbolic (the former) and bodily (the latter) level.19 The double image of the king at each side of the tree has been more convincingly interpreted as the representations of Assurnasirpal’s ancestors – his grandfather and father respectively – rather than a doubling of his own persona:20 in this respect, the considerations by Mitchell are really relevant when he says that “an idol, for instance, may also be a ‘relative’, but it is usually a parental figure, a father or a mother”.21 Therefore, the entire group (tree + royal figures) may function as an idol and it seems particularly significant that this happens in the throne room, the place where the Assyrian kingship appears. The image of the sacred tree, flanked by human- or bird-headed winged geniuses, is very common in the innermost rooms of Assurnasirpal’s palace at Nimrud:22 indeed, the presence of mythic figures on each side of the tree in the gesture of sprinkling that has been interpreted as a kind of pollination or sacralization emphasizes again the idol nature of the object that is precisely worshipped, cared for, and protected. At the same time, this last example introduces the value of the sacred tree as a totem. The Assyrian sacred tree as a totem Totems are usually natural objects: if idolatry is the process of turning an object into a god-idol, totemism is the opposite.23 Moreover, if the effect of idols is to cause a feeling of respect and even of terror, totems have a peaceful nature and interact with the beholder through a dialogue acting as a close friend that gladdens, consoles, and reassures. In this respect, although the images of sacred tree in the innermost rooms of the North-West Palace at Nimrud are still enclosed within two protecting mythic figures, the private or less official context seems to point out a different role and function of these repeated figures (Fig. 2): if the sacred trees are really the substitution of the Assyrian kings and the intention of Assurnasirpal II and his scholars was to build up a royal garden of ancestors – as proposed by

Winter 1981. On the use and meaning of the representation of the tree within the palace of Assurnasirpal II, see Richardson 1999–2001, 156–166. 20 See Brentjes 1994, 54–55, 64 and now Brown 2010, 26–27. 21 Mitchell 2005, 98. 22 Meuszyński 1981. 23 Mitchell 2005, 98. 18 19

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Richardson24 – those images, in the rooms that were used by the king and a limited number of selected people only, were probably perceived as companions, being kin and members of the family. Inner rooms of the North-West Palace were not only a garden of members of the royal family, legitimizing Assurnasirpal II as the successor to the throne of Assyria; they also were a mnemonic place – properly a lieu de mémoire – having an eternal validity beyond the time of the reign of Assurnasirpal II: in this respect, it is important to remember that the North-West Palace in Nimrud was lived in and occupied for a long time (until the 7th century BC), keeping its original figurative programme intact. The sacred tree in the throne room, being the official representation of the Assyrian kingship granted by the national god, was continuously worshipped by the king himself (by both his physical body and his representation). The sacred trees in the innermost rooms of the palace were continuously looked at as points of reference, advisors, and helpers on which the ruling king could count. This familiar tie can then result in an even more attached and embodied bond and this is precisely how a fetish acts. The Assyrian sacred tree as a fetish Fetishes are special things: materialism and materiality are fundamental features, as well as portability, which define the close attachment of the object to the body of the beholder; fetishes can even enter the flesh of the body with a very strong physical and embodied incorporation. Mitchell specifies that the fetish “is a fragment of the totem, a part object, often a body part, and isolated severed from the collective”.25 Speaking of the Assyrian sacred tree, it is not properly a part of the scene that is selected and isolated, rather the entire group (usually the tree with the two apotropaic figures at each side) is reframed and rescaled to a minor dimension to fit in with the surface and proportion of small portable objects. The main characteristic of fetishes is their portable nature, that is they constantly are with, next to, and even within the beholder, stressing the strong physical relationship they entertain with the owner. Where and when can the image of the sacred tree function as a fetish? The image is replicated and reproduced on clothes (Fig. 3) and cylinder seals (Fig. 4): the tree and the associated figures are physically worn and even cylinder seals can be in fact put on as ornament and accessory, actually acquiring the property of an amulet.26 The function of fetishes as an amulet is strengthened by the nature and quality of the materials they are made of: materials themselves have a qualitative agentive property and this is shared with and distributed to the object itself in combination with the image directly carved,

Richardson 1999–2001. Mitchell 2005, 99. 26 Collon 1987, 113. 24 25

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stamped, or embroidered on it. The case of embroideries on clothes in the palace of Assurnasirpal II is particularly significant: not only is the image of the sacred tree used to adorn the dress of both the king and the geniuses, but it is also present on the small bucket handled by the geniuses (Fig. 5). This is even more intriguing as we are facing a multiple quotation, re-adaptation, and intericonicity of the figurative motif of the sacred tree: while the geniuses are in fact represented at the side of the tree onto the relief, the very same image is replicated, on a smaller scale, on their clothes and on the object (the bucket) they are holding in the hand.27 Fetishes are portable, they always accompany the beholder: the image of the sacred tree, decontextualized from the monumental palace bas-reliefs, is reproduced on minor objects and acquires a significant referential value as it expressly refers to the palace art. The example of cylinder seals is especially meaningful as these objects were not only portable items, but they were commonly used in the administration of the Assyrian state by appointed officials. It means that seals bearing the image of the sacred tree – and even more substantially those carved with the precise replica of the sacred tree set of Assurnasirpal II’s throne room (the one with the duplicated royal figure) – precisely refer to the official monumental art of the king:28 the reference is double, to both the palace bas-reliefs and, of course, to the Assyrian ruler himself. The administrator, granted with the official seal carved with the direct quotation of palace art, is therefore recognized and entrusted with his role and duty giving him a sense of membership:29 beyond this certified acknowledgement within the Assyrian state hierarchy, I would argue that the image of the sacred tree with the royal figures also acquires a more personal, definitely less formal, meaning, giving the owner a more intimate sense of protection in the private sphere. Conclusion In addressing the specific use of the same figurative pattern on different media and contexts, it has been pointed out how the image of the sacred tree acquires a different meaning and role according to a series of variables, such as the place where the image is displayed and the question of dimensions. Images migrate: the same figurative pattern moves and is transferred to several types of media and this movement does not only involve and affect the external viewers, but it also heavily touches the owner and beholder of the image-bearing objects. For that reason, it seemed to me that the inflection of images as idol, totem, and fetish could help in understanding the referential and self-referential potentiality of images, going

For the details of the embroideries of clothes on the bas-reliefs of Assurnasirpal II, see Bartl 2014. 28 Winter 2000, 65–68, 79. 29 Winter 2000, 75. 27

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beyond and without advocating the rigid parameter of propaganda, as it has often been inferred for Assyria. In using the terms idol, totem, and fetish, attention has been mostly given to the beholder, as the first recipient of the image carved onto a relief or a minor object: the question of the audience, as we are reminded by Liverani, is still open and I do not pretend this contribution puts an end to it. On the other hand, speaking of ‘audience’ is probably an exaggeration as it might in fact imply a false idea of the existence of an indefinite mass to whom the message was addressed. The implications prompted by idol, totem, and fetish distinguish three diverse natures of possible addressees and their consequent degrees of empathy and affection: as already pointed out, it was not my intention to identify new categories and labels to describe and cage Assyrian images, using in addition loaned words. The sacred tree is not an idol, nor a totem, nor a fetish: however, the different examples of use of this figurative pattern show that the sacred tree might function as an idol, a totem, and a fetish and this structure has been used to explain the diverse qualitative emotional relations the image provokes in the beholder. David Freedberg analyses the context of image and pilgrimage:30 in particular, people move to go to visit a painting or a sculpture – an idol (religious figure) or a totem (public monument); then, they keep an image of that painting or sculpture bringing it always with them, as a fetish – it is interesting to think for example of holy cards and the replicas of sacred images that are then shared and used in private contexts.31 In the context of Neo-Assyrian art of the 9th century BC, the movement and quotation of the very same figurative pattern from one medium to another discloses the dialogue the image entertains with the beholder. Even if idol, totem, and fetish are terms foreign to the Assyrian (Near Eastern in general) culture, they have been provocatively used not to found new dictated definitions – with the sure risk of applying a Western paradigm of colonial origin – but, maybe paradoxically, to try to uproot the Western modern theoretical model of imperial propaganda through which the meaning of the sacred tree has been seen as the result of imperial ideology, therefore scattered via other media to reinforce it, focusing more on the content rather than on the context and extent of influence of the image on each medium. Bibliography Artemov, N., 2018: Ideology and Propaganda. Some Reflections on Two Problematic Terms. In K. Kleber / G. Neumann / S. Paulus (eds.): Grenzüberschreitungen. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte des Alten Orients. Festschrift für Hans Neumann zum 65. Geburtstag am 9. Mai 2018. dubsar 5. Münster. Pp. 43–57. Bagg, A., 2016: Where is the Public? A New Look at the Brutality Scenes in Neo-

Freedberg 1989. Belting 1990.

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Assyrian Royal Inscriptions and Art. In L. Battini (ed.): Making Pictures of War. Realia et Imaginaria in the Iconology of the Ancient Near East. Oxford. Pp. 57–82. Bahrani, Z., 1998: Conjuring Mesopotamia: Imaginative Geography and a World Past. In L. Meskell (ed.): Archaeology under Fire. Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. London. Pp. 159–174. Bartl, P.V., 2014: Die Ritzverzierungen auf den Relieforthostaten Assurnaṣirpal II. aus Kalḫu. BaF 25. Mainz am Rhein. Belting, H., 1990: Bild und Kunst. Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst. München. –– 2001: Bild-Anthropologie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft. München. –– 2005: Image, Medium, Body: A New Approach to Iconology. Critical Inquiry 21: 302–19. Brentjes, B., 1994: Selbstverherrlichung oder Legitimitätsanspruch? Gedanken zu dem Thronrelief von Nimrud-Kalaḫ. Altorientalische Forschungen 21, 50–64. Brown, B., 2010: Kingship and Ancestral Cult in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religion 10/1: 1–53. Collon, D., 1987: First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East. London. –– 2001: Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Cylinder Seals V: Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods. London. Ellenbogen, J. / Tugendhaft, A., 2011: Introduction. In J. Ellenbogen / A. Tugendhaft (eds.): Idol Anxiety. Standford. Pp. 1–18. Freedberg, D., 1989: The Power of Images. Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago. Gillmann, N., 2011–2012: Les bas-reliefs néo-assyriens: une nouvelle tentative d’interprétation. SAAB XIX: 203–37. Ginzburg, C., 2015: Paura reverenza terrore. Cinque saggi di iconografia politica. Milano. Giovino, M., 2007: The Assyrian Sacred Tree. A History of Interpretations. OBO 230. Fribourg / Göttingen. Larsen, M.T., 1996: The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land, 1840–1860. London. Liverani, M., 2005: Imperialism. In S. Pollock / R. Bernbeck (eds.): Archaeologies of the Middle East. Critical Perspectives. Oxford. Pp. 223–43. –– 2013: Immaginare Babele. Due secoli di studi sulla città orientale antica. Roma / Bari. Matthews, R., 2003: The Archaeology of Mesopotamia. Theories and Approaches. London. Matthiae, P., 2005: Prima lezione di archeologia orientale. Roma / Bari. Meuszyński, J., 1981: Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung im Nordwestpalast von Kalḫu. BaF 2. Mainz am Rhein. Mitchell, W.J.T., 2005: What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago / London.

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–– 2015: Image Science: Iconology, Visual Culture and Media Aesthetics. Chicago / London. Nadali, D., 2012: Interpretations and Translations, Performativity and Embodied Simulation. Reflections on Assyrian Images. In G.B. Lanfranchi / D. Morandi Bonacossi / C. Pappi / S. Ponchia (eds.): Leggo! Studies Presented to Frederick Mario Fales on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Wiesbaden. Pp. 583–595. –– 2016: Images of War in the Assyrian Period: What They Show and What They Hide. In L. Battini (ed.): Making Pictures of War. Realia et Imaginaria in the Iconology of the Ancient Near East. Oxford. Pp. 83–88. Paley, S.M. / Sobolewski, R.P., 1987: The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest-Palace at Kalḫu (Nimrūd) II. BaF 10. Mainz am Rhein. Porter, B.N., 2003: Trees, Kings, and Politics. Studies in Assyrian Iconography. OBO 197. Fribourg / Göttingen. Porter, B.N., 2010: Ancient Writers, Modern Readers, and King Ashurnasirpal’s Political Problems: An Exploration of the Possibility of Reading Ancient Texts. In H. Liss / M. Oeming (eds.): Literary Construction of Identity in the Ancient World. Proceedings of the Conference Literary Fiction and the Construction of Identity in Ancient Literatures: Options and Limits of Modern Literary Approaches in the Exegesis of Ancient Texts Heidelberg, July 10–13, 2006. Winona Lake. Pp. 103–120. Richardson, S., 1999–2001: An Assyrian Garden of Ancestors: Room I, Northwest Palace, Kalḫu. SAAB XIII: 145–216. Winter, I.J., 1981: Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in Neo-Assyrian Reliefs. Studies in Visual Communication 7: 2–38. Winter, I.J., 2000: Le Palais imaginaire: scale and meaning in the iconography of Neo-Assyrian cylinder seals. In C. Uehlinger (ed.): Images as Media: Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (1st millennium BCE). OBO 175. Fribourg / Göttingen. Pp. 51–87.

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Fig. 1. Drawing of slabs B – 14 – 12 from the throne room B of the North-West Palace of Assurnasirpal II in Nimrud (after Meuszyński 1981, Taf. 2).

Fig. 2. Drawing of slab I – 27 from room I of the North-West Palace of Assurnasirpal II in Nimrud (after Paley / Sobolewski 1987, pl. 2).

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Fig. 3. Detail of the sacred tree with royal figures at each side on the cloth of Assurnasirpal II from room G of the North-West Palace in Nimrud (after Bartl 2014, Taf. 13).

Fig. 4. Modern impression of the cylinder seal of Mushezib-Ninurta (after Collon 2001, pl. XII, no. 151).

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Fig. 5. Detail of the bucket with the design of sacred tree with bird-human geniuses from room G of the North-West Palace of Assurnasirpal II in Nimrud (after Bartl 2014, Taf. 42c).

Some Thought about the Tell Halaf Reliefs A Neo-Syrian Cycle of Carvings between Tradition and Innovation Frances Pinnock Sapienza Università di Roma* The Iron Age in Syria is certainly a phase whose developments did not reach the apex of the great urban cultures of the region, particularly of the Early and Old Syrian periods in Early Bronze IVA (ca. 2400–2300 BC) and Middle Bronze I–II (ca. 1900–1600 BC), and especially in the north-inner region, which witnessed the great flourishing of Ebla and Aleppo. Already in the Middle Syrian period (Late Bronze I–II; ca. 1500–1200 BC), perhaps as a consequence of the destruction of the great urban centres linked with the kingdom of Yamkhad and of the capital Aleppo itself, but also of a demographic decrement which can be easily detected at Ebla at least,1 there was a gradual, yet unstoppable displacement of towns towards the coastal region. After the disastrous events which put an end to the Bronze Age, and which were probably the consequence of more than one cause, the region appeared divided into principalities, possibly without an extended control over the territory, about whose nature debate is wide, and it does not yet seem that some shared conclusion has yet been reached.2 One problem is the cultural definition of the phase: in fact, an important congress held in Tübingen in 2003,3 proposed in its title the definition of Late Hittite (“späthethitischen”), while in the preface the Editors discuss the possibility to use in alternative the definition Syro-Anatolian, or to use geographic terms (north-Syrian and south-eastern Anatolian). The denomination of Neo-Hittite period or culture might take into account, notwithstanding the Syrian location of some of the major sites, the Anatolian cultural prevalence – according the authors of those contributions – in the accomplishments of Iron age centres.4 Debate was basically founded on the definitions, descending from cultural

*

3 4 1 2

It is a pleasure and an honour to offer this contribution to Mario Liverani, one of the mentors of the ancient Oriental Studies in the Sapienza University of Rome, whom I had the opportunity to meet for the first time in my University years as a student. Matthiae 2010a: 359. Matthiae 2000: 109–113. Novák et al. 2004. Ibidem: 2–5.

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determinations, given by C.L. Woolley in the Karkemish excavation report5 and by W. Orthmann in his monumental work about, precisely, “Neo-Hittite” art,6 with a possible over-simplification of a social and ethnic situation which, in the main centres of the period in north Syria and north Mesopotamia was certainly much more complicated.7 Moreover, from the cultural point of view, the Assyrian expansionism certainly created some further phenomenon of interconnection and interculturalism, which has yet to be the object of a further insight.8 Thus far, there apparently is a large convergence in the use of the terms Early Syrian for the Early Bronze age, Old Syrian for the Middle Bronze age and Middle Syrian for the Late bronze Age, first adopted by P. Matthiae9 in order to account, in the most effective way, for the originality and autonomy of Syrian cultures, with special concern for those of north inner Syria, as represented first and foremost by Ebla.10 This terminology proved adequate in order to define a culture whose high accomplishments, and strong specificity, were certainly acknowledged in the region, at the international level, not only from contemporaries.11 In the phase following the collapse of the great Old Syrian urban centres of north inner Syria, and particularly of Ebla and Aleppo, the political situation and territorial control of Syrian towns radically changed. Traditionally, the judgment about the architectural and artistic accomplishments of the following period is marked by a strong bias: the first considerations about Late Bronze age Syria 7 8

Woolley 1921: 40. Orthmann 1971: 7. Liverani, 1988: 717–718, 724. Ibidem: 728–731. Whichever may the conclusions be about the origins and development of the Aramaic, Cananean and Luwian principalities, they do not seem to represent a “Syro-Hittite” culture (Mazzoni 1981: 316), and it seems now due time to consider the micro-regional reality of each and every individual culture present in Syria, north Syria, north Mesopotamia, and central-eastern Anatolia, in its autonomy and in its original formation and development. Precisely in this sense one may read the conclusions reached by Mazzoni 1982: 202–203. See also Hawkins 1974: 68–69. On the complex interactions between Assyrians and local entities at the periphery of the Assyrian empire, with special concern for reliefs representations, see Gerlach 2000. 9 Matthiae 1975: 466–473; see also Bunnens 2000: 8. 10 In a recent collective work about the archaeology and history of Syria (Orthmann et al. 2013), the individual contributions still use different terminologies, whereas in the chronological table at the end of the volume (ibidem: 584), Early Syrian and Old Syrian are used for the periods between Early Bronze III and Middle Bronze II, but, curiously, for the Late Bronze Age I a cultural definition is used – Mittani – which cannot be applied to the Syrian region as a whole. 11 In this sense the recovery and translation of the Hurrian “Song of Liberation”, probably composed at Aleppo at the time of the Old Hittite kings’ expeditions to Syria (Neu 1996), is a possible consequence of the relevance given, on the one hand, to an important Hurrian victory (Pizikarra of Nineveh’s defeat of Ebla), and, on the other hand, to the relevance of the accomplishment per se, descending from Ebla renown. 5 6

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appeared in comprehensive works, like Henry Frankfort’s masterly – and still in many aspects unsurpassed synthesis – marked however by a now unacceptable “Mesopotamocentrism”.12 So, the admirable productions of the Late Bronze age Ugarit workshops were presented as provincial works, strongly dependent, on the one hand, from Mesopotamia, and, on the other, from Egypt. Even the recent elaboration of the definition of International Style for those artefacts seems to depend, somehow, from this outdated consideration of their provincial and not original inspiration.13 Nowadays, thanks to the basic enlargement of our knowledge about previous phases of the Early and Old Syrian worlds not only at Ebla, but also in paramount centres in the Euphrates valley, and most of all to the resumption of the excavations at Qatna, it is possible to set the accomplishments of the centres of this period within the frame of a cultural continuum, finding its origin and first inspiration in the earliest phases of Syrian history. So, the definition of Middle Syrian period for the Late Bronze age looks quite appropriate.14 Therefore, if there was a continuity – albeit through many events and with important changes – particularly in territorial control, and, as a consequence, in the political and economic role of the centres of the Syrian region, between the earliest phases, corresponding to the elaboration of the so-called secondary urban civilization,15 and the phases of the period sometimes defined age of balance among empires, when Syria was the stage for the long and basically equal clashes between Hittites and Egyptians,16 it is perhaps time to re-appraise the cultures of Iron Age Syria proper, to identify their specificity, to verify their continuity with regard to those preceding them and, probably, to define them Neo-Syrian, more correctly underlining precisely their specificity and continuity.17 In this spirit I wish to analyse some peculiar aspect of the Tell Halaf reliefs cycles, precisely with the aim of stressing the strong elements of continuity and

Frankfort 1954: 166. It is quite interesting to observe how, while maintaining the concept of an Assyrian influence in the origin of Syrian art of the first millennium BC, the same A. discarded its dependence from Hittite models: ibidem: 164. 13 For a recent re-assessment of the palace art of Ugarit, see Matthiae 2010c, in particular on p. 1640 for its relations with the international koiné. The concept of the adoption of an “international” or shared style for some kind of luxury artefacts can be accepted and has some correspondence with the reality of the archaeological record. The awareness must be kept, however, of the fact that the shared motifs are not randomly chosen, but rather that they belong to an ancient tradition of court art. See, at this regard, the lengthy discussion by Pfälzner 2015. 14 Matthiae 2010c: 1651–1652. 15 Matthiae 2013c. 16 Liverani 1988: 552–561. 17 Of course, we are not proposing to cancel the definition of Neo-Hittite, but rather to overcome the concept of Syro-Hittite, in order to better highlight and define the specific traits of both Aramean and Luwian principalities of the Iron Age, and to better appreciate the eventual elements these cultures shared, in an overall picture of marked originality. 12

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tradition of this important corpus from one of the major centres of the NeoSyrian period – ancient Guzana – , quite likely the location of the important stone carving workshops from which the orthostats and the statues of the monumental burial complexes came, but also of refined ateliers for the production of ivory inlays, those G. Herrmann attributed to the “flame and frond school”,18 featuring important elements of comparison with the style of the stone reliefs, particularly in the rendering of the muscles of the animals’ hind legs.19 Already since the Old Syrian period, in the main palatial buildings, big orthostatic slabs were used in order to cover the lower part of walls in representance rooms, a use which may also be related with the practical need to protect mudbrick structures.20 In the same period, there is evidence for the use of orthostats, less regular and less monumental than previously attested, as support for figurative decorations.21 In the Iron age, such decorations were more widespread, featuring figures apparently not in logical sequence but in a random disposition. Another relevant aspect is the use of such decorations not inside the palaces but rather in open spaces, even occupying relevant sectors of the city, related with palaces, cult areas and city gates. Thus, these regions of the towns came to be defined as ritual, or anyhow ceremonial, reserved, on the one hand, for the cult for important town-, or maybe even super-regional deities, and, on the other hand, for the celebration of kingship.22 Hermann 1989. Winter 1989 summarizes the main points of this question, also highlighting the main chronological issues. Fragments of ivory carvings in this style were also found at Tell Halaf: Winter 1989: 328. 19 According to I.J. Winter, 2010b: 390, other elements of contact between ivory productions and carvings are the rendering of palmettes and the motif of a chariot with a dog running below the horses. The same A. discusses the possibility that the differences between the two productions may be a consequence of a chronological gap or of the difference of support (ibidem: 392). On the other hand, Winter discards the possibility that the ivories were older, imported from elsewhere and copied by inexperienced craftsmen (ibidem: 394), and therefore, that one possible origin for them might be looked for in Hama (ibidem, pp. 394–395). In a previous article of hers (Winter 1989: 330), the same author advances the curious proposal that small ivory objects, like the pyxides, being earlier in time than the stone reliefs, and being very easy to hold in one’s hands, were the models (“pattern books”) for the stone carvings. 20 Hormanşah 2007: 73. Pinnock in 2020a. 21 In the Middle Bronze Age levels of Hadad’s Temple in Aleppo, two slabs at least were recovered, one of which re-employed as base for a statue. On one of them, two male figures are represented, whose clothing and hair-dresses bear a close resemblance to those of the head from Alalakh and of the two statues from the entrance to the royal tombs of Qatna. On the other orthostat, still in place, included in the wall of the Old Syrian building, traces of figures were still visible, one of which is probably a sitting personage, possibly a king: Kohlmeyer: 2016: 304–305. 22 See the considerations about topographic setting, chronological development and function of the reliefs in Mazzoni 1997b: 289–299, 309–312. 18

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Even in the best-preserved cycles – ‘Ayin Dara,23 Aleppo,24 Zincirli, Tell Halaf, Hama, Tell Ta’yinat, Karkemish in the Syrian region, Karatepe and Malatya in Anatolia – it is quite difficult, at a first sight, to identify an ideological pattern behind the placement of orthostats. The stones more frequently bear individual figures, but sometimes also more complex scenes, apparently not related with one another, and, in this aspect, they are strongly different from the monumental cycles of Assyrian palaces, where the sequential narration and the primary symbolic meaning of the representations were immediately patent.25 Really, though fully accepting the idea, already proposed some time ago, that the Syrian monumental art was characterized by what was defined “compositional autonomy”,26 we believe that these individual figures did not make up a narration with a logical development in time and space, like Assyrian reliefs,27 but rather a polyptych of images, which was organic and should depict a concept of kingship, summarizing the king’s roles and the effects of good government over the community. In this sense, in analogy with what happened with Assyrian reliefs, the images had to be seen and understood by local public, as well as by foreign observers, but, unlike what happened in Mesopotamian palaces, where the possibility to see the reliefs was probably quite limited,28 in the Syrian sites a part at least of the orthostats was always visible by anyone entering the town.29 The figurative program of ‘Ayin Dara includes series of orthostats decorating the plinths of the outer walls of the corridor running on three sides of the temple, and of the temple itself, the sphinxes and lions protomes placed against the façade, the reliefs in the antecella and cella, the reliefs of the plinth of the dais in the cella, and some stele, of larger size, placed at regular intervals along the inner wall of the outer corridor: Abū ‘Assāf 1990: 25. The plinths, orthostats and the protomes are quite monotonous repetitions of the same figures, or groups of figures; the stele, on the other hand, seem to propose a greater variety of images, but they are quite poorly preserved. One may anyhow recognize palm-trees and human figures, among which a probable king sitting on a throne: ibidem 28–29. 24 Kohlmeyer 2016: 307–309. This exceptional cycle, decorating the back inner wall of the Storm God’s Temple on Aleppo citadel, includes several orthostats depicting divine figures, on both sides of a larger slab with the Storm God mounting his chariot, drawn by a bull. They can be ascribed to different phases within the Iron age life of the temple. 25 Matthiae 1994: 108–110; 1996: 55–59 about Ashurnasirpal II’s figurative program. 26 Matthiae 1963: 60–64. 27 Matthiae 1994: 106–110. 28 Kertai 2014; 2015: 5–7, 203. 29 A very important evidence in this sense is Katuwas’s inscription from the so-called King’s Gate in Karkemiš, where he explicitly mentions the orthostatic decoration of the gate, and possibly stresses the fact that they had been expensive. In his vision, Tarhunzas’s temple, the gates, and the orthostats are all co-ordinate parts of the refurbishing of an important urban space: Harmanşah 2007: 82–83. The transformation of orthostats from functional architectural elements to supports for visual messages would be related, according this author, to the ideological reflections made, particularly in Syrian towns, 23

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In the cycle examined here, including the small orthostats from the bit khilani of Tell Halaf/Guzana,30 the recovered slabs number slightly less than 200, and many of them were still in place, at the foot of the building outer perimeter walls; due to the strategic position of the Tempel-Palast, placed at some distance from the citadel wall, all the slabs decorating the back wall, and parts of those from the east side wall were visible and accompanied to the left those ascending the citadel, aiming at the monumental entrance gate to the centre of the acropolis.31 Through this gate it was possible to reach the palace and the area of the royal burials. This sector does not seem to present further limits; it is thus possible that the ceremonial area was not properly walled off, while apparently no other monumental building stood between the ceremonial area and the North-East Palace.32 The orthostats depicted most of all figures of soldiers, mingled with images of lions and other animals of the wild, composite monsters and palmettes, while there seldom are also human figures not carrying weapons, divine figures or more complex scenes, among which one may recall a slab larger than the average with an animal orchestra, two slabs with men running up a date palm – one by means of a stair – one slab with a man turning his back to a loaded table, and another slab, again larger than the others, with a man sitting on a throne, carrying a flower in his hand, in front of whom two bull-men hold over their heads a winged sun. As it was ascertained, though the process is not completely clear in its overall chronological development, a part of these orthostats – the so-called small orthostats – are ascribed to the older phase of the building carved decoration and they probably come from another edifice, mentioned in some inscription as temple of the Storm God. These considerations might lead to believe that the juxtaposition of the reliefs was casual and that their aim was merely decorative. I wish to take into account here some individual slabs, which more clearly reveal their derivation from the patrimony of the oldest figurative culture of Syria. In particular, I will deal with the slabs which in Opitz’s and Moortgat’s catalogue bear the numbers A3, 57 (a scene of “hunt” to the wild bull from a chariot), A3, 47 (a female character), A3, 51 (a man piercing a lion), A3, 176 (two symmetrical characters piercing an enemy), A3, 49 (two warriors piercing each other), and the series of slabs, bearing, according to their placement in situ, the numbers 138–139 (a man climbing on a date palm and a composite sphinx) and 172–173–174 (a

at the moment of the creation of new foundations, a phenomenon particularly relevant in that region at the beginning of the Iron Age: ibidem: 90. On the other hand, the proposed relation between Syrian carved orthostats and Assyrian boundary steles does not seem fully convincing: ibidem: 84–85. 30 About the relative and absolute dating of these orthostats, see Orthmann 1971: 120, 123, 128–129, 178–182. 31 Matthiae 1997: 184–186 on the ceremonial complex, 205–207 on the reliefs and their dating. 32 Langenegger et al. 1950: Plans 2–3.

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fight between lion and bull – a man climbing on a date palm – a rampant lion). A number of them feature only some element which may be traced from an ancient tradition, other slabs belong to it as a whole. Slab A3, 57 (= Slab 45 according its original placement, here Fig. 1).33 The slab depicts a hunt to a wild bull: on a chariot, turned to the right, a bearded man, probably wearing a tunic with short sleeves, stands and bends a bow; on his side the charioteer holds the reins of the apparently single horse; both men have their hair held firm by a thin horizontal band. Over the horse the wild bull, turned to the left, is depicted in a kind of gallop, less extended than that of the horse, and seems to look at a bird, perched on the head of the hunter. The theme of the hunt to the wild bull from a chariot is unknown in the traditional Syrian figurative patrimony, and, in contemporary art, besides the royal hunts to lions, they rather preferred to depict the capture or killing of game or of small animals of the steppe, like gazelles.34 It seems quite interesting, however, to mark the position of the figures in the field: in fact, the bull is placed over the chariot, not in front of it, and is turned towards the men, as if looking into the eyes of the bird perched on the head of the hunter. As the hunter is represented while bending his bow, ready to fly the arrow, it might seem quite likely that he was aiming at the bull and that the latter had been placed in its incongruous position in order to adapt the scene to the shape of the orthostat, which, as it quite often happens at Tell Halaf, is developed in height and is quite narrow. Yet, on the other hand, in Kapara’s Palace there are also horizontal orthostats, and we may recall in particular slab n. 146 (= A3, 59),35 which also bears a chariot scene – in this instance depicting a battle scene, as may be inferred from the presence of a naked fallen enemy under the horses’ hoofs. Both orthostats, nos 45 and 146, moreover, bear the inscription stating their original location in Kapara’s Palace, thus they should have been made on purpose to be placed there, and, quite likely, in the same period and from the same workshop.36 Thus, presuming that slab 45 represents not one specific, albeit emblematic, real episode of wild bull-hunt, but rather a generic image of royal

Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 42a; H. 0.72, W. 0.50 (= VA 8857). A lion hunt, and a deer hunt are represented at Malatya: Mazzoni 1997b: 293, figs 4–5, p. 316. 35 Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 41, b; H. 0.59, W. 0.90. 36 We may as well mention orthostats n. 17 (= A3, 56, ibidem: Taf. 41, h. 0.53, W. 0.685, Metropolitan Museum), and n. 27 (= A3, 58, ibidem: Taf. 42b, H. 0.65, W. 0.45 Berlin Staatlichen Museen), bearing hunt scenes to lions, always from chariots. Slab 17 is horizontal, the lion, apparently dying, is represented under the horses’ hoofs, and a bird is depicted over the two horses; the bird has open wings, spread horizontally, and must be identified with a vulture, because its beak is clearly visible, and the representation of its body and wings is quite characteristic. Slab 27 also depicts a lion placed under the horses’ hoofs, but in this instance the wild animal is of big size and attacks the other animals from below, apparently ripping the womb of one of them; the upper part of the slab is badly preserved, and it is therefore not possible to ascertain if there were birds. 33 34

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hunter on his chariot,37 the bull, not running away from danger of danger, might represent not the prey, but rather an emblem of benign nature, not hunted, but rather protected by the man.38 This interpretation might explain the fact that it is turned towards the hunter, and the presence of the other animal, the bird which does not stand in the field, but is rather perched on the hunter’s head, marking their closeness. In these terms, slab 45 from Tell Halaf may be easily connected with a very old tradition of representations in the pre-classical Syrian world, where man’s action – and man must in this instance be considered a figure somehow related with royal milieus if not the king himself, though he does not exhibit evident insignia of his rank – guarantees protection to benign nature. As concerns the bird perching on the hunter’s head, it may be identified with a dove, and be thus considered a reference to a great goddess’s protection of the type of Ishtar/ Anat/Astarte.39 Connections between royal figures and doves are well known in Old Syrian glyptic, where such birds are depicted perching on the king’s hand, or on the head of an important female character, frequently the co-protagonist of the seals scenes, or placed on the top of an object identified with a peculiar symbol of Ishtar’s, characterized by the presence of two heads – a male and a female one.40 Slab A3, 47 (= Slab 75 according its original placement, here Fig. 2).41 A female personage is represented, with long wavy hair falling down on her back, wearing a smooth dress, reaching to her ankles, adorned with heavy rigid anklets. The woman carries a long dagger, which she holds in horizontal. In this instance, the presence itself of a woman in such an official and public context, fits quite well in a peculiar Syrian tradition, dating back from the Early Syrian period.42 Besides this basic element, also the hair-dress, with long wavy hair, held on the forehead

The scene with a presumably royal personage on a chariot is also attested, for instance, in some Old Syrian cylinder seal: Buchanan 1966: Pl. 56, nos 892–895, in complex scenes, where one may also point to the presence, in n. 892, of a naked female figure – identified with an acrobat – with her legs bent on one side, who was identified as a personage related to Ishtar’s milieu, for which hypothesis see Pinnock 2007: 16–17; in this seal also a human head is represented, which must be considered another typical Syrian feature: Nadali in press. In nos 893–895 there are processions of striding men, personages quite frequent, albeit enigmatic, in the glyptic of this period, possible representations of royal ancestors or of patrons of the king. In the middle Syrian period, one seal of the same collection (Buchanan 1966: n. 965, Pl. 59) presents the same theme, in this instance as a deer hunt, but the human character is clearly holding a bow, while a bird is depicted under the horse pulling the chariot, and it seems quite likely that it is not a vulture. 38 See, for a more traditional way to represent a hunt, the slabs from Malatya, depicting a stag, and a lion hunt: Mazzoni 1997a: 311, figs. 2–3. 39 Pinnock 2000. 40 Pinnock 2006: 500; Matthiae 2014. 41 Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 34b, H. 0.57, W. 0.38. 42 Pinnock 2008; 2014–15; 2015c; 2016b. 37

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by a thin band, may be easily included in this tradition, where I have already identified some time ago two main typologies in the representation of female characters:43 one with long loose hair and one with the head covered by a veil. Personages featuring this type usually belong to the élites in general, or rather, more specifically, to the royal family itself, as might also be hinted out at by the dagger the woman holds, a weapon most probably ritual and typical of royalty.44 The dagger is characterized by its shape and, most of all, by the way in which it is held, moving it horizontally. In this instance, the female character – who does not have anyone opposing her represented on the same slab – might point, by means of the representation of the dagger, to her belonging to the top of the elite and, therefore, to her taking part in some royal ritual. Another hypothesis is that, in the sequence of slabs, the woman, being turned towards slab 76 (= A3, 111),45 depicting a fight between lion and bull, in the traditional scheme with crossed animals, might have had an active role in the ideal protection of the bull against the lion. In this sense, again, we may recall the role the queen had in Early Syrian Ebla, when she was frequently depicted in palace cylinder seals of the capital town of north inner Syria in Early Bronze IVA:46 yet, in those repertories, she never held a weapon, but she rather acted with bare hands, co-operating with her royal husband. In this instance, the Guzana workshops would have recovered and modified a very ancient theme. As we cannot trace the evolution of the theme, we cannot explain its change, namely the presence of the weapon in the lady’s hand. The slab bears the inscription marking its belonging to the temple of the Storm God, not to Kapara’s Palace and might therefore be a secondary adaptation, in order to insert the slab in the more complex figurative program of the Palace. The original placement in the temple might confirm the attribution of a pre-eminently priestly role to the figure represented. Slab A3, 51 (= Slab 147 according its location, here Fig. 3)47. The slab depicts the fight between a man and a lion, in a very peculiar way as compared to the traditional lion-hunt. Lion-hunt is a royal prerogative, but usually, in representations which in Lower Mesopotamia are known since the Uruk period,48 the king, at a safe distance from his prey, pierces, or tries to pierce the animal, either with a spear, or flying an arrow with his bow. Here, on the contrary, the two characters are nearly embraced in a mortal duel, and, once again, the weapon the man holds is a short dagger which, held in horizontal, pierces the animal, while the

Pinnock 2015a: 7–8; 2018a: 739–742. Pinnock, 1997. Though this is the only evidence, in my knowledge, of a woman holding such a dagger, I consider this a further proof of the ritual nature of the weapon. 45 Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 68b, H. 0.62, W. 0.40. 46 Matthiae 2010a: 174, fig. 90; Pinnock 2013: 67. The presence of women in these contexts has been singled out as a unique and specific Eblaic feature. 47 Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 37, H. 0.58, W. 0.41, VA 8839. 48 Suter 2013: 212. 43 44

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lion seems to tear his killer with its front paws. This peculiar variant of the hunt theme dates back, as far as we know, from Early Syrian Ebla, where it appears for the first time, in a wood inlay, from the decoration of a piece of furniture.49 The history of this iconographic motif in the art of pre-classical Syria is quite easy to follow in time, thanks to constant, albeit not very numerous, attestations. In its primary Eblaic formulation, the “individual duel” between man and lion may be possibly considered as a pendant of the duel between two male characters, wearing the same kind of dress, piercing each other by means of the short dagger they hold keeping its tang between middle and ring fingers, and therefore moving the weapon on a horizontal line (Fig. 4).50 In this same way, with small variants, the theme appears in two registers on two faces of Ishtar’s Stele from Ebla, dating from the first decades of the IInd millennium BC, where the two fighters are a little distant from each other, and the lion looks less lethal, though still putting its paws on the man’s limbs (Fig. 5); on the other hand, the dagger looks smaller than the Early Syrian specimens.51 The motif apparently became quite fashionable again in the Neo-Syrian period, in particular in the ivory carvings found in Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud: in one instance the two figures are close two each other, but are not enlaced, and the man holds the lion by one paw, while piercing it by means of a long spear, which, however, he holds at mid length, thus closing the gap between them;52 on the other hand, in another object, quite fragmentary, they apparently turned back to the pristine way to represent the scene and the human personage holds the lion by its mane, precisely with the same gesture, and keeping his hand exactly in the same position as in the Early Syrian wooden carving from Ebla (Fig. 6).53 Always in the same period, another depiction, whose style is quite close to the first ivory carving mentioned, appears on a ceremonial clay cuirass from a warrior’s tomb in Kazaphani, Cyprus north (Fig. 7).54 Slab A3, 176 (= Slab 180 according to its location, here Fig. 8).55 Two men

Matthiae 2010a: 171, figs 85–86; 2013d. Pinnock 2015b. 51 Matthiae 2013e: 537–538. 52 Herrmann 1992: Pl. 55, n. 297 (ND 9398), p. 98, the lion “rests” his other paw on the “warrior’s” waist. A similar representation, in a better-preserved specimen, may be seen in Herrmann 1986: Pl. 16, n. 77, p. 83. 53 Herrmann 1992: Pl. 54, n. 293 (ND 7641); ibidem: 97, according the A. there were two groups depicting the same theme, but the second lion, at least in the published pictures, apparently does not bear traces of the “warrior’s” hand: ibidem: pl. 54, n. 294 (ND 7634). The three “warriors”, one piercing the lion with his spear and the two from the possible pair of lion fighters, all feature the same hair-dress with a fringe of locks on the forehead, long curly hair tumbling on the back and three long locks falling down on both sides of their faces. If seen frontally, they might look as juvenile versions of the hero with curly hair, frequently depicted in cylinder seals, since the Early Dynastic period. 54 Markoe 1988; Pinnock 2007: 12–14. 55 Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 102a, H. 0.62, W. 0.42 (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore). 49 50

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apparently subdue one third personage, holding him by his arms and hitting his head with a cylindrical object. The composition features strong elements of symmetry in the movements of the arms and legs of the three personages, who appear inextricably interlaced. The central figure, apparently defeated, is larger than the side ones. This peculiar figurative pattern may be seen for the first time in the lower register of the back face of Ishtar’s Stele from Ebla (Fig. 9).56 In this specimen there is less symmetry in the placement of figures, because the defeated person, who is slightly smaller than his vanquishers, is turned to the left, and is well detached from the two warriors at his sides; they, moreover, while holding him by his hair, hit him with different weapons. A similar scene is also depicted on Ishtar’s Obelisk, always from Ebla, where the vanquished person is hit with an unrecognizable weapon and an ingot.57 Lastly, the same composition is used in one fragment of an ivory inlay from Nimrud, where, however, the protagonists may be all females: two personages are dressed in the Egyptian style, and they hold by the hair a central figure, not completely human, with a hathoric hair-dress; the winners have long curly locks and are beardless, but their breasts are apparently bare, which led the publisher to interpret them as males, a hypothesis which must not be ruled out, due to the typically male action they are accomplishing. In this instance the symmetry is quite strong, and the three figures’ legs intertwine in such a way that the position of their feet looks quite incongruent.58 The Tell Halaf relief, which depicts the defeated personage as a giant, was included in the number of representations of events from Gilgamesh’s epos,59 and this possibility must not be ruled out, yet, the scheme adopted descends, in my opinion, from the line we have traced, as is even more evident in a similar relief, also included in the same series, but where the personage has the same size as his two enemies, coming from the

Matthiae 2013e: 550–552. Matthiae 2011: 768. 58 Herrmann 1986: Pl. 240, n. 929 (= ND 10326), p. 188. 59 Several scenes were interpreted as representations of Gilgamesh and Enkidu fighting a demon, starting with an Old Babylonian terra cotta from Larsa: Opificius 2010: Abb. 5, S. 351, but in these specimens the two heroes are definitely different one from the other, and only one of them features clear royal peculiarities in his hair- or head-dress; in one instance the two characters wear a horned tiara: ibidem: Abb. 3, S. 84. In another Old Babylonian terra cotta, from Berlin, the defeated personage shows non-human characteristics, while of the two heroes, one features a royal war hair-dress, and a long beard, and the other one looks like a youthful beardless figure: Lambert 2010: 98–99, Pl. VII, fig. 1. The same A. considers the representation of the two heroes as identical figures a late trait, and one also has to point out that the examples he mentions come all from western milieus: a Mittanian seal, one from Nuzi, the Tell Halaf and Karkemish reliefs, bronze bowls found in Nimrud, the ivory inlay always found in Nimrud. The gold bowl from Hasanlu is the only exception. Based on these observations, Lambert maintains, correctly in our opinion, that these scenes should be related with local traditions, rather than with the Babylonian tradition concerning Gilgamesh: ibidem: 104–105. 56 57

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Processional Entry of Karkemish (Fig. 10).60 In this piece, the defeated personage is clearly stabbed by means of two daggers, featuring the crescent shaped handle, held in exactly the same way as the two cylindrical objects in the Halaf slab. In the absence of written sources, concerning ancient Syrian mythology, an interlacing of Gilgamesh’s epos with local traditions cannot be ruled out, but the specific graphic rendering of this symbolic fights is a distinctive Syrian creation, quite likely stimulated, as suggested by P. Matthiae, by Egyptian models.61 The slab bears no inscription. Slab A3, 49 (= Slab 182, according to its location, here Fig. 11).62 Two men, featuring identical clothing and hair-dresses and of the same height, hold each other by their heads and pierce each other with a short dagger. This subject, which we have already mentioned, is the exact pendant of the mortal struggle between man and lion, but with human characters. It also originated in the Early Syrian period, where it appears in the wooden carvings from the Royal Palace G (Fig. 4).63 The evolution of this specific subject is quite difficult to follow, as apparently it was not frequently used in Syrian art, until it reappeared in this slab from Tell Halaf.64 The meaning of the scene is quite the same as that of the struggle against the lion, as neither of the two fighters prevails over the other; in this sense, this composition cannot be considered as a representation of a victory in war and is thus ideologically quite different from the usual war themes of the Near Eastern world.65 The slab bears no inscription. Sequence of slabs A3, 45+152 (= Slabs 138+139 according to their location, here Fig. 12).66 The first slab features a man climbing up a tree, which might be a stylized palm-tree, while the second slab depicts a composite monster, a kind of winged lion-sphinx, with two heads, a lion and a female one, placed one over the other. The connection of the two scenes closely recalls the side sectors of the Investiture Painting from Mari,67 where, in fact, in the top registers two date-palms are represented, with two men climbing up them in order to harvest the fruits. At a lower level, monsters and mixed beings are represented in three registers one on top of the other. These beings, usually related with Ishtar’s milieu, in the Mari Hogarth 1969: Pl. B. 15, b. Matthiae 2013d: 653–656. 62 Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 35b, H. 0.57, W. 0.38 (VA 8857). 63 Matthiae 2010a: 171, fig. 86. 64 Pinnock 2015b: 114. 65 In this instance, too, the absence of written sources prevents any sound hypothesis of interpretation. Possibly, these iconographic motifs are related to a peculiar Syrian concept of the natural cycle, including life and death, as represented in Ugaritic mythology by the never-ending fight between Baal and Môt: Smith 1986 offers a general interpretation of the whole Baal’s cycle, and stresses in particular his royal characteristics, ibidem: 333; as for his interpretation of the fight with Môt, see pp. 338–339. 66 Ibidem: Taf. 33b, H. 0.71, W. 0.37; 88a, H. 0.61, W. 0.41 (VA 8843). 67 Parrot 1958: 53–66; Margueron 2004: 508–509. 60 61

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painting are not well preserved, yet one may recognize, from top to bottom, a composite being with lion body, possibly covered with feathers on the back68 and coloured wings, wearing a kind of feathered head-dress, while its face or muzzle are not preserved; the second creature apparently has the same body and wings, and also features possible feathers on its back, but a coloured pattern on its breast seems to hint at the presence of a mane, and a curved appendix is represented on the back of its head, while again head and face/muzzle are lost; the third figure in this pattern, though also missing its head, should be a bull, represented while ascending a mountain, on which it places its left forepaw. The pattern singled out here, with the date-palms, the harvesters and the composite being, seems to connect the Tell Halaf carvings uniquely with the Old Syrian/Old Babylonian milieu of Mari at the beginning of the second millennium BC, and yet, in our opinion, both the Tell Halaf and Mari scenes can be ideologically related with the political and religious milieus well represented in northern Syria particularly by the palace workshops of the archaic Early Syrian Ebla. In fact, in Old Babylonian glyptics the pattern featuring the king who receives kingship from Ishtar’s warrior hypostasis, or faces the goddess in Lama’s only presence is known,69 but only at Ebla, or in milieus related with Ebla, thus far, the representation of kingship and of its connection with the great goddess are depicted in composite patterns, hinting not only at the act of conferring royalty, but also at its possible consequences. Possibly the oldest occurrences of such complex patterns may be found in a small group of cylinder seals impressions from Kültepe kārum II, which were correctly ascribed to the Ebla milieus either for the presence of an inscription mentioning a king of Ebla, or for the mere representation of the personage wearing a peculiar and well recognizable peaked cap.70 Later on, Ishtar’s Stele from Ebla summarized the articulated relation between royalty and goddess in scenes, dominated by Ishtar standing in a winged chapel on the back of a bull, and flanked by bull-men, depicting feasting, heroic deeds of the king’s and monsters and animals related with the goddess.71 In the Investiture Painting, which might be contemporary with

In fact, its back is covered with horizontal strokes of the same shape and colours as the feathers composing the wings: Strommenger / Hirmer 1964: Pl. XXIX. At this regard see also the extended discussion in Matthiae 2013e: 545–548. 69 See, e.g., Porada 1948: Pl. LIV, nos 371–376. 70 In one impression, which cannot be directly related with the Ebla court milieus – but which is certainly a north-Syrian production – the main scene is the presentation of a personage, led by the goddess Lama towards another personage, seated and holding a bowl in his hand, who does not have divine characteristics; a secondary motif features precisely a date-palm tree, heavy with fruits, at the feet of which there are a female figure with long flowing hair, and another male character: Teissier 1994: 231, n. 477; the seal is included in Teissier’s Syro-Cappadocian/Syrian colony style group (Ibidem: p. 57–58). For an interpretation of female figures with long hair, and with special reference with the Kültepe evidence, see Pinnock 2006. 71 Matthiae 2013e. 68

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this monument, or earlier,72 the warrior goddess offers the king the staff-and-ball symbol, probably meaning the capacity to rule, and this act guarantees prosperity to the land, represented by the two goddesses holding vases with flowing water, placed in the lower register of the main scene, but also by the fruit-rich palm-trees, on one of which a dove is perching. The first slab bears the inscription “Palace of Kapara, Khadianu’s son”, and the second one simply “Palace of Kapara”; so, both carvings should certainly belong to the same figurative project. Sequence of slabs A3 108+44+65 (= Slabs 172+173+174, here Fig. 13).73 The three slabs form, in our opinion, another section of sequence, and, though placed at some distance from the previous one, semantically related with it, and not only for the presence of the date-palm. The sequence includes a fight between lion and bull, a man climbing up the palm in order to harvest dates, a roaring lion. In this instance we might have a synthesis of the results of good government, where conflict is represented by the lion assaulting the bull, peace and good government by the date-palm and its plentiful harvest, and the goddess’s protection by the roaring lion. Slabs 172 and 173 bear the inscription stating their belonging to Kapara’s Palace, the third one has no inscription. The two sequences identified are separated by a number of slabs which do not, in their turn, apparently create sequences, and which, again apparently, do not seem to be related with the groups we have singled out. So, the complete series between slabs 138 and 174 would include: 1) the man climbing up the palm-tree; 2) the winged lion-sphinx; 3) a tree; 4) a mixed being with bird-body and human head; 5) a man killing a bird; 6) two running animals, perhaps lions; 7) a bowman; 8) a man killing his enemy; 9) the chariot scene; 10) the man piercing the lion; 11) a mixed monster with lion body and head, bird of prey hind legs, horns and wings; 12) a man carrying spear and shield; 13) an apparently weapon-less man turned towards the previous one, 14) a man killing an animal; 15) a plant; 16) a man carrying an object;74 17) a standing bull; 18) a duck; 19) an armed man; 20) a bull with a forepaw tramping on a mountain; 21) a goat-like animal; 22) a bull which gores an animal; 23) a plant; 24) a gazelle with a plant; 25) a man holding a curved staff or weapon; 26) a man, a duck, and another animal; 27) a plant; 28) a stag; 29) a plant; 30) a winged genius; 31) two men holding a staff between them;75 32) a man wearing a peculiar kilt; 33) a man in front of a loaded table; 34) the lion Moortgat 1964; 1967: Sn 74–76. Opitz / Moortgat 1955, Taf. 67a, H. 0.65, W. 0,48; 33a, H. 0.64, W. 0.42 (British Museum); 45b, H. 0.62, W. 0.42. 74 Ibidem: Taf. 24a. The object was identified with a stone by the authors, but the slab is not very well preserved in that point and it does not seem possible to confirm or reject this interpretation. There is a possibility that it is a severed head: see, e.g., the relief from the Southern Gate of Zincirli in Mazzoni 1997a: 319, fig. 13. 75 In this representation, too, I find a reminder of an ancient iconographic motif, whose story can be traced since the Old Syrian period, in the celebration of a pact represented on the cult basin from Temple N at Ebla (Matthiae 2018). 72 73

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attacking the bull; 35) the man climbing up the palm-tree; 36) the roaring lion. Possibly pushing the evidence too far, this long sequence may be summarized as a representation of a well-ordered and prosperous community, where plants and animals are free to grow, under the protection of the town élites who take care both of human and animal foes, and the benevolent surveillance of the town goddess, or in general of the town gods, represented by lesser divine figures – the geniuses – and mixed beings. The group of slabs was located at the south-east corner of the perimetrical wall of the khilani, between the 4th and 5th towers included, so they were the most visible part of the carved decoration for those entering the citadel and proceeding toward the gate leading to the square in front of the palace. The individual iconographies we have taken into account seem to descend from an older patrimony, elaborated in the Early and Old Syrian periods and the strings we have singled out seem to demonstrate that their original meaning had not been lost. While the main iconographic stream is certainly a royal one, the presumed royal characters do not feature definite characteristics, and only the actions they perform allow to identify them as rulers, or rather as ideal representations of rulers. In fact, in the Early and Old Syrian period, kings may be easily recognized by their distinctive head-dresses – turbans and tiaras –, but already in the Old Syrian period, in Ishtar’s stele, the personages engaged in duels with lions, only feature short curly hair, but no recognizable head-dress. In the Middle Syrian period, royal figures are scanty, but the Qatna statues have a peculiar hair-dress and a distinctive way to depict beards.76 In order to better understand the representations of the elites in Early and Old Syrian Syria it is important to analyse also the supports on which such images are depicted. As far as can be judged from the Eblaic evidence, the palace was, already in the mature Early Syrian period, the core of the manifestation of kingship, and this led to the elaboration and production of close to life-size images of royalty and of refined fittings and pieces of furniture: inlaid wall panels, thrones, chairs, possibly tables or beds – rather to be defined as large thrones – could be easily made with the abundant timber present in the region and were lavishly inlaid with marble, lapis lazuli, shell, and gold.77 These supports were also made to host ideal figures of kings and court ladies, as ideological images of kingship, rather than as true-to-life portraits of living members of the palace élite. In this sense, the presence of these paradigmatic pictures might somehow hint, through the superimposition of living and portrayed sovereigns, to the perpetuation of the ruling dynasty, as was clearly and powerfully manifest in the ritual for the renewal of kingship, accomplished by both the king and queen, which included

The style of the Qatna statues is very close to the style of Alalakh, as represented by a beautiful steatite head of the XVII century BC: Matthiae 2000: 171. For the Qatna specimens, see Teinz 2014: figs 1–3, who accepts the proposal of the contemporaneity of the two statues with the head form Alalakh: ibidem: 11. 77 Pinnock 2018b. 76

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in an organic frame the living ruling couple, the royal deified ancestors, and the divine couple of Kura and Barama.78 Precisely the production of refined court artifacts of wood since the mature Early Syrian period, and later on, since the Old Syrian period, of ivory, may have been the vehicle for the transmission of iconographies from one period to the other: official monuments – statues and stele –, used by the kings to represent their own real power and accomplishments to their gods and their subjects, were customarily placed near the city-gates, in cult areas, or in tombs – the statues – and in open spaces near the temples – the stele.79 On the other hand, refined palace fittings and furniture might have been the vehicle for the ideal representation of royal functions.80 We may define the first kind of support – the official statue or stele – an ideologically “strong” one, and therefore more conservative, as they had to transmit a clear, not ambiguous message: for this reason, perhaps, this kind of monuments is seldom to be found in politically weak periods, like Early Bronze IVB and the Middle Syrian periods.81 On the other hand, decorative fittings and pieces of furniture can be considered an ideologically “weak” support, more subject to fashion, for instance, and certainly also the object of trade with foreign, even far away countries, as we know happened with the inlaid pieces of furniture traded from Ebla to Ur in Early Bronze IVB.82 Possibly for this reason, these supports were less conservative, and may have been more frequently influenced by foreign fashions, as may be observed, particularly in wood and ivory inlays in the Old and Middle Syrian period, with the progressive diffusion of Egyptian iconographies or styles.83

Fronzaroli 1993; Pinnock 2016a. Pinnock in 2020a; in 2020b. 80 Matthiae 2010c: 1644. 81 Though the evidence is far from being exhaustive and organic, one may observe that there was no trace of monumental statuary in the EB IVB levels of Ebla, where, moreover, it is quite likely that some cult building at least featured a strong continuity in location, from the temple built over the debris of the Temple of the Rock of EB IVA, in the Lower Town south-east, to the definitely less monumental building erected over the Red Temple on the west edge of the Acropolis: Matthiae 2009: 162–177. This evidence is quite meaningful, as it is certain that there is no trace of a building between the Royal Palace G of EB IVA and the Royal Palace E of Middle Bronze I–II, so in the late Early Syrian period, at Ebla the location of the temple was kept, albeit with a poorer building, but the location of the Royal Palace was drastically changed, from the Acropolis to the Lower Town north: Matthiae 1995: 659–674. Similar phenomena may be observed also in the Middle Syrian period, when frequently the highest regions of towns are occupied only by temples (Pinnock 1995), and when monumental royal statues are thus far missing, with the exception of the masterpieces from Qatna, which were located at the entrances to royal burials, thus not in a very visible position. 82 Matthiae 2010a: 192–194. 83 Scandone Matthiae 2002: 23–26, 29–34; Matthiae 1997: 126–130; Gachet-Bizollon 78 79

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Due to the chance of archaeological research, but also as a consequence of historical events, we do not know the late Early Syrian culture in depth: what we may infer from historical events is that, after the destruction of the most important north Syrian towns, and the possible consequent economic crisis of the region, towns were rebuilt and re-affirmed, at least in part, their hold over an important part of the international trade routes leading from the Mediterranean to Sumer.84 After the destruction which swept away the Early Syrian cultures, at the very beginning of the Old Syrian period, the re-building of towns like Ebla was accompanied by new elaborations about the ideology of kingship, which were in part based on the glorious tradition of the mature Early Syrian period – albeit featuring original creations of the new Amorite sovereigns, too – thus creating the impression of basic continuity we feel when dealing with their accomplishments.85 Once again, these cultures were brought to an end, around 1600 BC, as a consequence of Hattusili I’s and Mursili I’s campaigns in northern Syria. After these events, the political scenario of northern Syria dramatically changed, as towns like Ebla were not able to survive the disaster.86 The region centre of gravity was located further to the west, closer to the Mediterranean coast, where the organization of urban centres was quite different. During the Middle Syrian period, the net of principalities located in the valleys parallel to the coast, and on the Mediterranean coast itself, struggled to survive, between the expanding political power of the Hittite Empire from the north and the Egyptian empire from the south. Yet, when also this period ended, possibly as a result of a combination of events, including natural disasters, like earthquakes, the new political formations of the neo-Syrian period had to act in a totally different international background. The Assyrian empire launched a politic of periodical warfare, in order to obtain vital agricultural resources from the Syrian region, while, on the other hand, Arab nomadic groups were probably getting hold of international trade, looking for convenient stops and markets in the same area. The Aramaic princes of Syria, frequently builders of new towns, and certainly rulers over quite large and rich populations, decided to revitalize the cultural heritage they felt was their own, but what they had was, on the one hand, a strong memory of the past in its purest expression – the traditional official art – and, on the other hand, a rich patrimony of iconographies and decorative motifs which had been enriched with elements coming from elsewhere – particularly from Egypt – and which, at the same time, being employed for elegant court fittings, had been more and more imbued with decorative, rather than ideological/political, meanings.87

2007: in particular 232–233. Feldman 2006, though, as stated before, her basic assumption cannot be fully shared; Pfälzner 2015: 214. 84 Matthiae 2010a: 194–198. 85 Matthiae 2010a: 214–215; Pinnock 2004; 2009. 86 About the three destructions of Ebla and their outcomes see Matthiae 2013a; 2013b. 87 See, at this regard, also Liverani’s considerations on the role of the exchange of goods

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It is possible that the carved orthostats, with their peculiar locations on the palaces outer walls, or along ceremonial streets, should not be considered official monuments strictu senso, that is, vehicles for the official representation of kingship and of its prerogatives, but rather a kind of scenographic background for the official ceremonies concerning kingship, or for the manifestation of the ruler himself in public, or for cult activities. So, as regards the figurative program of Tell Halaf/Guzana, instead of conveying a “linear” meaning, these reliefs were planned to put together images related with a glorious past, which might be perceived as a kind of representation of everlasting royalty, with images depicting the result of the presence of a perennially renewed kingship: fertility for animals and plants, peace and welfare for humans. But possibly, though with important differences which should be analysed individually, this happened also elsewhere, like at Karkemish, where the reliefs decorating the Processional Street are a kind of background for the king’s statue, sitting on a base with two roaring lions, where also one may recognize important memories of ancient artistic traditions.88 At Tell Halaf the complex of the citadel probably needs to be analysed in depth: certainly, besides the real function of the khilani, one must take into account the presence of the royal tombs, with their monumental male and female statues, close to the building, and the peculiar façade with the columns made in the shape of divine figures, possibly stressing the close relation between gods and kingship, and recalling the fact that the king would become a god himself after death. In conclusion, I think that in the Neo-Syrian period, the Aramaic principalities, though in a general political situation quite difficult for them, as a consequence of the growing expansionism first of the Assyrian empire, later of the Babylonians, and in an economic condition by no means comparable with that of the great capitals of the Early and Old Syrian periods, believed they could somehow revive the splendour of their ancestors, possibly also in the light of the important opportunities maritime trade seemed to open up at least for those of them flourishing on the sea coast. At least nominally, they seemed to recover some role, and they therefore turned, for the elaboration of their public image, to a figurative heritage well attested and evidently still functional in its general lines. They in part also kept the original supports for this visual communication, like the precious carved and inlaid pieces of furniture for palace fittings and the great monumental statuary for public and funerary images.89 On the other hand, they

in this period, in Liverani 1994: 205–206. Mazzoni 1997a: 322–328. 89 See, e.g. the large royal statue sitting on a base with two roaring lions from the entrance gate to the Processional Way of Karkemish (Woolley 1921: Pl. B. 25), where the seated figure presents elements of strong originality, particularly because he does not hold a cup in his hand, as is usual in the sitting royal statues of the Syrian region, but the base with the two lions certainly belongs to an Old Syrian tradition well known from Ebla (Pinnock 2020b). Much more “traditional” in its general concept is the statue with 88

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were also innovators, as they adapted this ancient language to a medium rarely employed before, but also “invented” earlier, in the Old Syrian period, namely the orthostats, placed at the base of the outer perimetrical walls of palaces, or along processional streets. In this frame it seems the time has come to shift from the macro-regional to the micro-regional picture, in order to try and understand, as far as possible, the individual origins and developments of figurative patterns and iconographies, as well as the reciprocal interactions and influences of cultures in contact, and sometimes in contrast with each other. Certainly, the adoption of the different iconographies or themes looks quite meditated and not mechanic. The program at Karkemish looks more regular, perhaps precisely for the function of the places where the reliefs were placed: the orthostats, portraying a celebration of kingship, connected with the presence of monumental royal statues, were placed along a processional street, or anyhow along a path connecting temple, Water Gate, and khilani. Zincirli and Tell Halaf seem to be closer in general concept: here the carved decoration looks like a kind of “static” celebration, possibly with a limited fruition by people, whose main function might have been simply in their being there, rather than in the possibility to be seen.90 Chronology has not been an issue here, as, in our opinion, it does not have a great relevance for the general hypothesis proposed here, while it is certainly paramount in case the relations among different supports should be explored, and even more when wishing to relate the production of Syrian orthostats with the flourishing of Assyrian palace reliefs. Finally, I believe that the definition of NeoSyrian for the cultures of inner and coastal Syria in the 1st millennium BC is the most suitable, as it seems to respond more appropriately to the definition of their remote and closer origins, of their developments and even of some expressive nuance in the complex of their architectural and artistic accomplishments.91

canceled inscription, and possibly not belonging to its finding context, from the khilani of Karkemish: Woolley 1952: Pl. B. 48, b. As regards the possible meaning of the big royal statues and of their placement, frequently close to gates, see Ussishkin 1989. 90 See, at this regard, also Gilibert 2011: 97–114. 91 We here refer particularly to the visual representation of the chosen themes. In fact, certainly, for instance, a theme like the deer hunt had appeared in the imperial Hittite world quite likely as an element for the characterization of kingship: see AAVV 2002: 109, fig. 7b, orthostats from the Sphinxes’ Gate of Alaca Höyük; the same theme appears also on a bronze bowl from Kastamonu, ibidem: 231–232, 342, n. 101. Yet, deer hunt appears more as a court pleasure than as a ritual act, as lion hunt definitely was, particularly in the Syrian version, where both fighters seem unable to prevail over each other. The same ideological range seems to be behind the production of bronze standards with deer figures, well known from the funerary contexts of Early Bronze Age Alaca Höyük: Akurgal 1976: Pls. 1–6. For other considerations about these subjects see Mazzoni 1997b: 292–293.

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Fig. 1. Tell Halaf/Guzana, relief depicting a hunt scene, Slab A3, 57 (after Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 42a).

Fig. 3. Tell Halaf/Guzana, slab depicting a fight between man and lion, Slab A3, 51 (after Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 37).

Fig. 2. Tell Halaf/Guzana, relief depicting a long-haired woman holding a dagger, Slab A3, 47 (after Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 34b).

Fig. 4. Ebla, Royal Palace G, wooden inlay depicting the fight between two men (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

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Fig. 5. Ebla, Sanctuary G3, detail of Ishtar’s stele with the fight between a warrior and a lion (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

Fig. 6. Nimrud, Fort Shalmaneser, fragment of ivory inlay depicting the fight between a warrior and a lion (after Herrmann 1992: Pl. 55, n. 297).

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Fig. 7. Kazaphani, Cyprus, fragment of terra cotta ornamental cuirass (after Markoe 1988: Tav. I, fig. 1).

Fig. 8. Tell Halaf/Guzana, slab depicting a personage defeated by two warriors, Slab A3, 176 (after Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 102a).

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Fig. 9. Ebla, Sanctuary G3, drawing of a detail of Ishtar’ stele, back face, bottom register, depicting two kings defeating an enemy (© Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

Fig. 10. Karkemish, Processional Entry, slab depicting two warriors defeating an enemy (after Hogarth 1969: Pl. B. 15, b).

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F. Pinnock Fig. 11. Tell Halaf/Guzana, slab depicting the fight between two warriors, Slab A3, 49 (after Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 35b).

Fig. 12. Tell Halaf/Guzana, sequence of slabs A3, 45+152, depicting a man climbing up a tree and a mixed monster (after Opitz / Moortgat 1955: Taf. 33b, 88a).

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Fig. 13. Tell Halaf/Guzana, sequence of slabs A3 108+44+65, depicting a lion attacking a bull, a man climbing up a tree and a roaring lion (after Opitz / Moortgat 1955, Taf. 67a, 33a, 45b).

Peering through the Door A Note on the Functions and Relations of the atû in Neo-Assyrian Society Simonetta Ponchia* / Giovanni B. Lanfranchi Università degli Studi di Verona* I. n recent years, various articles have been dedicated to the topic of the formation, position and function of the elites, especially focussing on their role in the management and the propagation of the Neo-Assyrian imperial system, and on the development, the spreading and the continuation of its basic ideology after the Assyrian political collapse.1 Much attention has been devoted especially to the study of the relations between the highest officials and the scholars, and the king;2 the circle of the highest royal officials, who formed what has been called the “royal cabinet”,3 has also been studied as regards its possible religious and mystical representations.4 Further, considering the various lower categories of officials, one can find evidence concerning the junction of the higher ranks with their subjects, especially in legal documents, where the šaknu, rab kiṣri, rab hašše, hazannu are among the most frequently mentioned officials. The articulation of this system, however, still remains ill-defined, and hierarchies and tasks still need investigation as regards the physical means, the channels and the places by which and where the administration was accomplished, also thanks to the comparison with data on palatial structures and urban environments where the members of the elites may have resided.5

On these matters see e.g. Pongratz-Leisten 2013; Richardson 2016; Beaulieu 2010. Especially Richardson 2016 proposes a detailed analysis of the formation of an imperial governmental elite and of the development of cultural and conceptual means of cohesion such as cosmopolitanism and Assyrianization. Unfortunately, we could not profit of the recent important study on the Neo-Assyrian household by M. Gross (Gross 2020), which was published during this volume’s printing process. 2 Pongratz-Leisten 2013, 292, synthesizes the position of the Assur scholars as follows: “Their shrewd intertwinement of religious expertise and skills in the exercise of operational power enabled them to define the seat of the national god Ashur as the nexus of authority, even when political power was settled elsewhere”. 3 Parpola 1995. 4 See in general Lanfranchi / Rollinger 2016, and especially Gaspa 2016. 5 Recently, this perspective was greatly enhanced by the Helsinki Project on Neo-Assyrian prosopography whose last product is the volume on Neo-Assyrian Specialists (Baker 1

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The office of the atû, “gatekeeper”, an official in charge of the surveillance of palaces, temples, and city gates is an interesting case vis-à-vis these perspectives, and can also be considered in connection with the mythical representations of his protection of these spaces.6 Ritual performances bear witness to the actualization of the mythological scenario into everyday experience.7 It is impossible to know how, and how much these beliefs and the monumental and sculptured representations of gates and their mythical guardians8 influenced the perception of institutional offices and authority emanating from their personnel. It may be easily stated, however, that the atû was a powerful official with a crucial responsibility:9 he was positioned in key points such as the inner and outer gates of the royal palaces as stated in some extispicy queries (cf. SAA 4 139, 142, 144, 146, 147).10 K. Radner (2010) described in detail the functioning of doors/gates, and the work of the atû and of other officials responsible for lockers.11 The responsibility of these officials, however, seems to have extended to the protection of other sectors of the palaces and temples; and this offers the opportunity to consider multiple and sometimes variously interconnecting relations. Therefore, the position and function of the gatekeeper can be chosen as a starting point for some notes on

2017). Cf. Huxley 2000. 7 A fitting example comes from a recently re-edited conjuration which addresses the gatekeeper of the Netherworld. The text KAL 2 36, edited by D. Schwemer (2007), is a Sammeltafel which contains incantations and recipes against illness and distress whose causes are identified either in a witchcraft act or in divine anger. In order to be healed the patient is guided to perform acts whose rationale rests in the myth of “Ištar’s Descent to the Netherworld”, where the goddess is liberated from death when Dumuzi is sent as a substitute for her. Similarly, the witch, represented by images shaped in wax or other materials, should go to the Netherworld as a substitute for the patient. Bidu, the gatekeeper of the Netherworld, is asked to lock the images of the witch (male or female) into the Netherworld, which would free the patient from bewitchment. 8 Cf. Kertai 2015a, and 2015b, 128 and pls. 20–21 for the distribution of apotropaic figures in the Nineveh palaces. 9 On the danger of entering the palace and the fear it inspired cf. e.g. the tale “The Poor man of Nippur”, and the ritual series É.GAL.KU4.RA, “Entering the palace” (see the references in Radner 2005). 10 This small group of oracular queries deals with the possibility that some official may revolt against the king (Esarhaddon); all ranks of officials are listed in detail, and the doorkeepers ša bītāni and ša qanni are included. 11 Radner 2010, 280, concludes suggesting the “hypothesis that the offices of lock master and of entrance overseer were created only at the beginning of Assurbanipal’s reign, when the recent uncovering of the Sasi conspiracy had shown that events similar to Sennacherib’s murder had only just been avoided and the need for a more sophisticated security system must have seemed overwhelming”. The power of the doorkeepers was reduced, as well as the risks connected to their excessive and exclusive power in protecting the royal abode. 6

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the Neo-Assyrian society and administration, a topic which Mario Liverani has exhaustively treated tracing new research perspectives. This short contribution is a too small token of our appreciation for the ground-breaking works he has devoted to this and to other sectors of Ancient Near Eastern history. The gatekeeper in temples As for the temple sector, the available sources provide some explicit information about the duties of the atû. His responsibility of controlling the personnel belonging to the temple organization, and especially of checking the access to the temple precincts may be gauged from a royal grant which assigns offerings and tax-exempted land and provides farmers to the temple of Hurzuhina (STT 44 = SAA 12 48). The latter are labelled “Assyrians” (aš-šur-a-a.KI?),12 and a priest from the Adad temple in Assur is placed as their manager. Among the personnel under his authority the officials responsible for protecting the seclusion of the temple are clearly identified: LÚ.[Í].DU8.MEŠ ša É–DINGIR šú-nu, “they are the gate-guards of the temple” (r. 13).13 This provision shows that in the temple sector the atû could be at the orders of the šangû, and that he could be specifically chosen among a category of officials designated mār ummâni, i.e. members of the administrative ranks and probably of the temple personnel; probably, those mentioned in the grant were transferred to the new location together with the temple manager. More in general, it may be observed that positions and roles of the administrative category of the ummânu, especially within the temple sector, were the object of royal provisions which the members of that category jealously kept as documents of self-identification and self-qualification. It is also to be noted that quite often positions were assigned to members of the same family of specialists. VAT 13718 (SAA 20 50), excavated in house N7 in Assur – where possibly also the “Synchronistic King List”, mentioning the counsellors of the Assyrian kings, the ummânus par excellence, was found – records the duties of the personnel of the Aššur temple.14 After a section containing a detailed description of the responsibilities of the officials who enter the rooms and are in contact with the Due to the fact that the temple personnel is from Assur it may be even hypothesized that the term aš-šur-a-a.KI actually means “from the city of Assur”. 13 The meaning of the passage as a whole (r. 9–13: mGIN–10 SANGA DUMU.MEŠ!!um-ma-nu ana ⸢Š⸣U!.2-šú ⸢á⸣š-kun ⸢a⸣-mì-ri É.KUR la i-la-mad LÚ.[Í].DU8.MEŠ ša É–DINGIR šú-nu), however, is awkward and not clearly understandable; provisionally we follow the editor who suggests the translation “I placed personnel under the authority of the priest Ken-Adad. A visitor shall not learn about the sanctuary; they are the gateguards of the temple”. 14 See ALA 2, 83. The archive mainly contains literary texts. The “Synchronistic King List” and the instructions for the temple service possibly come from the upper level of the same house. 12

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paraphernalia belonging to the gods, there is a list of guardians and staff members responsible for specific tasks: they are lahhinu, atû parakki, ša muhhi bīt Aššur, ša kitturišu, ša muhhi šahuri, ša gaṣṣātešu (“firemen”), šāqiu.15 After a break, the text continues with a list which records, among other officials, who are perhaps all labelled šakin(?) ṭēmāni, the gatekeepers of the Kalkal, Enpi, Neš-ili-mati, and “[Ninurta] of the storehouse” gates (ii 3ʹ–6ʹ). These gates of the Ešarra in Assur are named after the mythical guardians of the temple of Enlil (cf. KAV 42 = SAA 20 49 45–48),16 and this suggests an overlapping of the functional and theological levels. Ass 13956cf (SAA 20 51), copied by Kiṣir-Aššur,17 is an edict of a Shalmaneser (presumably Shalmaneser III) which seems to list the personnel of the Ešarra temple according to their hierarchical positions, and contains references to the rewards to which they are entitled. After the priest of the god Aššur, who is at the head of the organization, in a section separated by horizontal lines the tablet lists the šangû šaniu, ṭupšar bīt ili, lahhinu, šangû Šerua, atû rabiu, and kalû rabiu/ galamāhu. In the temple organization the office of the atû seems to be hierarchically structured, and its top member is part of the restricted group of highest officials who share the responsibility of the functioning of the temple. This small group of texts and the case of Kiṣir-Aššur further suggest that these officials were entrusted with a role in preserving and spreading the Assyrian tradition, and that they shared the awareness of their appurtenance to a group which derived a specific status from such a responsibility; we might further speculate that they connected the role of the personnel to the idea that the ummânu acted as a counsellor of the king. On the other hand, in the daily practice derived from these position and role, these officials often interrelated with other members and sectors of the administrative system. The atû had also to face critical situations, such as that described in two letters sent to the king by Taklak-ana-Bel, governor of Nasibina (SAA 1 235, 236). A rab kiṣri was accused of stealing sheep, of not providing the men requested to work in Dur-Šarruken and of seeking refuge in a temple for avoiding his duties. The king suggested to solve the matter through negotiation, and we may reasonably wonder if the keeper of the temple gate was directly involved in the matter. The list is introduced by the sentence (r. i 14ʹf.) EN–ma-ṣar-ra-a-te šá É–AN.ŠÁR / a-di a-pal É–DINGIR, “The guardians of the House of Aššur, including the providing for the House of God”. 16 (45) dKAL.KAL dEN–TÙR dGÌR.MEŠ (46) dUR.MAH.MEŠ den-pi dMU!–DINGIR– KUR (47) dMAŠ ub-⸢sa!⸣-a-ti (48) PAB dÌ.DU8.MEŠ É.ŠAR.RA, “Kalkal, Bel-tarbaṣi, the Šakkans, the Lions, the Enpis, Neš-ili-mati, Ninurta of the storehouse: total of gatekeepers of Ešarra”; cf. Van Driel 1969, 47–50. 17 Cf. Van Driel 1969, 179–185; Menzel 1981, T18f. On Kiṣir-Aššur see Baker 2000, 623f., no. 26. His career from the earliest steps in apprenticeship to the role of chief exorcist of the Aššur temple is conveniently attested in his library’s documents in Assur. 15

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The atû officials of lower rank, besides performing their primary task of guardians, routinely also dealt with the administration of the temple resources as members of the temple staff. In texts from the Nabû temple in Nimrud, officials bearing this title – Daiai (since 66218) and Nabû-balassu-iqbi especially – are recorded among the witnesses to contracts; we can reasonably suppose that they were the officials serving in the same sanctuary to which the transacted goods belonged. The private votive donation SAA 12 95 (ND 5463), recording the donation of two boys to the temple of Nabû in Kalhu by their uncle, is witnessed by an atû together with various members of the temple personnel. Evidence concerning the palace sector The need of employing a trustful personnel was felt also in the secular sector. In a letter sent to the king from a western province (ND 2437 = SAA 1 176), the official Adda-hati asks for experienced personnel: “Now, let the king my lord give me Assyrian and Itu’ean people (so) I can have (them) hold the territory (madbar);19 there is no Assyrian city-overseer (ša muhhi āli) nor any Assyrian gate-guards (atû) in Ṣupat”. This letter shows that the Itu’eans were equated to the Assyrians, and that these officials (ša muhhi āli and atû) were entrusted with the sensitive tasks of protecting the seats and offices of the Assyrian administration, and of practicing and spreading its rules, keeping in contact with the local population both in Assyria proper and in the recent provinces.20 Whatever the exact meaning of the term “Assyrian” in this context, it seems that qualified personnel belonging to the ranks of the administration was required.21 In fact, these positions entailed not only the

All dates are BCE if not indicated otherwise. Parpola 1987, 138 neither translates nor includes in the index the word madbar transcribed as fragmentary. 20 On the role of “Assyrians” in the management of the empire, see, e.g., SAA 13 20, whose sender claims that the shepherds in charge of cultic meals refuse to consign the sheep they must pay as their own fiscal contribution, and respond to his order with open rebellion. This attitude not only has practical consequences in the administration, but also is particularly detrimental to the image of the state, as pointed out by the sender: “If these people who are Assyrians refuse to fear the king, my [lord], how will foreigners behave [towards] the king my lord?” (SAA 13 19). See also SAA 16 64, where the anonymous sender suggests the king to take care of denunciations coming both from somebody belonging to the administrative body and from someone dependent from a private citizen (an Assyrian), probably as a means of fostering the royal authority and encouraging good administration. 21 On the question of the perception of ethnicity see most recently Fales 2018 with previous bibliography. Richardson 2016, 40, observes: “(…) to be counted as an ‘Assyrian’ carried little weight or advantage vis-à-vis other ethnonyms, except insofar as taxes and service were concerned”. After identifying various models for conceptualizing an Assyrian elite 18 19

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role of armed guardians and police, but also that of reference for legal matters, at least as far as these involved the institution and its members or interests. The identification of a space where the gatekeepers’ office was physically located is difficult, and the entire system of access to the palaces is still quite unclear. Moreover, different solutions were adopted in palace structures with different functions. For instance, Sargon’s palace in Dur-Sharruken was accessed through gates flanked by colossi;22 these gates led into a large courtyard, whose function seems to have been primarily that of admittance into other areas of the palace complex. D. Kertai observes that the rooms which had not the function of passages but were perhaps used as workshops and stores, were located only in the south-western side of the courtyard. At its southern corner, a “larger suite (…) probably formed the ‘corner office,’ and must have belonged to an official in charge of organizing the comings and goings in this courtyard”.23 Moreover, the internal connections within the palace seem to have been controlled through a system still visible in the architectural remains, which has corridors “intersected by guardrooms”.24 This can be compared only in very general terms with the written references to a hierarchy of gatekeepers and guards who were distributed at the outer and inner doors of the palaces. In fact, a debated issue, connected with the distribution and use of the spaces within the palaces, is whether the presence of officials as witnesses in legal texts found in the same palaces implies their involvement as representatives of the institution, or simply, on a more personal basis, as friends and colleagues of the interested parties. From a comparative view of various archives, it seems clear that a fixed system of participation of administrative personnel did not exist; various officials were equally entitled to witness legal acts but, depending on the interests dealt with in the transactions, specific branches/offices of the administration had to be involved. This is suggested in particular by those few cases in which generic affiliations such as “servant of …” are added to the name of an individual whose appurtenance had to be made

status, he concludes: “All of these models, unlike universalist aspirations, relied on the Assyrian creation of divisions, distinctions, and demarcations of eliteness” (p. 41). From a more practical administrative point of view, it is also to be considered that “The definitional problem scholars wrestle with here is very similar to the one the Assyrians themselves confronted: from a heterodox world of wealthy trading cities, rural villages, venerable temple towns, and pastoralist tribes, the Assyrians faced the task of collating and creating some kind of rational hierarchy out of a myriad of titles and institutions originally created for purely local purposes, and often not directly transposable into the lexicographic categories of Assyrian administration” (p. 46). 22 The entrances to the inner sectors of the palace area were characterized by apotropaic figures that adorned the façades of courtyards and especially the throne room (Kertai 2015b, 103). On the problems concerning the reconstruction of the structure of this area see Kertai 2015b, 95f. 23 Kertai 2015b, 95. 24 Kertai 2015b, 102.

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explicit, not only because he was not a well-known person, but because it was necessary to mention the institution for which he was working. Kalhu

The most ancient texts of the Neo-Assyrian palace archives come from the old capital Kalhu. Among the legal texts from Room 57 of Assurnasirpal II’s North-West Palace there is a group of texts belonging to the “archive” of Nabû-taklatua, the Palace Scribe. These transactions may be framed in the context of the palace administration, where officials act as responsible for its branches and tasks; in this framework, also some witnesses belong to the palace personnel.25 Among them, Mušezib-Aššur bears the title of palace doorkeeper (Edubba 10 15).26 Other two doorkeepers are attested in a land sale (Edubba 10 27), together with other members of the establishment, and in a sale of seven people (Edubba 10 32), belonging to six owners, to the steward of the Queen. In GPA 94 a doorkeeper witnesses a receipt for a payment of debts made by the rab alāni Bel-issiya on behalf of other(s) (dated to 788). Among the remains of the Kalhu archive(s) which were seemingly moved to Nineveh,27 probably by Sargon or Sennacherib, there are the deeds of another rab alāni, Mušallim-Issar, village manager of the Chief Eunuch, dated between 742 and 713, concerning the purchase of people. For instance, in SAA 6 1 (742) he bought or obtained slaves as pledge/security against a debt (the text bears a redemption clause) from a man whose name is lost. Eight witnesses, including some military officers, are said to be from the village of Til-Ninurta, one from the “town of the eunuchs”, and all nine men are labelled as servants of an official whose title has been tentatively read as [Chief] Eunuch, i.e. the official from whom the same Mušallim-Issar depended.28 Therefore, the transaction seems to have been internal to the administration of the Chief Eunuch’s estate, and related to debts incurred within the general framework of the management of this estate. Thirty years later, Mušallim-Issar bought seven people, as attested by a document which includes a formula of fine referring to Kalhu, and, in the witness list, has According to the editors they “belonged to a convenient ‘pool’ of witnesses” (Ahmad / Postgate 2007, xvii). It remains in the realm of hypothesis that the witnesses were more directly involved in the transaction, for instance because it concerned their specific task. 26 Ahu-[ilaya?], possibly leader of a group of people being sold by their master (the temple scribe of Assur), is actually a brother or colleague of the witnesses listed as “four sons of Ninurta-nišeka-uṣur brothers of? Ahu-ilaya”. What makes their presence important is the possibility that the slaves were freed by force of an andurāru, “debt remission” act. The contract states that in this case the money must be returned to the purchaser, the Palace Scribe. 27 Cf. Kwasman / Parpola 1991, xx. 28 It is unknown where these villages were located, but references to Arbela in other contracts may suggest that their location was in that province. 25

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a gatekeeper, labelled as a servant of the governor of Kalhu. The presence of a witness from Nineveh can be compared with other sales of persons where witnesses from different places are included. It is not possible to state, however, whether the gatekeeper from Kalhu was in Kalhu because the transaction was concluded there, or because he acted as a representative of the governor’s office elsewhere. Nor it is possible to state whether the moving of the archive to Nineveh was due to the moving of the office of the Chief Eunuch to the new capital, or, to the contrary, whether the office of the Chief Eunuch was already located in the administrative centre of Nineveh before the establishment there of the royal residence. Among the later documents, ND 3426 (= FNALD 9) (649) records the sale of a woman and her son to Šamaš-šarru-uṣur, the owner of the archive from the dwelling area TW 53 leaning against the wall of the Kalhu acropolis. Among many witnesses, who include a bought slave, some men probably colleagues of the parties, and personnel belonging to the temple entourage, there are two gatekeepers, who were probably attached to different, but unspecified, institutions. One of them, Tutaia, and the rab sikkāti, “lock master”, Ṭur-dalâ are also witnesses in ND 3425 (= CTN 6 64, post-canonical, 637 or 635), a text which provides one of the very few attestations where an atû-official plays the role of one of the parties involved in the contract:29 the gatekeeper Ubru-Sebetti together with ŠepeNabû-aṣbat sells a slave woman to the palace manager of the Review Palace. It is impossible to state whether the latter can be identified with the atû Šepe-Ninurtaaṣbat who witnesses a dēnu-document (ND 7072 = CTN 3 30,30 post-canonical) agreed upon by the deputy of the šakintu of the Review Palace and by a certain Andasi together with the ša pān nērebi Ṣalmu-ahhutu/Ṣalmuhtu.31 Nineveh

A major part of the legal documents witnessed by gatekeepers comes from Nineveh; they often concern sales of persons and help in considering some sectors of the palace administration where officials with this title were active. One of these sectors is that of the palace women. SAA 6 89 is a conveyance of Ahi-ṭalli, šakintu of the Central City of Nineveh since 686,32 by which she buys Cf. also StAT 2 18 (641). The same name is also recorded among the witnesses of ND 2325 and 2093, but his title is not mentioned. 31 Cf. CTN 3 39, witnessed by the official in charge of the bolts. The dealings of the šakintu, or concerning female personnel, are witnessed by the responsible for the palace safety in other cases. ND 2307 (Parker 1954, 38f. = FNALD 14; dated 622), a document recording the rich dowry given by the šakintu to her daughter, is witnessed among others by two rab sikkāte. ND 2316 (Parker 1954, 40, post-canonical, 641/640) is the marriage contract of a šelūtu, which states that she cannot be affected by legal claims against her husband. Cf. Radner 2010, 227–280. 32 Svärd 2015, 93; 97, for the possible location of her office in the South-West Palace of 29 30

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three slaves for a rather high price (four minas of silver); among the witnesses there are royal qurbūte, and two gatekeepers (Kubabu-eriba, Ninurta-kibsi-uṣur). Another woman, with an entourage of witnesses of similar professions, is the purchaser of a family of four slaves in SAA 6 96;33 the name of this woman, Barsipitu, also occurs in state letters referring to the relations with the tribe of BītDakkuri (SAA 17 68 and 73). From these letters it may be gauged that Barsipitu lived in the Nineveh palace, at least for a while, and had an important political role in fostering the Assyrian control of Bīt-Dakkuri through installing there a proAssyrian ruling elite.34 Although there is no explicit confirmation of the identity of the Barsipitu known from letters and that known from legal texts, it can at least be hypothesized that the former was the same woman who had some status in the palace. The witnesses listed in SAA 6 96 clearly suggest a palace context, and relations with offices controlling the management of resources; moreover, they suggest that almost all the main branches of the administration were interested in the transaction: it includes six eunuchs, a hazannu, a servant of the vizier, a servant of the turtānu, a servant of the treasurer, a chief goldsmith, some artisans, two scribes (one of them ṣābit ṭuppi), and a gatekeeper of the palace, Sagibi. Unfortunately, the role of the seller, a certain Babilayu, cannot be determined, as well as the circumstances of the transaction which might have required such a multisided supervision. Sagibi is the same individual who witnesses SAA 6 81 (694), which records the pledge of 12 hectares of land and seven people in the Assur countryside against two minas of silver which a deputy village manager owes to Addati, šakintu of the Central City of Nineveh.35 Besides Sagibi, the witnesses include a Ninevite scribe and some artisans. These documents suggest that Sagibi belonged to an office in charge of the dealings of the šakintu and/or the palace, rather than or besides being entrusted with controlling the access to the women quarter of the palace. This kind of service can be identified for other gatekeepers. SAA 6 152 (687) is a partially preserved conveyance for the sale of a woman, which is witnessed, among others, by a eunuch of the šakintu and by the gatekeepers Zizî and Gallulu. These officials can be identified as members of a palace staff thanks to SAA 6 59, also dated to Sennacherib’s time (684). It records the sale of a group of people, composed by three families, whose paterfamilias bear Aramaic names (as also

Nineveh (built in 703–694). The date is incompletely preserved, and the eponym tentatively reconstructed as Aššur-[belu-uṣur], eponym for the year 695. 34 Svärd 2015, 139–141. 35 For the chronology, see Svärd 2015, 93. Addati probably preceded Ahi-ṭalli, or held the office contemporaneously. On the career of the latter from šekretu to šakintu see ibid., 97, and the text SAA 6 88. The same Sagibi might also be a witness of the pledge of a woman in SAA 6 272 (677). 33

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recorded in the Aramaic caption). The witnesses are a group of personnel of various temples which includes six priests (the surviving divine names are that of the goddesses Tašmetu, Šarrat-nipha, and Gula) and a group of six gatekeepers of the palace (šá É.GAL): Aššur-le’ani, Zizî, Ilu-ereš, Muqallil-kabti, Banyaya, Gallulu. An extremely interesting parallel is provided by a text from Assur, NATAPA 75 = ALA N14 7 (683), which records the sale of a house belonging to a palace official, a rab ekalli of Assur, to Šummu-Aššur, a central person in the archive and probably a member of the guild of the oilpressers (in the same house the text KAV 197 was found).36 It is made clear that the house is a paternal estate and there is a provision concerning ilku duties in an unfortunately not completely preserved sentence. The concordance with the Nineveh text concerns both the names of three witnesses, Aššur-le’ani, Bana/aya and Zizî/ia, and the composition of the witnesses’ group. There are six atû of the palace and six priests, plus other personnel, seemingly belonging to the palace, including a deputy of the palace (šaniu ša ekalli). Although the transaction involves a palace staff member, it seems that it has a private character. A further comparison with a third attestation of a Zizî/ia gatekeeper, but this time of the KÁ.GAL ša ÍD in Assur, is StAT 3 23 (archive ALA N3). This is a judicial settlement, a sartu document, dated to 672 and also witnessed by Lit-Aššur, atû of the temple of Aššur, and by various singers.37 Both texts concern the city of Assur, and may be connected with judicial procedures requiring the presence of a group of witnesses which might have even formed a kind of panel of judges or guarantors of an arbitration.38 Moreover, it seems that the gatekeepers possibly moved to different locations for taking care of matters involving the institutions, especially when judicial cases were at issue.39 Another parallel might be found in SAA 14 264, a sale of slaves, unfortunately fragmentary. It is witnessed by a chief gatekeeper, a gatekeeper of Nabû, a gatekeeper of the palace, a ša dēnāni, and two exorcists (one is the chief exorcist of the house of the Crown Prince). Another official whose relations can be reconstructed, at least minimally, and also include a reference to a šakintu, is Nuhšaia. He witnesses a transaction concerning the šakintu of Kalizi, SAA 6 247 (679), together with rab kiṣirs and other men without indication of profession, and with Habašte (for this person see

The tablets were found in a house located in the northern part of the area above the ruined MA New Palace. 37 Two atû witness StAT 3 36 (N8), a sale of slave dated to 717. 38 About hints to court procedures in legal texts, cf. SAA 14 87 and Ponchia 2009, 139. 39 SAA 14 81 is clearly the result of a judiciary case: it stated the responsibility and the obligation of paying the blood money for the killing of a man. The whole community to which the murderer belongs is involved in the legal case, perhaps with the obligation to guarantee the delivery. Among the witnesses there are two atû (Nabû-reši-išši and Mannu-ki-Adad). 36

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below). He also validates SAA 6 177, which records the sale of a family of ten people by a certain Nabû-eriba, possibly another member of the administration, although his title is not mentioned. In the no-claim clauses only the governor and his deputy are mentioned, and this suggests that the seller may have been a thirdin-rank official, or a quite high member of the administration.40 The conveyance is witnessed among others by three tašlišu, two rab kiṣirs, three scribes, and the gatekeeper Nuhšaia, plus others without indication of their professions. Habašte is identified by the title of rab atû at least since 679.41 Similarly to Nuhšaia, he witnesses transactions involving people connected with the administrative and military hierarchies; together with him he is recorded in SAA 6 248, a fragmentary silver loan, and SAA 6 278 (674), a sale of 35 hectares of land in cultivation (bought by a certain Šamaš-šallim who owns already an adjoining field).42 Habašte, in particular, appears to be present at the transactions stipulated by some preeminent and rich officials of the Nineveh court. As rab atû together with Mamî, he witnesses a loan of a mule by Mannu-kiArba’il (SAA 6 206) in 679, and the sale of an estate to the same man (SAA 6 211, where his name is in lacuna and the date of 676 only hypothetical). He witnesses other deeds for Mannu-ki-Arba’il, such as the fragmentary conveyance SAA 6 220, and texts SAA 6 211 and 218. An interesting document is SAA 6 283 (672), which records the purchase by Ilu-iṣbatanni, eunuch of the king, of a large estate fragmented into small plots, whose location is duly described, which includes a plot adjoining that of the horse trainer Mannu-ki-Arba’il. The name of the seller(s) is missing; the total expenditure is 10 minas of silver, a quite large sum. Among the witnesses there are Habašti, rab atû; Zārūti, chariot driver of the Crown Prince (known from the archive of Remanni-Adad); some third men of the Crown Prince and other officials. Members of the Crown Prince’s retinue are mentioned in SAA 6 297– 298 (671): three brothers sell 5 people to Remanni-Adad, among the witnesses there are various rab kiṣirs and chariot drivers of the Crown Prince, Habašti, rab atû, and others. To the same Remanni-Adad’s archive belong the loan contract SAA 6 307 (668), again witnessed by Habašti […], and SAA 6 308, a conveyance partly broken whose date is not preserved, witnessed by Silim-Aššur sukkallu rabû, Habašti, rab atû, and Nabû-šumu-uṣur, he too rab atû. The need to control the activity of officials in exploiting workforce is exemplified by the letter SAA 15, 121, which concerns people unduly detained by a prefect. 41 His many attestations and the Phoenician nature of his name attracted the attention of E. Lipiński, who devoted an interesting study to him (Lipiński 1983). He considers that the function of atû “a probablement quelque rapport avec le fait que le personage intervient si souvent comme témoin dans les actes de la pratique judiciaire ou notariale” (p. 133); and this official was often called to witness because he was attached to the gate, possibly that of Šamaš where justice was administrated. 42 SAA 6 249, another fragmentary contract which bears only the witnesses’ list, includes rab kiṣirs and other officials already attested. 40

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SAA 323–324 (664) from the same archive is a very interesting text which can be easily contextualized within the administrative practice since it records a loan of silver and flock; it is signed by the deputy of the governor of Barhalza, a scribe and two third men. Among the witnesses there are third men, various chariot drivers, a rab kiṣir of the royal bodyguard, attachés of the Crown Prince retinue such as Zērūtî chariot driver, Zērūtî rab kiṣir, and the chief gatekeeper Habašti. SAA 6 325 (663) records the purchase by Remanni-Adad of an entire village (URU.Dannaya) which is jointly sold by the deputy of the town, the scribe of the queen mother, a chariot driver, a third man, cohort commanders and chariot fighters (in all 10 people). The witnesses are numerous (19) and include the sartinnu and the sukkallu dannu, various third men, chariot drivers, Habašti, rab atû, Zērūtî, cohort commander of the qurbūte of the prince, and other officials of his entourage. The same Habašte is possibly mentioned in SAA 6 245 (672), which records the pledge of 200 hectares of land and some people by the deputy of the governor of Rasappa to Dannaia against the loan of 15 minas of silver.43 SAA 6 239 records the sale to Dannaia of three female slaves, and is witnessed, among others, by a gatekeeper, a merchant, a horse trainer of teams, a […] of the Crown Prince; SAA 6 246 is a sale of slave witnessed by a merchant of the king’s staff (tamkar kiṣir šarri). These deeds suggest that Dannaia, possibly thanks to trade activities,44 had large availability of money; therefore, it is significant that the rab atû Habašte acts as witness in SAA 6 245, a deed involving a high governmental official. Whether Dannaya is the same person who gives the name to the village (URU.da-na-a-a) sold to Remanni-Adad in SAA 6 325 in 663 remains doubtful. In SAA 6 328, recording the sale of a house, some witnesses are the same as in SAA 6 325, and Habašti rab atû is again among them. SAA 6 332, a sale of land, vineyard and people, has a similar character. Among the witnesses are Habašti rab atû, the hazannu of Nineveh, and some individuals whose professional titles are not given. SAA 6 348 is a sale of slaves, witnessed by Zērūtî, Habašti [rab atû], and other officials. In SAA 6 350 only the witness list is preserved. The presence of the rab atû in all these documents seems to attest the involvement of the palace in the control of a series of transactions performed by state officials. It seems as well that such control was operated over the circulation of the money flowing through the palace and over the activity of the merchants working within the royal organization.45

The name is written ha-ba-si-te; K. Radner, in PNA 2, 435, considers him different from Habašte gatekeeper. The identification, however, seems plausible according to the chronology and the system of relations. As for Dannaia, he is the creditor of the deputy governor of Raṣappa also in a document concerning camels and a large flock (SAA 6 243). 44 Cf. also SAA 6 241, a note concerning the loan of two camels. 45 Also SAA 6 169 is to be placed in this context: it is a sale of an estate with people, where 43

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There are no available data on the hierarchical position of the rab atû within the palace organization, nor is clear whether this official was at the orders of a rab ekalli or of other officials in charge of the management of the palace. On the other hand, the dates of the contracts witnessed by Habašti span from 679 to 663, i.e. from the reign of Esarhaddon (and probably even Sennacherib, if in 679 he already held the position of atû rabiu) to that of Assurbanipal, thus showing a durable continuity in his service. Habašti appears to be in contact with various persons and offices, members of the retinue of the Crown Prince being very frequently attested. The dates of Remanni-Adad, the central person in the archive where he is mostly attested, span at least from 671 to 660. Other officials show such a longterm employment, like Zērūtî46 rab kiṣir (SAA 6 304, 305–306, 326), and Zērūtî chariot driver of the Crown Prince, who witnesses SAA 6 283, 309, 312, 320, 321, 323–324, 348, and 342.47 It is clear that these officials kept their role over a long time and served under reigns of successive kings; it may be presumed that they were attached to the house of the Crown Prince, and, moreover, had their seats and offices within the palace as members of the Crown Prince’s closest retinue. It has been suggested to identify the bīt rēdūti, the seat of the Crown Prince attested in the texts, with the ekal mašarti of Nineveh, i.e. the North Palace built by Sennacherib: Esarhaddon was born there and lived there as the Crown Prince, his son Assurbanipal lived there as the Crown Prince, and a son of the latter is attested there too. It can be further hypothesized that these officials performed their activities in the rooms of this palace, acting as the contact point with other sectors of the administration. The difficulty of clarifying the hierarchical relations within the ranks of these palace officials hinders the possibility of determining their specific relations with the Crown Prince, and of establishing how the flow of orders worked; though, it seems reasonable to suppose that, due to their tasks, these officials had, or could have, (frequent) direct contact with the Crown Prince. Continuity in service is reasonably the result of trustfulness; and if the hypotheses put forward above hold true, we might consider how these men represented a stable contact between the palace and other offices. Other types of texts hint at the role of control by the palace establishment, such as the verdict BT 118, again witnessed by Habašti rab atû. This text was found in the Mamu temple in Balawat, in what seems to be the relic of an archive in which various connections with Nineveh are attested.48 On the other hand, various documents concern the šangû Šumma-ilu, and some of them attest to relations and

the name of […]-aṣbat, gatekeeper, is preserved in the fragmentary list of the witnesses. Another Zērūtî, gatekeeper of the Crown Prince, witnesses SAA 6 299 (671–669), belonging to Remanni-Adad’s archive, and witnessed by various chariot drivers of the Crown Prince. 47 SAA 6 323–324 proves that they are two distinct individuals. 48 Parker 1963, 86: “the collection of tablets gives the impression of an odd basketful left behind after the majority had been carried away to be disposed of in some manner”. 46

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contacts with Nineveh. It may be questioned if these relations are to be framed in a transfer of personnel within the temple sectors similar to the one attested for Hurzuhina – and in this case a movement from Nineveh to Imgur-Enlil – or more simply in a business activity of the elites in both towns which are only ca. 15 miles apart. In fact, another gatekeeper, Šamašua, also witnesses a court decision (SAA 6 133), which records the declaration of guilty of five thieves before two qurbūtu and a deputy (of the governor). It is possible that they robbed a merchant and that the trial was not held in Nineveh. The document is witnessed by various men whose title is either not mentioned or lost; some of them are qurbūtu. It is possible that the gatekeeper is concerned either because the sentence was rendered in a certain place, or because the Nineveh authority had to be informed. The connection of legal acts with judicial cases – as the origin of the legal act or as its possible outcome – can be more easily hypothesized in some cases. SAA 14 202, e.g., records the redemption of two men from a merchant, and includes the possibility of ransom by relatives or administrative authorities for a price that might be the same paid by the purchaser. The first witness is a gatekeeper of the main gate. The texts of Kakkullanu, cohort commander of the Crown Prince, dated some decades later than those of Remanni-Adad, show some similarities.49 25 documents (from 630* to 617*) concern acquisitions of houses, landed properties and people; some witnesses occur frequently, among them Hiriṣaya is a gatekeeper;50 in SAA 14 39 he is gatekeeper of the temple of Bīt-Kidmuri. This detail seems to confirm the scheme suggested above of the participation of different institutions in the control of financial resources, and again poses the question of the circulation of money through the various departments of the state and temple administrations.51 It is also notable that in some cases civic institutions are seemingly present – like in SAA 14 36, where five men from URU.Irbû and ten from URU.Hubaba witness the sale of land and persons in the area of Irbû, and in SAA 14 41, a lease of 20 hectares of land in the area of URU.Qurubi, which is witnessed by five citizens of the city (māru ālišu). The interests of various institutions is suggested by SAA 14 169 (619*) where the appurtenance of the witnesses to various branches of the administration is made explicit, perhaps in relation with the fact that the money lent by a smith to a chariot-maker comes from the first fruits of Issar of Arbela. The witnesses have different proveniences; the gatekeepers in particular are from the New Palace, the temple of Ninurta, and the retinue of the commander in chief (turtānu); other persons with various titles come from Kilizi, Kurba’il, Harran, and Assur. It is not

For a general description see SAA 14, xvi–xviii. Cf. PNA 2, 474, for a list of the texts he witnesses. Other frequently attested witnesses are the merchant Addî and various cohort commanders. 51 Cf. e.g. SAA 14 40, recording the sale of a house in Nineveh to Kakkullanu by a horse trainer of the Chief Eunuch of the Crown Prince, which is witnessed by 24 witnesses. 49 50

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possible to ascertain if this is simply the picture of a palace sector or of a town fostering the circulation of people and capitals, or if this combination was simply due to specific or even casual circumstances.52 The town community of Assur

The legal documents unearthed in private houses in Assur represent a special observatory for the points of contact between palace and temple administrations and people employed in various professions. In addition to the cases mentioned above, some texts among the contracts from Assur where atû officers act as witnesses convey particularly interesting information. The most ancient text is StAT 3 5, dated to 723 (from archive ALA N2), which records the sale of a house between brothers in a year designated by a Getreidekursangabe and with prohibition of redemption; the long list of witnesses includes in the first places a ša-muhhi-āli and two gatekeepers. The conveyance StAT 2 14, which was associated with archive ALA N9 (belonging to the hundurayu Mudammiq-Aššur), concerns a house whose sale is sealed by Sinna’id, hazannu of the Assur Gate,53 Nubu-šadu’a, ša-muhhi-āli, and […]aia, a rab ešerti of the “scribes”.54 Among the witnesses there are a rab ešerti of the Assur gate, and Remanni-Aššur, who is a gatekeeper. Due to the fragmentary state of the tablet it is impossible to know where the house was located, who was the purchaser, his relations with the seller(s), and the relations of the latter(s) with the sealers who supervised the transaction; the Assur gate might have represented a reference point for all these officials. The fact that a ša-muhhi-āli and an atû are mentioned together finds a parallel in letter SAA 1 176, discussed above, where they appear responsible for controlling the town, a fact which hints at a system in which the two functions were coordinated and possibly even hierarchically organized. The conveyance text NATAPA 35 (VAT 9398 = ALA N9 54) records the sale of a plot of bare ground which was jointly owned by 30 hundurayus to Mudammiq-Aššur. The conveyance was sealed by the same authorities as StAT 2 14, and witnessed, among many others, by three atûs (Marduk-šarru-uṣur, Cf. also SAA 6 188, a conveyance of a vineyard in Tursana. A first group of witnesses includes Ullu, a gatekeeper, and a chariot driver. After a sentence stating that the field provides regular offerings to Aššur and Mullissu, a second group of witnesses is listed which includes two qēpus from Kar-Šamaš, and the hazannu of Tursana. In SAA 6 130 a šaniu buys 17 people, the deed being witnessed by military officials, three rab […] (who might be interpreted as rab hašše or rab kiṣri), the hazannu of a village, and two gatekeepers, Ubru[…] and Arba’ilaiu rab atû. 53 On Sin-na’id’s position and family see Radner 1999, 15–19, who also quotes an Aramaic document (VAT 7498) in which Sin-na’id’s father bears the title ḥzn ’glh, interpreted as equivalent to hazannu of the Aššur gate. 54 On the ša-muhhi-āli and his role as a sealer of legal documents see Van Buylaere 2009– 2010.

52

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Mutakkin-Aššur, and a third one whose name is lost). This concordance suggests that in both cases the situation was similar, and that the sealers were representatives and responsible for a community or an office, as it seems to be indicated by the presence of the decurio of the scribes. The houses where archives ALA N9 and N10 were found were located at the north-western corner of the town, in the area called Aussenhaken by the archaeologists, which originally was part of the fortification system and was later transformed into a residential area.55 In ALA N9 51 = NATAPA 33 (VAT 9369) the house sold is also identified as “adjacent to the alley which leads from the Gate of Zuhi/Suhu to the Gate of Destinies”, both gates which may therefore be classified as pertaining to this part of the town.56 StAT 2 244 stems from archive ALA N33, which was found in an area situated in the centre of the town and has been attributed to a group of goldsmiths. It is a conveyance for the purchase of a house, agreed upon in a particular year, as revealed by the Getreidekursangabe, and was sealed by some city officials: Ereš-Aššur, hazannu of the Aššur Gate, Qibit-Aššur, hazannu of the Šamaš Gate, Pan-Aššurlamur, hazannu of the Tigris Gate, Nabû-šaddani (whose title might be interpreted as [ša-muhhi]-āl[i] and who might be identified with Nabû-šadu’a, ša-muhhi-āli in StAT 2 14), Mušezib-[DN, decurio of the scribes?]. The witnesses are divided into various categories as clarified by the labels PAB SIMUG.KÙ.GI–MEŠ, “all goldsmiths” (r. 12), PAB LÚ.NINDA.MEŠ (r. 16), “all bakers”, etc., which are added after each group of names. The authority of these magistrates upon the citizens of Assur can be inferred from a “negative” attestation. SAA 12 86 is the draft (?) of a document issued by Sennacherib for the dedication of a group of people from Raṣappa to the Akitu temple of Assur. The document states that the people are not under the authority of the administrative hierarchy (šakin māti, hazannu, ša-muhhi-āli), and is witnessed by major officials, by members of the military apparatus (mušarkisu, tašlišu, rab kiṣir and rab kiṣir ša šēpē), and by civic and judicial authorities: Šamaš-ila’i, hazannu of the Aššur Gate, […], hazannu of the Šamaš Gate, Manni-ki-Issar, hazannu of the Tigris Gate, and Nabû-mudammiq, city scribe.57 A similar pool of witnesses is attested in other texts from archive ALA N28, which was found in the area adjacent to the southern part of the inner town walls:

On the residential area of Assur see Åkerman 1999–2001. Pongratz-Leisten 1999, 28 observes that on the basis of this document it would be possible to identify the remains of a road from areal eE8v to the Tabira Gate. Since the location of the house is described as lying against the city walls, the latter can be identified with the tract of the walls belonging to the mušlalu Gate, north of the Tabira Gate, which later was named abul šīmāte. 57 The Aššur Gate cannot be identified with certainty, but it is thought to be in connection with the Aššur temple in the north-eastern corner of the town (Miglus 1982; Pongratz-Leisten 1999). 55 56

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StAT 3 69 = ALA N28 24 (636), was sealed by […], hazannu, […], ša-muhhi-āli, and […], chief of a collegium of ten scribes; the witness list includes priests, scribes, and a city scribe acting as ṣābit ṭuppi; StAT 3 73 = ALA N28 23, which, however, is earlier (698), was as well sealed by the ša-muhhi-āli Marduk-iqbi and witnessed by the city scribe ṣābit ṭuppi. The document records the sale of a house belonging to a hundurayu to a certain La-tubašanni-Aššur. The same ša-muhhi-āli official seals the conveyance NATAPA 73 from archive ALA N14, dated to the same year and witnessed by persons whose profession is not indicated, but also by some who are connected with temple services, and by an oilpresser (see below). The Getreidekursangabe in both texts may suggest the reason for the presence of sealing civic authorities. StAT 3 63 is a dēnu-document from ALA N28 dated to 615* concerning an ox and imposing an ordeal. It is witnessed by Ahhutu, temple gatekeeper (DINGIR?), among others whose profession is not mentioned. StAT 2 8 too is a dēnudocument, which concerns the dissolution of a marriage, agreed upon by a priest of Šarrat-nipha on account of his daughter, and a singer of the god Aššur (or of the city of Assur: the text has aš-šur without a determinative). It is witnessed by two gatekeepers, a scribe of the shrine, a ša-muhhi-āli, and others. From archive ALA N12, two receipts of debt repayments (StAT 2 36, dated to 672, and 37, dated to 666) are witnessed by gatekeepers; the second is seemingly connected with a judicial case, since the first witness is the hazannu Sin-na’adi, who is labelled as bēl dēnēšu. Although with differences, these texts may have been the results of controversies or cases involving many persons or institutions, or of judicial procedures whose final acts consisted in the drafting of legal documents attesting rights and their incontestability. The necessity of such procedures might have been due to litigations which required an arbitration, to the existence of communal rights, or to particular circumstances. In all cases the gatekeepers seem to have had a part in the settlement of the matter, with a certain analogy with the case of BT 118 quoted above. The differences in the number and role of the officials involved probably depends on circumstances which cannot be reconstructed; it is worth noticing, however, that officials of various institutional sectors were involved, such as the atûs of various urban gates, or those of the palace(s) or temples. Individual atûs are attested in other documents, and their appurtenance to one of the institutions mentioned above is not specified. Nergal-iddina is attested in the role of witness several time: in NATAPA 23 (= ALA N9 30) he witnesses the loan of silver belonging to the first-fruit of Šamaš to the hundurayu Aššur-alik-pani; in NATAPA 39 (ALA N9 60), which belongs to the archive of the hundurayus, he witnesses a conveyance for the sale of a woman (bought by Mudammiq-Aššur), also sealed by Sin-na’id, hazannu of Assur; among the witnesses there are managers (rab ālāni) of the hundurayu and šelappayu. In NATAPA 59 (ALA N10 1) a Nergal-iddina, whose profession is not indicated, is recorded as witness of the sale of an empty lot. The evidence is not sufficient to state whether he belonged to the Aššur Gate office or to a group of witnesses who appear to validate transactions in which the hundurayus

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are involved. Nergal-iddina is also attested several times in the post-canonical archive of the Egyptians ALA N31, which was found in the central part of the town, in a house to the west of the Nabû temple. StAT 2 198 is a sartu document witnessed by him and by some man with Egyptian names. StAT 2 201 is an inheritance division, such as CTNMC 68 (= FNALD 68), which records the division of the estate of La-mar-šarri-Aššur between Hutnahte and Pudimunu. Among the witnesses, there are various persons with Egyptian names occurring elsewhere in the archive, and three atûs: Nergaliddina, Marduk-šarra-uṣur, and Mutakkin-Aššur. StAT 2 207 is a conveyance for the sale of a house where another atû, Marduk-šarru-uṣur, is also present as witness, like in StAT 2 209, a loan contract. StAT 2 210–211 is a debt note for horses of the iškāru tax, and is witnessed by another atû, Nabû-šumu-iddina, together with some members of the “Egyptian entourage”. In StAT 2 181–182, a sale of a slave, Nergal-iddina is listed together with his son Rib-Aya and another atû, Ubru-ili, in a witness list which includes also a šelappayu. In the marriage contract StAT 2 184, Nergal-iddina is listed without his title and together with others known from the same archive. He is also witness in the loan contract StAT 3 78 (without indication of his profession), and probably in StAT 3 88 (638) (Nergal-[iddina?] atû), a sale of a woman against a debt and with possibility of ransom. The contract is also witnessed by the hazannu QurdiAššur and the ša-muhhi-āli Bel-šarru-uṣur. The recently published texts from Assur archives 52a and 52b provide a third perspective on the business of the town. These archives have been unearthed in an almost central area where the remains of large houses are extant. The texts include conveyances and contracts, but also letters and administrative documents. Especially the two last types reveal a commercial and financial activity in which men with institutional roles and members of family and guilds, on their turn attested by their own archives, participate in the same trade enterprises and interrelates in economic transactions. Legal texts provide some chronological details on the relations among the groups living in Assur, such as text WVDOG 152 I.11, dated to 651, which records a loan/debt of cereals of the first fruit of Issar of Arbela to the head of the hundurayus IqbiAššur, and is witnessed, among others, by an atû. Later (639), a contract concerning other previous business was concluded with other hundurayus (WVDOG 152 I.14). WVDOG 152 I.18 (631) records an obligation by a member of the house of the goldsmiths. The small archive Assur 52b reveals the presence in the town of another group of Egyptians whose houses were in an area situated to the south of that of archive ALA N31, with which it is contemporaneous. A peculiarity of these groups of texts is the important role of women in the financing of commercial expeditions: at least some of these women belong to the Egyptian group; according to K. Radner, the two facts were possibly connected.58

Radner 2016, 80.

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We wonder, however, if the availability of money, and the capacity these women had of administering it, derived from their appurtenance to this group or to other factors. A hint comes from a marriage contract from the Egyptian archive ALA N31, StAT 2 164. Mullissu-hammat is a šelūtu of Issar of Arbela, marries an Egyptian, and should not be moved from the city of Assur. A woman with the same name is attested in text WVDOG 152 I.58 from archive 52a, which consists of a list of names and related amounts of money (presumably silver) and of emāru (presumably cereals). In analogy with other texts from the archive, it has been classified as a Finanzaufstellung. Lacking chronological data and other elements of comparison, only a hypothesis in need of further evidence can be proposed. The urban elites of Assur were linked, even through marriage ties, to the temple administrations with which they shared economic interests. The particular role of women in financial activities could be connected with these ties with the temples and their status of šelūtu, which possibly subtracted them to family and urban/provincial authority because their status of subordinates of the temple institution prevailed. This could be compared with the status of the sekretu in the palace administration, which also endowed women with financial means. All together these documents show that families and groups/guilds living in town had business between them and with the palace and temple. They might even have provided manpower for the major institutions and performed specialized works for them and under their orders. At the same time, they owned common properties, and were structured in extended families with inheritance rights, and in groups which were institutionally recognized. For these reasons some transactions and legal dispositions, as outcomes of judicial cases whose proceedings remain largely unknown, were controlled through the involvement of members and representatives of extended families and guilds, as well as of members of the institutions somehow connected with them, and of municipal magistrates such as the hazannu and the atû. The multiplicity of the involved interested parties required a well-organized control system, and, presumably, the presence of somebody who had the authority and the power of intervening for overseeing and enforcing the factual execution of legal dispositions.59 Finally, it may be speculated that this role was that of the ša-muhhi-āli and of the atû.

Some general concluding remarks Although the archives show some differences in chronology and context, some analogies emerge, so that some conclusions can be drawn, albeit tentatively. The atû officials performed some legal functions as part and parcel of their role of control;60 this control seems to have been often performed over issues involving

Also SAA 16 81 can be placed in this framework: it is a letter concerning the entrusting to a gatekeeper of a quantity of precious stones to be delivered to the king: r. 2 “[…] of agate, its width 3 inches, (and) a piece of egizaggû-stone. I gave them to the gate guard, Atanha-ilu, along with a letter, saying, ‘Deliver them to the king, my lord!’”. 60 The function of control of the witnesses, and especially of those who can be identified as 59

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the relations between different departments/offices, or even different towns. Among the questions they deal with it is possible to identify those internal to the palace administration and personnel, at Kalhu and Nineveh (where especially the dealings of the Crown Prince’s entourage are attested), those concerning temple management and financial activities, and those concerning various institutions/ groups within the urban sector, especially evident at Assur. Although with many shadowy areas, these documents together suggest a rough idea of the circulation and employment of resources in the imperial core, a topic certainly in need of further consideration. Another point which needs further attention is the continuity in service of some officials vs. changes especially connected with dramatic political circumstances. This appears crucial especially when considering the departmental structure of the Assyrian administration: cross-controls by various departments is obviously fundamental in that organization. As a part of this system, the atû might have had a special role as a “guardian” of specific entities, in the palaces as well as in temples and towns. It might be further speculated that this role was appreciated not only in the Assyrian core, but also in the provincial centres, where the Assyrian administrative system was implemented but required personnel well trained according to its rules and who could be entrusted with the authority of enforcing their application and that of the Assyrian legal procedures. Museums’ siglum Ass = Siglum for the texts from Qal’at Sherqat (ancient Assur) ND = Siglum for the texts from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) VAT = Siglum for the texts in the Vorderasiatisches Museum zu Berlin (Vorderasiatischen Abteilung Tontafeln) Abbreviations of the cited epigraphic sources BT = Parker, B., 1963: Economic Tablets from the Temple of Mamu at Balawat. Iraq 25: 86–103. CTN 3 = Dalley, S. / Postgate, J.N., 1984: The Tablets from Fort Shalmaneser. Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud III. London. CTN 6 = Herbordt, S. / Mattila, R. / Parker, B. (†) / Postgate, J.N. / Wiseman, D.J. (†), 2019: Documents from the Nabu Temple and from Private Houses on the Citadel. Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud VI. London.

institutional witnesses, might be exemplified by this unique, but incomplete attestation in a donation of slaves and property to the temple of Nabû of Kalhu (SAA 12 96, r. 11: [LÚ.IGI.MEŠ? š]a KA IM an-ni-e ⸢iš?⸣-mu-u, “[These are the witnesses w]ho heard the words of this tablet”.

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CTNMC = Jacobsen, Th., 1939: Cuneiform Texts in the National Museum, Copenhagen, Chiefly of Economic Contents. Leiden. Edubba 10 = Ahmad, A.Y. / Postgate, J.N., 2007: Archives from the Domestic Wing of the North-West Palace at Kalhu/Nimrud. Edubba 10. London. FNALD = Postgate, J.N., 1976: Fifty Neo-Assyrian Legal Documents. Warminster. KAL 2 = Schwemer, D., 2007: Rituale und Beschwörungen gegen Schadenzauber. Keilschrifttexte aus Assur literarischen Inhalts 2 = Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 117. Wiesbaden. KAV = Schroeder, O., 1920: Keilschrifttexte aus Assur verschiedenen Inhalts. Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 35. Leipzig. NATAPA = Fales, F.M., 1991: Neo-Assyrian Texts from Assur. Private Archives in the Vorderasiatisches Museum zu Berlin. Part I, State Archives of Assyria Bulletin V/1–2: 3–157; Part II, State Archives of Assyria Bulletin IX/1–2: 3–137. SAA 1 = Parpola, S., 1987: The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I. Letters from Assyria and the West. State Archives of Assyria I. Helsinki. SAA 4 = Starr, I., 1990: Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria. State Archives of Assyria IV. Helsinki. SAA 6 = Kwasman, T. / Parpola, S., 1991: Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part I. Tiglath-Pileser III through Esarhaddon. State Archives of Assyria VI. Helsinki. SAA 12 = Kataja, L. / Whiting, R., 1995: Grants, Decrees and Gifts of the NeoAssyrian Period. State Archives of Assyria XII. Helsinki. SAA 13 = Cole, S.W. / Machinist, P., 1998: Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Priests to Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. State Archives of Assyria XIII. Helsinki. SAA 14 = Mattila, R., 2002: Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part II. Assurbanipal through Sin-šarru-iškun. State Archives of Assyria XIV. Helsinki. SAA 15 = Fuchs, A. / Parpola, S., 2002: The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III. Letters from Babylonia and the Eastern Provinces. State Archives of Assyria XV. Helsinki. SAA 16 = Luukko, M. / Van Buylaere, G., 2002: The Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon. State Archives of Assyria XVI. Helsinki. SAA 17 = Dietrich, M., 2003: The Babylonian Correspondence of Sargon and Sennacherib. State Archives of Assyria XVII. Helsinki. SAA 20 = Parpola, S., with Contributions by Deller, K. (†) / Pongratz-Leisten, B. / Ermidoro, S., 2017: Assyrian Royal Rituals and Cultic Texts. State Archives of Assyria XX. Helsinki. SAAB 5 = NATAPA StAT 2 = Donbaz, V. / Parpola, S., 2001: Neo-Assyrian Legal Texts in Istanbul. Studien zu den Assur-Texten 2. Saarbrücken.

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StAT 3 = Faist, B., 2007: Alltagstexte aus neuassyrischen Archiven und Bibliotheken der Stadt Assur. Studien zu den Assur-Texten III. Saarbrücken. STT = Gurney, O.R., 1957–64: The Sultantepe Tablets. British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. Occasional Publications 3. London. Bibliography Åkerman, K., 1999–2001: The “Aussenhaken Area” in the City of Assur during the Second Half of the 7th Century BC. State Archives of Assyria Bulletin XIII: 217–265. Baker, H.D, 2000–01: The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Vol. 2: Ḫ–N. Helsinki. Beaulieu, P.A., 2010: The Afterlife of Assyrian Scholarship. In J. Stackert / B.N. Porter / D.P. Wright (eds.): Gazing on the Deep: Ancient Near Eastern and Other Studies in Honor of Tzvi Abusch. Bethesda. Pp. 1–18. Fales, F.M., 2018: The Composition and Structure of the Neo-Assyrian Empire: Ethnicity, Language and Identities. In S. Fink / R. Rollinger (eds.): Conceptualizing Past, Present and Future. Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium of the Melammu Project. Melammu Symposia 9. Münster. Pp. 443–494. Gaspa, S., 2016: The King’s Body in Assyria as a Vehicle of Political, Religious, and Wisdom Communication. In G.B. Lanfranchi / R. Rollinger (eds.): The Body of the King. The Staging of the Body of the Institutional Leader from Antiquity to Middle Ages in East and West. Proceedings of the Meeting Held in Padova, July 6th‒9th, 2011. History of the Ancient Near East/Monographs XVI. Padova. Pp. 79–106. Gross, M., 2020: At the Heart of an Empire. The Royal Household in the NeoAssyrian Period. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 292. Leuven / Paris / Bristol. Huxley, M., 2000: The Gates and Guardians in Sennacherib’s Addition to the Temple of Assur. Iraq 62: 109–137. Kertai, D., 2015a: The Creatures that Protected the Doors of Nineveh in the Second Millennium BC. Mesopotamia 50: 146–156. –– 2015b: The Architecture of Late Assyrian Royal Palaces. Oxford. Lanfranchi, G.B / Rollinger, R. (eds.), 2016: The Body of the King. The Staging of the Body of the Institutional Leader from Antiquity to Middle Ages in East and West. Proceedings of the Meeting Held in Padova, July 6th‒9th, 2011. History of the Ancient Near East / Monographs XVI. Padova. Lipiński, E., 1983: Les phéniciens à Ninive au temps des Sargonides: Ahoubasti, portier en chef. In: Atti del I congresso internazionale di studi fenici e punici, Roma 5–10 Novembre 1979. Collezione di studi fenici 16. Roma. Pp. 125–134. Menzel, B., 1981: Assyrische Tempel. Untersuchungen zu Kult, Administration und Personal. Studia Pohl Series Maior 10. Roma. Miglus, P.A., 1982: Die Stadttore in Assur – das Problem der Identifizierung. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 72: 266–279.

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Parker, B., 1954: The Nimrud Tablets, 1952 – Business Documents. Iraq 16: 29–58. –– 1963: Economic Tablets from the Temple of Mamu at Balawat. Iraq 25: 86– 103. Parpola, S., 1987 = SAA 1. –– 1995: The Assyrian Cabinet. In M. Dietrich / O. Loretz (eds.): Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament. Festschrift für Wolfram Freiherrn von Soden zum 85. Geburtstag. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 240. Neukirchen-Vluyn. Pp. 379–401. Ponchia, S., 2009: On the Witnessing Procedure in Neo-Assyrian Legal Documents. In N. Bellotto / S. Ponchia (eds.): Witnessing in the Ancient Near East. I testimoni nella documentazione del Vicino Oriente Antico. Acta Sileni 2. Padova. Pp. 131–174. Pongratz-Leisten, B., 1999: Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien. Formen der Kommunikation zwischen Gott und König in 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. State Archives of Assyria Studies 10. Helsinki. –– 2013: All the King’s Men. Authority, Kingship, and the Rise of Elites in Assyria. In J.A. Hill / Ph.H. Jones / A.J. Morales (eds.): Experiencing Power, Generating Authority. Cosmos, Politics, and the Ideology of Kingship in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Philadelphia. Pp. 286–307. Radner, K., 1999: Ein neuassyrisches Privatarchiv der Tempelgoldschmiede von Assur. Studien zu den Assur-Texten I. Saarbrücken. –– 2005: The Reciprocal Relationship between Judge and Society in the NeoAssyrian Period. MAARAV 12: 41–68. –– 2010: Gatekeepers and Lock Masters: the Control of Access in Assyrian Palaces. In H.D. Baker / E. Robson / G. Zólyomi (eds.): Your Praise is Sweet. A Memorial Volume for Jeremy Black from Students, Colleagues and Friends. London. Pp. 269–280. –– 2016: Die Beiden neuassyrischen Privatarchive. WVDOG 152: 79–133. Richardson, S., 2016: Getting Confident. The Assyrian Development of Elite Recognition Ethics. In M. Lavan / R. Payne / J. Weisweiler (eds.): Cosmopolitanism and Empire. Universal Rulers, Local Elites and Cultural Integration in the Ancient Near East. Oxford. Pp. 29–64. Schwemer, D., 2007 = KAL 2 Svärd, S., 2015: Women and Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. State Archives of Assyria Studies XXIII. Helsinki. Van Buylaere, G., 2009–2010: The Role of the ša-muhhi-āli in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. State Archives of Assyria Bulletin XVIII: 145–162. Van Driel, G., 1969: The Cult of Assur. Assen.

Myth and Politics Continued The Ideological Discourse of Lagash and Ebla on a Cultural Continuum Beate Pongratz-Leisten New York University . ario Liverani is one of the most inspiring and influential scholars that I love to M read, ever since my times as a student at Tübingen University.1 Not only that, but I would also like to let him know that I discover the same enthusiasm for his work among my students. It fills me with great joy to have this opportunity to express my admiration and gratitude, and dedicate this note to him, together with my warmest and heartfelt congratulations on his eightieth birthday. In 2004, Liverani published a collection of articles that had originally appeared in the 1970s and 1980s in Italian, all revolving around the topic of historiography, presented to the English-speaking audience under the title Myth and Politics in Ancient Near Eastern Historiography, edited and commented on by Zainab Bahrani and Marc van de Mieroop.2 In taking on the editing of his essays the editors wished to present Mario’s approach of historical criticism to a broader audience, and to highlight his contribution to the structuralist, poststructuralist, and anthropological discourse impacting the discipline of history as it was developing on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1960s and 1970s. In these essays, as in his other writings, Liverani’s primary concern was and is with ideology, a concept that was consequently adopted by art historians and philologists alike. Far ahead of his colleagues, he cautioned against paraphrasing annals, edicts, apologies, and “autobiographies” towards a reconstruction of historical events; for he revealed that these royal texts constructed a second reality, one that was no less true in the eyes of the ancients. In his discussion of the Telipinu Edict, Liverani insists that the aim of the primary sources under scrutiny is not concerned with historiography per se, but rather is aimed to deliver political, moral, theological, and other messages.3 Analyzing the inscription of Idrimi,

My thanks go to Manfred Krebernik and Gonzalo Rubio, who provided me with most valuable information along the way of my research, as well as to Davide Nadali who gave me access to the image of the Ebla Victory Panel. I am grateful to Liat Naeh for her editing of the article. 2 Liverani 2004. 3 Liverani 2004, 27–52, 28. 1

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ruler of Alalakh in the early 15th Century BCE, according to the motif history established by Vladimir Propp for fairy tales, and comparing it to the Egyptian tale of the Doomed Prince, Liverani discovers a common narrative pattern “suitable for expressing widespread political and social tensions”.4 And while not engaging explicitly with intertextuality, in scrutinizing the corpus of letters written by RibAdda, ruler of Byblos, to the Egyptian Pharaoh, Liverani detects commonalities with the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer and Wisdom Literature at large.5 These are but three examples of how Liverani approached the issue of fictionality within texts that were otherwise used as sources for reconstructing event history. In this volume of collected essays, Liverani has been more concerned with the aspect of fictionality in what generally was perceived as historiography, rather than with myth per se – a fact that had also been noted by Mehmet-Ali Ataç in his review of the volume.6 In the following, I would like to continue Liverani’s discussion and add a small note on how myth, as a Denkform and an analytical tool, shaped ideological discourse in all its media, text, image, and ritual alike.7 This is not to say that political or environment events may not inform mythic narrative. Such influences can be observed in the Middle Babylonian version of the Ballad of Early Rulers found at Emar,8 showing additional insertion of the rulers Bazi and Zizi (now known from the Mari section of the Sumerian King List), revealing a local scribal tradition that differed from the recension found in Ugarit. The legendary ruler Bazi is also found in the Old Babylonian Song of Bazi, where Bazi’s cultic seat is set on Mount Sharshar, which is considered the place from which the Amorite pastoralists originated.9 Although its provenance is unknown, it is likely that the text originated in Northern Syria. Moreover, local dynamics in the process of transmission show in the elaboration on, and enrichment of traditional Sumero-Babylonian texts in the cultural centers beyond central Mesopotamia: for instance, an insertion of a section defining the nomadic Suteans as beloved of Ishtar in the episode of Gilgamesh, Ishtar, and the Bull of Heaven extant from Emar includes the people in the narrative whose center was the direct hinterland of Emar. Another example is offered by the Hurrian and Hittite versions of the Gilgamesh Epic evidenced in the libraries of Bogazköy: they attest to the adaptation of the Akkadian model into the local environment of Hattusha, rather than translation. For instance, in the Huwawa episode, these versions delve at length, and with much more detail, on the difficult journey through the mountains, than describing the cedar forest.10 Gary Beckman

6 7 8 9

Liverani 2004, 85–96. For a recent edition of wisdom literature, see Cohen 2013. Ataç 2005. Blumenberg 1985. Cohen 2012. George 2009, 1–15; Frahm 2018; and Zgoll 2019. 10 I thank my student Ryan Schnell for drawing my attention to the Hittite versions, 4 5

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also noted that in the Hittite version, Gilgamesh is not born, but created. Ea, as the creator god, the sun god, and the storm god, are all involved in his creation, thus reflecting “the importance of these particular gods in the Hittite pantheon”.11 Such local variations generally have no impact on the plotline, or on the involvement of protagonists in the respective narrative; yet we have to carefully examine their polymorphic (variants) and polystratic (reworking) nature,12 as well as their setting within the “stream of tradition” – the epistemic world of transmission – and the scribal curriculum. The major break in the transmission process, indeed, occurred between the Early Dynastic period and the schools of the Old Babylonian period, as the outcome of a “major redactional enterprise undertaken in the Ur III period”.13 Politics and myth What, however, is the relationship between politics and myth? While it is one thing to consider certain historic moments as catalyzers of specific literary compositions,14 it is another to categorize myths as romans à clef for particular political events.15 Jerrold Cooper draws the fine distinction between an historicizing interpretation of myth in which a narrative reflects a particular event, versus myth as an expression of a continuous reality.16 It is obvious that in Mesopotamia, myth reflects social structures and life conditions of ancient societies; but in the following, I would like to stress the epistemic function of myth, as a thought experiment conceiving a potential reality, rather than merely reflecting reality.17 A first step in acknowledging the epistemic function of myth is to be found in the work of the Frankforts, who, in their introduction to The Intellectual Adventure of Man, observed: “It is essential that true myth be distinguished from legend, saga, fable, and fairy tale. All these may retain elements of myth. (…) But true myth presents its images and imaginary actors, not with the playfulness of fantasy, but with compelling authority. (…) The imagery of myth is therefore by no means allegory. It is nothing less than a

Beckman 2003 and 2019, 4–10. Beckman 2019, 5. 12 Zgoll 2020, 9–82. 13 Observed at first by Falkenstein 1951, see Cooper 2001, 132. 14 See the survey on Adam Falkenstein’s interpretations by Cooper 2001, 132f. 15 Cooper 2001, 135 with reference to Wilcke 1974, 1993; Zgoll 1997, and Volk 1995. 16 Piotr Michalowski’s suggestion to perceive of the epic tradition revolving around Gilgamesh as an outcome of changing royal ideology during the Ur III period – the notion of brotherhood between Gilgamesh and the kings of the Ur III dynasty, in particular – has been refuted by Gebhard Selz adverting to Early Dynastic evidence of this trope, Selz 2017 with reference to Michalowski 2010, 20. 17 Gladigow 1985. 11

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carefully chosen cloak for abstract thought”.18 In this, they recognized that myth was chosen as an authoritative venue to express cultural experiences. Nonetheless, as stated by Francesca Rochberg, the approach of the Frankfort School deprived the ancients from cogency of reasoning: “Ancient thought was classified as ‘prescientific,’ the result of a failure to separate nature from culture”.19 Although the Frankforts did not want to deprecate the mythopoeic perspective, their distinction between primitive and modern man subscribed to the progressivism of their time. Following Edward Tylor, James George Frazer, and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl,20 the Frankforts were assuming an intellectual evolution from myth, through religion, to science. Their theoretical framework – focusing on myth – was indebted to Ernst Cassirer’s differentiation between the cognitive domain of myth and that of logic and abstraction21. As Francesca Rochberg put it “Cassirer found myth to be a form that ‘defies and challenges our fundamental categories of thought. Its logic – if there is any logic – in incommensurate with all our conceptions of empirical or scientific truth.’”22 However, as observed by Peter Machinist,23 it was also in this very same volume, Intellectual Adventure of Man, that Thorkild Jacobsen pursued his approach to myth as both an explication of natural phenomena, and political realities. This is the first time that a text such as Enūma eliš was discussed as a pragmatic analytical category rather than being dismissed as archaic and deriving from primitive mentality. It was interpreted as reflecting political development: from a chaotic situation, through a “Primitive Democracy”, and finally to a centralized, monarchic state. Thirty years later, in his summative volume on Mesopotamian religion, The Treasures of Darkness, Jacobsen still maintained his approach to myth as expression of political theory but changed course with regard to his interpretation of Enūma eliš. Now, he assumed the myth had a specific historical background, associating the cosmic battle between Marduk and Tiamat with the concrete political event of the Babylonian conquest of the Second Sealand Dynasty through the Kassite king Ulamburiaš.24 This kind of explanatory function of myth also characterized Samuel N. Kramer’s introduction to Mythologies of the Ancient World, an edited volume of the annual 1959 meeting of the American Anthropological Association and the American Folklore Society, that focused on ten ancient mythologies including those of Egypt, Sumer and Akkad, Anatolia, Canaan, Greece, India, Iran, China, Japan, and Mexico.25 It is here again that an Assyriologist, or rather a

Frankfort / Frankfort-Groenewegen 1946. Rochberg 2016. 20 Tylor 1871; Frazer 1890; Lévy-Bruhl 1910. 21 Cassirer 1944. 22 Rochberg 2016, 20 with reference to Cassirer 1944. 23 Machinist 2016. 24 Jacobsen 1976. 25 Kramer 1961. 18 19

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Sumerologist, not only engaged in a comparative approach, but also demonstrated awareness of the contemporary approaches to the interpretation of myth, ranging from the etiological to the psychological function. The interpretation of ancient myth now had moved from being disqualified as mythopoeic and speculative, to being recognized as having an explanatory function. While not being mythic narratives per se, Sumerian City Laments deploy a mythologizing aspect by describing political conflicts in mythologizing terms: political conflict is defined as conflict between patron deities of cities; as a consequence defeat and loss or abduction of the divinity or divinities as carriers of identities and protective forces ultimately are assigned to divine will. One of the first inscriptions to reflect that notion is the historical introduction describing the conflict between Umma and Lagash in an inscription of Enmetena, where it says as follows: “Enlil, king of the lands, father of the gods, by his firm command demarcated the border for Ningirsu and Shara. Mesilim, king of Kish, at the command of Ishtaran, surveyed the field and erected stelae there. (But) Ush, ruler of Umma, acted arrogantly – he ripped out (or smashed) those stelae and marched on the steppe of Lagash. Ningirsu, warrior of Enlil, at Enlil’s just command, did battle with Umma” (RIME 1, 9.5.1 i 1–27). Such rhetoric transposing the conflict between cities onto the divine level continues into the first millennium BCE26 with Assyrian royal inscriptions and historical-literary texts including Agum-Kakrime and the Return of Marduk,27 The Seed of Kingship,28 Nebuchadnezzar and Marduk,29 and the Marduk Prophecy30 as prime examples. Significantly, all of these literary-historical texts are known either exclusively or primarily from Ashurbanipal’s library in Nineveh. None of these compositions are attested from Nebuchadnezzar I’s reign, and it has been even suggested that at least some of them, particularly the Marduk Prophecy, have been composed in an Assyrian context to explain and justify Esarhaddon’s intent to return Marduk’s statue to Babylon to the Assyro-Babylonian elites and to celebrate the event.31 In other words, historical-literary texts provided the model for the rhetoric elaborated in the royal inscriptions, especially, in Esarhaddon’s case, in his inscription describing the refurbishment of the Babylonian deities for their return to Babylon.32 This genre of literary-historical texts are just another example of how myth governed “historical” discourse in ancient Mesopotamia, a topic I explored recently with regard to the Assyrian historical inscriptions,

Foster 2005, 360–364; probably to be dated into the late Neo-Assyrian period, see Sassmannshausen 2004, 74. 28 Lambert 1964 and 1967; Foster 2005, 376–380. 29 Foster 2005, 385; Lambert 1964. 30 Borger 1971; Foster 2005, 388–391. 31 Nielsen 2012; Sugie 2014; Schaudig 2019, 54–72. 32 RINAP 4 no. 48: 87–92. 26 27

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regicentric literature, and state rituals.33 Assuming a “charter myth”,34 “genotext”,35 “hypotext”, and “architext”,36 “conceptual metaphor”,37 or “Stoff”,38 of the paradigmatic combat myth rather than a concrete narrative, which underlies and informs these various genres of texts just mentioned as “phenotext”39 or “hypertext”,40 liberates us from searching for an Urversion the reconstruction of which will remain always futile and questionable. Moreover, in Mesopotamia, the combat myth comes in many versions pervading text, image, ritual, and cultic commentaries.41 This transmedial presence of myth led me to perceive of myth as a pragmatic analytical category42 governing all media within royal ideological discourse; it will now equally inform my interpretation of the cultural discourse preceding the Assyrian one. The role of Anzû in Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures and in the Ebla Victory Panel In the following, the two monuments, the Ebla Victory Panel (fig. 1) and Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures (fig. 2) will serve as a case study to demonstrate that already during the third millennium BCE, myth played an epistemic function in the development of elite ideology, much like in the examples just mentioned for the Neo-Assyrian period. I posit that, already by the third millennium at the latest, myth – as a thought experiment, as conceiving of a particular secondary reality, and as an explanatory and legitimizing pattern – pervaded ideological discourse in both its textual and pictorial forms. Both monuments, Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures and the Ebla Victory Panel have been analyzed by Irene J. Winter,43 Rita Dolce44 and Paolo Matthiae,45 respectively, with great sagacity with regard to their

Pongratz-Leisten 2015, Chapters 7–10, in particular. Malinowski 1926. 35 Kristeva 1974. 36 Genette 1997. 37 Here I expand the notion of metaphor as developed by cognitive linguists Lakoff / Johnson 1980 into the realm of myth as a Denkform; see further Blumenberg 1985. 38 Annette Zgoll and Christian Zgoll, recently, distinguished between myth as “Stoff” and its transmedial adaptations emphasizing that myths are not stories but the Stoff underlying each story which in itself represents a concrete realization of a particular Stoff, Zgoll and Zgoll 2020, 14. 39 Kristeva 1974. 40 Genette 1997. 41 Pongratz-Leisten 2015, 232–244. 42 Kiening 2004. 43 Winter 1985 and 1986. 44 Dolce 2005. 45 Matthiae 2017. 33 34

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pictorial content and style, as well as the relationship between text and image46 (in the case of Eannatum’s stele), and their standing within the artistic production of Greater Mesopotamia. Paolo Matthiae, in addition, gave minute attention to the archaeological context of the findings of the panel in Ebla reconstructing its primary use as a wall decoration during the time ED IIIB preceding the kings Irkab-Damu and Ishar-Damu attested in the written sources and its secondary use in the flooring of the palace. In contrast to Rita Dolce, he also pondered about the significance of the depiction of the Anzû bird in its iconography. It is precisely this presence of the Lion Eagle in both monuments that I would like to pursue in more depth. Even though in these two monuments this mythic creature is depicted in different configurations, I would like to suggest that, ultimately, even in the absence of concrete textual evidence for a mythic story, these configurations serve as a pictorial conceptual metaphor for a combat myth, and, even though geographically far apart, intend to convey a similar ideological message. I would like to stress explicitly that, in the following discussion, I am not interested in the Anzû bird as an iconographic motif in its own right.47 Rather, what counts for my argument is that, in the epistemic practice of creating a pictorial representation with ideological intent, it is the configuration of the Anzû bird as one signifier with other signifiers, its place within the composition, and its spatial context48 (set upon the lintel of a temple, for example) that – in referencing or alluding to his role in myth – constructs a particular meaning.49 And while there is no text that accompanies the pictorial representation of the Ebla Victory Panel, I still posit that the cultural choice of combining the Anzû bird with scenes of soldiers maltreating captives and parading severed heads originated in the association of Anzû with battle. In other words, the particular pictorial choice as represented in the Ebla Victory Panel, ultimately, is the expression of an intermediality between image and the conceptual metaphor of the combat myth that might have resulted in a narrative for which we do not have textual evidence in Ebla itself. Notwithstanding this lack of textual evidence in Ebla, I would like to argue that as distinct Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures and the Ebla Victory Panel are, both are governed by a similar conceptualization of war and of the representation of victory, and both create an ideology revolving around the notion of battle as a necessary stratagem to creating social and, ultimately, cosmic order. In this interface between concept and material presence – in this case the pictorial representation – the latter is operating in a specific way: Similar to the experimental process in the natural sciences, its success in conveying the intended

See further Winter 1997; Sonik 2014. For a recent treatment of the Anzû bird with bibliography see Watanabe 2018. 48 This is what Elsner referred to a “positional meaning” (Elsner 1988). 49 Hilgert 2009, 286 in his article, is primarily concerned with the Listenwissenschaft. However, as he states himself, this approach can be applied to any artifact or object of knowledge. 46 47

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message depends on the particular configurative choice that elicits meaning for the beholder. For Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures the case of intermediality is easy to make, because, although no textual evidence for a narrative revolving around Ningirsu’s battle against Anzû has been transmitted so far, personal names containing either the theophoric element Anzû or even the configuration of Ningirsu and Anzû are not conceivable without there being narratives involving, in one way or the other, the contest between the two. For example, the Clay Olive Ukg. 40 contains the name: nin-gír-su-ke4 uru-inim-gi-na-ra anzúmušen-gim á-bad mu-ni-DU “Ninigirsu has opened his arms for Uru’inimgina like the Anzu-eagle (his wings)”50 d

Here the personal name draws on the idea of the warrior god Ningirsu having absorbed the power of his enemy in a way that he is transforming the aggressive and destructive gesture of Anzû opening his wings into a protective gesture geared towards the ruler. And the following names allude to a story in which Anzû has been already turned into a guardian figure after his defeat, as represented in the pictorial repertoire either on Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures crowning the net held by Ningirsu or depicted on cultic paraphernalia like the Stone Mace of King Mesilim dedicated to Ningirsu51 that even precedes Eannatum’s stele and Enmetena’s Silver Vase52 to name just a few. a-anzúmušen é-anzúmušen lugal- anzúmušen Inanna-anzúmušen

“The father is the Anzu-Eagle” “The house/temple has the Anzu-Eagle” (as decoration) “The king is the Anzu-Eagle” “The goddess Inanna is the Anzu-Eagle”53

All these names evoke the protective function of Anzû in his subservient position as guardian. For Ebla we only have the personal name an-zu-me-ru in the Names and Profession List, which in Tell Abu Salabikh appears as AN.MI.MUŠENme-ru.54 So far, scholarship has been reluctant to associate me-ru with the storm god M/Wer of Mari or in the Early Dynastic south, because the shift m/w is not attested that early.55 However, the choice of the writing MImušen for Anzû in Ebla, Selz 1995, 24. Frankfort 1996, 66–67; Amiet 1977, 364 and fig. 302; Parrot 1948, 72. 52 Frankfort 1996, 66. Huh 2008, 97. 53 Selz 1995, 24–25. 54 Krebernik 1992, 95. 55 See the personal names attested in Fara: il-MUŠ-me-ru (TSŠ 115 III 5), il-MUŠ-nume!-ru (WF 22 VIII 2), il-MUŠ-nu-me- (TSŠ 536 I 4), il-MUŠ-me-ru (TSŠ 181 II 10, WF 124 IV 5, CT 50 5 I 2), il-MUŠ-me- (WF 143 I 2’). And EN-zu-PI-AŠ from Ebla see Krebernik 1988, 174. For a survey of the various interpretations of the later W/Mēru as either “attacker” (Durand) or “West” (Bonechi) see Schwemer 2001, 50 51

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which is to be read as mušen-ĝi6 (night bird), evokes the image of the predator bird who darkens the land with the spreading of his wings,56 which again might presuppose a mythic metaphor. Moreover, the existence of Mesopotamian myths in Ebla with one revolving around the sun god and mentioning Anzû and the mount Sharshar,57 which in later mythic tradition became known as his birth place, support the possibility of mythic Stoff informing the pictorial choice in the Ebla Victory Panel even though only at a very generic level. From the archaeological point of view, it is worth noting that Paolo Matthiae emphasizes the similarity between the panels from Mari and Ebla: they have both been executed by using wooden panels, in contrast to the ones from Kish and Ur, where bitumen panels represent the norm,58 perhaps suggesting a regional tradition. Moreover, perhaps inspired by a passage in the Gudea Building Hymn that compares Ningirsu/Ninurta’s weapon Sharur to a falcon,59 Matthiae suggests that the depiction of the lion-headed eagle stands in for Sharur as personification of Ningirsu/Ninurta’s weapon and extends his presence as being emblematic for warrior deities including also Nergal, Ishtar, and the West-Semitic god Reshep, who can also have martial qualities.60 I would, however, approach this passage in slightly different terms, suggesting that, while Sharur’s physical appearance was that of a mace, its agency could be described in cosmogonic, anthropomorphizing, and theriomorphizing terms, as attested in mythic tales and in Gudea’s Building hymn. In other words, the passage “a falcon against the foreign lands, “King, who makes the mountain tremble” (Lugal-kurdúb)61 is referencing the devastating force of Sharur’s agency rather than describing his physical appearance. Consequently, I would interpret the representation of the lion-eagle as an image of Anzû, rather than Sharur. In both monuments, Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures (I refer here exclusively to its frontal side) and the Ebla Victory Panel, the configurative display operates with generic concepts and icons, abbreviated segments evoking a mythic Stoff revolving around the combat myth and perhaps referencing one or more particular narratives. On the part of its producer, in this case the artist, this epistemic practice of creating a particular image presupposes knowledge of the existing pictorial and perhaps even textual reservoir and stream of tradition, allowing the artist to communicate a message that is relatable to their audience, set in a particular historical context. On the part of the beholder, it presupposes acquired cultural

200–210, 202. See further Krebernik 1993. For examples of this notion see Zand 2010, 421f. 57 Krebernik 1992, 75 and 83, ARET 5, 6: C. 6 2–3//A.4.5–7 dugud an.zu hur.sag sa-sa-ru12 “(…) (venerable) Anzu, Mount Šar-šar is quaking”. Unfortunately, I cannot delve into the interesting fact that Mount Sharshar is also mentioned in the Song of Bazi, see fn. 9. 58 Matthiae 2017, 49. 59 Edzard 1997, Gudea E3/1.1.7.CylB vii 19–21. 60 Matthiae 2017, 55–56. 61 Edzard 1997, E3.1.1.7CylB vii 21–22. 56

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knowledge, in order to properly categorize and understand the full meaning of the message; in other words, it requires an educated consumer.62 The placement of much of the imagery within the palace and temple rather than in the public sphere – even the citadel within the city probably had restricted access, and so the imagery display on temple and palace walls was directed primarily at the people working in these institutions – implies a restricted audience that comprised mostly of the elites.63 The distinct placement of certain imagery in a rather semi-public space suggests that producer and beholder shared the same culturally-relative mental background, and recognized the adequacy of the content of the image in its framework and context. And so we can state in the words of the Renaissance art historian Michael Baxandall, that in Mesopotamia too, “the public’s visual capacity is the medium of the art producer”.64 A shared reservoir of cultural metaphors: Lagash and Ebla as part of a cultural continuum While ancient Near Eastern history certainly is characterized by discontinuities in its social and political history,65 palatial art, and specifically, objects found in the temple, reveal that at the basis of any particular local historical expression lay a shared reservoir of cultural metaphors. Evidence for such a shared scribal and scholarly continuum stretching from Sumer to Northern Syria66 are the palatial archives of Ebla, which among the texts of the scribal curriculum also contained myths, many of them attested at Abu Salabikh in Babylonia.67 Adapting existing conventions from established iconologies and drawing on their connotational authority would guarantee the success of their reception, particularly within the royal ideological discourse. Both monuments, Enannatum’s Stele of the Vultures and the Ebla Victory Panel, intend to convey the notion of royal victory in mythologized guise, but do so very differently with regard to their inclusion of the figure of Anzû, how the defeat of the enemy, and how the king are represented. According to the reconstruction of Paolo Matthiae, the Ebla panel was at least 3.00 m high and 1.40/150 m wide, set into the entrance area of the first phase of Palace G. The entire panel had “twelve horizontal registers in seven of which there were scenes of military triumph, and in five lion-headed eagles dominating a pair of human-headed bulls. In the ten upper registers, scenes of triumph altered with lion headed eagles, while the two lower registers were both occupied by scenes of

Winter 1985, 16. Bonatz 2012. 64 Baxandall 1972, 40. 65 Michalowski 1996, 192. 66 Rubio 2006, 110–123. 67 Krebernik 1992. 62 63

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military triumph. In all the historical-military scenes the soldiers march towards the left. In the left-hand lower corner of the panel was the king’s figure, occupying a height of three or, at most, four registers, facing towards the right to welcome the troops of triumphant soldiers”.68 The Ebla Victory Panel relies on pictorial conventions focusing on the humiliation, maltreatment, and killing of the enemy by the hands of soldiers, as known from the Early Dynastic Period from Southern Mesopotamia with the Standard of Ur69 – images that spread through Kish70 and Mari71 to Ebla in the North, and that continued in the Old Akkadian steles.72 As in Mari, the shell pieces of the inlaid wooden panel were found on the floor, and their reconstruction is partly guesswork, but – similar to the Ebla Victory Panel – the panel was organized in registers. Here, also, soldiers lead stripped and bound captives before dignitaries, and, here also, the king is part of the pictorial representation. In this case, he is carrying a standard that shows a bull.73 We can state that – as distinct these Early Dynastic city states all are in their local politics – there clearly was a unifying element with regard to their pictorial choice in celebrating victory in battle. The theme of control over life and death of the victor stands at the center of the message of the mosaic inlays found in these sites. The way this theme is elaborated in all these cases reveals inspiration from the iconography of seals of the Late Uruk Period. These seals show socalled prisoner-scenes depicting a ruler with power over life and death towering over the subdued enemy.74 In Uruk, these were matched by small statues, likewise presenting the maltreatment and humiliation of prisoners in various bodily expressions. Like the sealings, these statues were all found in the filling of the Eanna terrace.75 Both the sealings and statuettes show the full pictorial repertoire of the gestures and bodily expressions of the subdued enemy as known from later periods as well and so attest to the emergence and process of visualization, the translation of the non-visible to the visible and mise-en-scène of the concept of the victorious king.76 However, in the Ebla Victory Panel, the king is not represented as an active agent in the victory. Nor is he represented as a divine warrior figure, akin to Ningirsu/Ninurta in the South. Rather, similar to the Ur Standard, in which the king is shown in the uppermost register, receiving the rows of his soldiers leading the captives into his presence, like in the Ebla panel, the king remains the passive recipient of the outcome of battle. His soldiers’ parade for him, bearing Matthiae 2017, 43. Woolley 1934. 70 Mackay 1929, 120–121. 71 Parrot 1956, 136–146 with pl. LVI. 72 Börker-Klähn 1982, figs. 20 and 21b–c. 73 Parrot 1956, 136–155 and pls. LVI–LVII. 74 Brandes 1979, 159–166. 75 Becker 1992, no. 945–951. 76 For the difference between invisible and non-visible with the latter being the aniconic or concept preceding the visualization of it see Didi-Hubermann 1990. 68 69

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weapons or booty, pushing naked, bound prisoners before them or holding a prisoner head down, or slaughtering prisoners in various methods. These scenes alternate with representations of the Anzû bird, thrusting his claws into the back of two bovine figures to the right and the left. While I agree with Paolo Matthiae that the pictorial representation of the Lion-Eagle signals military triumph, and while it has the deictic power of evoking the agency of a warrior god, the pictorial choice lay exactly in depicting the absence, rather than the presence of the latter, foregrounding human rather than divine agency . Eannatum, ruler of the city state of Lagash, made a completely different choice of representing the concept of victory in his stele. In his Stele of the Vultures we find the first combined monumental representation of the victorious warrior, human and divine. The complexity of this stele created in the city state of Lagash located on the Tigris river is breathtaking: Front and reverse of the stele combine multiple representations of time, layering myth and historic events. In their entanglement and pictorial difference,77 they directly convey to the educated beholder the ideology of rulership as conceptualized in the time of Eannatum. The Stele of the Vultures centers around the theme of the victorious battle78 of the human and divine ruler. On the back of the stele, the human ruler is striking the ruler and army of Umma in various ways. The frontal side shows the mythologizing icon of victory: the figure of the warrior god Ningirsu, holding his emblematic weapon – the net – filled with human captives and smiting his mace on the head of the king of Umma who is sticking his head out of the net. It is here, and only here, that the mythic notion (Denkform) of the interplay of cosmic and social order is realized, epitomized in the role of the divine and human warrior, placed within a major thematic and pictorial framework. While one could argue that the Ebla Victory Panel, with its representation of the Anzû bird, contains allusions to the myth (so as myth and historical reality intertwine), this enmeshment or intermediality is not as explicit as in the pictorial choices made in Eannatum’s stele; later, allusions to the Ningirsu/Ninurta mythology will re-emerge in the Middle Assyrian and NeoAssyrian royal inscriptions, the producers of which belong to the same group of scholars who must have had an interest in providing an Akkadian translation for the Sumerian composition of Lugal-e (Ninurta and the Stones).79 The explicit merging of divine and royal action in the pictorial medium, not only in the combination of frontal and reverse side of the stele, but also in the poise and gesturality of the warrior god is unique to Eannatum’s stele. The configuration of Ningirsu holding the net that is crowned by the Anzû bird is implying its defeat by the warrior god and referencing a mythic narrative revolving around combat that contains these opponents as protagonists. However, having emulated the gesture

For the notion of pictorial logic that operates differently from language see Boehm 2015. There have been many attempts to make sense of these registers. See the most recent discussion with reference to former scholarship on the issue by Selz 2015. 79 Cooper 1971 and 1972; van Dijk 1983; Seminara 2001; Geller 2010; Mirelman 2017. 77 78

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of the ruler smiting the defeated enemy while holding him captive in his net and so mixing divine and human agency entirely blurs the boundaries between the mythic and the historical. The religious-ideological message that results from this particular pictorial unit is: any human victory is the god’s victory, and any human battle on the part of the ruler of Lagash ultimately is participating in the cosmic battle against disruptive forces. In the gesturality of the victorious warrior, the human ruler and the divine warrior merge into one. This anchoring of rulership in mythic tropes by combining Ningirsu’s cosmic victory with the historical military campaign represents a very sophisticated and deliberate pictorial choice, as it draws the beholder into the very nature and framework of royal action qualifying it as participating in the divine scheme. It is fundamental to our understanding of Early Dynastic royal ideology in Lagash. This royal discourse, as shown by the Stele of Sargon, will change in the Akkad period.80 While still showing the enemy trapped in the net, the warrior god’s iconic gesture of victory smiting the head of the enemy ruler is now performed by the king: “it becomes an image of ongoing royal action under the guidance and protection of the dynastic goddess Ištar to ward off threats to civilization, thus affirming victory of order over chaos”.81 Several other pictorial choices make the iconography of Eannatum’s stele stand out in its entanglement of myth and history, defying a simplistic pairing between image and narrative units or mythemes,82 such as the ones known from the Sumerian compositions Angimdimma83 and Lugal-e84 and the Akkadian Anzû myth.85 Not one of the pictorial units on the stele illustrates exactly a particular narrative action or mytheme of any of these tales transmitted in the textual medium. Does this reflect ignorance of the mythic tradition on the part of the artist who produced the stele? While artists did not possess the in-depth training in scribal lore held by the ancient scholars, they were not necessarily illiterate, as revealed by the terracotta models of a female goddess found in a house near the temple of Belet-Agade in Babylon. These models, showing the goddess in different ways of holding her arms, displayed an inscription by the sculptor, owner of the house: “Nabû-zakir-šumi, (son of) Nur-Sin, sculptor (BUR.GUL/parkullu) of Marduk”.86 Variations in posture and gesturality and what they might express were of central concern to the agents involved in the visual presencing of the royal image, as revealed by the Neo-Assyrian letters between scholars and the king that have been discussed by Irene Winter.87 Such evidence speaks in favor of a culturally

Nigro 1998. Pongratz-Leisten 2015, 83. 82 Lévi-Strauss 1955. 83 Cooper 1978. 84 See fn. 58. 85 Hallo / Moran 1979; Vogelzang 1988; Saggs 1986: Annus 2001. 86 Seidl 2000, 112. 87 Winter 1997, 367. 80 81

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informed group of craftsmen working in the palatial and temple contexts. What does the configuration of Ningirsu with Anzû contribute to this message? Why was this configuration relevant for Eannatum to convey his ideological message? Although we do not have textual evidence for the mythic narratives revolving around the warrior god Ningirsu/Ninurta and Anzû from the Early Dynastic period,88 as they are only attested from the Old Babylonian period onward, the iconography of the stele suggests a producer steeped in tradition who is addressing an informed and knowledgeable audience with the condensed message of a narrative that must have included a combat myth involving both of them. It is not only the combination of Ningirsu with Anzû in the upper register, but also Ningirsu’s additional configuration with his mother in both the upper and lower register who was probably Ninmah/Ninhursaga, as told in Lugal-e. In the mythic narrative Ninurta addresses his mother after his victory over Asag thanking her for being close to him in the mountainous rebel lands while he was surrounded by the horrors of battle.89 In the Akkadian version of the Anzû Myth, by contrast, we have evidence for his mother encouraging him to go into battle against Anzû to avenge his father Enlil and restore cosmic order by returning the tablet of destinies, an action that might equally be alluded to in the image. Not only does Belet-ili’s speech in the Anzû Myth convey, in condensed form, the cultural value assigned to battle in ancient times, it also establishes the chaîne opératoire for the earthly ruler: Kill him, conquer Anzu! Let [king]sip (re-enter) Ekur, let authority return [to the] fa[ther] who begot you. Let there be daises to be built, Establish your holy places [in the f]our [world regions], Let your shrine come into Ekur. Sow yourself mighty before the gods, for your name shall be ‘Mighty One’.90 In its few lines, Belet-ili’s speech encapsulates the culturally prescribed sequence of action that will inform the narrative structure of the later Assyrian royal inscriptions: the king has to prove his martial valor in guaranteeing stability and peace in the land, before he can proceed and restore, or build the temples, and take care of the cult. It is this chaîne opératoire conceptualized in the mythic narrative

The preserved part of the Barton Cylinder telling the story of Ninurta resolving a crisis of food supply at Nippur does not mention Anzû, Alster / Westenholz 1994. The Old Babylonian Sumerian tale Ninurta and the Turtle, while having Ninurta and Anzû as protagonists cannot be categorized as a combat myth, Alster 1972 and 2006. While Alster categorizes it as a parody, Rubio lists the text among the myths revolving around Ninurta, Rubio 2009, 52. 89 ETCSL Ninurta’s Exploits, t.1.6.2: ll. 390–410. 90 Foster 2005, 555–578, 56–69. 88

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that provides the framework for royal action of how to establish one’s name for posterity, and it is exactly in this narrative sequence that the royal deeds are told in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. The frontal upper register of Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures, however, not only presences a condensed message of the mythic Stoff in iconic form. In addition, through the depiction of the standard crowned with the Anzû bird standing behind Ningirsu’s mother, the pictorial representation evokes either a cultic or martial context as well, and so, once again, produces multilayered settings that require what James Elkins has coined “visual literacy”,91 rather than the reading of the image as illustration to a particular narrative. The same applies to the lower register showing Ninurta in his chariot drawn by the lion eagle. At first glance, the configuration with his mother standing behind him could suggest the narrative scene of Ningirsu’s mother encouraging the warrior god to go into battle. But the fact that Ningirsu’s chariot is adorned with battle trophies, among them Anzû, and drawn by the lion-eagle suggests that he has already achieved his victory and might be on his triumphal procession to the Ekur to request his pedestal in the cella of Enlil who is not shown in the image. Again, it would be wrong to see this scene as any kind of direct illustration of a mytheme or event from mythic narratives as we know them from the textual evidence. What we would conceive of as contradictory to the narrative is indeed a “pictorial logic” that, in its realization of the visual operates differently from language. Understanding the image as a meaning-generating process and as a non-verbal iconic logos does not imply a “withdrawal from language, but (…) rather a difference vis à vis language (…)”92 in its realization of the conceptual. While Eannatum’s stele evokes mythic narratives, in its layering of mythic and historical realities it defies any of the taxonomies that have been developed for narrative imagery.93 It is the capacity of the image to show simultaneous and/or multilayered realities94 and to point to something that is absent, thus adding the phenomenon of deixis,95 the fact that pictures show something that might otherwise not be visible at all, that is foregrounded so brilliantly in Eannatum’s Stele of the Vultures. Both images, the Ebla Victory Panel and Eannatums’s Stele of the Vultures, in their very own pictorial logic, express a royal ideological discourse revolving around the ruler as warrior and battle as means of establishing social and cosmic order. Although locally and historically bounded, they shared a common Weltanschauung that was informed by myth as a paradigmatic model.

Elkins 2008. Boehm / Mitchell 2009, 107. 93 For a survey in art historical approaches see Horváth 2016. 94 Boehm 2015, 28–29. 95 Boehm 1995, 39. 91 92

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Michalowski, P., 1996: Sailing to Babylon, Reading the Dark Side of the Moon. In J.S. Cooper / G.M. Schwartz (eds.): The Study of the Ancient Near East in the 21st Century. The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference. Winona Lake, IN. Pp. 177–193. –– 2010: Maybe Epic: The Origins and reception of Heroic Poetry. In D. Konstans / K. Raaflaub (eds.): Epic and History. Oxford. Pp. 7–25. Mirelman, S., 2017: A New Manuscript of Lugal-e, Tablet IV. Iraq 79: 155–162. Nevling Porter, B., 1993: Gods’ Statues as a Tool of Assyrian Political Policy: Esarhaddon’s Return of Marduk to Babylon. In L.M. Berlin / J. Waardenburg (eds.): Religious Transformations and Socio-Political Change: Eastern Europe and Latin America. New York. Pp. 9–24. Nielsen, J.P., 2012: Marduk’s Return: Assyrian Imperial Propaganda, Babylonian Cultural Memory, and the akītu Festival of 667 BC. In J. Harrisson / P. Roy (eds.): Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World. London. Pp. 3–32. Nigro, L., 1998: The Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief. Iraq 60: 85–102. Parrot, A., 1948. Tello, vingt campagnes de fouille (1877–1898). Paris –– 1956: Mission archéologique de Mari, vol. 1. Le temple d’Ishtar. Paris. Pongratz-Leisten, B., 2015: Religion and Ideology in Assyria. Berlin / Boston. Rochberg, F., 2016: A Critique of the Cognitive-historical Thesis of the Intellectual Adventure. In A. Raaflaub (ed.): The Adventure of the Human Intellect. Self, Society, and the Divine in Ancient World Cultures. Malden, MA / Oxford. Pp. 16–28. Rubio, G., 2006: Eblaite, Akkadian, and East Semitic. In N.J.C. Kouwenberg / G. Detuscher (eds.): The Akkadian Language in its Semitic Context. Leiden. Pp. 110–39. –– 2009: Sumerian Literature. In C.S. Ehrlich (ed.): From an Antique Land. An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature. Lanham. Pp. 11–75. Saggs, H.W.F., 1986: Additions to Anzu. AfO 33: 1–29. Sassmannshausen, L., 2004: Babylonian Chronology of the 2nd Half of the 2nd Millennium B.C. In H. Hunger / R. Pruszinsky, Mesopotamian Dark Age Revisited. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie 32. Vienna. Pp. 61–70. Schaudig, H., 2019: Explaining Disaster. Tradition and Transformation of the “Catastrophe of Ibbi-Sîn” in Babylonian Literature. Münster. Schwemer, D., 2001: Die Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens im Zeitalter der Keilschriftkulturen. Wiesbaden. Seidl, U., 2000: Babylonische und assyrische Kultbilder in den Massenmedien des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr. In Chr. Uehlinger (ed.): Images as Media. Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (1st) Millennium BCE). Fribourg / Göttingen. Pp. 89–114. Selz, G.J., 1995: Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Lagaš. Philadelphia. –– 2015: The Burials after the Battle: Combining Textual and Visual Evidence. In

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R. Dittmann / G. Selz (eds.): It’s a Long Way to Historiography of the Early Dynastic Period(s). Münster. Pp. 387–404. –– 2017: Mythological Narratives and Their backgrounds: The case of Inana’s Descent to the Netherworld (ID). In J. Gießauf (ed.): Zwischen Karawane und Orientexpress. Streifzüge durch Jahrtausende orientalischer Geschichte und Kultur. Festschrift für Hannes Galter. Münster. Pp. 277–290. Seminara, S.: 2001: La versione accadica del LUGAL-E: La tecnica babilonese della tradizione del Sumerico e le sue “regole”. Roma. Sonik, K., 2014: Pictorial Mythology and Narrative in the Ancient Near East. In B.A. Brown / M.H. Feldman (eds.): Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art. Boston / Berlin. Pp. 265–293. Sugie, T., 2014: The Reception of the Marduk Prophecy in Seventh Century B.C. Nineveh. Orient 49: 107–113. Tylor, E.B., 1871: Primitive Culture. London. Vogelzang, M.E., 1988: Bin šar dadmē. Edition and Analysis of the Akkadian Anzu Poem. Groningen. Volk, K., 1995: Inanna und Šukaletuda. Zur historisch-politischen Deutung eines sumerischen Literaturwerkes. Wiesbaden. Watanabe, Ch.E., 2018: Composite Animals in Mesopotamia as Cultural Symbols. In S. Di Paolo (ed.): Composite Artefacts in the Ancient Near East. Exhibiting an Imaginative Materiality, Showing a Genealogical Nature. Oxford. Pp. 31– 38. Wilcke, C.,1974: Politische Opposition nach sumerischen Quellen: der Konflikt zwischen Königtum und Ratsversammlung. Literaturwerke als politische Tendenzschriften. In A. Finet (ed.): La voix de l’opposition en Mésopotamie. Brussels. Pp. 37–65. Wilcke, C., 1993: Politik im Spiegel der Literatur, Literatur als Mittel der Politik im älteren Babylonien. In K. Raaflaub (ed.): Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike. München. Pp. 29–75. Winter, I.J., 1985: After the Battle is Over: The Stele of the Vultures and the Beginning of Historical Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near East. In H.L. Kessler / M.S. Simpson (eds.): Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Studies in the History of Art 16. Washington D.C. Pp. 11–32. –– 1986: Eannatum and the ‘King of Kiš’?: Another Look at the Stele of the Vultures and ‘Cartouches’ in Early Sumerian Art. ZA 76: 205–212. ––1997: Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Visual Dimensions of Assyrian Ideology. In S. Parpola / R.M. Whiting (eds.): Assyria 1995. Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project Helsinki, September 7–11, 1995. Helsinki. Pp. 359–381. Woolley, C.L., 1934: Ur Excavations II, The Royal Cemetery, I–II. Oxford. Zand, K.V., 2010: Zu den Schreibungen des Anzud-Vogels in der Fāra-Zeit. In D. Shehata / F. Weiershäuser / K.V. Zand (eds.): Von Göttern und Menschen. Beiträge zu Literatur und Geschichte des Alten Orients. Festschrift für Brigitte Groneberg. Leiden / Boston. Pp. 415–442.

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Zgoll, A. 1997: Der Rechtsfall der En-hedu-Ana im Lied nin-me-šara. Münster. –– 2019: Mythos als rituell aufgeführtes Drama. Inthronisation, Tempelschöpfung und Stadtgründung im altbabylonischen Lied auf Bazi. In G. Chambon / M. Guichard / A.-I. Langlois (eds.): De l’Argile au numérique. Mélanges Assyriologiques en l’honneur de Dominique Charpin. Leuven / Paris / Bristol. Pp. 1209–1242. Zgoll, Chr. / Zgoll, A., 2020: Myths as Polymorphous and Polystratic Erzählstoffe. A Theoretical and Methodological Foundation. In A. Zgoll / Chr. Zgoll (eds.): Mythische Sphärenwechsel. Methodisch neue Zugänge zu antiken Mythen in Orient und Okzident. Berlin / Boston.



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Fig. 1. Hypothetical Restitution of Two Registers of the Ebal Victory Panel, Matthiae 2017, fig. 19, (Courtesy Missione Archeologica Italiana in Siria).

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Fig. 2a. Eannatum, Stele of the Vultures, (Bahrani 2008, 148, Drawing Elizabeth Simpson).

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Fig. 2b. Eannatum, Stele of the Vultures, (Bahrani 2008, 148, Drawing Elizabeth Simpson).

“Canine Instincts and Monkeys’ Features” Animal and Demonic Traits in the Construction of “Otherness” in Sumerian Literature Lorenzo Verderame Sapienza Università di Roma In celebrating the jubilee, it is impossible to ignore Mario Liverani’s activity as scholar and his impressive, thorough, and eclectic production.1 Having had the good fortune to have been his student in the 1990s, I would like to express my gratitude to Mario Liverani by remembering him as a teacher. In 1991 I moved from the University of Bari, where I had studied Classics for one year, to “Sapienza” to continue my studies. In Rome, I found myself astonished and lost in a graduate program with an incredible range of disciplines dealing with antiquity. The History of the Ancient Near East was the only nonClassic course I took in the first year and was my first contact with my future area of expertise. During this first year, I was too lost and focused on this novel discipline which was unveiling cultures that seemed exotic and mysterious, to appreciate all the finer details of the situation. At the beginning I was not aware and had not fully understood the prestige of the professor I was working under. The general conditions of the lessons did not help either! The classroom was on the second floor of a building in Via Palestro 63.2 It was a small room packed with people who were used to sitting on the floor, or even over the board or the professor’s desk if you were not smart enough to arrive fifteen minutes before the beginning of the lesson, or to have kind colleagues who would save a seat for you. A stratigraphic or spatial occupation of the classroom space was evident (at least perceptible to me), among the different generations of students and even between those living in Rome and those who, like me, were “foreigners”. I wish to express my gratitude to M. Erica Couto-Ferreira and Gabriella Spada, who read the final manuscript and noted comments and corrections. 2 Via Palestro 63 was a five-storey building where some of the archaeological and most of the Ancient Near Eastern chairs had their seats. Liverani’s office was on the second floor. On the same floor, an apartment hosted the chair of Prehistory of the Ancient Near East (Marcella Frangipane) and the Arslantepe expedition. On the fifth floor, facing one another, were the apartments hosting the chair of Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (held by Paolo Matthiae) and Assyriology (held by Giovanni Pettinato), with the mission of Ebla and their respective projects. 1

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After the academic quarter, a triad will enter and find its way through the crowded classroom and reach the desk. A bearded and long-haired man who looked more like Marx than Garibaldi, would sit on the chair at the centre of the desk with his two assistants at his sides: a bright lady at his right and a silent gentleman at his left. The professor was of course Mario Liverani, but it was only after a year (or more) that I knew that the assistants were Maria Giovanna (Vanna) Biga and Lucio Milano. At the time there were no PowerPoints. The lesson was delivered entirely orally, with the occasional support of the blackboard. I remember Liverani standing up and using the blackboard only two or three times per year. Instead, we were supplied with a detailed dossier of maps, translations, etc., that I still have. Liverani would speak almost uninterruptedly for 1h 45m, with an occasional comment from the unmistakable Piedmont-accented voice of Vanna, while I never heard Lucio pronounce a single word in the course of that year. The courses lasted the entire academic year. The timing and duration of the lesson, 15:00–17:00, and the monotonous voice3 of the professor were strong challenges to the students’ attention and resistance, but Liverani’s enlightening analysis counterbalanced the obstacles and the classroom was always full. I sustained my examination on 25/05/1992. The programme was Liverani’s manual, Antico Oriente, plus the monographic course dedicated to Assyrian military campaigns. The examination committee was composed of Liverani and Biga. In the overzealous Mesopotamocentric perspective I had developed in my single year of enthusiastic study of the Near East and impatience towards the rigidity and pedantry of Classic studies, I considered the fall of Nineveh the end of the ancient Near Eastern history, arguing the Neo-Babylonian was a kind of decadence and the Persian empire too modern. This was, of course, my personal view, and a flaw that I have maintained throughout my career. It was a big mistake, particularly at the moment of the examination. The last question was “obviously” about the Persians4 and my neglect led me to a 28 instead of 30. This was one of the three 28 marks that I would receive in a career of otherwise 30/30.5 In successive years I took two more courses in the History of the Ancient Near East, but I continued to follow the lessons of Liverani until my graduation in 1999. I owe so much to Liverani’s teaching. First, he was the only one of the I remember that this monotone was interrupted occasionally by Liverani’s giggling at some particularly cruel punishment, or an odd entry in the long list of tributes in the repetitive descriptions of the Assyrian campaigns. 4 In following years I had time to ponder on the question and realize why Liverani included the Persian period as the last chapter of his manual. 5 For the curious, the other two were with Religions of Ancient Iran and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. In the first case, Gherardo Gnoli, after an hour exam, argued the upsetting vote was due to my “marked Southern accent”. In the second case, Paolo Matthiae gave me a 30, but Frances Pinnock contested that I was a non-attending student and I deserved a 28. The peremptory tone of Frances, then as now, admitted no reply. 3

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courses I took who insisted that we take care in the style, synthesis, and clarity of writing and the use of an ordered system of notes and bibliography. We were asked to write individual and group essays,6 and review articles of books. I still remember the subjects of my essays. My group work was on metal and stone exchanges with central Asia and was based on Lamberg-Karlowski’s studies. My personal essay was a study on the “brothers’” share in the contracts from Emar, and involved working directly on the cuneiform sources. For the commitments to good writing in style and content arrangement, Liverani fed us on theoretical readings unrelated to the Ancient Near East. I well remember two of them. One was Il modo di produzione asiatico. Storia di una controversia marxista (1969) by Gianni Sofri, a book which I had difficulties to fully understand at the time and, I must admit, even today. The second were Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the folk tale (1928) and Historical roots of the wonder tale (1946). It was a revelation in those years.7 Propp became one of the great loves of my academic life and an author that I continue to read and study. This, together with the strong emphasis on clear writing and theoretical approach, is a great debt of gratitude that I owe to Mario Liverani. Contrary to some of my friends from those study years who are now my colleagues at “Sapienza”,8 I have never found myself at ease at calling Liverani by his first name, Mario. This is, however, a personal and general attitude I have towards those who were once my professors. I don’t know if it was due to the bitter debacle of my first exam and the lashing irony of Liverani, or to my interest more in words than models that I made my way in epigraphy and philology. I owe a large part of my scholarly imprint to him. Although I specialized in the philological paths of Assyriology, I have always considered analysis the centre and the aim of my research. What follows is an essay that is based on my reception, perception, and elaboration of those teachings. The result will perhaps turn his nose up the ancient master, but this is my personal and sincere tribute to him. In this paper, I propose an analysis of the motifs used to describe the “foreigners” in Sumerian literary sources. I will show that, far from being descriptive, these features and traits are tropes constructed on the negation of Mesopotamian values. I will focus on two animals, used in metaphors and similes, for stupidity This may surprise colleagues from other university teaching systems, but at the time, and even now, the Italian university was based mainly on oral examinations. The main complaint and concern of Liverani (that now as a professor I completely share) was that from the end of the high school to the end of the graduate programme, the students write almost nothing, and they even lose their writing skills. 7 This was paralleled by the contemporary discovery of Angelo Brelich’s thought, the merit of which I owe to my master, later colleague, and dear friend A.M. Gloria Capomacchia. 8 These are Francesca Balossi, who belongs to my “generation”, Marco Ramazzotti and Lucia Mori, who preceded us by a few years, and Davide Nadali, who is also slightly younger. 6

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and “bestial” features, the monkey and the dog. In the conclusion, I discuss the construction of “otherness” in Sumerian literature and I draw some consideration on the use of the same motifs in insults and how these may be constructed on a principle of otherness. The Marriage of Martu The Sumerian composition known as The Marriage of Martu,9 describes how Martu, a nomad living close behind the city wall of Inab, marries the daughter of the city-god Numušda. After a mythical presentation of the city of Inab and a description of its rulers, Martu and his people are introduced. These are described as living outside the city and chasing gazelles, for which they receive daily rations. One day, where the daily rations are distributed, Martu receives a double one as if he were married, but he is not. The accident is twice repeated and each time Martu has a conversation with his mother and concludes that he must marry. The occasion presents at the festival of the city-god Numušda. Martu takes part in a wrestling contest and routs all of his opponents. Martu refuses the prize of silver and jewels offered three times by Numušda and asks to marry the god’s daughter instead. Numušda seems to agree to the marriage and lists the gifts Martu must provide. Other than the presents Martu gives to Inab’s people, the marriage’s negotiation is not concluded. Here, the composition puts a description of the customs and habits of Martu and his people in the mouth of a friend of the bride. At her final question of “will you marry Martu?”, the bride’s positive and dry answer leaves no doubt as to the happy end of the story. This is the very last line of the narration, which is followed by a eulogy of the city of Inab which closes the composition. Martu and the Martus’ habits and customs The text has been usually interpreted as a myth explaining the sedentarization of the Martus or Amorreans in Mesopotamia.10 Throughout The Marriage of Martu, the name of the protagonist is preceded by the divine determinative (dmar-tu). Martu is a god representing Martus’ people. Besides being considered by some scholars as a god introduced to the Mesopotamian pantheon by those same Martus/ Amorreans, Martu is a fictitious construction made up by the Mesopotamian theologians. As the divine figure, the description of Martu’s habits and customs are inventions of the Mesopotamians scribes. In fact, these features are not exclusive to the Martus. The Mesopotamian scribes described Martu and his people through

The text is known from a single witness (CBS 14061) from Nippur. Chiera published the copy (Chiera 1934, n. 58 = SEM 58) and a partial transcription and translation (Chiera 1924, 14–23), followed sixty years later by two contemporary editions of Römer 1989 and Kramer 1990. 10 For the Martus and the term mar-tu in third millennium sources see Verderame 2009b. 9

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a process of negation and opposition of Mesopotamian features and values. Many of these features are thus literary tropes. They are not unique to the Martus, but are stereotypes employed in the description of most of the other non-Mesopotamian peoples.11 Now (listen), their hands are destructive and their features are those of monkeys; he eats what Nanna prohibited and he has no respect (for the gods). In their never stopping roaming about […], they are an abomination to the gods’ temples. Their minds are confused, their hands cause confusion. Dressed in leather-sack … living in a tent, the wind and the rain […], and they don’t recite prayers. He lives in the hills and [ignores] the places [of gods], he is one who digs up truffles in the mountain, does not know how to bend the knee, and eats raw meat. In his entire life does not have a house, and when he dies (his body) is carried nowhere.12 The Mesopotamian man is one of intellect and craft whose actions results in constructive acts; the “other” lacks intelligence and logic, and his actions are destructive. The sedentary life in a house within the walls of a city of the Mesopotamian plain is the norm for the civilized man, but the “other”, being uncivilized, has no dwelling place and no house: he is a nomad, living in a tent, and his lair is in the mountains. Other topics are well known from ethnographic and anthropological literature. The sedentary Mesopotamian cultivates his plants and eat them cooked, while the “other” feed on game or gathered vegetables, mainly roots and truffles that grow under the ground (vs. the plants sprouting from the ground). They eat raw meat. The “other” has no knowledge of any practice and place of religion or funerary customs. Thus we find the negation of what Mesopotamians considered their distinctive and civilizing features. On the other hand, these emic features are equally applied, with minor distinctions, to other non-Mesopotamian peoples who are indistinctively marked as barbarians and uncivilized. Subir, a heavy fog, that does not know how to revere the gods, … The Šimaškian does not elect nugig or lukur (var.: nubar) priestesses for the places of the gods. His people are numerous like grass; his seed is widespread (var.: abundant). Living in tent, he does not know the places of the gods; he is one who mounts (his partner) like a wild beast, he knows A previous attempt to collect and analyse such topics was proposed by Cooper 1983, 30–33, who, however, thought that “these ethnic slurs on Amorites and Gutians are almost unique” (Cooper 1983, 32). 12 The marriage of Martu 127–138: a2-še šu-bi ha-lam ulutim2-⸢ugu⸣[ugu4-bi] \ an-zil gu7 d nanna-[kam] ni2 nu-[tuku] \ šu dag-dag-ge-bi x […] \ [ni3]-⸢gig⸣ e2-diĝir-re-e-ne-[kam] \ [ĝalga]-⸢bi⸣ mu-un-lu3-lu3 šu [suh3-a du11-ga] \ ⸢lu2 kuš⸣lu-ub2 mu4-a […] \ ⸢za-lam⸣-ĝar ti tu15 šeĝ14 […] siskur [nu-mu-un-du11-ga] \ hur-saĝ-ĝa2 tuš-e ki-[diĝir-re-ne nu-zu-a] \ lu2 ⸢uzu⸣-diri kur-da mu-un-ba-al-la dub3 gam nu-zu-am3 \ uzu nu-šeĝ6-ĝa2 al-gu7-e \ u4-til-la-na e2 nu-tuku-a \ u4-ba-ug7-a-na ki nu-tum2-mu-dam. 11

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nothing of (var.: bringing) eša-flour of prayers. Namtar, Evil One, Asag, abomination do not carry(?) (var.: approach) him. Whose lessening a divine oath is committing sacrilege, yet his troops are in good health.13 Other uncivilized -

Mesopotamian civilized + intelligence

intellect

lack of intellect

behaviour

constructive

destructive

living

sedentism

nomadism

house

tents, no house

plain

mountain

food

cooked

raw

cultivated

gathered

dress

textile / woven

animal skin

religion

religious

not religious (no temples, no prayers, eating prohibited food, etc.)

funerary practices

buried

not buried

Inside and outside the city In Sumerian sources, the city is the proper environment for the human being and civilized man.14 The god has established his seat on earth by way of building his temple and city. In some narratives, the city pre-exists the appearance of human beings, who are created in the temple of the city god, Enki or Enlil. The presence of the god provides order, abundance, and protection. The city walls are the border that demarcates the urban ordered area from the disordered outskirts, where the divine presence is absent and dangerous and vicious beings (such as demons, uncivilized beings, and wild animals) live. The city gates are the only passages connecting the two spheres and are thus highly symbolic places. In this system, three spaces are ideologically and terminologically marked in Sîn-iddinam letter to the god Utu 22, 24–29: su-bir4ki muru9-dugud-da diĝir-re-e-ne ni2 te-ĝa2 nu-⸢zu⸣-a \ … \ šimaški-e ki-diĝir-re-e-ne-ke4 nu-gig lukur nu-mu-da-⸢il2⸣-e (var.: šimaški diĝir-ra-ni nu-gig lukur-bi il2-la nu-mu-un-zu-a) \ erin2-a-ni u2-gin7 lu-lu-a numun-a-ni daĝal-la (var.: he2-mah) \ za-lam-ĝar ti-la ki-diĝir-re-e-ne-ke4 nu-mu-un-zu-a \ u2-ma-am-gin7-⸢nam⸣ u5-⸢a⸣ zi3-⸢eša?⸣ siskur2 (var.: zi3 siskur2 il2-la) nu-mu-un-zu-a \ nam-tar hul-ĝal2 a2-sag3 ni3-gig-ga nu-mu-⸢un⸣-na-tum3 (var.: nu-mu-na-te). 14 Verderame 2011 and 2020. 13

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Sumerian language and thought: 1.  uru: the urban space, the seat of gods and civilized men, an ordered and positive space in opposition to the outskirts. The outskirts are divided into two spaces which show a decreasing degree of civilization and an increasing degree of alterity: 2.  eden: is the open country that extends outside the city walls, the farther we move from the walls, the more undomesticated and uncivilized the territory becomes; 3.  kur: the farthest periphery, alien and enemy, mountainous opposed to the Mesopotamian plain. It is the seat and synonym of alterity, and it coincides, both terminologically and ideologically, with the Netherworld. The beings out there In this idealised spatial system, which is based on an inner, ordered, civilized centre delimited by the city walls and an outer disordered uncivilized space extending outside the city walls,15 the features of otherness are built upon the inversion of Mesopotamian values, the most prominent being the habitation of the external space. The creatures that live outside the city walls are extra-human, non-human, or uncivilized human. They are demons, wild animals, and barbarians.16 The common feature of all these beings is their unsettled life. They have no houses.17 Furthermore, they do not properly inhabit but they are said “to roam about” the steppe.18 Demons seek victims, while wild animals seek pasture or prey, and nomads do it for no reason at all.19 The evil udug roams in the mountain.20 (The Evil One) chases around after sorcery and magic like a wandering

For a similar construction of the Netherworld see Verderame 2014. There is not a unique Sumerian term to describe these uncivilized people. In scholarly discussions, the translation “barbarian” has been largely employed to refer to them along with others; Cooper 1983, 30, for example, uses “subhuman”. 17 “In his entire life (Martu) does not have a house” (u4-til-la-na e2 nu-tuku-a; The marriage of Martu 137); “The wild beasts (?) have no houses” (u4-ma e2 nu-tuku; Proverbs collection 28 19); “(The Šimaškian) is like a wild beast” (u2-ma-am-gin7-⸢nam⸣; Sîniddinam letter to the god Utu 27). 18 Verderame 2012. 19 Roaming about is a prerogative of Inanna (ur-ru-ur … dinanna-za-kam … tilla2-a šu al-dag-dag-ge “To rove around … is yours, Inanna … She lets her run around in the town square”, Inanna C 116, 78), a trait that could be analysed in the light of Inanna as goddess of inversion and opposites; see Harris 1991 and Verderame 2009a. 20 Forerunners to Udug-hul 566: udug-hul-ĝal2 kur-ra šu dag-dag-ge. 15 16

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ghost.21 In the steppe (and) desert where the ghosts roam about …22 As a solitary donkey of Šakkan which roams about in the mountains …23 Livestock, quadrupeds (of the steppe), and (other) living beings did not roam about.24 I am constantly roaming about like a dog which does not know where to curl up.25 (The Martus) in their never stopping roaming about […].26 Other common topics may be picked up from the repertoire of “otherness”. Like animals, uncivilized men eat gathered and raw food, ignoring or not appreciating fermented drinks or elaborately processed food. The boundaries among these three groups are loose and to the common marks of otherness, they add features that each group may borrow from the others. The demons or hybrid beings are composed of animal parts. Wild animals, on the other hand, may present semi-divine or demonic features and even natural ones. For example, in early literary sources, the Seven are divine or demonic animals, assistants of the god Hendursaĝa,27 and become demons with human bodies and animal heads in later iconography. The demonic barbarian The “other”, the foreigner and the enemy undergo a demonization process.28 In the compositions known as lamentations, which describe the destruction of the Sumerian cities at the end of the third millennium, the enemy and the demons are described as a divine instrument and weapon. They realise that destruction of the city that has been established by the divine council. Enemies and demons are often indistinguishable in these compositions, the narrative moving from the divine plan to the mundane events. The destructive enemies are described in the very same terms as the Netherworld demonic gangs, the galla, without feelings and thus incorruptible. In The Descent of Inanna to the Netherworld, the galla are described as not knowing food or drink, and not accepting offerings, libations, or presents. Having no family ties, they tear their victims away from their dear ones Bilingual Old-Babylonian incantation (Geller, Fs Sjöberg, 2(b): uš7-zu uš7-ri-a šu dagdag-[ge] NITA(-)lil2-la2-am3 i3-bu-b[u]. 22 Išbi-Erra and Kindattu (Išbi-Erra B) E6: edin bar-rim4 lil2 bu-bu-da. 23 Enmerkar and Ensuhgiranna A45: dur3ur3-dili-du-e dšakkan2-gin7 hur-saĝ-ĝa2 i3-dag-ge4. 24 Lamentation for Sumer and Ur 131: maš2-anše ni3-ur2-4 ni3-zi-ĝal2 nu-mu-un-bu-e. 25 Letter from Lugal-nesaĝe to a king radiant as the sun A12: ur-gin7 ki gam-ma nu-zu šu dag-dag-ge ba-si. 26 The marriage of Martu 129: šu dag-dag-ge-bi x […]. 27 Verderame 2017a and 2017b. 28 For the demonization of the witch and foreign woman see Abusch 1989; for the description of the enemy in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions see Zaccagnini 1982 and the recent monograph by Nowicki 2018. 21

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without any restraint. Those who accompanied her, those who accompanied Inanna, know no food, know no drink, eat no flour that is heaped up (for offerings) and drink no water that has been poured (for libation). They don’t accept gift – (that is) a agreeable thing, they don’t lie down on the partner’s lap – (that is) a pleasant thing, they don’t kiss the son – (that is) a sweet thing. They tear away the wife from a man’s lap. They raise the son from a man’s knee. They make the bride leave the house of her father-in-law.29 The demons know no difference between good and evil. Thus, they are unable to show mercy, as the enemy who destroys Mesopotamian cities in the lamentations texts is described: 30 Galla-demons have no kindness, they do not know good and evil.31 (Subartu) a storm which possesses neither kindness nor evil, knows no good, knows no evil.32 The enemies know no good or evil.33 The enemies and demons strike both the young and the old, the criminal and the honest, and so on, without difference or mercy: … so that the liar and the probe would lie one on the top of the other and the blood of the criminal will flow upon that of the probe.34 In some cases, the human nature of the enemy is under discussion and the topic of the blood test,35 pricking or stabbing someone to see if he bleeds to verify whether he is human or not, is found in Mesopotamian literature. The most famous case is the later Akkadian text known as The Cuthean legend, where the invaders, the Umman-manda, are considered human because they bleed when pricked.

The Descent of Inanna to the Netherworld 295–305: lu2 e-ne-ra in-ši-re7-eš-am3 \ lu2 d inanna-ra in-ši-re7-eš-am3 \ u2 nu-zu-me-eš a nu-zu-me-eš \ zi3-dub-dub-ba nu-gu7me-eš \ a-bal-bal-a nu-na8-na8-me-eš \ kadra ni3-du10-ge šu nu-gid2-me-eš \ ur2-dam ni3du10-ge-eš nu-si-ge-me-eš \ dumu ni3-ku7-ku7-da ne nu-su-ub-ba-me-eš \ dam ur2-lu2-ka ba-ra-an-si-il-si-il-le-eš \ dumu lu2-du10-ub-ta ba-ra-an-zi-ge-eš \ e2-gi4-a e2-ušbar-ra-ka im-ta-an-e3-eš-am3. 30 The expression is that they don’t know (zu) good (sa6(-ga)) or evil (hul) and have (tuku, ĝal2) no kindness (šu-ĝar, sig5) or evil (hul). Compare the pass from Ninurta and the Turtle (Segment B 60), where Death is said to have no kindness (nam-uš2 šu-ĝar nutuku-a). 31 Dumuzi and Ĝeštinanna 52: šu-ĝar-sa6-ga nu-tuku-me-eš sa6-ga hul nu-zu-me-eš. 32 Lamentation for Eridu (Nippur version) A20: u4 sig5 hul nu-ĝal2-la sa6-ga nu-zu hul nuzu-e. 33 Lamentation for Nippur 64: lu2-kur2-ra sa6 hul nu-zu-ne. 34 Lamentation for Sumer and Ur 110–111: lu2-lul lu2-zi-da an-ta nu2-u3-de3 \ urin lu2-lul-e lu2-zi-ra ugu-a-na DU-še3. 35 Pricking, for example, was one of the tests an accused witch underwent to prove her affiliation to the Devil during their trials in the 16th and 17th centuries. 29

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The physical aspect of the Umman-manda brings us back to the animal features attributed to the enemy. They are described as “people with sheldrake bodies, men with raven faces”.36 “Canine instincts and monkeys’ features:” the dog and the monkey Sumerian texts are not so descriptive regarding the animal features of the enemies, which are instead often qualified through metaphors, similes, and figurative language recalling wild animals. Gutians are occasionally called “snakes of the mountain”.37 However, references to snakes as well as to felines and other wild animals are motifs related to fierceness, force, and aggressiveness, usually employed for Mesopotamian kings and gods as well.38 The Sumerian tradition building the image of the uncivilized man insists, instead, on two animals which become synonyms of stupidity and wilderness: the dog and the monkey. The first is recalled for its psychological and behaviour traits, the second for its physical features. Enemies are negatively outlined for having the thoughts (dim2-ma), understanding (ĝalga), or feelings (arhuš) of a dog (ur) and the physical shape (ulutim2) of a monkey (uguugu4-bi).39 The Gutians, an unbridled people, with human intelligence but canine instincts (var.: feelings),40 and monkeys’ features.41 (The Martus) their features are those of monkeys.42

Martu, destructive people, with the thought of a dog.43 (Išbi-Erra) a monkey which has descended (var.: appeared) from its

ṣābu pagri iṣṣūr hurri amēlūta arībū pānūšum (l. 31); they are said to have been created by the great gods (l. 32) and suckled by Tiamat (l. 34). For the edition of the text see Westenholz 1997, Chap. 10; for the Umman-manda see Westenholz 1997, 265–266 and, for the references in First Millennium sources, Adalı 2011. 37 The victory of Utu-heĝal 1 // 59 (muš-ĝir2-hur-saĝ-ĝa2); Lamentation for Sumer and Ur 145 (muš-kur-ra). 38 See, for example, the simile muš-ze2-guru5-a-gin7 “like a snake which drools poison” (Lugalbanda in the mountain cave 225; Gudea’s cylinders A x 23; Išbi-Erra and Kindattu (Išbi-Erra B) B4). 39 For “thought/brain of a monkey” (dim2-ma-uguugu4-bi) see fn. 58. 40 A reference to dogs in relation to Gutians appears in a fragmentary passage of an Old Babylonian copy of a presumed inscription recording the campaign of Ur-Namma against the Elamite Kutik-Inšušinak (RIME 3/2.1.1.29: Frg. 1 iii’ 1’–5’). Two further references to dogs are found in the description of the Gutians in The lamentation for Uruk, unfortunately in a fragmentary context (gu-ti-um ur-re ba-e-⸢bal⸣ […], 54; gu-tiumki ⸢ur-ra x⸣ e-ne […], 63). 41 The curse of Agade 156: dim2-ma-lu2-u18-lu ĝalga(var.: arhuš)-ur-ra ulutim2-uguugu4-bi. 42 The marriage of Martu 127: ulutim2-⸢ugu⸣[ugu4-bi]. 43 Šu-Suen inscriptions “collection B” = RIME 3/2.1.4.1: v 25–26: mar-tu lu2-ha-lam-m[a] \ dim2-ma ur-ra-gin7. 36

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mountain44 … the man from Mari, with the understanding of a dog.45 The dog, domesticated or not, conveys contrasting values.46 It may be considered by its protective and helpful aspects and thus conceived as psychopomp, a symbol of healing goddesses;47 or it might be perceived as a deceitful being and a rival to humans, and from this viewpoint it is included among the dangerous beings that menace humanity.48 The dog is a common character in Sumerian and Akkadian literature in both of these aspects. It appears together with the boar suckling the Lamaštu flattened breasts,49 and the two animals are again represented in clay plaques accompanying street musicians.50 As a pejorative, the dog is often referenced for its lack of intelligence and reason and its basic instincts, two features employed to build the image of the “other”. The monkey51 is not native to Mesopotamia. It was imported from abroad during the third millennium. It is an exotic animal with a higher potential degree of “otherness”. Its figure resembles the human’s, but in a grotesque perspective. Its furry body recalls that of a wild man, whose hair grows uncontrollably. Hairstyling and hair removal are a crucial part of the cultural and social construction of the body and the individual in Mesopotamia. Other simian traits had an impact on the Mesopotamian imagination, which seems generally similar to other cultures. Monkeys were objects of fun52, and reflections on human nature. Interestingly, the monkey is the other animal, along with the dog, frequently depicted accompanying the street musicians.53

Compare the name of the 23rd year of the reign of Ibbi-Suen “Year in which they brought from the mountain a giant monkey to Ibbi-Suen, king of Ur” (mu di-bi2-dEN.ZU lugaluri5ki-ma-ra ugu2ugu4-bi-dugud kur-bi mu-na-e-ra). 45 Letter from Ibbi-Suen to Puzur-Šulgi hoping for Išbi-Erra’s downfall 16, 34: ugu2ugu4-bi kur-bi-ta e11-de3 (var.: e3-de3) … lu2-ma2-ri2ki-ke4 ĝalga-ur-re … 46 See in general Sibbing-Plantholt 2017 and Verderame 2017a, 400–401, with previous bibliography. 47 Ornan 2004. 48 Sibbing-Plantholt 2017. 49 Wiggermann 2010. 50 Eichmann 1997. 51 See in general Barnett 1973 and Dunham 1985; see also Klein 1979 for the reading of the Sumerian word and Mendleson 1983 for clay plaques of musicians with monkeys. 52 See, for example, the Sumerian Monkey Letter or Letter from Ugubi to his mother (see Powell 1978, with previous literature, and, for a different interpretation, Cohen 1976) and the Middle Assyrian parodistic text with the adoption of a monkey written on a clay foot published by Franke / Wilhelm 1984. 53 “In Eridu, built in abundance, the monkey sits with longing eyes in the singer’s house” (eriduki he2-ĝal2-la du3-a-ba uguugu4-bi e2-nar-ra-ka igi-la2-bi al-tuš; Proverbs collection 3, 150). For the relationship of monkeys with music in Mesopotamia see Pruzsinszky 2018, 42–48. 44

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Conclusions Sumerian sources propose a spatial division of the world: gods and men live in the city, while the disordered space outside the urban walls is populated by demons, wild animals, and uncivilized men. These uncivilized men are described through negation and opposition of the ideal Mesopotamian citizen. Besides this general construction of otherness, the fact that uncivilized men share space and cultural demarcations with animal and extra-human entities (demons) makes them partake of those features that are characteristics of demons and beasts, thus partially assuming those aspects that are proper to each extra-urban group. Firstly, the three groups of beings (demons, wild animals, uncivilized men) that occupy the steppe are said not to live, but to roam about. This is a negation of the first and foremost pillar of urban Mesopotamian civilization, sedentism. The uncivilized man is as vicious and destructive as demons, and as economically unproductive as wild animals. Their identification may reach the point where barbarians may very well assume a demonic and beastly nature. As demons, they lack basic human feelings and may be perceived or depicted as extra-human beings. The uncivilized, described as a “wild man”, is part animal, or shares features with the wild animals, from bodily traits to psychological aspects. Like animals they gather their food, instead of practicing agriculture or herding, and they eat it raw, not cooked. The main difference between the three groups of beings of the disordered outer space resides in the human nature of the uncivilized man, who can become civilized by undertaking the processes that mark the Mesopotamian principles of civilization, as done by Martu in The Marriage of Martu and Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgameš.54 Most of the motifs usually employed to describe the Martus and Gutians are also used for other foreigners and enemies. If they refer mostly to Martus and Gutians, this could be because these two people were the enemy “par excellence” and because they are mentioned in literary sources much more frequently than any other foreign population. If not demarked by the same expressions, other foreign peoples are qualified using traits and features that fit the same construction of those employed for Martus and Gutians: by negating Mesopotamian values and principles. Thus, the way foreigners are depicted in Sumerian literary sources cannot be considered in toto “ethnographic” (etic) descriptions of such peoples but are instead (emic) representations of how Mesopotamian scribes imagined This transformation, however, may work in theory for wild animals and demons as well. The first can be domesticated or, at least, tamed, and the second can be subdued. For the first, wild and exotic animals are gathered in zoological parks, that at least from the mid third millennium BCE are part of the royal ideology and propaganda as an expression of control over the periphery. For the second, in incantation and amulet plaques a demon may be evoked to repel another demon, such as for Pazuzu and Sebettu used against Lamaštu.

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and idealised non-Mesopotamians and thus uncivilized men. In this sense, we can speak of a general and generic construction of “otherness”. Some can be used to describe and construct the image not only of foreigners, but also people living in the Mesopotamian plain who do not embrace the sedentary urban model, such as those whose economy is not primarily based on agriculture, such as shepherds, hunters, and fishermen. In their marking otherness, these tropes are used not only for connotated groups of people, but even for single persons.55 This emerges in insults, which are based primarily on a process of alienation (“you are not like me/ us”), where “other” is a common pejorative connotation of the opponent.56 In the dialogues and diatribes of the edubba literary corpus,57 we find many parallels for these motifs in the abusive speech and insults the two contenders dedicate to each other (or the monologist addresses to his opponent). Limiting herein our discussion to the dog and the monkey motif, their behavioural traits and physical features find their way into the insult repertoire and are among the most common animal similes.58 He is the good semen of a dog, seed of a wolf, sweat of a mongoose, hyena cub that know no rules (lit. hand), a fox in a shark’s skin, a monkey not pleasing to its mountain, its understanding is blurred.59 See the brief comment of Cooper 1983, 35 n. 46. Besides several studies of specific cultures or contexts, the debate over a general theory of insults is quite meagre and I have found few general analyses or theories of insults (see for example Conley 2010). The article of Leach 1964, focusing on animals, is often quoted as the main reference to date. Besides the thorough analysis of the brilliant anthropologist, I have found his arguments inconclusive and partially applicable; see also the criticisms by Halverson 1976. In my opinion, insults are constructed on alienation (“you are not like us”) and excessiveness (too much / few). As for the topics, to the usual arguments related to scatology, sexual behaviour, and animal similes and metaphors, each culture has its concept of ‘proper’ based on the negation of recognised fundamental values. Furthermore, we must consider also the creative effort towards insults in verbal disputes which may reach points of skill and artistry in different cultures; see, for example, the monographic issue Performing disputes of the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20/1 (2010) edited by V. Pagliai, with articles dealing with the topic of insults in different cultures. 57 See in general Johnson / Geller 2015, 11–15. 58 For the insult “thought/brain of a monkey” (dim2-ma-uguugu4-bi) see the references to Dialogue 1: 70 and Dialogue 2: 102, particularly the passage from an unpublished copy of a dialogue, NBC 7805: 29f. (“You, your brain is the brain of a monkey, your understanding is the understanding of a dog”, za-e dim2-ma-zu dim2-ma-uguugu4-bi ĝalga-zu ĝalga-ur-gi7-ra-ka) quoted by Civil 1967, 37; see also Johnson / Geller 2015, 194. In the collection of insults, we find two references to dogs, one of which could be translated as “a confused dog” (ur-lu3-lu3), BT 9: 11’ // ED 68, see Klein 2003, 142–143, 146. 59 Diatribe C 1–3: a-du10-ga-ur-ra u2numun-ur-bar-ra-kam \ ir-dnin-kilim amar-kir4 šu nu-zu ka5-a bar-kušu2ku6 \ ugu2ugu4-bi kur-bi-še3 nu-sa6 ĝalga-bi suh3-a. 55 56

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… appearance of a monkey … a dog not producing sound from the lyre but emitting a battle-cry!60 The two expressions recall a general trait (stupidity) and physical feature (the caricatured body) through the monkey and the dog, two common animals in Mesopotamian imagery. A wider analysis on insults, invectives, and abusive speaking may highlight more parallels with the tropes qualifying foreigners and enemies, showing that “otherness” is the general and common background for both these constructions. Bibliography Abusch, T., 1989: The Demonic Image of the Witch in Standard Babylonian Literature: The Reworking of Popular Conceptions by Learned Exorcists. In J. Neusner / E.S. Frerichs / P.V. McCracken Flesher (eds.): Religion, Science, and Magic in Concert and in Conflict. New York. Pp. 27–58. Adalı, S., 2011: The Scourge of God: The Umman-manda and Its Significance in the First Millennium B.C. SAAS 20. Helsinki. Barnett, R.D., 1973: Monkey Business. JANES 5: 1–10. Chiera, E., 1924: Sumerian Religious Texts. Upland. –– 1934: Sumerian Epics and Myths. OIP 15. Chicago. Civil, M., 1967: Šu-Sîn’s Historical Inscriptions: Collection B. JCS 21: 24–38. Cohen, M.E., 1976: The “Monkey Letter”: A Different Perspective. Or 45: 270– 274. Conley, T., 2010: Toward a Rhetoric of Insult. Chicago. Cooper, J.S., 1983: The Curse of Agade. Baltimore / London. Dunham, S., 1985: The Monkey in the Middle. ZA 75: 234–264. Eichmann, R., 1997: Ein Hund, ein Schwein, ein Musikant. In B. PongratzLeisten / H. Kühne / P. Xella (eds.): Ana šadî Labnāni lū allik. Beiträge zu altorientalischen und mittelmeerischen Kulturen, Festschrift für Wolfgang Röllig. Kevelaer / Neukirchen-Vluyn. Pp. 97–108. Franke, S. / Wilhelm, G., 1984: Eine mittelassyrische fiktive Urkunde zur Wahrung des Anspruchs auf ein Findelkind. Jahrbuch des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg 4: 19–26. Halverson, J., 1976: Animal Categories and Terms of Abuse. Man 11: 505–516. Harris, R., 1991: Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites. History of Religions 30: 261–278. Johnson, J. C. / Geller, M. J., 2015: The Class Reunion – An Annotated Translation and Commentary on the Sumerian Dialogue Two Scribes. CM 47. Leiden / Boston.

Diatribe B A5, A17: … ulutim2-uguugu4-bi … ur gu3 de2 ĝišza3-mi2-a nu-ĝal2 gu3-kiri6 de2de2.

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Klein, J., 1979: The Reading and Pronunciation of the Sumerian Word for “Monkey”. JCS 31: 149–160. –– 2003: An Old Babylonian Edition of an Early Dynastic Collection of Insults (BT 9). In W. Sallaberger / K. Volk / A. Zgoll (eds.): Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien. Festschrift für Claus Wilcke. Wiesbaden. Pp. 135– 149. Kramer, S.N., 1990: The Marriage of Martu. In J. Klein / A. Skaist (eds.): BarIlan Studies in Assyriology dedicated to Pinhas Artzi. Ramat Gan. Pp. 11–27. Leach, E.R., 1964: Anthropological aspects of language: Animal categories and verbal abuse. In E.H. Lenneberg (ed.): New directions in the study of language. Cambridge. Pp. 23–63. Limet, H., 1972: L’étranger dans la société sumérienne. In D.O. Edzard (ed.): Gesellschaftsklassen im Alten Zweistromland und in den angrenzenden Gebieten: XVIII. Rencontre assyriologique internationale, München, 29. Juni bis 3. Juli 1970. München. Pp.123–138. Liverani, M., 1972: Partire sul carro, per il deserto. AION 22: 403–415. Mendleson, C., 1983: More Monkey Business. AnSt 33: 81–83. Michalowski, P., 1991: Negation as Description: The metaphor of Everyday Life in Early Mesopotamian Literature. AuOr 9: 131–136. Nowicki, S., 2018: Enemies of Assyria. The image and role of enemy in Assyrian royal inscriptions and selected textual sources from the Neo-Assyrian period. AOAT 452. Münster. Ornan, T., 2004: The Goddess Gula and her Dog. Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology 3: 13–30. Pagliai, V., 2010: Introduction: Performing Disputes. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20: 63–71. Powell, M.A., 1978: Ukubi to Mother … The Situation is Desperate. ZA 68: 163– 195. Pruzsinszky, R., 2018: “The Poor Musician” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Images. In A. Garcia-Ventura / C. Tavolieri / L. Verderame (eds.): The Study of Musical Performance in Antiquity. Newcastle upon Tyne. Pp. 39–58. Römer, W.H.P., 1989: Miscellanea Sumerologica I: Zur sumerischen Dichtung “Heirat des Gottes Mardu”. UF 21: 319–334. Sibbing-Plantholt, I., 2017: Black Dogs in Mesopotamia and Beyond. In D. Kertai / O. Nieuwenhuyse (eds.): From the Four Corners of the Earth. Studies in Iconography and Cultures of the Ancient Near East in Honour of F.A.M. Wiggermann. Münster. Pp. 165–180. Verderame, L., 2009a: La vestizione di Inanna. In S. Botta (ed.): Abiti, corpi, identità. Significati e valenze profonde del vestire. Firenze. Pp. 63–73. –– 2009b: mar-tu nel III millennio: fonti e interpretazioni. RSO 82: 229–260. –– 2011: L’immagine della città nella letteratura sumerica. In R. Dolce / A. Pellitteri (eds.): Città nel Vicino Oriente e nel Mediterraneo. Palermo. Pp. 99–126.

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–– 2012: “Their Divinity is Different, Their Nature is Distinct!” Nature, Origin, and Features of Demons in Akkadian Literature. Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 14: 117–127. –– 2014: Aspetti spaziali nella costruzione dell’immaginario infero dell’antica Mesopotamia. SMSR 80: 23–41. –– 2017a: The Seven Attendants of Hendursaĝa: A study of animal symbolism in Mesopotamian cultures. In L. Feliu / F. Karahashi / G. Rubio (eds): The First Ninety Years: A Sumerian celebration in honor of Miguel Civil. Boston / Berlin. pp. 389–408. –– 2017b. On the Early History of the Seven Demons (Sebettu). In D. Kertai / O. Nieuwenhuyse (eds): From the Four Corners of the Earth: Studies in Iconography and Cultures of the Ancient Near East in Honour of F.A.M. Wiggermann. Münster. Pp. 283–296. –– 2020: Noisy City, Silent Steppe, Tweeting Marsh. Soundscapes in Sumerian Literature. In D. Nadali / F. Pinnock (eds.): Sensing the Past: Detecting the Use of the Five Senses in Ancient Near Eastern Contexts. Wiesbaden. Pp. 85–99. Westenholz, J. G., 1997: Legends of the Kings of Akkade. MC 7. Winona Lake. Wiggermann, F.A.M., 2010: Dogs, Pigs, Lamaštu, and the Breast-Feeding of Animals by Women. In D. Shehata / F. Weiershäuser / K.V. Zand (eds.): Von Göttern und Menschen: Beiträge zu Literatur und Geschichte des Alten Orients. Festschrift für Brigitte Groneberg. Leiden / Boston. Pp. 407–414. Zaccagnini, C., 1982: The Enemy in the Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: The “Ethnographic” Description. In H.-J. Nissen / J. Renger (eds.): Mesopotamien und seine Nachbarn. Berlin. Pp. 409–424.

Glosses in three El-Amarna Letters (EA 107, 108 and 124) Juan-Pablo Vita / Andrés Diego Espinel CSIC-ILC, Madrid The aim of this contribution is to analyse three glosses that appear in letters EA 107, 108 and 124 from Amarna, all written by the same scribe.1 Each letter contains only a single gloss, and all three concern the same logogram. Addressed to the pharaoh, the three letters were sent by Rib-Hadda of Byblos, a person about whom Mario Liverani, one of the leading experts in research on Amarna, has written important studies.2 In this essay we intend to continue the comments made by Liverani concerning these three glosses. 1. By means of letter EA 108, Rib-Hadda asks the pharaoh to send forty soldiers (twenty Nubian and twenty Egyptian) in order to be able to protect his city against attacks by the sons of Abdi-Ashirta, leader of Amurru. In line 15 of the letter, the scribe uses a gloss that has been discussed extensively: ‒ Abel (1889, nº 42) copied the passage in question as follows: Subsequently, Winckler (1896, 178) read the passage as (amílûti) … / ši-ir-ba, which he translated “die širba (Menschen)”, to which he added the following epigraphic comment: “Ideogramm: 4 wagerechte Keile + ŠU, durch die Glosse als ši-ir-ba gelesen”. ‒ In his later collation of the letter, Knudtzon (1915, 476–477) read and translated the signs as amêlūtu … / ši-ir-ma “Širma-Leute”. He also provided the following autograph copy of the sign that precedes the sign marking the gloss: (Knudtzon, 1915, 1003 nº 93). In addition, Knudtzon (1915, 477 sub g) went one step further and connected this sign with another, present in line 42 of the letter EA 107. He read and translated the sign in question, in EA107, as amêlūtuširma “Širma-Leute” (Knudtzon, 1915, 474–475), and illustrated it with the following drawing: (Knudtzon, 1915, 1003 nº 92). He also added that this sign is “ohne Zweifel dasselbe Zeichen wie dasjenige, das sich 108,15 zwischen amêlūtu

1 2

Vita 2015, 48 and 52, scribe nº 8. See especially Liverani 1971 (= 1979) and 1974 (= 2004).

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und einem schrägen Keil, worauf ši-ir-ma folgt, befindet”. ‒ In his autograph copies of the two letters EA 107 and 108, Schroeder (1914, nos. 55 and 56) copied the signs as follows: EA 107:42 EA 108:15 In 2001 J.-P. Vita was able to photograph both tablets in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. Unfortunately, lines 42–43 of EA 107 are at the lowest end of the reverse of the tablet and in its upper margin and are barely visible in the photos.3 Even so, we can provide the following photo of the bottom part of EA 108:15:

– Knudtzon (1915, 534–535, with note e) also thought that he could identify the same sign in EA 124, line 51. He transcribed and translated the signs as ṣâbē [šir]mama “Širma-Leute”, also adding the following drawing of the sign: (Knudtzon, 1915, 1003 nº 95). Previously, Abel (1889, nº 62) had copied this group of signs as . Knudtzon (1915, 534 sub e) also considered the last sign, -ma, to be a phonetic complement of the word that precedes it. According to Knudtzon, therefore, the sign of doubtful meaning present in EA 108:15 would also occur in EA 107:42 and, probably, in EA 124:51.4 2. Schroeder (1918) studied the two passages of EA 107 and 108, arriving at two main conclusions: (a) the correct reading at the beginning of line 43 in EA 107 should be mar-ia-nu-ma (mariannūma, with the Northwest Semitic plural suffix). This is our photo of the signs in question:

(b) the beginning of line 43 is damaged, but there is enough room for a small sign; Schroeder proposed restoring the sign of a gloss in this space, so that in fact mar-ia-nu-ma would be a gloss on the doubtful sign at the end of the preceding line (i.e. 42). 3. It was Moran who made the first proposal for a reading of the doubtful sign that precedes the gloss ši-ir-ma in EA 108:15. This last term “has always been baffling, for it has been considered a word, whereas in fact it is the phonetic spelling of the ideogram plus enclitic -ma (note wi-i-ma in 108.16). The sign 3 4

Cf. http://www.amarna.cchs.csic.es/maineng.html. Böhl (1909, 9) had already echoed this proposal.

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.is KEŠDA, the writing being almost identical with an attested writing in Old Babylonian. Their connection with horses and chariots here and in 108 points to ‘chariot-drivers’ or the like” (Moran 1950, 166 = 2003, 115–116). However, in his later collation and translation of the letter, Moran rejected his initial idea, so that he read and translated “charioteers : ši-x-y(?)” (Moran 1992, 181) on the basis that “the gloss (second and third signs ni/ir?-ba/ma, respectively) remains unexplained. The reading of the logogram as KEŠDA and the explanation of the gloss as identification of the sign (ŠÌR) are to be rejected” (Moran 1992, 182 n. 2). 4. Later, Rainey revised Moran’s contradictory proposals. He concluded that the first identification KEŠDA = ŠÌR by Moran must be considered correct, so that EA 107:42–43 should be read LÚ.MEŠ ŠIR! : ⸢mar⸣-ia-nu-ma: “ŠIR is a word sign which can mean a ‘troop’ of soldiers (Akkadian kiṣru, CAD K 437b–438). Moran’s original hunch seems to be confirmed by EA 108:15, which has LÚ.MEŠ ŠIR : ši-ir-ma … Moran had seen that ši-ir was the explanation of the Sumerian word sign” (Rainey 1989–1990, 60; 1996a, 34; 2015, 1451),5 so that -ma would be the Akkadian enclitic. As for EA 124:51, he considers that “What has survived there could be simply -ma, but the context favors the view that charioteers and infantrymen were meant” (Rainey, ibid.). Rainey retains these conclusions in his collation and recent re-edition of the corpus of Amarna letters, where he reads and translates LÚ.MEŠ KEŠDA : ši-ir-ma “chariot warriors” (EA 108:15; Rainey 2015, 584–585), ⸢LÚ⸣.MEŠ ⸢KEŠDA⸣ : [\] ⸢mar⸣-ia-nu-ma “warriors (mariannu)” (EA 107:42–43; Rainey 2015, 582–583), and ÉRIN.MEŠ ⸢KEŠDA⸣-ma “chariot warriors” (EA 124:51’; Rainey 2015, 650–651). 5. Therefore, there seems to be a consensus regarding the reading KEŠDA of the sign that in EA 107:42 and 108:15 is glossed by ⸢mar⸣-ia-nu-ma and ši-irma respectively.6 As confirmed by the collation made by Rainey (cf. §4), this sign also occurs (without a gloss marker) in EA 124:51. Instead, the problem remains open in respect of the reading and interpretation of the sequence ši-irma in EA 108:15. As we saw above (§3), Moran had doubts about the reading of his collation (ši-ni/ir?-ba/ma), but the collation by Rainey (§4) provides the unequivocal reading ši-ir-ma (so already Knudtzon, cf. §1). Initially, Moran considered that ši-ir provided the phonetic reading (šir) of the logogram glossed by (KEŠDA) and that -ma was an Akkadian enclitic particle. Although later he rejected this proposal, it was then adopted by Rainey (§4). Before Rainey, Arnaud

5 6

See also Rainey 1996b, 233, on EA 108:15. KEŠDA = Akk. kaṣru “organized (as a caravan, as a contingent of troops)” (CAD K, 266); cf. ina ṣābim ka-aṣ-ri-im (ARM 2, nº 23, 11’) “with well-organized troops” (CAD K, 266), “avec des troupes bien aguerries” (Jean 1950, 56–57), AHw 458. Liverani 1997 proposed reading the signs as “a very simplified writing of the sequence TUR.TUR.LÁ, or simply TUR.LÀ, with a reading ṣuḫāru ‘young (soldiers)’, in the sense of ‘recruits’” (see also Liverani 1998, 211 n. 135: “ragazzo”).

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(1999, 300) had proposed an interpretation of ši-ir-ma in another way. On the basis of his reading túgsi-ir-ma in the Kassite Babylonian letter BE XVII/1 nº 92 (line 28), he proposed seeing ši-ir-ma in EA 108 as a variant of the term siriam “leather coat” (CAD S, 313) – which is not Akkadian – so that KEŠDA : ši-ir-ma could be translated as “une troupe cuirassée”. However, as already noted by Aro (1957, 30), the correct reading of this sequence of signs in BE XVII/1 nº 92 is lu-si-ir-ma, that is, a verbal form (precative) of esēru “to press for payment due” (CAD E, 332).7 6. However, note that in both EA 108 and 124, the logogram KEŠDA occurs in a context with Egyptian terminology: – After lú.mešKEŠDA : ši-ir-ma, the letter continues: ù lú.mešwi-i-ma “and the wi-i-ma” (EA 108:16), i.e., with the syllabic form of the Egyptian term w‘w written with the Northwest Semitic plural morpheme.8 The term w‘w is documented in Egypt from the middle of the XVIII dynasty and occurs frequently in the Amarna letters.9 In Egyptian sources, the term denotes both an “infantryman” (i.e. the “lowest rank of infantry”)10 and a “sailor”, “matelot”,11 but in the Amarna letters it must denote some type of infantryman, generally translated “soldier”, which is usually used in the translations of these letters. – On the other hand, in EA 124 érin.meš⸢KEŠDA⸣-ma is followed by [p]í-ṭá-ti. This last term is usually translated in the Amarna letters by “archers”.12 However, it is not a syllabic version of the Egyptian term pḏtyw “bowmen”,13 but of Egyptian pḏt, a term that refers to a formation of soldiers that can be translated “troop, host”.14 This Egyptian loanword is also cited by the same scribe in EA 107:15 as Aro 1957, 30, reads and translates lu-si-ir-ma “ich werde eintreiben”. For the same reading and meaning see Sassmannshausen 2001, 11: lu-si-ir-ma “ich will (Getreide) einfordern”. 8 CAD U–W, 408; Wb. I 280, 3–8. On w‘w in Egyptian sources, see TLA lemma-no. 44390 (http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/index.html) [16/10/2018] (w‘w). 9 Schulman 1964, 36–37; Albright 1937, 196; Cochavi-Rainey 1997, 106–107. 10 Schulman 1964, 36–37. 11 Jones 1998, 72 [94]. 12 Cf. Moran 1992, 203: “[chari]oteers (and) archers”; Rainey 2015, 651: “chariot warriors and [a]rchers”. 13 As noted, for example, by CAD P, 448 (with previous bibliography). On pḏtyw see Wb. I 570, 8–9; TLA lemma-no. 63310 (http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/index.html) [17/10/2018]. There are practically no references to pḏtyw “archers” during this period in Egyptian sources; for two examples see Chevereau 1994, 82–83 [11126-27]. 14 As does Liverani 1996, 204, n. 120, for example. On pḏt see Wb. I 570, 10 – 571, 7; TLA lemma-no. 63290 “Truppe (von Soldaten)” (http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/index.html) [17/10/2018] (pḏt); see also Schulman 1964, 30–32; Chevereau 1994, 64. For this word as an Egyptian loanword in the Amarna letters, see Cochavi-Rainey 1997, 107–108 (“it seems likely that it was really not the nisbe form pḏty but rather pḏt ‘troop of soldiers’ (collective)”); CAD P, 448 (piṭātu). 7

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part of another Egyptian loanword : iḫ-ri-pí-[ṭ]á,15 “commander of a host/troop” (Eg. ḥry pḏt).16 In this context, we think that we should reconsider a proposal made by Liverani that has not been taken into account by later commentators. In a note published in 1997, Liverani suggested understanding ši-ir-ma as the syllabic version of the Egyptian (plural) term ḏ3mw, which he translates “recruits”, a proposal that is included in his own later translation of and commentary on EA 108 (Liverani 1998, 211 n. 135; “giovani (glossa:) ‘reclute’”).17 Given the context of ši-ir-ma (v. sup.), this proposal seems plausible, although not without difficulties. The identification of the Egyptian sound written as 3 with the Semitic phoneme /r/ seems clear.18 As for the š of ši-ir-ma, with this spelling, the scribe may have attempted to reflect the Egyptian phoneme /ḏ/, described as a “voiced palatal plosive” (Loprieno 1995, 33)19 or a “palatalized apical” (Allen 2013, 50, 54). In fact, in the Amarna letters the spelling with š covers a whole range of possible phonetic equivalents, as noted by Izre’el (2005, 8 and n. 6): “The syllabograms which include Akkadian /š/ … stand in their representation of local lexemes (mostly proper names or Canaanite glosses) for both palato-alveolar /š/ and lateral-fricative /ś/, as well as, at least potentially, for the fricative voiceless interdental /ṯ/”. Consequently, the spelling ši-ir-ma could well be an attempt by the scribe to reflect Egyptian ḏ3m and the spelling KEŠDA-ma in EA 124 should be read šir-ma (with Liverani 1998, 204 n. 120; cf. also §9). 7. In EA 108, the Byblite scribe of the three letters, therefore, would have used two Egyptian nouns to refer to two military groups, namely w‘w and ḏ3m (cf. §6). This second term has been translated in various ways. Liverani, as we have seen (§6), translates it as “recruit”,20 although its exact meaning is, probably, more complex. Stefanović (2007) has studied it recently but restricting herself to evidence during the Middle Kingdom. According to her, the term would refer

Cochavi-Rainey 1997, 105. Rainey 2015, 580 and 581, reads and translates Iiḫ-ri-pí “army commander” (the term is preceded by the determinative for a person), i.e., without the final sign -[ṭ]á, and he saw “neither the value -ta nor traces of it” (Rainey 2015, 1451). However, Knudtzon 1915, 474, definitely saw the final sign (he transcribes Iaḫ(!)-ri-bi-[t]a), which is also quite visible in the copy made by Schroeder 1914, nº 55; see also Moran 1992, 181 n. 1. 16 Schulman 1964, 53–56; Chevereau 1994, 64. 17 On ḏ3mw see Wb. V 523, 4 – 524, 5; TLA lemma-no. 182160 (http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/ index.html) [16/10/2018] (ḏ3mw); Schulman 1964, 20–21. Schroeder 1918, 125, had already suspected that ši-ir-ma could conceal an Egyptian term. 18 Peust 1999, 127–128; Allen 2013, 39–42. In Egyptian sources the sign 3 usually reflects the Semitic phonemes /r/ and /l/, cf. Hoch 1994, 499–450; Allen 2013, 36. 19 Cf. also Peust 1999, 79: “non-aspirated palatal stop (= plosive)”. 20 Liverani 1998, 204, n. 120; 211, n. 135. 15

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to “organized groups of people” who could have both military and civil roles.21 During the New Kingdom that meaning continued in use. For example, in his study on the army in the New Kingdom, Schulman (1964, 21) understood ḏ3mw to mean “classes eligible for military service”. In fact, some documents from this period show that it means “group” in a military sense. Therefore, the ḏ3mw appear in a procession of soldiers found in Deir el-Bahari under the inscription “cries of jubilation for the crews of the royal fleet, of the ḏ3mw-groups of Thebes and of the young nfrw-soldiers of the army” (nhm ἰn ‘prw nw ‘ḥ‘w nswt ḏ3mw nw w3st ḥwnw nfrw nw mš‘; Urk. IV 307, 15–17). On the other hand, Tjanuny, an official of Thutmose III, “records the ḏ3mw-groups of nfrw-soldiers” (snhἰ ḏ3mw n nfrw; Urk. IV 1006, 4), and Baki, the wife of an official of Amenhotep II, states that “ḏ3mw-groups of nfrw-soldiers are (being) recruited to form the army of the lord of the Two Lands” (ṯz ḏ3mw nfrw s.ḫpr mš‘ n nb t3wy; Urk. IV 924, 12–13). Amenhotep, son of Hapu, notes that, as “a royal scribe at the head of the nfrwsoldiers, I reunited the ḏ3mw-groups of my lord” (m sš nswt ḥry-tp nfrw ṯs.n=ἰ ḏ3mw nw nb=ἰ; Urk. IV 1820, 18–19) during the reign of Amenhotep III. The essentially blurred nature of ḏ3mw in Egyptian sources (a group of persons who could have both military and civil functions) is also evident in the determinatives preceding KEŠDA used in the letters studied here: LÚ.MEŠ “persons” (EA 107 and 108) and ÉRIN.MEŠ (EA 124), the second (ÉRIN) corresponding to Akkadian ṣābu “group of people, contingent of workers”, but also “troop of soldiers, army” (CAD Ṣ, 46). It is also clear, in the fragments discussed above, that ḏ3mw occurs followed by a qualifier (ḏ3mw nw w3st and ḏ3mw n nfrw), in other words, it usually needs to be specified further.22 This would also apply to KEŠDA in EA 107 (⸢lú⸣.meš⸢KEŠDA⸣ : ⸢mar⸣-ia-nu-ma) and, very likely, in EA 124. In this last case, the text reads érin.meš⸢KEŠDA⸣-ma [p]í-ṭá-ti, normally interpreted as two independent elements: “[chari]oteers (and) archers” (Moran 1992, 203), “chariot warriors and [a]rchers” (Rainey 2015, 651). However, note that unlike in EA 108 (lú.mešKEŠDA : ši-ir-ma ù lú.mešwi-i-ma), in EA 124 there is no conjunction between ⸢KEŠDA⸣-ma and [p]í-ṭá-ti, so that, as Liverani (1998, 204 with n. 120) had already concluded, [p]í-ṭá-ti must in fact be a gloss on ⸢KEŠDA⸣-ma. 8. The gloss mar-ia-nu-ma in EA 107 (§2) is in fact the term mariannu “chariot driver”, well-known in ancient Near Eastern sources from the second half of the

In this way, ḏ3mw perhaps refers to certain groups of persons who could share some criteria now unknown to us (i.e. type of recruitment, social condition or, possibly, age, given that ḏ3m also means “generation”), see Wb. I 280, 3–8; TLA lemma-no. 44390 (http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/index.html) [16/10/2018]. 22 However, Schulman (1964, 20–21) interpreted the reading ḏ3mw n nfrw as two separate elements. Therefore, the expression cited, in the tomb of Tjanuny, is read by him as “registering the various classes eligible for military service [ḏ3m.w] for the elite troops [nfr.w]”. 21

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II millennium BCE.23 It occurs as a loanword (mryn) in Egyptian sources after the Egyptian campaigns of Thutmose III,24 where, originally, it seems to denote a group of wealthy persons of Asiatic origin whom some scholars have called “knights”,25 and who worked for the Egyptians as charioteers and, to a lesser degree, as messengers.26 Just as in Syria and Palestine in the Late Bronze Age,27 therefore, in Egypt it would not only denote a group of soldiers, but also a class or socio-economic status, typical of the Levant. From the context in which they occur, the mariannu of EA 107 seem principally to have had a military function such as charioteer, as we shall see below (§9). 9. In conclusion. On three occasions, the scribe who wrote EA 107, 108 and 124 used the logogram KEŠDA to denote the Egyptian term ḏ3m. On one occasion he accompanies it with the phonetic complement -ma (⸢KEŠDA⸣-ma = šir-ma = ḏ3m, EA 124:51), on another, he specifies the logogram by means of the equivalent gloss ši-ir-ma (KEŠDA : ši-ir-ma = ḏ3m, EA 108:15).28 As we have noted (§7), ḏ3m has a wide meaning that, in certain contexts, needs to be made more specific. In EA 107, KEŠDA is complemented by means of the individualizing gloss maryannūma “charioteers”, in a context where Rib-Hadda informs the pharaoh that, while he does have charioteers, he has no war chariots: “So give me 30 teams of horses with chariots. I have KEŠDA [:] maryannūma (‘charioteers’), but don’t have horses in order to go to the king’s war”.29 In EA 124, Rib-Hadda criticises the pharaoh for the kind of troops that he sent him, as unsuitable for the military operations planned: “[W]hy did the king send KEŠDA⸣-ma piṭāti (‘troops’) to take the cities?”. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that the pharaoh had sent infantry but not specialists in driving chariots. It should be remembered that war chariots performed important functions in the defences of cities,30 so that it would be difficult to attack a city defended by chariots if the attackers could not in turn rely on that type of weapon or on specialists able to handle it. In EA 108, instead, KEŠDA again occurs in a clear context of war chariots, such that the scribe of the letter excludes the use of an individualizing gloss and opts for an equivalent

Cf. CAD M/1, 281–282; AHw 611; Wilhelm 1987–1990. Hoch 1994, 135–137 [175]; Wb. II 110, 6–7; TLA lemma-no. 72570 (http://aaew.bbaw. de/tla/index.html) [17/10/2018] (mryn). 25 Hoch 1994, 135–137 [175]; Darnell / Manassa 2007, 64–65. 26 Manassa 2013, 77–80, 233, n. 64. 27 See Vita 1999, 464–465 (with previous bibliography). In the text from Emar RE 66 (Beckman 1996, 85–86) a man is elevated to the status of maryannu together with his wife and sons. 28 Following the terminology used by Gianto 1995 in his analysis of the glosses in the Amarna letters from Byblos. 29 The translations of the letters given in the following lines are based completely or partially on those in Rainey 2015. 30 See Vita 2008, 63; 2010. 23 24

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one: “They [i.e. the sons of ‘Abdi-Ashirta] have taken the horses of the king and the chariots and they have given KEŠDA : širma (= ḏ3m) and infantrymen to the land of Suru”, where it is probably to be understood that the sons of ‘AbdiAshirta have supplied charioteers (deduced from the context) and infantrymen. Abbreviations AHw = von Soden, W. 1959–1981: Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, Wiesbaden. BE XVII/1 = Radau, H. 1908: Letters to Cassite Kings from the Temple Archives of Nippur, The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. XVII, Part 1, Philadelphia. CAD = Oppenheim, A.L. / Reiner, E. / et al., 1956–2010: The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago. TLA = Thesaurus Lingua Aegyptiae, Berlin (http://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/index.html). Urk. IV = Sethe, K., 1905–1909: Urkunden der 18. Dynastie. Abteilung IV, Leipzig. Wb. = Erman, A., Grapow, H. (eds.) 1926–1961: Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache, Berlin. Bibliography Abel, L., 1889: Der Thontafelfund von El Amarna I. Berlin. Albright, W. F. 1937: The Egyptian Correspondence of Abimilki, Prince of Tyre. JEA 23: 190–203. Allen, J. P., 2013: The ancient Egyptian language: an historical study. Cambridge. Arnaud, D., 1999: review of J.-P. Vita, El ejército de Ugarit. Madrid. 1995. Syria 76: 298–302. Aro, J., 1957: Glossar zu den mittelbabylonischen Briefen. Helsinki. Beckman, G., 1996: Texts from the Vicinity of Emar in the collection of Jonathan Rosen. Padua. Böhl, F.M.Th., 1909: Die Sprache der Amarnabriefe mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kanaanismen. Leipzig. Chevereau, P.-M. 1994: Prosopographie des cadres militaires égyptiens du Nouvel Empire: Paris. Cochavi-Rainey, Z. 1997: Egyptian Influence in the Amarna Letters. UF 29: 95–114. Darnell, J.C. / Manassa, C., 2007: Tutankhamun’s armies: battle and conquest during ancient Egypt’s late eighteenth dynasty. Hoboken, NJ. Gianto, A., 1995: Amarna Lexicography: The Glosses in the Byblos Letters. Studi Epigrafici e Semitici 12: 65–73. Hoch, J. 1994: Semitic words in Egyptian texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period. Princeton, NJ. Izre’el, S., 20052 (1998): Canaano-Akkadian. Munich. Jean, Ch.-F., 1950: Lettres diverses transcrites et traduites. ARM II. Paris.

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Jones, D., 1998: A glossary of ancient Egyptian nautical titles and terms. London / New York. Knudtzon, J.A. 1915: Die El-Amarna-Tafeln. 2 vols. Leipzig. Liverani, M., 1971: Le lettere del faraone a Rib-Adda. Oriens Antiquus 10: 253–268. –– 1974: Rib-Adda, giusto sofferente. Altorientalische Forschungen 1: 175–205. –– 1979: Pharaoh’s Letters to Rib-Adda. Three Amarna Essays. MANE I/5: 3–13. –– 1997: The Shirma-People are Back. NABU 1997/4: 123. –– 1998: Le lettere di el-Amarna. 1. Le lettere dei “Piccoli Re”. Brescia. –– 2004: Rib-Adda, righteous sufferer. In M. Liverani (ed.): Myth and politics in ancient Near Eastern Historiography. Edited and Introduced by Z. Bahrani and M. van de Mieroop. Ithaca, NY. Pp. 97–124. Loprieno, A., 1995: Ancient Egyptian. A linguistic introduction. Cambridge. Manassa, C., 2013: Imagining the past: historical fiction in New Kingdom Egypt. Oxford / New York. Moran, W.L., 1950: A Syntactical Study of the Dialect of Byblos as Reflected in the Amarna Tablets. PhD Diss. University of Baltimore. –– 1987: Les lettres d’El Amarna. Paris. –– 1992: The Amarna Letters. Baltimore / London. –– 2003: Amarna Studies. Collected Writings. J. Huehnergard / Sh. Izre’el (eds.). Winona Lake. Peust, C., 1999: Egyptian phonology. An introduction to the phonology of a dead language. Göttingen. Rainey, A.F., 1989–1990: review from Moran 1987. AfO 36–37: 56–75. –– 1996a: Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets, vol. I: Orthography, Phonology, Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Pronouns, Nouns, Numerals. Leiden. –– 1996b: Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets, vol. III: Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Particles and Adverbs. Leiden. –– 2015, The El-Amarna Correspondence. A New Edition of the Cuneiform Letters from the Site of El-Amarna based on Collations of all Extant Tablets. Leiden. Sassmannshausen, L., 2001: Beiträge zur Verwaltung und Gesellschaft Babyloniens in der Kassitenzeit. Mainz am Rhein. Schroeder, O., 1914: Die Tontafeln von El-Amarna. I. Hälfte. Leipzig. –– 1918: Ueber die Glossen ši-ir(-ma) und mar-ia-nu(-ma) in den Briefen RibAddi’s. OLZ 21: 125–127. Schulman, R., 1964: Military rank, title, and organization in the Egyptian New Kingdom. Berlin. Stefanović, D. 2007: “ḏ3mw in the Middle Kingdom”. LingAeg 15: 217–229. Vita, J.-P., 2008: Le char de guerre en Syrie et Palestine au Bronze récent. In Ph. Abrahami / L. Battini (eds.): Les armées du Proche-Orient ancien (IIIe–Ier mill. av. J.-C.). Oxford. Pp. 57–69. –– 2010: The Power of a Pair of War Chariots in the Late Bronze Age. On Letters RS 20.33 (Ugarit), BE 17 33a (Nippur), and EA 197 (Damascus Region). In J. Vidal (ed.): Studies on War in the Ancient Near East. Collected Essays on

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Military History. Münster. Pp. 87–93. –– 2015: Canaanite Scribes in the Amarna Letters. Münster. Wilhelm, G., 1987–1990: Marijannu. Reallexikon der Assyriologie 7: 419–421. Winckler, H., 1896: Die Thontafeln von Tell-El-Amarna. Berlin.

Oriental Despotism, the Enlightenment’s Evil Twin Eva von Dassow University of Minnesota*

A few years ago, having drafted an outline explaining what ideas had shaped the modern study of the ancient Near East, I picked up Mario Liverani’s then recently-published book Immaginare Babele (2013). There I found the story I had just begun to sketch already set forth in full. In the book’s opening pages I read my own thoughts, as it were, but in Italian, elegantly phrased and suffused with erudition. Liverani begins by unwinding the biblical and classical threads that were twined together to span the millennia from the battle of Marathon to the Greek war of independence, and woven into the motif depicting Oriental civilization as Europe’s anti-model. The image of decadent despotism, personified by ancient Persia, incarnate in the Ottoman Empire, was encoded in Enlightenment thought to the point of pre-determining what Europeans perceived upon unearthing the remains of ancient Oriental civilizations and deciphering their texts. Indeed the anti-model of the Orient was so indelibly imprinted in the Western mind that it continually cloned itself in successive theoretical explanations of how civilizations developed, from Hegel to Wittfogel and beyond. But exploration proceeded and inquiry progressed, yielding knowledge that did not fit the mold, forcing modification of its design and even the contemplation of alternatives. All these developments Liverani describes in detail, delineating his own design in due course, and carrying the story right up to the present … There is a thrill in seeing one’s ideas realized in another’s words, heightened by a sense of validation when the author of those words is a scholar whose work has been a continual source of intellectual sustenance. But what then have I to add? The tapestry Liverani has wrought needs no embroidery. Yet elemental questions remain to be resolved. Our field is still shackled to a paradigmatic binary opposing democracy to despotism and West to East, as if the terms on either side were not only equivalent to each other but absolute, excluding other possible analytic categories. We still lack a general theory of pristine state formation that can account for polities of diverse types, emerging *

The contents of this essay are in part derived from the first chapter of my forthcoming book, provisionally titled Freedom and Governance in the Ancient Near East, to be published by Oxford University Press.

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in diverse environments – not only where cultivation depends on water management – without recourse to a priori principles inflected by this prejudicial paradigm. Regarding areas where cultivation does depend on water management, ethnographic and historical data have yet to be incorporated in modeling what .types of state may form. Without presuming to answer such questions in the brief compass of the present contribution, I endeavor to expose further dimensions of them. One is the relation between the genesis of a political concept of despotism and the development of modern theories of state formation. First, as Perry Anderson observed, the conceptualization of despotism “coincided with its extrojection onto the ‘Orient’ from the start” (Anderson 1974, 463). Second, already before 19th-century excavations began to reveal the antiquity of civilization in the river valleys of northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia, it was known that the oldest civilizations were those of the ancient Orient. These two facts resulted in a simple albeit invalid syllogism: Since states first formed in the Orient, they must have been despotic. Pristine state formation was therefore modeled as the emergence of despotism – although both ethnography and logic would suggest that the state originated through collective governance. To examine this postulate, and dissolve it, necessitates re-surveying well-trod terrain. In what follows I first discuss the extrojection of despotism onto the Orient, then examine prevailing modes of explaining the development of civilization and the state, and lastly, finding the available explanatory models unsound, I offer preliminary suggestions for an alternative, independent of presuppositions inherited from before the Enlightenment. Mirror of the ancien régime Alongside the vast body of literature on early modern political theory and history there has grown a considerable corpus of research on the Orient and despotism, or the “Turk” and “tyranny,” in European thought. Franco Venturi responded to Karl Wittfogel’s publication of Oriental Despotism six decades ago with a detailed survey of the early modern discourse that generated the titular concept, focusing on France in the age of the Enlightenment.1 Covering much the same ground in a recent contribution, Wilfried Nippel (2013) describes the genesis of the modern concept of “Oriental despotism,” establishing how it relates to and departs from its ancient model, and he delineates the branching paths of its development from the late medieval period until the 20th century. In another domain of research, meanwhile, Marcus Keller summarizes a set of studies illustrating the varying roles and changing features of the “imaginary aggregate figure” of the Turk in early modern France.2 “What accounts for these changes,” writes Keller, “is not the development of Franco-Ottoman relations, but rather the gradual transformation Venturi 1960, translated into English and republished in 1963. Keller 2013, 2, in his introduction to an issue of L’Esprit créateur devoted to this topic.

1 2

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of France into an absolutist state” (Keller 2013, 4). This statement points to one of the principal functions the idea of Oriental despotism, embodied in the imaginary Turk, served in Europe. While in essence “the dichotomy between European freedom and Asiatic despotism is (…) the reformulation of such oppositions as Greeks against barbarians or Christians against heathens or Christians against Muslims,” the modern discourse on the Orient and despotism acquired additional dimensions, notably “the inner-European critique of monarchic absolutism,” as Nippel explains.3 Nor is this a new observation; Venturi, citing earlier scholarship, remarks that it was only at the end of the 17th century that “the term despotisme comes into being as if to sum up the hostility of all those opposed to the policy of the Roi Soleil,” by comparing the French monarch’s absolutism with the “tyrannie du Turc” (Venturi 1963, 134). The early modern concept of despotism was developed with reference to representations of existing Oriental regimes, in the first place the Ottoman one, but not with the objective of abstracting from the reality of those regimes their true form. Rather, “despotism” was employed as a framework for constructing the Orient as an anti-Europe, as a structuring principle for sensationalist tales of the exotic East, as an element in a political typology, and a mirror for European regimes. “The imaginary Turkey had the value of a paradigm,” writes Jean Balsamo, in an essay analyzing the discourse on Turkey in the age of Montaigne, which he describes as a European discourse with a French variant.4 That variant is examined by Thomas Kaiser (2000), who describes how the image of the Ottoman Empire and the idea of “Turkish despotism” were instrumentalized to produce “despotism” as an analytic category, one that could be deployed for different ends in French political culture of the 17th–18th centuries. Political theorists of the 16th century could still describe the Ottoman regime as “a legitimate form of monarchy” (Kaiser 2000, 9), without exoticizing it or making it out to be tyrannical; notably, Machiavelli discusses the governments of Turkey and France as examples of two types of monarchy, which he contrasts in terms of their structure without decrying the one or praising the other, and in the same objective spirit he compares the Turkish regime with that of ancient Persia.5 But the tenor of discussion had changed by 1576, when an anonymous pamphlet purported to reveal a plot to reduce the French monarchy to a Turkish-style tyranny, in which all were wholly Nippel 2013, 465, 470. This is one of three strands Nippel distinguishes in discourse from the 17th century onward. 4 “La Turquie imaginaire avait la valeur d’un paradigme” (Balsamo 2001, 223), within what was “un discours «européen» sur les Turcs, dont il faudrait examiner la périodisation et les nuances françaises, plutôt qu’un discours français autonome” (Balsamo 2001, 225). 5 “Ora, se voi considerrete di qual natura di governi era quello di Dario, lo troverrete simile al regno del Turco,” vertically integrated rather than composed of quasi-autonomous parts; Il Principe, IV. Nippel (2013, 467–469) discusses Machiavelli along with Jean Bodin, also cited by Kaiser (2000, 12). 3

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subject to the sovereign, whose rule was arbitrary, who possessed all property and tolerated but one religion – claims that corresponded to complaints against the monarchy of France.6 Was the Ottoman regime really the model for this portrait? As Balsamo puts it, the European paradigm of “Turkey” was based on travelers’ accounts “to the point of appearing real” (Balsamo 2001, 225). Some of those accounts surely had the objective of accurate reporting, but even if they consisted wholly of first-hand observations they would necessarily be partial and imperfectly informed. In general, accounts of the Ottoman realm were biased by inherited prejudices about Islam, biases they were often written with a view to reinforcing, if they were not also written to stoke their readership’s appetite for sensual and shocking fantasies of extravagance, violence, and violation.7 While veracity was implied by the claim of eyewitness, verisimilitude was achieved by confirming (not correcting) received ideas. Moreover, in the body of travelers’ accounts that continued to grow and inform European views, Nippel notes a tendency to generalize from the limited personal experiences they report to the entire Orient, on the part of the audience of this literature if not the authors.8 The authors’ selective perception was supplemented by their audience’s selective reception, which was conditioned not only by preconceptions about Islam and the Orient and by developments in Ottoman-European relations, but by struggles within Europe over the nature of monarchic government. This was the matrix for generating the modern concept of despotism and identifying it with the Orient. Kaiser explains how these struggles played out in France, the epicenter of the discourse on despotism and the only European power to maintain diplomatic relations with Ottoman Turkey from the 16th century onward (while posing as the protector of Christians living under Ottoman rule, to justify treating with the Turk; Kaiser 2000, 11). In the typology of monarchy, the French variety had to be defended as the good kind: the king, albeit absolute, “ruled according to the laws of God, man, and nature and preserved individual liberty”; while he “monopolized sovereignty” he did not monopolize property, rather, private property remained inviolate (Kaiser 2000, 12). Therefore, the Turkish monarchy had to be represented as the polar opposite: the sultan ruled according to no law and his subjects enjoyed neither liberty nor property rights, but were enslaved to the arbitrary and unreasoning will of their despot. This antithesis served both

Balsamo 2001, 222–223. Kaiser writes, “Ottoman Turkey was heir to all the traditional disparaging Christian tropes regarding Islamic culture (…) which the many crusading tracts, histories, travel books, and other literature on the empire, only slightly informed by firsthand experience, endlessly repeated” (2000, 8; emphasis mine). 8 “Die zunehmende Zahl von Berichten von Gesandten, Missionaren, Händler über ihre Erfahrungen in der Türkei, Persien, Indien, etc., in denen sich eine Tendenz abzeichnet, aus den begrenzten eigenen Erfahrungen so etwas wie ein Gesamtbild des Orients abzuleiten” (Nippel 2013, 469). 6 7

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supporters and critics of the French crown, the former arguing in favor of the monarch’s absolute authority on the grounds that he was not, like the Sultan, a despot, the latter arguing that he was turning “Turk” and sought to enslave France and confiscate private property – thus warned another anonymous screed in 1689, reiterating the conspiracy theory put forward by the pamphlet of 1576 (Kaiser 2000, 13). By now the monarch they meant was Louis XIV. After that king’s long reign (1643–1715), the antithesis between monarchy and despotism attained its ideal form in the hands of Montesquieu. In De l’esprit des lois (published in 1748), Montesquieu distinguishes three types of government, republican, monarchic, and despotic, each with its animating principle – virtue in a republic, honor in a monarchy, and fear in a despotic state – and sets out to describe the laws proper to each type, following from its nature and its principle.9 Yet the first law of despotism is no law, for its nature is that all depends only on the despot’s will, whereas in a monarchy the ruler governs by fixed laws. In a despotic state all men are equal, and all are slaves, whereas in a monarchy the subjects are differentiated and the nobility is interposed between king and people.10 With no such intermediate bodies and no body of laws, in a despotic state there is no brake on the exercise of the ruler’s power, which is necessarily immoderate and unreasoning; for nothing constrains the passions of either the ruler or the people, except religion, which operates by adding fear to fear.11 Since nothing is regulated by law, cultivation, commerce, and the arts are neglected; no one is secure in his property or in enjoying the fruits of his labors; and what is most oppressive, the ruler declares himself proprietor of all lands and heir of all his subjects.12 Hence disorder, violence, and poverty prevail, while bribery, embezzlement, confiscations, and corruption, which would be crimes in moderate states, are the rule (Book V, XV and XVII). One need hardly complete the picture before wondering how such a state as Montesquieu describes could exist, much less persist, if it were not only so unstable but unable to produce anything to live on. Before it ever got around to fracturing in the tumult of its crashing passions, a Book I, III sets forth the objective; Book II, I defines the nature of each type of government; the principles of each type are described in Book III, III–IX. The traits mentioned in what follows appear passim in Montesquieu’s work, from which sample passages are cited. 10 Monarchic government presupposes ranking and hereditary nobility, consequently “l’honneur fait mouvoir toutes les parties du Corps politique,” which it does not in a despotic state, “les Hommes y étant tous égaux (…) tous esclaves” (Montesquieu 1748, 39–40; Book III, VII–VIII). 11 “Dans ces États la Religion a plus d’influence que dans aucun autre; elle est une crainte ajoutée à la crainte (…). C’est la Religion qui corrige un peu la Constitution Turque” (Montesquieu 1748, 96; Book V, XIV). 12 “De tous les gouvernements despotiques, il n’y en a point qui s’accable plus lui-même, que celui où le Prince se déclare propriétaire de tous les Fonds de terre & l’héritier de tous ses Sujets” (Montesquieu 1748, 96; Book V, XIV). 9

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despotic state should have consumed itself stillborn in its indolent autophagy! Yet Montesquieu claims that despotism was “naturalized” in Asia since antiquity, and periodically points to countries, notably including Russia, which he categorizes as despotic but which were prosperous and powerful. Theoretically, despotic states were so dysfunctional, roiled with turmoil, fratricidal strife, civil wars, or rebellions, they were prone to dissolution (Book V, XIV). The Ottoman regime, in particular, should have been on the brink of collapse, according to a general European opinion current long before Montesquieu – was this wishful thinking? – yet it failed to do what in theory a despotic state should have done, and self-destruct.13 Meanwhile, actual Turks who visited France failed to conform to the image of the vicious, licentious “Turc” created to accompany the notion of Turkish despotism, instead impressing French observers with their civility and high culture.14 Not only was Montesquieu’s concept of despotism intrinsically untenable, as a depiction of Oriental regimes and peoples it was counterfactual. In fact his despotic state was imaginary, as Voltaire and other contemporaries observed.15 Montesquieu designed despotism as a dystopia, a political hell that threatens either a monarchy or a republic, should it become corrupted and cease preserving itself according to its proper laws. But he did not locate this hell in myth, instead he invented a nonexistent species of evil misrule and imputed it to real states and societies. This was wrong, from the standpoint of a man of the Enlightenment, for – besides amounting to calumny – it violated the principle of reasoning from facts that one ascertains through first-hand observation or evidence. Montesquieu did not travel to the Orient, nor take the trouble to learn Oriental languages, nor seek out Oriental sources, and his counterfactual image of Oriental despotism offended a late contemporary who did, Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron.

In Kaiser’s words, “Indeed, so chaotic did the Turkish regime appear in these [17th-century] narratives that the ‘tyrannical’ and ‘despotic’ category of government in which the Ottoman Empire was routinely placed threatened to collapse. For if such regimes were so unstable, they could hardly be said to exist at all (…). The very persistence of the Turkish empire over several centuries, and most especially its ability to threaten Christian Europe militarily, confounded French observers,” who came up with theological as well as secular explanations; still, “the sheer fact that such a ‘despotic’ regime did not immediately self-destruct continued to pose conundrums for French observers long into the age of Montesquieu” (2000, 10). 14 Kaiser 2000, 16. The presence of real and figurative Turks in France had several other dimensions that are here left aside, such as the use of enslaved Turks in ship-building and the depiction of captive Turks in the decoration of those same ships, as well as in painting and the other arts, a subject treated by Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss (2013). 15 See Venturi 1960, 119–120; Kaiser 2000,18–22. 13

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Despotism enlightened A pioneer Orientalist, Anquetil-Duperron acquired a considerable amount of first-hand knowledge about some Oriental states, and the philological resources for studying others.16 After learning Hebrew and Arabic (as well as Latin and Greek), he spent several years (1755–1761) living in India where he pursued his study of languages until, under the tutelage of Zoroastrian priests, he became the first European to read the Avesta. Upon his return to France, he published his translation of the Avesta together with a lexicon and an account of his travels. Then, disturbed that his fellow Europeans held erroneous ideas about the Orient and despotism, ideas that could do harm, he undertook to enlighten them about the true nature of Oriental states, their laws, peoples, and cultures. This project took the form of a book he entitled Législation orientale, and subtitled as follows: Ouvrage dans lequel, en montrant quels sont en Turquie, en Perse et dans l’Indoustan, les Principes fondamentaux du Gouvernement, on prouve, I.  Que la manière dont jusqu’ici on a représenté le Despotisme, qui passe pour être absolu dans ces trois États, ne peut qu’en donner une idée absolument fausse. II.  Qu’en Turquie, en Perse & dans l’Indoustan, il y a un Code de Loix écrites, qui obligent le Prince ainsi que les sujets. III.  Que dans ces trois États, les particuliers ont des propriétés en biens meubles & immeubles, dont ils jouissent librement. And Anquetil-Duperron proceeds to do precisely that, supporting his arguments with substantial documentation, including summaries or translations of original sources.17 This evidence, he believed, ought to destroy the “phantom of despotism” that had been fastened onto the Orient by the authority of Montesquieu, whom everyone simply copied.18 The book was published in Amsterdam in 1778, too late for Montesquieu (deceased in 1755) to benefit from the torrent of polemical but largely well-founded criticism that it aimed at his magnum opus. But the urgency had only grown to confront myth with reality. Anquetil-Duperron intended to raise and answer the question whether the idea of Oriental despotism The career and works of Anquetil-Duperron are summarized in the biographical entry in Encyclopedia Iranica (Duchesne-Guillemin 1987); a more detailed one appears in the Dictionnaire de biographie française (Jaulme 1936). 17 These are in part integrated in the main text or footnotes, and in part given in appended notes and additions that together occupy two-fifths of the book (Anquetil-Duperron 1778, 182–312). 18 He states his objectives in the foreword (Anquetil-Duperron 1778, 1–13). On destroying the phantom with facts, see p. 12 (also p. 34); on the preeminence of Montesquieu, “je pourrois ne citer que ce grand Politique, puisque depuis on n’a fait que le copier,” p. 9. In Part 1 of the book, Anquetil-Duperron addresses the general and particular claims Montesquieu and others make about despotism, comparing them with the observable realities of Oriental states. 16

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that had become fixed in the European mind had any basis in fact, a question with immediate implications for colonial policy. So he put facts before the European reader, and sources, analysis, and arguments. According to Montesquieu’s theory of despotism and his classification of Oriental states as despotic, these states have no laws, the ruler’s subjects are his slaves, and they enjoy neither liberty nor property rights. But they do have laws, as Montesquieu could have discovered even from reading the travelers’ accounts he cites, laws that ruler and subjects alike must obey.19 European observers, Anquetil-Duperron remarks, tend to confuse abuses with laws and violations with rules; meanwhile, in their ignorance of language and custom they misinterpret what they observe, mistake special for general rules, and attribute difficulties they encounter to the wrong cause; also out of ignorance, they assert that there are no written laws because, knowing neither the languages nor the texts, they cannot read them.20 Contrary to such misrepresentations, comprehensive codes of laws regulate people’s affairs and protect their rights, including their property rights, in some respects better than laws do in Europe. For “the subjects are not slaves, as is believed. Masters of their goods, they leave the realm [of Persia], if they please, with their effects, their families, without need of passports” (p. 80). Had Montesquieu only read the Qur’an he could have discovered the falsity of the claim that under Islamic rule the sovereign is proprietor of all lands, and of his people, too.21 Not only are the people not slaves, they are not necessarily subservient. Anquetil-Duperron relates various instances in which an official, governor, or other personage reproaches or constrains the ruler (e.g., pp. 51–52, 100–103) – so evidently there are intermediate powers in Oriental states, contrary to Montesquieu’s model of despotism. Montesquieu also asserts that in a despotic state commerce and cultivation of the land are neglected, as is cultivation of arts and letters, and diversity of opinion is not tolerated, assertions that are easily refuted. One need only look about oneself in the Orient, to observe religious pluralism, thriving agriculture, flourishing commerce, and promotion of intellectual endeavors as well as the arts, not to mention the establishment of hospitals. In India they even have newspapers, which no previous traveler has reported, so Anquetil-Duperron presents samples in translation (pp. 41–42, 194– 200). With this oeuvre he “opposed the real Orient to Montesquieu’s Oriental myth,” as Louis Althusser puts it.22 Anquetil-Duperron prefaces and concludes

Anquetil-Duperron 1778, 3, 46–47, 59–60, 75 (for example). Part 2 of the book is devoted to the sources of law and the exercise of jurisprudence, considering in turn Turkey, Persia, and India. 20 For these kinds of errors see Anquetil-Duperron 1778, 11, 31, 72, 78, 90–91. 21 Anquetil-Duperron devotes Part 3 to property rights, again considering Turkey, Persia, and India in turn, and bringing a wide range of evidence to bear on the subject. 22 Althusser 1959, 83. Perry Anderson too glibly brushes aside Législation orientale by 19

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Législation orientale by stating its scientific objective. For Europeans, he writes, it is a source of ignorance to presume that their own philosophy, the legacy of Greeks and Romans, is all they require for knowledge of human affairs, so that they need not learn from other peoples, barbarian peoples – forgetting that to the ancient Greeks they themselves would be barbarians! – an attitude unlike that of the merchant, or the botanist, who seek respectively commerce or knowledge throughout the globe. Europeans should similarly seek knowledge among all the other peoples of the globe, to which end they must learn their languages and inquire into their cultures and histories.23 Alongside his scientific objective, however, Anquetil-Duperron also has a theoretical one, and a moral one. He could see from the Oriental side what harm European prejudice and avarice wrought. Not only do Europeans filled with negative stereotypes about the Orient go there and commit the rapacity they imagine to be the rule there, alienating the people and revolting them with their violence (p. 17); not only do they set themselves up for failure in dealing with Oriental peoples by adopting such false ideas about them (p. 88). Their notions of Oriental despotism serve them as justifications for domination and expropriation, objectives that English writers such as Alexander Dow make explicit in promoting the conquest of India and the seizure of lands in Bengal (pp. 175–79). They tell themselves that in these countries the sovereign is proprietor of all his subjects’ wealth, therefore, “Devenons ce Souverain, & nous voilà maîtres de toutes les terres de l’Indoustan” (p. 178). This was the consequence of propounding a false concept of despotism and illustrating it with false claims about real Oriental states. Anquetil-Duperron was not alone in combatting the myth of Oriental despotism; he had company in this endeavor, as Venturi (1960) and Kaiser (2000) have described. While Montesquieu’s misrepresentations of the Orient had to be rebutted, his definition of despotism had to be replaced. Opposing a royalist agenda to his feudalist one, Voltaire and other writers developed the concept of “legal despotism” as a form of absolute monarchy that would secure both law and liberty, and their theoretical purposes were served neither by Montesquieu’s caricature version of despotism nor by his specious claims about Oriental monarchies.24 This is why Anquetil-Duperron devoted much of his book to describing despotism, in its existing Oriental form, as a benign type of monarchy founded on law and

pointing out that Anquetil-Duperron was a “disappointed French patriot” who later decried England’s usurpation of the rule of India from France, as if this invalidated his criticisms of Montesquieu; in the same breath he denounces the “naïveté” Althusser exhibited in appreciating the work (1974, 465, n. 9). Anderson neglects to consider whether Anquetil-Duperron’s first-hand observations were more accurate than the recycled stereotypes he sought to dispel. 23 See especially Anquetil-Duperron 1778, iii–vi (on “science présomptueuse”); 181 (exhortation to study the languages and history of Asia). 24 See Venturi 1960, 119–121; and further Kaiser 2000, 17–23.

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protective of private property as well as individual liberty. For, as Althusser points out, it is easy to see that when Montesquieu identifies despotism as the government of Turkey, Persia, etc., “the example of real countries serves him only as a pretext” (Althusser 1959, 83). He did not know these countries, and selected from the accounts he read only what served him, without concerning himself to ascertain its truth.25 Where, then, Althusser asks, does a French gentleman born under Louis XIV get his idea of despotism? It is clear that “in this figure of despotism Montesquieu wanted to represent something altogether different from the state in Oriental regimes: the abdication of politics itself”; indeed, his Oriental despotism is a “geographic illusion, because it is a historical allusion.”26 His target is absolute monarchy. More specifically, it is the French monarchy in the form Louis XIV gave it. Montesquieu’s “despotism” is a caricature, whose object “est d’épouvanter et d’édifier par son horreur même. Voilà un régime où un seul gouverne, dans un palais dont jamais il ne sort, livré aux passions des femmes et aux intrigues des courtisans. Caricature de Versailles et de la cour.”27 This was clear to Anquetil-Duperron, who posed the rhetorical question whether the Oriental serails Montesquieu describes were not really to be found in Europe (Anquetil-Duperron 1778, 17). Voltaire and his peers did not mistake Montesquieu’s meaning, but subsequent readers of the founder of modern political science sometimes have. A recent exponent of the theory of Oriental despotism, Michael Curtis, extols Montesquieu as “the first theorist to distinguish in a full way a despotic type of government that is different from monarchy (…) and to describe despotism as a system natural to the Orient” (Curtis 2009, 80). Accordingly, Montesquieu is the first of half a dozen theorists to whom Curtis devotes a chapter apiece, after surveying numerous other (mostly) European authors, in a book dedicated to proving that Oriental despotism really exists. It exists, according to Curtis, because Europe was threatened by the Orient and Islam for many centuries before it threatened the Orient; because under Islamic rule religion is inseparable from politics (notwithstanding that Europe was defined by Christianity more than the Orient by Islam); because Muslims enslaved European Christians through the early modern period (while European enslavement of Muslims goes unmentioned); and besides, the Ottoman Empire was “unable to modernize” (p. 29); these and other

On this see also Nippel 2013, 473. Althusser 1959, 91; further, “Nous avons assez des textes et assez catégoriques de Montesquieu et de ses contemporains, pour avancer que le despotisme n’est illusion géographique que parce qu’il est allusion historique” (p. 92). He cites the 37th Lettre persane, in which Montesquieu has the character Usbeck say he hears that Louis XIV likes the Turkish government best (Althusser 1959, n. 1). 27 Althusser 1959, 93. Althusser continues by enumerating key traits of Montesquieu’s model of despotism, showing how they model the French monarchy. See also Kaiser 2000, 15–17. 25 26

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non sequitur arguments are elaborated in the introduction.28 Oriental despotism exists because one after another European writer said so, sometimes explaining it by reference to Islam (see, e.g., pp. 31–37). Above all, it exists because European travelers to the Orient described Oriental regimes as despotic, and while some of them may have been prejudiced or poorly informed, many “sought objective, empirical data and tried to formulate unbiased conclusions” (p. 38), though how Curtis makes either determination he never explains. Notwithstanding their inaccuracies and prejudices, “they nevertheless provided both valuable empirical information and systematic analysis” (p. 39), for they were men on their way to Enlightenment, and such men were “advocates of rationalism and science and the use of empirical observation. They argued for emancipation from autocracy and despotic politics” (p. 57). Those would however have been the politics of France, not the Orient (contra Curtis), since the architects of the Enlightenment were mostly “French intellectuals (…) aiming to destroy the ancien régime” (p. 57). By the 18th-century no Frenchman feared Ottoman domination of his country. Yet in Curtis’s view, the claims about the Orient made not only by European travelers but by the theorists who read them must be right, because they are “empirical,” a word he uses to describe the work of virtually every Western author starting with Aristotle – even Hegel’s work is “empirical”! – and to validate Montesquieu’s description of despotism as a species of government proper to the Orient.29 One would expect that an author so enamored of inquiry based on empirical observation would seek to test the claims of European writers empirically by investigating contemporaneous Oriental sources, but Curtis cites none. He finds that some European authors disagreed with others, some expressing positive opinions of the Ottoman, Persian, or Mughal regime, and a few even contradicting outright the negative stereotypes the majority repeated.30 He does not however Curtis 2009, 1–30, esp. pp. 18–29 on the Oriental, Muslim, or Ottoman threat to Europe and Christendom; p. 5 on the fusion of religion and politics under Islam; pp. 2–3, 30 on the Christian identity of Europe; pp. 26–29 on the enslavement of Europeans at the hands of Muslim corsairs. 29 Aristotle conducted “empirical investigation” (Curtis 2009, 52), using “empirical data” (p. 72); European travelers and other writers drew on “empirical” observations or data (pp. 35, 38, 39, 42, 45, 51, 57, 68); like Aristotle, whose views he challenged, Montesquieu based his work on “empirical information” (p. 78); Hegel’s views on the Orient were “empirical” (p. 230); Marx and Engels, as well as Weber, were concerned with “empirical” reality (e.g., pp. 255, 259, 263), while Asian religions are not (p. 290), nor is “postcolonial contemporary writing” (p. 300). 30 For instance, he mentions the positive comments of Busbecq on Turkey (p. 40), Botero on Persia (p. 41), Chardin on Persia (p. 45), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on Turkey (pp. 62–63); also the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, to whose work he seems to have access only apud Bernard Lewis (p. 64, with n. 29); and on Mughal India, Alexander Dow (pp. 65–66), whose advocacy of British conquest of India and Bengal (quoted in extenso by Anquetil-Duperron; see above) Curtis seems to have overlooked. 28

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have any means at his disposal to ascertain which of them was right. Meanwhile he tends to dismiss favorable comments about the Ottoman Empire by asserting that their author wrote at a time when it was undergoing changes “that led to restraints on power” (p. 61; also pp. 62, 64, 91, 101), without troubling to specify what those changes were. Among the many authors Curtis mentions is AnquetilDuperron, whom he calls an “armchair philosopher” (p. 63), and whose work he appears to know only through English-language scholarship.31 He notes that Anquetil-Duperron pointed out errors in Montesquieu’s work and contradicted the stereotypes about Oriental regimes that Montesquieu repeated, in particular the claim that private property did not exist in the Orient (p. 64). Yet he does not draw the conclusion that if Anquetil-Duperron was right, Montesquieu was wrong. The existence of property rights in Oriental states of the early modern period is a matter susceptible to objective verification on an empirical basis, but Curtis somehow neglected to undertake such an exercise. With regard to the supposed absence of laws and the claim that all land belonged to the ruler, Curtis remarks that “this view (…) was, however, incorrect by Montesquieu’s time” (p. 91) – without citing evidence that it had ever been correct – yet he continues to paraphrase Montesquieu as if he were right. Because “almost all the factual illustrations (…) came from Turkey, Persia, or Mughal India” (p. 100), Montesquieu’s model of despotism applies to the Orient, even if he got almost all his facts wrong. Curtis concludes the discussion by first citing Macaulay’s criticism of Montesquieu as “indifferent to truth,” then insisting that Montesquieu’s “construction of a model type of Oriental despotic government is logically compelling and became the archetype of all forms of absolute power” (p. 101). Evidently it did. Montesquieu’s myth was absorbed by every author Curtis discusses in subsequent chapters (following a similar procedure for each one). His book has value as a guide to the construction and renovation of the theory of Oriental despotism by a selection of writers, whose errors of fact he cannot allow to invalidate their views.32 Among Montesquieu’s mistakes Curtis calls attention to one in particular: the misrepresentation of the Turkish saray (French serail, Italian serraglio) as “the See Curtis 2009, 63–64, where Curtis ostensibly quotes what Anquetil-Duperron wrote, but cites a book by Daniel Brewer (n. 26); the direct citations of Législation orientale in nn. 27–28 may be derived from the article of Frederick Whelan cited in n. 27; and on p. 78, Curtis mentions Anquetil-Duperron but cites Robert Shackleton (n. 26). 32 The other authors in this mixed selection are Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, James Mill and John Stuart Mill (sharing a chapter), Karl Marx, and Max Weber, criticism of whose views by scholars in the relevant fields Curtis occasionally mentions only to dismiss. For example, he defends the concept of an Asiatic mode of production against charges that it is based on factual errors by asserting that it is an “ideal type” (p. 240) – as if it therefore need not correspond to any phenomenon existing in fact – and by protesting that although Marx and Engels were not Orientalists, they were not ignorant (pp. 256–257). On the Asiatic mode of production see further below in the next section. 31

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gynaeceum of the palace, a purely European definition, which perhaps showed what really interested some people in the West,” and he remarks that Montesquieu participated along with many Europeans in “a kind of genteel pornography in their depiction of the (…) seraglio in the Orient” (p. 73). He furthermore observes that Montesquieu employed the image of the seraglio and the Turkish monarchy to criticize the French monarchy, most explicitly in Lettres persanes (pp. 73–74, 88–89). Yet he will not extrapolate these observations to Montesquieu’s model of despotism and his counterfactual portrayal of the Orient. He writes that “it seems excessive to argue, as does Althusser, that Montesquieu used the concept of despotism to oppose absolute monarchy in France” (pp. 88–89), but why it “seems excessive” he does not say. Why is the saray not Versailles? Ancient Greek writers like Ctesias had similarly made their Orient the arena of pornography, for example situating Sardanapalus among his concubines; as Robert Rollinger points out, the figure of Sardanapalus “does not have an ‘oriental’ backbone but rather is part of a discussion within the classical world disguised in an oriental cloak.”33 Against the view that Montesquieu was “primarily concerned with necessary correctives and constitutional controls over French absolutism,” Curtis presents no argument, only the assertion that Lettres persanes offers a titillating tale of the seraglio as a “small-scale portrait of the essence of despotic government” (p. 74). Quod erat demonstrandum. Anquetil-Duperron dedicated Législation orientale to the people of India, lamenting the ruin of their country by invaders bent on despoiling them at the cost of rivers of blood, wishing them to know that one European tried to plead before the “tribunal of the universe” for redress of the injury to their rights.34 Already in the mid-18th century he could see that the Orientalization of despotism served as an instrument to justify European oppression in Asia. But his arguments made little impression on a public that preferred the paradigm with which they had been indoctrinated for centuries.35 In the meantime, although the cause of the nobility was under attack, the royalists’ project of “rescuing ‘despotism’ as a category of political analysis,” as Kaiser puts it (Kaiser 2000, 23), was undermined by their erasure of any essential distinction between the Ottoman monarchy and the French one. Montesquieu’s political theory, if not his political agenda, prevailed. Unfortunately for Anquetil-Duperron’s efforts to enlighten his compatriots about Rollinger 2017, 577. This theme is also addressed by Liverani (2013, 13). “Au moins, malheureux Indiens, peut être apprendrez vous qu’en deux cents ans un Européen qui vous a vus, qui a vécu avec vous, a osé réclamer en vôtre faveur, & présenter au Tribunal de l’Univers vos droits blessés, ceux de l’humanité flétris par un vil interêt” (Anquetil-Duperron 1778, ii). 35 Those for whom this paradigm was an article of faith could not be persuaded by facts. Venturi quotes one writer who responded to Anquetil-Duperron’s work by asserting that his anti-English zeal led him to deny “things too certain to be denied” (1960, 125). Nippel remarks that “Anquetils Werk scheint insgesamt keine besondere Resonanz gefunden zu haben” (2013, 475). 33 34

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the Orient, by the time his book was published, advocates for monarchy and nobility alike were but a decade from being swept away in the populist revolution that Montesquieu could almost have predicted. It was to be followed by a revolution in knowledge of the ancient past. Myths of the Asiatic state The tale of European excavation and decipherment of ancient Near Eastern sites and texts, commencing at the cusp of the 19th century, is well known within the relevant fields and has been thoroughly covered in scholarship.36 After almost two millennia in oblivion, ancient Egypt, Assyria, and their neighbors were illuminated one after another by a plenitude of sources that could now be read, and their material remains were made visible. Once first-hand evidence was available for the study of ancient Near Eastern civilizations, in principle it would have been possible to discard all preconceptions and describe them afresh on the basis of sources they themselves produced. This is not quite what happened in 19th-century Europe and America, for several reasons. First, preconceived ideas established on the authority of thinkers from Aristotle to Montesquieu, as well as Scripture, were not easy to discard. The idea of Oriental despotism was firmly fixed in the Western mind, where it supported the project of imposing Occidental control over Oriental lands as well as sustaining Europe’s conviction of superiority and its fantasies of erotic indulgence and domination. Such fantasies are famously epitomized in Delacroix’s 1827 painting Death of Sardanapalus, of which Mogens Larsen writes that “it reflects the western fascination at the sensual, erotic world of the Orient, which embodied the repressed dreams of the Europeans.”37 Second, the classical and especially the biblical templates supplied virtually compulsory anchorage for interpreting the new finds, not merely on account of piety or prior conviction but because the progress of interpretation necessarily worked backwards into the past, from known to unknown. Third, the quantity of new material quickly grew too great to absorb, and absorbing it moreover required learning extinct languages and scripts, as well as masses of archaeological data; this inherently entailed specialization, For Assyria, the foremost account is that of Larsen (1996). On the decipherment of Mesopotamian as well as Persian cuneiform, see further Daniels 1994; other decipherments in the ancient Near East and beyond are covered in Daniels and Bright 1996. More recently, the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs has been narrated in detail by Robinson (2012), through the biography of Jean-François Champollion. These developments and more are situated in the larger arc of the history of ideas by Liverani (2013). See also McGeough (2015) for a detailed treatment within the frame of 19th-century Britain. 37 Larsen 1996, caption to Plate IV. This painting is displayed directly opposite Delacroix’s La Liberté guidant le peuple at the Louvre, their placement spatially representing the imagined opposition of the Orient and liberty. 36

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which soon separated the new subjects from the main currents of scholarly and public discourse alike. Fourth, the pioneering excavators had focused on palaces and monuments, in accord with their mandate to find display objects fit for their sponsoring countries’ museums, and the first inscriptions deciphered and read were royal inscriptions. All that was discovered tended therefore to confirm preconceived views about the Orient. Western viewers were going to find the despotic Ozymandias and Sardanapalus, albeit by other names, because that was what they were prepared to see. Above all else, the idea of an essential opposition between Europe and the Ottoman regime had solidified, achieving an ideological climax in the war for Greek independence (1825–1830). The Ottomans were the new Persians, the European image of them was retrojected into Oriental antiquity, and ancient Oriental civilizations were in turn construed as the prototype of the Ottoman Empire. As if to carry the standards of liberty and democracy into battle against their nemesis, European intellectuals fought for the Greek cause, “brandendo il moschetto in una mano e le Storie di Erodoto nell’altra,” in Liverani’s words (Liverani 2013, 13). The same intellectual and political developments that led to excavations in Egypt and Assyria explain why these new discoveries did not at once revolutionize understanding of the ancient Orient. Meanwhile, the pioneer excavations of ancient Near Eastern sites appeared to corroborate palace-centric preconceptions about the Orient, not only because they concentrated on palaces but, as Liverani describes, their techniques were too crude to detect mud-brick walls not paneled in stone; they could neither recognize nor reveal normal residences (p. 39). Consequently, the early excavations produced the impression of an ancient Assyrian city as a gigantic palace isolated within the circuit of defensive walls – an enlarged royal camp, as Marx saw it – leaving essentially unaltered the image of the ancient Oriental city that had been formed before any had been discovered.38 What happened, then, was the formulation of a new myth. Europe’s selfconcept was defined by the values of liberty and reason, and these ideals were thought to be realized in history through stages of progress culminating in the modern Western state.39 The European vision of unilineal historical development, conjoined with the ideology of progress, generated the idea that any civilization not following the same trajectory Europe traced for itself was deemed stagnant or backwards. In the Orient, according to this philosophy of history, the palace stands for the state, the state takes form only as an empire under one-man rule, and civilization remains static, unchanging, outside of development.

Liverani 2013, 48–56, with citation of Marx, p. 51. This modern mythopoesis, and the place made for the ancient Near East in the story, has been detailed by Liverani (2013, esp. 42–56), among others. McGeough describes how ideas of progress displaced ideas of degeneration and decline in the story of civilization during the 19th century (2015, ch. 4).

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Mythic as they might be, the West’s ideals also motivated further inquiry, and new conceptual frameworks were needed to systematize and explain the growing bodies of information collected through research in every area from prehistory to political economy. Meanwhile the progress of industry, market capitalism, and colonial dominion transformed the world that needed explaining. At the same time as Layard was excavating Nimrud and Nineveh, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were drafting the Communist Manifesto, while they and other writers exposed the evils of industrialization, extreme inequality, and economic exploitation.40 Against this background there developed a template for narrating the origins and development of civilization and the state, a template that could accommodate differing theories as well as new data. The contours of the resulting narrative, the work of many hands over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, have tended to remain constant even with significant variation in content and ideology. Its evolution may be traced through the figures of Marx, V. Gordon Childe, and Karl Wittfogel, three of the most influential members of an intellectual lineage.41 Marx knew of Layard and his excavations – he mentions him admiringly in several articles, as well as referring to the exhibition of Assyrian sculptures at the British Museum – but he does not appear to have read Layard’s work.42 Nor did he make much use of other publications of ancient Near Eastern material then coming to light. His ideas about the ancient Orient, or about Asia generally, came from elsewhere: from British writers on India, from (mostly) French travelers’ accounts of the Orient, and from Montesquieu, to mention some of his reading.43 It bears noting that none of this material comprises primary sources. Out of such literature Marx drew the outline of a model of political economy in Asia – the entire continent – that he described in an 1853 article about British rule in India for the New-York Daily Tribune. To wit: in Asia, agriculture depends on artificial irrigation, which depends on centralized government, and its organization entails a social system comprising dispersed, isolated village communities, which

These juxtapositions are pointed out by Larsen (1996, 147–148), situating the excavation and publication of ancient Assyrian remains in their political and intellectual context. 41 The selective survey offered here is a gloss on Liverani’s thorough treatment, which integrates developments in the study of the ancient Near East with developments in the sciences of society (2013, Chs. 2–3, for the late 19th and early 20th century). 42 In reporting on the doings of Parliament for the New-York Daily Tribune, Marx describes Layard as “the celebrated restorer of ancient Nineveh,” and gives a laudatory report of a speech he made (articles of July 22, 1953 and September 2, 1853; Marx and Engels 1975–, vol. 12: 185, 268–271). Liverani remarks that Marx, while evidently in sympathy with Layard’s political positions, “probabilmente non aveva letto nessuna delle sue opere, e comunque non ne aveva tratto gran frutto, continuando ad orecchiare stereotipi tradizionali” (2013, 35). I have not found reference to any work by Layard in bibliographies to Marx’s works. 43 See Nippel 2013, 476–477. 40

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“had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism.”44 Whereas in the Occident the necessity of managing water in common “drove private enterprise to voluntary association,” in the Orient, “where civilization was too low and the territorial extent too vast to call into life voluntary association,” water management required instead “the centralizing power of government.” This is so because there is no private property, nor even the idea of it, rather the state is both sovereign and proprietor of all the land it embraces; so Marx declares in Capital: A Critique of Political Economy.45 Cooperation under the coercion of centralized government has produced “colossal” results, as witness “the ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, and other collections in London,” and he quotes on this topic Richard Jones, writing in 1852, to the effect that in the past Oriental states expended their surplus on producing “stupendous monuments” constructed by their “non-agricultural population,” both surplus and people being under the control of “the monarch and the priesthood.”46 Both Jones and Marx must have had in mind something like the industrial exploitation of a working class that was separate from rural cultivators; the stupendous monuments of the ancient Orient, however, were primarily built by the agricultural population who were obliged for labor service. Marx seldom neglects to add that in Asia the form of government and social conditions he describes have persisted unaltered since antiquity. The collection of state taxes in the form of rents payable in kind is interdependent with “conditions of production that are reproduced with the regularity of natural phenomena”; this is “one of the secrets of the conservation of the Ottoman Empire” (p. 140). He explains – citing a report about Java for proof – that the self-sustaining village communities that are the foundation of despotism are also self-replicating, and this accounts for the “unchangeableness of Asiatic societies” (pp. 337–338). Not that Marx or his sources had looked for historical change and found none, lest inquiry belie the notion of Asia as a monolith locked in perennial stasis, awaiting creative disruption by European invaders. In a second article on British rule in India, Marx asserts that “Indian society has no history at all (…) but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society,” and now England must fulfill a double mission: “the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.”47 Similar ideas flowed from the

“The British Rule in India,” article of June 25, 1853; Marx and Engels 1975–, vol. 12, 125–133. For the passages quoted, see pp. 127–28, 132. 45 1967 [1867], vol. 3: 615–616 and 790–791. Here Marx takes the opportunity to mock Hegel for making a historically contingent legal concept, that of private ownership of land, into an absolute, universal principle, an essential condition for individual freedom (615, n. 26). 46 1967 [1867], vol. 1, 315, with n. 1. 47 “The Future Results of British Rule in India,” August 8, 1853; Marx and Engels 1975–, vol. 12, 217–222 (quotations from pp. 217–218). 44

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pen of Engels. Writing of Turkey in 1853, for example, he decries Russian designs on its Balkan territories, hopes that “Western civilization and Western trade will become permanent in the South-east of Europe,” and predicts “the erection of a free and independent Christian State on the ruins of the Moslem Empire in Europe,” for surely the Revolution “will inaugurate the long-maturing conflict between Russian Absolutism and European Democracy.”48 Writing two decades later, Engels describes the organization of the Russian peasantry into isolated village communities that form “the natural basis for Oriental despotism,” and sums up the Russian state as “held together (…) by an Oriental despotism the arbitrariness of which we in the West simply cannot imagine.”49 The model Marx employs to describe Asia is here applied to Russia, which Engels “Orientalizes” for the purpose, but which appears to be his model’s proximate source.50 Its key feature is communal ownership of land, characteristic of archaic societies in which private property had not developed. Clearly Marx overlooked Anquetil-Duperron’s work, for he simply repeats the claim about the absence of private property in the Orient from Montesquieu and countless other writers without observing what ends such claims served, and without seeking to substantiate them. The same is true of every other element of his description of society, government, and civilization in Asia – lack of change, organization in isolated, autarkic villages, pan-continental necessity of irrigation, dependence on centralized government. Where he does support his general claims with specific references, he draws them from widely disparate places and times – contemporary Java, ancient Assyria, the Ottoman Empire, India under British rule – as if any information from anywhere in Asia could be extrapolated to every other part throughout the ages. “The consequent supra-historical mélange,” writes Perry Anderson, “defies all scientific principles of classification” (Anderson 1974, 486). Anderson traces the sources of the ideas about the Orient that Marx and Engels absorbed, and tabulates by author ten features variously attributed to Asiatic states by successive writers from Machiavelli to John Stuart Mill, which add up to the notion of “Oriental despotism,” and which Marx drew together into “a single conception” (p. 472). In this conception Marx conjoined the idea of state-run irrigation (sourced from Bernier, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith) with the idea of self-sufficient villages having communal property (sourced from Hegel); thus

“What Is to Become of Turkey in Europe?” New-York Daily Tribune, April 21, 1853; Marx and Engels 1975–, vol. 12, 32–36 (quotations from pp. 35–36). 49 “On Social Relations in Russia,” part of a series published in Der Volkstaat in 1875; Marx and Engels 1975–, vol. 24, 39–50 (for the passages quoted, see pp. 46, 50). 50 The assimilation of Russia to the Orient long predates Marx and Engels (it is found for example in Montesquieu) but takes a more specific form in their work, where it centers on the village community with communal property. This aspect of their work and its afterlife in Marxism are discussed by Pierre Vidal-Naquet (1990a, 294–309, with references there). 48

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“the hydraulic State ‘above’ and the autarchic village ‘below’ were linked into a single formula.”51 But these two elements are in contradiction, Anderson points out. They derive from wholly different types of societies – highly developed states on the one hand, non-state societies on the other – and key features do not cooccur; for example, Turkey, Persia, and India had no major state-run irrigation works, while China, which did, had private property in land; communal property did not exist in the Indian villages that served as a model for the second element; moreover, the detachment of the state from the villages was illusory. Thus the empirical basis of the postulate that autarkic villages holding property in common lay at the foundation of the hydraulic state was “always a myth” (p. 489). Perhaps one should not demand academic rigor in newspaper articles written to earn a living, which half the material cited in the foregoing paragraphs was. But this is almost all that Marx had to say about political economy in Asia, at least in work he prepared for publication. His sole mention of an “Asiatic” mode of production appears in the preface to his 1859 book Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, written under peculiar circumstances.52 Nippel points out that neither in that book nor elsewhere does Marx develop a theory corresponding to this term, which moreover he lodged within an autobiographical passage that actually situates the series “asiatische, antike, feudale und modern bürgerliche Produktionsweisen” in the framework of ideas he had acquired before he began his serious study of economy.53 In the fullness of time, once the 1859 book and its preface came to be treated as canonical, his followers sought to give some substance to this spare reference, as Nippel explains. The articles for the New-York Daily Tribune were fished up from obscurity in the 1920s, and eventually manuscripts Marx drafted in 1857–1858 were published as Grundrisse der politischen Ökonomie, wherein he writes of an “Asiatic” type of property relations.54 These writings together with other works of Marx and Engels, supplemented by their correspondence, supplied enough material to construct a theory to attach to the term “Asiatic mode of production” (AMP) – a theory that is Marxist without truly being Marx’s. Evidently the concept of an AMP met a need felt by the continuators of Marx’s work. Given the circumstances of its genesis, the theory comprised gaps, open questions, and contradictions, which made it a poor fit with dialectical materialism Anderson 1974, 477. Further on, he identifies the original source for Hegel’s description of a supposedly prototypical Indian village, which Marx reiterates (indeed practically plagiarizes) (Anderson 1974, 480, with n. 17). Both Hegel and Marx extrapolated from that single account of a particular place and time to build the foundation of a theory encompassing all Asia. 52 These circumstances are examined in detail by Arthur Prinz (1969), who also proffers a rhetorical analysis of Marx’s preface to the book. 53 Nippel 2018, esp. 62–63, observing that Marx’s assumptions were already fixed, regardless of what research lay before him; “sie entziehen sich ja auch empirischer Verifizierbarkeit.” 54 See Nippel 2013: 479 and in detail Nippel 2020. 51

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but a perfect vehicle for debate. How this debate played out in the Soviet Union and beyond is well known. The unresolved questions – was it a distinctly Asiatic mode or part of a universal process of development; what were its defining characteristics; did it apply to China, in particular, or to Japan – were the focus of intense discussion until Stalin banned the topic in 1931, and discussion was revived later under different circumstances.55 More than a tool for socioeconomic or historical analysis, due to its very incompleteness and unresolved status within Marxist theory the AMP could serve political and intellectual agendas beyond itself.56 Besides meeting the need for a Marxist theory to apply to Asia (since the standard sequence of stages leading to bourgeois capitalism did not apply), the AMP conformed well to prevailing ideas about the evolution of society and the state. Marx and Engels participated in the formulation of theories of social evolution, which tended to share broad themes.57 The purported nexus between irrigation agriculture, centralized government, and lack of private property in the Orient – asserted by Marx but not original to him – became a normative explanation of Asiatic political economy. It was virtually axiomatic to place Asiatic or Oriental society at the initial phase of civilization, and to leave it there, outside the trajectory of historical development. It had long been axiomatic to describe Oriental states as despotic, and in accord with Hegel’s philosophy of history (Hegel 1837, 102), despotism was supposed to be the first form of polity to emerge in world history. These ideas were synthesized with the concept of self-sustaining villages holding property in common that Marx and Engels posited at the base of society in primitive (Asiatic or other) civilizations.58 While Anderson finds this interpolated element to vitiate the model altogether, Liverani validates the synthesis that combines villages and state into a split-level model

Nippel (2020) delineates successive stages of discussion, keyed to the publication of Marx’s Nachlass. Vidal-Naquet (1990a, 297–309) examines the issues in play in the Soviet Union. Joshua Fogel (1988) examines how the concept of the AMP was dealt with in China and Japan, in the 1920s and 1930s as well as more recently. In Turkey (once discussion of the subject was permissible), the AMP was applied to the Ottoman Empire: see Huri Islamoğlu and Çağlar Keyder (1977). 56 Fogel (1988, 79) observes that “it is precisely because of the Asiatic mode’s unsolved nature within historical materialism that it can be raised or lowered for debate, used as a metaphor for something more important and beyond the ken of direct, public discussion.” 57 For an overview, see Liverani 2013, 103–110. Vidal-Naquet notes the tendency toward unilinearism, decrying the contribution of Engels on that account (1990a, 295–296, with n. 42). 58 One of the only statements about Asiatic society in Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, other than in the preface, is a footnote about primitive communal property as the original form, found in Roman, Teutonic, and Slavic, as well as Asiatic society, and still surviving in India (Marx 1859, 10, n. 1), an idea propounded repeatedly by Marx and Engels. 55

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accommodating the people as well as their rulers, collective as well as despotic governance: at the top level is despotism, centralization, specialization, and so on; but at ground level, self-governance and socio-economic homogeneity prevail.59 Thus, with the added dimension of the state’s constituent communities, the AMP provided a theoretical matrix for the proposition that the state was born despotic in the Orient from the necessity of water management. It can hardly provide an explanatory model for actual societies in Asia. Anderson’s judgment that “modern attempts to build a developed theory of the ‘Asiatic mode of production’ from the scattered legacies left by Marx and Engels” are “essentially misguided” (Anderson 1974, 494) is in effect confirmed by Carlo Zaccagnini’s effort to do so, and to apply it to the ancient Near East, in a 1989 article.60 After lengthy preliminaries arguing for the judicious use of “Marxian historiographic instruments,” in particular the AMP, and expounding the model as developed by Liverani, with emphasis on the “functional nexus that binds the village m.o.p. to the palatial m.o.p. in such a way that the ‘combination’ (…) figures forth one mode of production, the Asiatic mode” (Zaccagnini 1989, 21), Zaccagnini enumerates five “essential features of the Asiatic ‘form’”: villages have communal ownership of land; the superior authority (the state or despot) has superior ownership of all the land in its domain; that authority extracts surplus from the villages of producers; the village communities are autarkic and selfreproducing; and there is an “undifferentiated unity of the city and the country” (pp. 23–27). He then proceeds to examine whether these “Marxian statements (…) do or do not offer a heuristic model (…) in the interpretation of socio-economic organizations of the ancient Near East” (p. 27). In other words, Zaccagnini proposes to test the propositions of the theory against the evidence – which refutes the theory on every point, notwithstanding the logical acrobatics he undertakes to vindicate it. Villages, which are most prominent in areas without significant irrigation, did not hold land in common (no matter how far Zaccagnini stretches that concept between familial property rights and “communal solidarity,” in order to square reality with theory; pp. 36–40). There is no eminent right of the state over all the land in its domain; the sovereign does not assert ownership over extra-palatial lands in the state’s territory (pp. 41–46). There is a tributary relation whereby the villages are subjected to the levy of their “surplus produce and labor” to support the “despotic apparatus,” which Zaccagnini turns into the mathematical problem of quantifying the proportion of surplus extracted;61 but what Western

Liverani 2013, 156–157. Marx, however, located specialization in villages (Capital, vol. 1, 337–338), following the model of an Indian village that he copied from Hegel (see above, n. 51). 60 Zaccagnini rejects Anderson’s critique as “a clear example of a prejudiced and tendentious analysis” (1989, 12), but neglects to argue against it. 61 “It is a question, that is, of analyzing, case by case, whether and to what extent the ‘higher entity’ depends for its sustenance and re-production on the exploitation of the 59

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state does not depend on taxation to sustain itself? The villages, Zaccagnini asserts, are self-sufficient, lack specialization of labor, and are not linked by relations of exchange, in perfect accord with the Marxist model, but his declaration that “these features (…) are a well-established fact (…) of the pre-classical Near East” (p. 50) elides far more variegated and complex realities (as well as a failure to argue from evidence). The postulate of “undifferentiated unity of the city and the country,” in which Marx imagined the Oriental city as an “enlarged royal camp,” is so obviously inapt that Zaccagnini resorts to insisting that ancient Near Eastern cities were the result of surplus accumulation and ostentatious display (pp. 52–53). Having shown that even on his own generous assessment hardly any of the five “essential features of the Asiatic form” are found in the ancient Near East, Zaccagnini nevertheless concludes that societies outside areas of significant irrigation “can be historically interpreted according to an ‘Asiatic’ scheme’” (p. 55). With this conclusion he pulls out the linchpin of the model, which according to Marx was irrigation under governmental control. On the evolution of civilizations Like Marx and Engels, other theorists generally ignored (or in any case neglected to utilize) the new evidence of ancient Near Eastern societies that excavations continued to yield. An exception is Max Weber, who drew on sources for ancient Near Eastern history as well as syntheses that had been published by the aughts of the 20th century. Weber proposed not an evolutionary scheme, but a typology for classifying societies that proceeds from observable features instead of ideological propositions. His work nevertheless affirmed fundamental Western values, and served the construction of the Western self-image in terms of liberty, individualism, and enterprise.62 As Liverani observes, Weber incorporated and perpetuated the divide between Orient and Occident, delineating a path of historical development for the latter but not the former, defining the Oriental city as the negative of the Occidental city, and attributing to the necessity of water management the supposed authoritarian character of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia; meanwhile, he did not deepen his acquaintance with the ancient Near East (beyond Israel and Judah). The sciences of society on the one hand, and scholarship on ancient societies on the other, continued on separate tracks – until they were brought together in the work of the archaeologist and prehistorian V. Gordon Childe. Childe, whose study of ancient cultures was informed by comparative sociology and whose political commitments were informed by Marxism, endeavored to

basic productive units from which it drains off surplus product” (1989: 47). See Liverani 2013, 111–115. Weber’s acquaintance with ancient Near Eastern sources is especially evident in his book Ancient Judaism (originally published 1917–1919; Weber 1952).

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unite theory with archaeological data in reconstructing extinct societies.63 In a body of work spanning the 1920s to 1950s, Childe sought to establish axioms for inferring society from its archaeological remains that would also yield axioms of social evolution. In this endeavor, Childe embodied Thomas Huxley’s ideal of the archaeologist as a “retrospective prophet,” a scientist who “predicts” the past by working out from its material traces, however exiguous, what kind of society left them behind.64 Alongside specialist studies he produced several widely-read syntheses in which he developed a model to explain how society evolved from “savagery” to “barbarism” to “civilization” while accounting for the observable diversity of actual societies, past and present, at each stage.65 This endeavor culminated in his 1951 book Social Evolution, in which he proposed a series of criteria for ascertaining what stage a society had reached, criteria that could also serve as indicia (potentially) recognizable in the archaeological record. He did the like in his 1950 article “The Urban Revolution,” in which the emergence of the city served as a proxy for the transition to civilization. There he described ten criteria for defining the emergent city, thus for diagnosing the stage of civilization, that were readily applied to the evidence of ancient cultures as a trait list. Through his popular syntheses of archaeological research, which were at once comprehensive in scope and comprehensible in style, Childe’s model of social evolution entered mainstream as well as specialist discourse, and – notwithstanding subsequent revolutions in archaeology as well as the social sciences – it remains embedded in textbook explanations of the development of society and the rise of civilization. Childe’s recipe for the emergence of civilization calls for three main ingredients: the production of surplus sufficient to support non-producing members of society; the attribution of authority over society and its surplus to the divine, therefore to persons ministering to, or administering, divine authority; and fulltime specialization by practitioners of crafts and holders of office. What results is the division of society into classes of producers and non-producers, the latter comprising rulers and their dependents, who are supported by the producers they rule, all now coexisting within the framework of a centralized state. At the base of the process, as a necessary condition, are technological factors of the means of production – most fundamentally, tool types, materials, and methods of use – that For analysis and contextualization of Childe’s work, see Liverani 2013, 143–51. Bruce Trigger (1980) examines Childe’s intellectual formation, career, and impact in a monographic study. 64 Huxley appropriated Voltaire’s figure of the (imaginary) Babylonian sage Zadig and repurposed him in an 1880 essay describing the method of the sciences, including archaeology, as retrospective prophecy (a method perfectly realized by the contemporaneous creature of rationalist myth, Sherlock Holmes); Huxley 1893, 1–23. 65 Among the most significant such syntheses are New Light on the Most Ancient East (1934), Man Makes Himself (1936), and What Happened in History (1942), which all enjoyed subsequent editions. Bianchi and Liverani (2004) compile a bibliography of selected works by Childe, as well as studies of his work. 63

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make surplus possible. With the technological prerequisites in place, the spiritual or ideological element (divinized authority exercised by its human mediators) must be conjoined with the material basis (surplus food production) in order to set in motion the transformation of society from self-sufficient, egalitarian village communities into urbanized, hierarchical states built on the concentration of social surplus. At the head of such a state is a deified ruler, as in Egypt, or a ruling divinity, as in the cities of Sumer, alongside a “corporation of priests,” religious specialists having been the first class freed from the labor of food production and supported by the society’s surplus, which this ruling class now concentrated and controlled.66 Besides using the surplus to support themselves, the deities they served, and other full-time specialists withdrawn from food production, the ruling officials and priests used it for defense and for construction of public works, including temples, that (in theory) would benefit the whole society; and here water management comes into play. For “control of water puts in society’s hands a potent force to supplement supernatural sanctions” (Childe 1942, 63). With this factor Childe closes the circuit linking divine kingship, class division, and production of surplus. Where agriculture depends on irrigation and flood control, these activities demanded the labor of all members of the community, and “in so far as a human leader or chief came to incarnate the totem and to personify society, work for him would be indistinguishable from work for the whole community or its divine ancestor or deity. Whatever process, therefore, had made the pharaoh a god also gave him the moral right to the services of his people as well as their surplus produce,” from which flowed specialization and class division (Childe 1951, 146). In early Mesopotamia, deities with their human staff fulfilled the same function that deified kings did in Egypt and elsewhere, which Childe sees as a variation on the theme, either way resulting in autocratic states. It was not “primitive democracy” that “started [societies] on the road to civilization,” according to Childe’s reading of the archaeological record (Childe 1951, 164–165). His reading was persuasive, enough to influence generations of scholarship, despite criticism on essential points – erroneous premises, loose logic, imprecise terms, poor fit with evidence – and that in a volume honoring Childe’s memory almost four decades after his death (Wailes 1996)! As a Marxist, though never a doctrinaire one, Childe required civilization to entail the division of society into classes whose functions were complementary but whose interests could conflict. Thus his model demanded that specialists be “emancipated” from food production, and fed by the producers, in order to restructure society into a state.

“The wizards and magicians (…) have emerged as a corporation of priests sanctified with divine authority and emancipated from any mundane labours in field or pasture,” Childe 1983 [1936], 110; “the social surplus (…) was concentrated in a relatively narrow circle of priests and officials,” 1942, 23. The same ideas recur passim in these and other works.

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Yet in ancient Mesopotamia, for example, occupational specialists as well as officeholders typically had their own land to cultivate. Specialists seldom worked at their trade full time and they were not necessarily (or normally) “attached,” that is, dependent for their livelihood on a ruling elite or its institutions, in early civilizations.67 Without the postulated separation of non-producing specialists from producers, how are Childe’s social classes formed? The identification of fundamental flaws in his model did not, however, undermine general acceptance of it; after all, state formation does feature differentiation of rulers from ruled, as well as the organization of labor and increasing specialization of crafts and offices, interconnected processes that the necessity of water management could be seen to have stimulated in several early civilizations. If his theory lacked sound premises, it nevertheless possessed verisimilitude.68 Although Childe opposed racial theories of social evolution, despised racist politics, and argued against the identification of archaeological cultures with races, he shared the general prejudice contrasting free, creative Europe with the stagnant, despotic Orient, and like others he retrojected this contrast to the origins of civilization.69 As Childe explained the matter, because civilization had first evolved in the river valleys of the Orient, where total concentration and control of surplus and power necessarily yielded totalitarian regimes, it could not evolve further there; its seeds had to be diffused to the fresh soil of Europe, where people were not in servitude to priests and warrior-kings, and so could develop and innovate at liberty. This conformed with the consensus that Europe’s inherent superiority explained, and justified, its dominance in the world. Meanwhile his core thesis, that irrigation plus specialization times theocracy yields a totalitarian state, conformed well with prevailing ideas about how civilization evolved in the Orient first. Among anthropologists, Julian Steward was foremost in theorizing that the necessity of organizing labor for irrigation in arid environments, under theocratic rule, drove the evolution of the earliest civilizations, whereafter conflict elevated warlords over priests and drove those civilizations into dead ends.70 Beyond the fields of ancient history and archaeology, the theory that hydraulic agriculture necessarily birthed despotism reached its apogee at the hands of Wittfogel. A Sinologist and avid communist, Wittfogel propounded his “theory of Oriental society” in a 1938 article by that title. He proposed a bifurcated model to account for the entirety of humanity’s history: one path, followed in

See, e.g., Trigger 1980, 73, 75; Wailes 1996, 10–11. Class stratification remains at the heart of the model of early civilization expounded by Trigger (2003, 43–48), who however does not explain what classes existed besides rulers, ruled, and slaves (none of which was necessarily an ascribed status in ancient Near Eastern societies). 69 See Trigger 1980, 49–52, 91–92, and 157–160. 70 Trigger 2003, 24 67 68

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the West, developed through feudalism to industrial capitalism, and continues onward; the other led directly to the Asiatic mode of production and stopped there, society reproducing itself according to the same pattern in perpetuity, even after catastrophic disruption.71 Agrarian production, as the material basis of subsistence, is the basis of the model, which posits artificial irrigation as the first factor determining alternative paths, and maximization of irrigation as the second. Differentiation in natural productive capacities, once man harnesses them, yields differentiation in the organization of labor and the constitution of authority; this is illustrated in two tables that diagram the pathways from climatic conditions to forms of sociopolitical organization, in the manner of a flow chart (Wittfogel 1938, 93, 101). The use of irrigation leads, not inevitably but through a series of options, to centralized control over labor, production, surplus, the calendar – by means of astronomy – and ultimately all functions of individual, social, religious, and political life (Wittfogel 1938, esp. 98–99). This type of society “we designate Oriental society, not because it is found exclusively in the Orient” – Wittfogel’s clearest example of it is the Inka state – “but because it appears there in its most powerful forms”; its mode of production is designated Asiatic, and the corresponding polity “Oriental despotism” (Wittfogel 1938, 102). Wittfogel’s theory that hydraulic society (Bewässerungsgesellschaft) concentrates total power in an absolutist state was already complete, in embryo. The seedling grew over the next two decades, fertilized by the poison of Nazi Germany’s and Soviet Russia’s real totalitarianism, and blossomed into the 500page book that its author subtitled A Comparative Study of Total Power and that Pierre Vidal-Naquet later described as the work of “an inverted Stalinist.”72 Ostensibly a historical examination of hydraulic civilization and its political system, Oriental Despotism enfolds its arguments within a polemic decrying Tsarist Russia and the USSR alike as “Asiatic”; denouncing Marx and Engels for abandoning, and their Bolshevik followers for suppressing, the theory of an Asiatic mode of production, because they themselves sought to establish a “total managerial and dictatorial state” of the type designated Oriental (Wittfogel 1957, 387); and extolling the refusal to succumb to such regimes on the part of Western societies from 500 BCE onward. Wittfogel closes the work by quoting words Herodotus put in the mouth of Spartan envoys to the king of Persia. What are the contents of his arguments, divested of their Manichaean

As the English abstract puts it, Wittfogel meant his theory “to describe both the western and eastern worlds as sectors of one human society, which develops and stagnates as movements of the same total historical process” (1938, 121). 72 Wittfogel 1957. In a note introducing the essay he wrote as a preface to the French translation of Oriental Despotism, Vidal-Naquet (1990, 267–276) recounts the affair surrounding its publication and gives a capsule biography of Wittfogel, culminating with his denunciation of his colleagues and former friends before the House Un-American Activities Committee. His personal history and his scholarly work cannot be separated. 71

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wrapping? In the first chapter Wittfogel expounds the mechanisms whereby natural factors interacting with social ones give rise to the option of hydraulic agriculture, meaning large-scale irrigation under governmental control, which leads to despotic rule because of the necessity of organizing labor with consequent state control of the surplus, as well as the means of producing it. This is an option that need not be exercised, for in the Netherlands, the Po valley, and the Mormon settlement of Utah, collective water management did not lead to “a hydraulic system of government and property” (Wittfogel 1957, 12). Over the next seven chapters, he expounds how hydraulic agriculture leads to total state control of life and society, segmenting his subject into hundreds of subsections to encompass every aspect from property tenure to postal systems. Since hydraulic civilization must begin at the beginning of history, leading to the first states in the river valleys of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates, ancient Near Eastern societies are a recurrent point of reference. Wittfogel’s reading of Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources – albeit at second hand – was sufficiently careful that he did not repeat his forebears’ error of claiming that property rights were nonexistent in the ancient Near East. Instead, he finds that in Sumer private property and enterprise developed to a degree unusual for a “simple hydraulic society” (p. 255); yet he draws back from this observation on the next page, asserting that there is “scant justification for interpreting the ‘merchants’ (…) as independent entrepreneurs” (p. 256). If Mesopotamian merchants did enjoy some liberty, not so their Egyptian counterparts, who were “government trading officials not too different in their position from the members of a Soviet Trade Mission” (p. 255); here the real target of Wittfogel’s study resurfaces. He cherry-picks the scholarly literature in order to shoehorn ancient Near Eastern societies into his hydraulic mold, rejecting evidence of collective governance in historical periods to insist that in every Mesopotamian city-state “the king handled the despotic state apparatus through the agency of an effective secular and priestly bureaucracy” (p. 267), such that the Babylonian chief of merchants was an “official through whom the absolutist regime exerted control over the country’s traders” (p. 269; emphases added). Meanwhile he insists on the divinity of the king. Pharaonic Egypt obviously provides a handy paradigm of divine kingship, with which Mesopotamian kingdoms in all periods distinctly contrast, as Wittfogel discerns. Yet he must make them out to be theocratic nevertheless, writing that “the controversy concerning the exact nature of the king’s divinity in ancient Mesopotamia (…) cannot hide the fact that the Sumerian king (…) represented supreme divine authority on earth. He held the position of high priest” and had administrative control over the temples, which “were unable to free themselves from the control of the secular ruler” (pp. 93–94). Every clause asserts a different claim: the king was divine, or he was representative of the divine, or as priest he was representative to the divine, or else he was a secular ruler exercising unwonted control over temples; somehow or other Wittfogel must grant him divine authority. In fact, the deification of kings was abnormal in Mesopotamia, rulers had sacral duties but seldom were “priests,” and temples often exercised control over kings.

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In part Wittfogel’s exposition is simply a hypertrophic elaboration of inherited concepts, which he extends to cover the globe. Like its antecedents, his model “predicts” that a hydraulic civilization produces certain results, including material features such as roads, massive fortifications, palaces, and temples, which are then treated as indicia of the type, so that the presence of such features – ziqqurrats will do nicely – serves to identify a given culture as “hydraulic” (even if the same kinds of features may also be found in, say, Europe).73 He uses the words “hydraulic,” “despotic,” and “Oriental” as if they were interchangeable terms, applying them liberally to societies that were not Oriental, lacked significant hydraulic works, or were arguably not despotic.74 To illustrate his points or prove his claims he adduces sources about any putatively “hydraulic” society, in any period of history, of any genre, disregarding the author’s purpose in writing or relation to the society at issue, decontextualizing and reading passages at face value, as if Herodotus on Persia, Megasthenes on India, the Chinese classic Zhouli, and Dutch reports on Bali (all cited within a few paragraphs on p. 53) were of equal validity for describing any “Oriental” society that ever existed. He plucks out only the evidence that looks like his model, to show that the model applies. In citing the Arthasastra for methods of embezzlement and appropriation (p. 74), he seems to commit the fallacy Anquetil-Duperron described, mistaking abuses for rules, and from such readings he extrapolates general rules about hydraulic states. Acknowledging that European absolute rulers could be just as ruthless as Oriental ones, he insists that “their power to persecute and appropriate was limited by the landed nobles” (p. 78), recapitulating a central element of Montesquieu’s thesis. Thus, by assembling select bits from a mixed multitude of diverse societies, in disparate historical periods, environmental conditions, and political circumstances, Wittfogel patches together the composite monster he calls Oriental despotism. Perhaps he describes some reality, but it is not the reality of any particular civilization, nor is it a real type. Accordingly, Perry Anderson granted Wittfogel’s work no more than a footnote, dismissing it as a “vulgar charivari, devoid of historical sense,” an extreme manifestation of the “confusionism” resulting from the endeavor to confabulate a systematic account of the Asiatic mode of production (Anderson 1974, 487, with n. 4). In his preface to the French translation of the book, Vidal-Naquet criticized Wittfogel for ignoring, in his “volonté totalisante,” the particulars of societies and their histories, for his bias in selecting sources, and for his uncritical reading of them. The Carolingian Empire, Vidal-Naquet remarks, would look quite Byzantine

See for instance his enumeration of “large non-hydraulic constructions,” ch. 2, §2, followed by a negative assessment of their style and an excuse for their European counterparts (Wittfogel 1957, 34–45). 74 Mycenaean Greece, for example, may or may not have been despotic, but it did not depend on hydraulic agriculture, notwithstanding the “great drainage works around the Lake of Copais” (Wittfogel 1957, 196). 73

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if one based one’s interpretation only on certain capitularies; conversely, in Sri Lanka monarchs took credit for massive constructions that were actually the work of centuries, while the peasantry managed irrigation, among counter-examples to the “despotic” model of hydraulic society.75 Vidal-Naquet further objects to the Orientalization of totalitarianism, whereby Stalinist socialism continues the lineage of Oriental despotism while modern capitalism continues that of societies based on private property, a dichotomy that is unpersuasive on its face; Wittfogel himself had suffered from the totalitarianism of the Nazi regime, which can hardly be described as Asiatic.76 Having also suffered from the condemnation of his work in the Soviet Union, he slipped into “un dogmatisme symétrique et inverse du dogmatisme stalinien,” disillusioned with Communism and ensconced more comfortably in New York.77 In short, the organizing principle of Wittfogel’s theory was the myth structuring United States foreign policy during the Cold War.78 Yet the work’s flaws were not seen as vitiating it altogether. Oriental Despotism was deemed important enough to warrant translation, critical discussion, and republication, while its core ideas were implanted in American history curricula. Notwithstanding its ideological distortions, Wittfogel’s theory of hydraulic civilization has been felt to capture some essential truth about how societies and states developed, and not simply because it conforms to longstanding Western prejudices. Its basic propositions recognizably correspond to various kinds of evidence – rulers of Sumerian city-states did have canals dug, for example, and financed this work using the surplus they controlled – forming a model that can readily be visualized.79 Applied to the ancient Near East, it can be illustrated with the remains of ancient monuments, as well as administrative records and royal inscriptions, provided these are read through the prism the model provides (without the interference of divergent evidence). Liverani, for one, remains disposed to accord Wittfogel’s theory substantial explanatory power. It does not however explain how civilization developed and states formed in environments where agriculture required water management, because it can account for only the part of the evidence that is selected for its fit. Where Wittfogel does not merely recycle untested propositions passed down through the intellectual lineage Vidal-Naquet 1990, 289–90 (reproducing his 1964 preface); he cites Edmund Leach for the description of hydraulic society in Sri Lanka. 76 Vidal-Naquet 1990, 310–313, analyzing the problematic of explaining modern totalitarianism as a form of Asiatic totalitarianism; further, p. 273, in the note introducing his republished preface. 77 Vidal-Naquet 1990, 310, for the quotation; p. 271, for these moments in Wittfogel’s biography. 78 So writes Liverani: “È significativo che in clima di ‘Guerra Fredda’ il Wittfogel abbia inteso disegnare lo stato idraulico, totalitario, come prototipo del nemico ‘orientale’ allora impersonato da Russia e Cina” (2013, 280). 79 “Il suo modello può facilmente tradursi in un tipo urbano preciso,” Liverani 2013, 164. He discusses Wittfogel’s theory and its reception on pp. 162–168. 75

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reaching back through Marx to Hegel, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, and ultimately Aristotle, Herodotus, and company, his theory relies too heavily on false premises and fallacious reasoning to be viable without thorough revision.

Hydraulic governance Why should it not have been “primitive democracy” that started society on the path toward civilization (Childe 1951, 164–165; see above)? To reformulate the question in more abstract terms, why should pristine state formation not have been based on participatory governance? More particularly, inasmuch as states first formed where water management was necessary for settlement and cultivation, why should the hydraulic state not have been “democratic”? In what became the Netherlands – to take a prominent example – it was.80 There, the very existence of land to settle and cultivate depended on complex, labor-intensive systems of water management, which were brought into being starting about one millennium ago by the settlers and cultivators themselves. They created the dikes and polders that sustained them, and their local systems necessarily networked to form regional systems, since water flows regardless of organizational scale. To manage the system, they formed governing councils, the Waterschappen (water boards), which still exist today, as Paul F. State writes in his brief history of the Netherlands (2008). State provides a succinct description of the development and operation of these organs of collective governance.81 Towns were governed by councils comprised of members selected by their peers; in order to secure their rights from regional rulers, they obtained “charters of municipal self-governance”; they controlled rulers’ appointments of magistrates; militias were formed of townsmen having sufficient means to equip themselves, who then formed guilds which acquired political power alongside the patrician councils. By the 14th century representative assemblies governed duchies and counties, and by the 15th century parliamentary bodies shared power with princes and the clergy. In other words, institutions of collective governance grew over time, and they controlled the rulers (as well as the church) rather than being subjected to them. They controlled the surplus they produced, too, and their republic became quite wealthy through commerce. So why should collective water management not have led to collective governance in Sumer, as it did in the Netherlands? To answer such a question (which he leaves implicit), Wittfogel formulates what sounds like a scientific rather than an ideological principle: “It is only above the level of an extractive subsistence economy, beyond the influence of strong centers of rainfall agriculture, and below

I owe to Wilfred van Soldt (personal communication, July 2014) the observation that the true hydraulic state is represented by the Netherlands. 81 The summary given here is drawn from State 2008, 19–28. 80

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the level of a property-based industrial civilization that man (…) moves toward a specific hydraulic order of life” (Wittfogel 1957, 12). This is however an untested hypothetical statement. In it Wittfogel recasts in ostensibly objective terms the prejudice Marx expressed when he wrote that in the Orient “civilization was too low (…) to call into life voluntary association.”82 Somehow it called into life “the centralizing power of government” instead. Be it granted that the Netherlands does not instantiate pristine state formation, since the Waterschappen brought the country into being rather late in the history of civilizations, except that no state had existed there before. It would be difficult to maintain, in the face of evidence, that civilization was really “lower” in southern Iraq during the late fourth millennium BCE than it was in northern Europe during the late first millennium CE. As for Wittfogel’s triplicate hypothesis, the societies of the future Sumer and the future Netherlands alike started at the level of “subsistence economy,” both were preceded by “centers of rainfall agriculture” in their vicinity, and “industrial civilization” is out of the question in either case. Liverani builds on the AMP by adding a third dimension, designing a model that comprises three main elements: the city, seat of the central authority; the village communities, producers of surplus; and coordinating agencies administering the functions of the state, managing the collection and use of surplus, organizing defense, and so forth.83 This “sistema tripolare,” he asserts, “deve aver preso forma sin dalla prima urbanizzazione,” and its exploitative character explains why, when the ruling cities collapsed in crisis, the rural settlements survived (Liverani 2013, 294). The system’s formation and success depended on material and technological factors, notably barley as a primary cultivar, irrigation, the long field, and the seeder plow, which both enabled surplus production and facilitated its administration, while necessitating the coordinating function of a central authority.84 Liverani emphasizes the relation between irrigation and pristine state formation, as well as the centralization of control. The maintenance of irrigation and drainage systems could be managed by local communities, but their construction had to be undertaken by the state (Liverani 2013, 166). Notwithstanding the arguments by Robert McCormick Adams for southern Mesopotamia and Karl Butzer for Egypt, among others, to the effect that water management was under local control and only long after the state had come into existence did it engage in constructing largescale hydraulic works, Liverani insists that irrigation and drainage were under the state’s control, and points to the evidence of administrative and scholarly texts.85

In his June 25, 1853 article for the New-York Daily Tribune; see above, with n. 44. The model is developed in detail in Liverani 1998, and outlined as the occasion arises in Liverani 2013. 84 Recently Liverani’s theory has been taken up by James C. Scott (2017), as if it were his discovery, and applied worldwide, with substitution of ingredients where called for. 85 See, e.g., Liverani 2013, 166–167, with references there; he returns to the subject at several points. 82 83

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For mathematical proof, so to speak, of his model, he adduces the problems set in the cuneiform curriculum. These are formulated in terms of how much grain is needed to excavate what length of canal, rather than in terms of demography – how many families are available to work on the canal – as modern models would pose the problem. The problems take the form they do, he writes, because the temple administration does not employ families to cultivate the fields but does it centrally using coerced labor fed on rations (Liverani 2013, 373). But another explanation is possible: the problems on which scribes were trained are the kind susceptible to standardized calculation, and the variables are selected from the factors under administrative control. What lies beyond that control is not apt for training in arithmetic. Moreover, this along with other evidence Liverani cites, the empirical basis for his model, derives from periods long after the initial phase of state formation. Much of it derives from the Ur III period, which is at once exemplary and aberrant in its extreme centralization and hypertrophied administration. And while it is true that the settlement pattern in Mesopotamia exhibits remarkable persistence over the longue durée, the focus of continuity is the cities (not the villages): they may shrink, or even be laid waste, yet rebound; thus, according to the Cursing of Agade, in the wake of the destruction Enlil ordered, he remodeled his great sanctuaries into small ones, which held on until their home towns could recover. The example of Ugarit and other Levantine cities that were destroyed or abandoned and vanished, never to be reoccupied, in the crisis that ended the Late Bronze age cannot be extrapolated to the ancient Near East entire; nor can the Ur III period stand in for the late Uruk period. Finally, although he decries the prejudices and pretensions informing Occidental constructions of the Orient, Liverani insists on the despotic character of the ancient Near Eastern state – the hydraulic state. Hydraulic works on a regional scale could not be brought into existence without “despotic control” over masses of laborers, the city was centered on the “palace of the despot,” and the rule of the land is “despotism” (Liverani 2013, 165–166, for example). But why must the king be a despot, and why does conscription for labor service require despotic control? Liverani never really defines despotism, if by this term he means a form of polity other than the stereotype that he, too – like Althusser and many others – seems to see as a caricature. Although monarchic rule predominates in the most visible periods, especially those featuring abundant royal inscriptions, the way remains open to see the administrative state of ancient Mesopotamia as an arm of collective governance, with (as in early second-millennium Assur) or without (as in Emar until the eve of Hittite conquest) a king. Toward a new paradigm Scholarship in the new millennium has begun to break down the conventional models of pristine state formation and develop others, to account better for the ample and diverse evidence. Norman Yoffee (2005) has deconstructed what he calls “myths of the archaic state,” that is, propositions about social evolution

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culminating in the formation of the ancient state. He sums up these socialevolutionary myths as follows: the earliest states were all of the same kind, and they were “large territorial systems ruled by totalitarian despots who monopolized the flow of goods, services, and information and imposed true law and order on their subjects.”86 Yoffee explains how and why these myths developed and took hold, as anthropologists constructed an evolutionary typology of society and archaeologists applied it to their material: archaeologists used trait lists that anthropologists had drawn up for each type of society, and sought to find the target traits in the evidence of ancient societies, for they were “concerned to identify a type of society in the archaeological record and then to place that type in the pre-ordained evolutionary ladder of development” (Yoffee 2005, 20). Thus they “retrojected ethnographic types (…) into the prehistoric record” in order to explain the emergence of ancient states. As has been observed about the application of Marxist theory, this was not a method of interpretation but a procedure for “recognizing” the required phenomena in the evidence. Like Yoffee, Liverani has pointed out the fallacy of seeking to explain the origin of the state by reference to societies that did not give rise to the state, that is, on the basis of ethnographic research in non-state societies. Yet such research is not irrelevant to the question. What ethnography reveals is that, while the constitution of centralized authority is historically rather rare, participatory governance is practically universal: all societies have it, or had it, in one form or another. It should therefore be assumed as the starting point for state formation. This thesis has been tested by Richard Blanton and Lane Fargher (2008), who use the term “collective action,” and they conclude in the affirmative that “collective action, rather than being a late invention that ushered in the modern world, has been a significant dimension of human political experience for as long as humans have constructed complex societies” (Blanton / Fargher 2008, 291). Indeed, the very first words of one of the earliest Mesopotamian texts, the composition AD-GI4, first put in writing in the late 4th millennium BCE, are “deliberation,” “assembly,” and “decision,” according to a new interpretation developed by Miguel Civil.87 In the meantime, the intellectual history that has yielded the conventional story of ancient Near Eastern and Western civilization has come under critical scrutiny. To begin with the pivotal transformation that putatively birthed democracy, Kostas Vlassopoulos (2007) critiques the conceptualization of the ancient Greek polis as the crucible for such a phase change. He describes the construction of the field of Greek history as a process interdependent with the intellectual discourses that ensued from the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. In this process the polis, construed not only as a distinctively Greek form but as a historical

Yoffee 2005, 2; the myth’s components are further analyzed on p. 5. Civil 2013; but cf. Erlend Gehlken (2017), who objects to Civil’s readings and interprets AD-GI4 as a text in the proto-Euphratic language (not Sumerian). While this note was written came news of Miguel’s death (January 2019), too soon at the age of 92.

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stage, was pressed into service as an organizing principle of Greek history. It served, Vlassopoulos writes, “the aim of differentiating and divorcing the history of Greece, the primeval Western European history, from the history of the Near East” (Vlassopoulos 2007, 56). He observes that this homogenizing account elides the variety among ancient poleis as well as their relations with non-Greek polities, while excluding from Greek history those Greek communities that did not take form as poleis. It ignores similarities between archaic Greek city-states and their Near Eastern counterparts and neglects to consider the dynamic web of relations and processes in which polis and non-polis communities developed; thus it provides no adequate explanation for actual events and phenomena. That is, the prevailing narrative of ancient Greece, focusing on the polis as the birthplace of liberty, is fundamentally ahistorical. During the periods of Hellenistic and Roman imperialism, parts of the Near East fell under the rule of kings claiming the status of gods for the first time in almost two millennia, and subjection to foreigners with foreign cultures presented challenges that defeated many indigenous institutions. Bypassing these periods for the nonce, we arrive at the cleavage between Rome and Byzantium, which supposedly marked the final demise of Roman libertas as it had been articulated in republican institutions. Against the conventional view, Anthony Kaldellis argues for understanding the Byzantine state in the terms in which it portrayed itself, to wit, as a republic in which “the Roman people remained the true sovereign of the political sphere, and they both authorized and de-authorized the holding of power by their rulers” (Kaldellis 2015, ix); indeed, “Byzantium was in fact the continuation of the Roman res publica” (xii). He argues further that the conceptual opposition between Byzantium, as a theocratic state in which the emperor ruled by divine right, and the Roman regime, as a republic in which political power was allocated by and exercised on behalf of its people, was the product of a polemic that commenced upon the cleavage of the Roman empire and continued right through the work of Edward Gibbon and beyond. On the views inherited in Byzantine scholarship, Kaldellis remarks, “These core notions (…) were never actually established by rigorous scholarship to begin with, were never actually ‘proven,’ and have not been subjected to critical scrutiny in modern times”; moreover, “their origins are linked to political and religious interests that we would disown as historians, if only we knew of them” (xiv–xv). Lastly, let us turn for a moment to the Ottoman empire, the very image of Oriental despotism in the eyes of its European antagonists. Giancarlo Casale (2015) has pointed out that European observers misconstrued the structure of land tenure in the Ottoman state, failed to grasp the principles of Islamic law that protected Muslim subjects and limited the power of their rulers, and accordingly misperceived the institutions whereby a slave military force and slave elites were constituted precisely to skirt those limitations and principles. Thus, Casale writes, “the Marxist-Weberian paradigm of the Oriental Despot, with all of its concomitant implications about the lack of individual rights or the absence of the rule of law, can be said to derive from a basic misunderstanding of the role

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of slavery in early modern Islamic states” (Casale 2015, 333). His explanation of shari‘a in effect vindicates the claims Anquetil-Duperron made almost 250 years ago in Législation orientale. Nothing much is left, then, of the foundations on which theories of the ancient or the Oriental state have been erected; nothing remains of the basis for positing an elemental contrast between West and Orient. The consensus narrative of Western civilization is not history, but a record of the birth trauma of self-conscious modernity through revolution against European despotism. The abundant evidence for legal and political structures that defined and defended the free status of individuals and communities, throughout the millennia of ancient Near Eastern history, demands a theory that can account for it. To develop one, it will be necessary to reopen the question how states first formed, and this requires returning to the cradle(s) of civilization whence the earliest evidence of state formation derives. This evidence is currently being augmented thanks to the resurgence of archaeological research in southern Iraq. In a recent article, Stephanie Rost and Abdulamir Hamdani (2011) describe the traditional organization of labor, construction, and maintenance of irrigation systems in southern Iraq. This information, they note, is a source of analogies for understanding ancient practices, and moreover has theoretical implications, for even the largest construction projects are “organized in an informal and consensual manner without the involvement of any central authority” (Rost / Hamdani 2011, 217). In the meantime, Rost’s Umma Survey Project (commenced in 2018) aims to obtain archaeological evidence to complement the textual records that have provided the basis for reconstructing ancient hydraulic systems, especially but not only during the Ur III period, in the region of Umma. Hydraulic systems in the neighboring Ur III province of Girsu will be addressed in a doctoral thesis by Edoardo Zanetti, presented at the 64th Rencontre Assyriologique (Innsbruck, July 2018), and studies treating other periods, places, or aspects of water management were featured in the workshop organized by Lucia Mori at the same Rencontre.88 Cumulatively this research is making the waterscapes of Sumer look more and more like the waterscapes of the Netherlands. Perhaps, once the results of this research are fully integrated into our theories, the polities of Sumer will resemble those of the Netherlands more closely, too. Bibliography Althusser, L., 1959: Montesquieu, la politique et l’histoire. Paris. Anderson, P., 1974: Lineages of the Absolutist State. London. Anquetil-Duperron, A.-H., 1778: Législation orientale. Amsterdam. Balsamo, J., 2001: L’Histoire des Turcs à l’épreuve des Essais. In F. Argod-Dutard (ed.): Histoire et littérature au siècle de Montaigne. Mélanges offerts à Claude-

Recently published in a special issue of Water and Power (Mori 2020).

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Gilbert Dubois. Geneva. Pp. 221–236. Bianchi, A. / Liverani, M., 2004: Vere Gordon Childe, La Rivoluzione Urbana. Soveria Mannelli. Blanton, R. / Fargher, L., 2008: Collective Action in the Formation of Pre-Modern States. New York. Casale, G., 2015: The Islamic Empires of the Early Modern World. In J.H. Bentley / S. Subrahmanyam / M.E. Wiesner-Hanks (eds.): The Cambridge World History, vol. VI: The Construction of a Global World, 1400–1800 CE, Part I: Foundations. Cambridge, UK. Childe, V. Gordon, 1934: New Light on the Most Ancient East. London. –– 1942: What Happened in History. London. –– 1951: Social Evolution. New York. –– 1983 [1936]: Man Makes Himself. With a foreword by Glyn Daniel. New York. Civil, M., 2013: Remarks on AD-GI4 (a.k.a. “Archaic Word List C” or “Tribute”). Journal of Cuneiform Studies 65: 13–67. Curtis, M., 2009: Orientalism and Islam. European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India. Cambridge. Daniels, P., 1994: Edward Hincks’s Decipherment of Mesopotamian Cuneiform. In K.J. Cathcart (ed.): The Edward Hincks Bicentenary Lectures. Dublin. Pp. 30–57. Daniels, P. / Bright, W. (eds.), 1996: The World’s Writing Systems. New York. Duchesne-Guillemin, J., 1987: Anquetil-Duperron. Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. II: 100–101. London. Fogel, J., 1988: The Debates over the Asiatic Mode of Production in Soviet Russia, China, and Japan. American Historical Review 93/1: 56–79. Gehlken, E., 2017: Ad AD-GI4 – Paying More Tribute to ‘Tribute’. N.A.B.U. 2017/2, n. 29. Huxley, T.H., 1893: Essays on Science and Hebrew Tradition. New York. Islamoğlu, H. / Keyder, Ç., 1977: Agenda for Ottoman History. Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 1/1: 31–55. Jaulme, A., 1936: Anquetil-Duperron. Dictionnaire de biographie française, vol. II. Paris. Pp. 1374–1384. Kaiser, T., 2000: The Evil Empire? The Debate on Turkish Despotism in Eighteenth-Century French Political Culture. Journal of Modern History 72/1: 6–34. Kaldellis, A., 2015: The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in the New Rome. Cambridge, MA. Keller, M., 2013: The Turk of Early Modern France. L’Esprit Créateur 53/4: 1–8. Larsen, M.T., 1996: The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land, 1840–1860. London. Liverani, M., 1998: Uruk, la prima città. Bari. –– 2013: Immaginare Babele: Due secoli di studi sulla città orientale antica. Bari. Martin, M. / Weiss G., 2013: “Turks” on Display during the Reign of Louis XIV.

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L’Esprit Créateur 53/4: 98–112. Marx, K., 1859: Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Berlin. English translation 1970: M. Dobb (ed.): A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (translated by S.W. Ryazanskaya). New York. –– 1967 [1867]: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. 3 vols. Translated from the third German edition by S. Moore / E. Aveling. New York. Marx, K. / Engels F., 1975–: Collected Works. 49 vols. New York. McGeough, K.M., 2015: The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century. 3 vols. Sheffield. Montesquieu, C.-L. de Secondat de, 1748: De l’esprit des loix. Geneva. Mori, L. (ed.), 2020: Water and Power: What is Left?. Water History 12/1. Nippel, W., 2013: Der Diskurs über die orientalische Despotie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Von Montesquieu zu Marx. In N. Zenzen et al. (eds.), Aneignung und Abgrenzung: Wechselnde Perspektiven auf die Antithese von ‘Ost’ und ‘West’ in der griechischen Antike. Heidelberg. Pp. 465–484. –– 2018: Marx 1859: Ein Vorwort macht Geschichte. In G. Straßenberger / F. Wassermann (eds.), Staatserzählungen: Die Deutschen und ihre politische Ordnung. Berlin. Pp. 52–71; 261–272. –– 2020: Von Marx zum Marxismus: Das Formationenschema und die “Asiatische Produktionsweise.” In C. Deglau / P. Reinard (eds.): Aus dem Tempel und dem ewigen Genuß des Geistes verstoßen? – Karl Marx und sein Einfluss auf die Geschichts- und Altertumswissenschaft. Wiesbaden. Pp. 87–106. Prinz, A.M., 1969: Background and Ulterior Motive of Marx’s “Preface” of 1859. Journal of the History of Ideas 30/3: 437–450. Robinson, A., 2012: Cracking the Egyptian Code: The Revolutionary Life of Jean-François Champollion. Oxford. Rollinger, R., 2017: Assyria in Classical Sources. In E. Frahm (ed.): A Companion to Assyria. Malden. Pp. 570–582. Rost, S. / Hamdani, A., 2011: Traditional Dam Construction in Modern Iraq: a Possible Analogy for Ancient Mesopotamian Irrigation Practices. Iraq 73: 201–220. Scott, J.C., 2017: Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. New Haven, CT. State, P.F., 2008: A Brief History of the Netherlands. New York. Trigger, B., 1980: Gordon Childe: Revolutions in Archaeology. New York. — 2003: Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study. Cambridge. Venturi, F., 1960: Despotismo orientale. Rivista storica italiana 72/1: 117–126. Translated into English and republished in the Journal of the History of Ideas 24/1 (1963): 133–142. Vidal-Naquet, P., 1990a: Karl Wittfogel et la notion de mode de production asiatique. Originally published as foreword to French translation of Wittfogel 1957; republished with minor corrections in La démocratie grecque vue d’ailleurs. Paris. Pp. 277–317.

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— 1990b: Karl Wittfogel et la notion de mode de production asiatique: note liminaire. In La démocratie grecque vue d’ailleurs. Paris. Pp. 267–276. Vlassopoulos, K., 2007: Unthinking the Greek Polis: Ancient History Beyond Eurocentrism. Cambridge. Wailes, B., (ed.), 1996: Craft Specialization and Social Evolution: In Memory of V. Gordon Childe. University Museum Monographs 93. Philadelphia. Weber, M., 1952: Ancient Judaism. Translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and D. Martindale. Glencoe, Illinois. Wittfogel, K.A., 1938: Die Theorie der orientalischen Gesellschaft. Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung VII: 90–122. — 1957: Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven. Yoffee, N., 2005: Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations. Cambridge, UK. Zaccagnini, C., 1989: Asiatic Mode of Production and Ancient Near East: Notes Toward a Discussion. In C. Zaccagnini (ed.): Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East. Budapest. Pp. 1–126.

Ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu Accounting and Material Culture in the Near East Carlo Zaccagnini Roma* Some 90 years ago, in a seminal short note, A. Götze 1931 investigated the meaning and the use of two Akkadian “collective numerals”, ištēnūtu1 (lit. “a unit”: “set”,2 “pair”3) and tāpalu (“pair, set of two”),4 on the basis of the few attestations in the texts from Amarna, Nuzi and Boghazköi.5 Even if his grammatical analysis of ištēnūtu (“Plural zum Zahlwort ‘eins’”) was wrong,6 the interpretation of the two terms was basically correct. According to Götze, both ištēnūtu and tāpalu mean “Paar, Garnitur”: as a rule, ištēnūtu is used only with the singular (“one set of …”), tāpalu with plural (“n sets of …”). Since then, the occurrences of both terms have significantly increased and new sets of documentary evidence produced a much more complex scenario, which does not seem to have been adequately evaluated. Therefore, it is appropriate to address again the topic, including in the discussion the word ṣimittu “team (usually a pair, of draft animals)”, “pair of objects”, but also “set”),7 whose semantic sphere largely corresponds to that of tāpalu. In the following, I will analyze the contemporary and/or alternative use of these three terms in documents from Mesopotamia and Syria of the second

ištēnūtu amātu: “a set of words”, ṣimittu amātu: “a couple of words” to honour Mario Liverani’s eighty anniversary. 1 I will always transcribe 1(-en)-nu-tu3/4 “ištēnūtu”, unless the word is spelled il-te(-en)nu-tu3/4. 2 CAD I–J, 282a: “set (consisting of several objects)”; AHw, 401a: “Satz, Garnitur von Gegenständen”. 3 It is worthy of notice that neither CAD nor AHw include “pair”, “Paar” among the meanings of ištēnūtu. 4 CAD T, 177a: “pair, set of two”; AHw, 1320a: “Paar von Gegenständen”. 5 Cf. Landsberger’s remarks apud Güterbock 1943, 153. 6 ištēnūtu is the abstract noun from the numeral ištēn “one”. However, aḥdm “a pair”, the Ugaritic equivalent of ištēnūtu, is the plural of the numeral aḥd “one”: see below, § 7.2.1.2. 7 CAD Ṣ, 198a; AHw, 1103a: “Gespann”, “Paar”. Both CAD and AHw do not include “set”, “Satz” among the meanings of ṣimittu. *

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. illennium, basing myself primarily on the evidence of the Nuzi archives, and m including a selection of texts from Mari, Chagar Bazar, Middle Babylonian Nippur, Alalakh IV, Amarna and Ugarit.8 In my review of ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu, I will basically distinguish between the use of these terms in lists of horses (and related items of accoutrement of chariots and charioteers) and in lists of objetcs of various kinds. 1. Nuzi 1.1. Horses 1.1.1. ištēnūtu anše.kur.ra(meš): “a team” of two horses, i.e. “a pair” of horses

The word ištēnūtu is never preceded by a number and is used to indicate “one pair” of horses. The few occurrences of 1-nu-tu4 anše.kur.rameš are not mentioned in either CAD or AHw: the meaning “pair” and “Gespann” is not included in their interpretations of ištēnūtu. However, 1-nu-tu4 anše.kur.rameš certainly means “one pair of horses”, and not “one horse”, as clearly indicated by the presence of the plural marker meš.9 See the short royal letter HSS XIV 23: “Thus PN: the king wrote that not (even) a pair of horses (31-nu-tu4 4[a]nše.kur.rameš) should leave the city of Nuzi. Seal of PN”, and the incipit of the royal letter HSS XIV 14: 3–9: “now have the vizier and the temple administrator mount a pair of good horses” (4 … i-na 1-nu-ti anše.kur.ra sig5-qà-ti šu-ur-ki-ib-šu-nu-ti), and send them to PN, to the city GN; and PN should send them to the city GN2”.10 It seems clear that, in both cases, a “pair” of horses is a set of two animals who can work as a team of draft animals but can also be used separately, for example as mounted animals, for speedy horse-riding. Useful information can be obtained from the list of horses HSS XV 116. Lines 1 and 2 mention “ištēnūtu anše.kur.rameš”; each of lines 3–6 mentions “1 anše. kur.ra”; the total number of horses, in line 7, is not preserved,11 but the same figure is probably written, after 3 broken lines, in rev. 11–13: 8 anše.kur.rameš. In conclusion: 1+1 ištēnūtu horses + 4 horses make 8 horses, which means that ištēnūtu is “a pair”, i.e. 2 horses, and 2 × ištēnūtu = 4 horses. The occurrences of anše.kur.ra(meš) in the memorandum HSS XV 145 are particularly noteworthy, since the text carefully distinguishes between a) individual horses, b) more than one horse, and c) “a pair” of horses. Lines 10–15: “a pair of horses (10il-te-nu-ti anše.kur.rameš) which he was driving, and other horses (12ù ša-nu-ti anše.kur.rameš) he removed from the herd and took them away by an act

The Boghazköi occurrences of the Akkadograms ištēnūtu and tāpalu will be discussed elsewhere: see for now Hoffner / Melchert 2008, 159–160 (§ 9.26) and 164 (§§ 9.39– 40). 9 Zaccagnini 2016, 37, n. 58. 10 Cf. Deller / Fadhil 1972, 210–211. 11 [n? anše.kur.]⸢ra⸣meš an-nu-tu4 ša I[ ]x i-leq-qè. 8

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of robbery”;12 25–29: “2 men of the city of Purulliwe, riding? a horse (26ra-⸢kib?⸣ ⸢anše.kur⸣.ra),13 […] took one horse each (28il-ti-in-nu-ú anše.kur.ra). A strict and hitherto unnoticed parallel to the couple: ištēnūtu anše.kur.ra(meš) / n ṣimittu anše.kur.ra(meš) can be found in the Ugaritic couple: aḥdm śśwm / ṣmd śśwm “pair of horses”, for which see below, § 7.2.1.2. 1.1.2. n ṣimittu anše.kur.ra(meš): n “pairs” of horses

AASOR XVI 100 records a “total (of) 20 horses”, of different ages and physical features, that “have been taken from the merchants to the palace” (lines 31–33). In lines 1–30 the 20 horses are listed one by one and are grouped in 5 sections: each group is delivered to a palace official. Each of lines 1–3 and 28–30 records 2 horses, without further specifications (i.e., they are not termed ištēnūtu anše. kur.ra); in lines 4–14, 8 horses are totaled as “4 pairs (ṣimittu) of horses”; in lines 15–21, 4 horses are totaled as “2 pairs (ṣimittu) of horses”; in lines 22–27, 4 other horses – two of which, of the same age and type, are counted as “2 horses” – are totaled as “2 pairs (ṣimittu) of horses”. Without going into the question of counting (different or identical) horses in “pairs” or as individual animals,14 it is clear that ṣimittu denotes an amount of “pairs” greater than one. HSS XV 103 consists of 18 entries that list horses (written anše.kur.ra or anše.kur.rameš), with indication of their breed and colour. No number is specified for the horses: six entries list (1?) anše.kur.ra (lines 1, 5, 7, 15, 16, 20); seven entries list anše.kur.rameš (lines 4, 9, 10, [11], 13, 22, 24); lines 28 and 30 record ištēnūtu anše.kur.ra[meš]: “one pair of horses” , and line 26 records 3 ṣimittu an[še.kur.rameš]: “3 pairs of horses”.15 The total amount in line 31 is given as 21

Cf. CAD Ḫ, 215b; S, 345b; R, 228b incorrectly translates iltēnūti sīsî “some horses”. Zaccagnini 1977, 26–27. 14 See, e.g., AASOR XVI 99, a list of horses, of different physical features and countries of provenance, closely similar to AASOR XVI 100: the text consists of 7 sections, each listing 2 horses separately (but lines 8–9 and 18–20 record “2 horses” of the same kind). None of these pairs of horses is called “(one) pair”: i.e. ištēnūtu. The same situation is documented by many other texts: I will just to quote a few examples. HSS XV 113 has 9 entries: 6 record “2 [horses] / ditto” (lines 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 19); 3 record “1 ditto [= horse]” (lines 13, 15, 17); the total (line 22) gives “15 horses”. HSS XV 101 lists 7 lots of horses, each staying with a different person: two lots (in lines 1 and 3) consist of “2 horses”; the other lots are single animals; the total (in line 13) is given as “9 horses”. HSS XV 104 is divided in 9 sections: 7 mention one horse, line 6 records “2 horses” of the same age and kind, lines 11–13 record 2 different horses, and the total (in line 19) is given as “11 horses”. HSS XV 115 records 10 groups of horses that are entrusted to different people, of six different cities: lines 1 and 3–10 record 9 groups of 6 horses each, and line 2 one group of 4 horses: even if all the groups of horses are of even number, no mention is made of 3 ṣimittu for the 6 horses, nor 2 ṣimittu for the 4 horses, and the total in line 11 has: “Total: 55 [sic!, instead of 58] (scil.: horses)”. 15 In lines 2–3 and 18–19 the text records (one) zilukannu-horse and (one) wirrarikkunni12 13

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ṣimittu anše.kur.ra[meš], arithmetically corresponding to 42 animals. Even if it is impossible to check this figure, because the text does not specify the number of horses that are listed as anše.kur.rameš (i.e. plural), what matters is that ištēnūtu means “one pair”, whereas ṣimittu means “(n) pairs”. Here, and in all other Nuzi documents, ištēnūtu is never preceded by a digit, but the figure “1” is implied, which means that it always means “one pair”; viceversa, ṣimittu is always preceded by a number greater than “1”, and “1 ṣimittu” is never attested.16 Finally I quote the long list HSS XV 106. In lines 1–15, 6 horses are meticulously described, in order of descending age and, in line 16, are totaled as “These 3 pairs of horses (3 ṣimittu anše.kur.ra annû)”. In lines 19–23 and 24–27 there is a detailed description of two 9-year old horses, summed in line 28 as “These 2 horses (2 anše.kur.rameš annûtu)”; similarly, in lines 30–36, one 6-year old horse and one 5-year old horse” are totaled in line 37 as “These 2 horses (2 anše.kur.rameš annûtu)”; in lines 40–45, one 8-year old horse and one 9-year old horse are totaled in line 46 as: “These 2 horses (2 anše.kur.rameš annûtu)”. There is no apparent reason why the first 6 horses are classified as “3 pairs (ṣimittu)”, while the other 6 are only grouped two by two. 1.1.3. n ṣimittu gišgigir(meš): n “pairs of (horses for) chariot(s)”17

Special attention deserve the occurrences of (n) ṣimittu narkabtu / narkabātu (gišgigir(meš)): “n pairs of (horses for) chariots”, to be carefully distinguished from (n) gišgigirmeš: “n chariots”. In this regard, it must be remembered that the chariots are always counted with numbers, and never in ištēnūtu “one pair” or n ṣimittu “n pairs”.18 The different terminology is precisely documented in HSS XV 82, a

horse “together with its mate/companion” (itti tappū/ēšuma). Note the unorthodox use of ištēnūtu anše.kur.ra, without meš (!), to indicate “one (single) horse”, and not “one pair of horses”, in HSS XVI 96:7 (cf. Zaccagnini 2016, 37): “5! (text: 2) homers 1 seah of barley 8 pairs of horses and one additional horse (38 ṣi-mi-it-tu4 anše.kur.rameš 4ù 1 anše.kur.ra ma-at-ru) in 12 days in the month of Sabutu have eaten. And 2 qa of barley day after day 1 (single) horse (71-nu-tu4 anše.kur. ra) has eaten”. Here ištēnūtu “pair” is a lapsus for išten “one”. In fact: total amount of barley: 408 qa ÷ 12 days = 34 qa, eaten by (8 ṣimittu + 1 additional horse =) 17 horses = 2 qa per horse [and not per “one pair of horses”] per day. Cf. the different wording used by the closely similar text HSS XIV 79: 1–7 (cf. Zaccagnini 2016, 36): “4 homers 9 seahs 4 qa of barley 5 pairs (ṣimittu) of horses and 1 extra horse have eaten in 18 days, at the rate of 4 qa each (pair) per day (5a-na 18 ud.kam 6a-na 4 sìla.ta.àm)”. The same formulation in lines 8–12: “6 homers 5 seahs 6 qa of barley 5 teams (ṣimittu) ditto and to (sic!) additional (matru) horse (10ù a-na anše.kur.ra ma-at-ru) have eaten in 22 days, at the rate of 4 qa each (pair of horses) per day”. In other words: every single horse has eaten 2 qa of barley per day, as in XVI 96. 17 For ṣimittu gišgigir(meš) “yoke for chariot(s)” see below, § 1.2.1. 18 Just some quotes will suffice: 1 gišgigir: HSS XV 86: 1; 88: 1; 89: 1; 91: 8: 1 gišgigir ma-az-za-ak-ku-uš-ḫ[é-n]a. Note HSS XV 92: 1–7: “PN, PN2 and PN3 will jointly 16

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list of various groups of chariots, with “their sariam”. Lines 3–5 and 6–8 record, respectively, 5 and 15 chariots and add: u ina libbīšunu ša 3 gišgigirmeš 1-en.ta.àm sariamšunu “and of them, 3 chariots (have) 1 set of armour each” (lines 4–5 and 7–8). The same text, in line 14, records 36 chariots and adds, in lines 15–17, u ina libbīšunu ša 3 ṣimittu gišgigirmeš 1-en-na.ta.àm sariamšunu “of them, 3 pairs of chariot(-horses) (have) 1 set of armour each”.19 That is: the chariots are counted with numbers (3 gišgigirmeš), the horses of the chariots are counted in “pairs” (3 ṣimittu gišgigirmeš). In the the Nuzi documents there are no occurrences of ištēnūtu gišgigir, meaning “1 pair (of horses for) 1 chariot”:20 the few mentions of single “pairs of horses” are written ištēnūtu anše.kur.rameš. Instead, short delivery notes mention 2 or 3 ṣimittu gišgigir(meš): see, e.g. HSS XV 51: 1–2: 13 ṣí-mi-it-tu4 2 giš gigir te-ḫu-uš-šu-ra-an-nu iš-ka4-ru “3 pairs of teḫuššurannu(-horses) for iškaru-manufactured chariots”; HSS XV 84: 1–2: 12 ṣí{-ṣí}-mi-it-ti gi[šgigir]meš 2 iš-ka4-ri “2 pairs (of horses) for chariots of iškaru-manufacture”; HSS XV 97: 1–3: 12 ṣí-mi[-i]t-tu4 2 gišgigirmeš iš-tu4 3iš-ka4-ra-ti “2 pairs (of horses) for iškarumanufactured chariots”. Crucial to this subject is HSS XV 34,21 a list of ṣimittu (lines 1–30) and giš gigirmeš (lines 31–51), belonging to various people. Line 1 records 3 ṣimittu PN and is followed by 44 entries consisting only of a number (twice 3, nine times 2, 33 times 1) and a personal name. What does ṣimittu refer to? Even if line 1 does not specify what is the object of the 3 ṣimittu, it is clear that they are “pairs” of horses. In the following lines, for the sake of accounting simplicity, the text does not repeat ṣimittu (for the entries of 3 and 2 “pairs”) nor uses ištēnūtu (for the entries of “1 pair”). A similar procedure is followed in lines 31–51, which list chariots. Line 31 records 2 gišgigirmeš PN and is followed by 23 entries consisting of a number (twenty times 1, twice 2, and, in line 50, 75 [sic!]) and a personal name. The mention of 2 gišgigirmeš 22 is written in the opening line of this section and is repeated only in

construct one chariot (1il-te-et gišgigirmeš) made of wood and leather”; lines 10–11: “this chariot” (an-ni-tu4 gišgigir). 2 gišgigirmeš (and not: ištēnūtu gišgigir): HSS XV 91: 1–2: 2 giš gigirmeš ma-az-za-ak-ku-uš-ḫé-na 2iš-tu URUNu-zi; HSS XV 13: 7: 2 gišgigirmeš. iškarumanufactured chariots: 1 gišgigir: HSS XV 85: 1; 91: 12; AASOR XVI 83: 1–3; XV 105: 1–2; 87: 1–4; 90: 1–3. JEN 612 has 9 entries, each listing from 1 to 9 gišgigir (always without the plural marker meš); HSS XV 13 has 17 entries, each listing from 2 (in line 7) to 19 gišgigirmeš, totaled in line 20 as “100[+67 gišgigirmeš]; etc. Even numbers of chariots (e.g. 6, 10, 12 in HSS XV 13) are never reckoned in ṣimittu. 19 Cf. CAD Ṣ, 198b: “36 chariots – each of the three teams for the chariots has one coat of mail”. 20 On the other hand, as said before,”2 chariots” is written 2 gišgigirmeš and not ištēnūtu giš gigir. 21 Cf. Dosch 2009, 137–139. 22 As mentioned above, chariots are alwayas counted with numbers: therefore 2 gišgigirmeš

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the other mention of “2 chariots” (in line 36). All other entries omit the mention of gišgigir after the number “1”.23 It is not clear what is behind this administrative partition between teams of horses and chariots, also because their respective owners (in lines 1–30 and 31–51) are all different people, but this is another matter.24 1.2. Military equipment of chariots 1.2.1. ṣimittu gišgigir(meš): “crosspiece of a yoke for chariot(s)”

In addition to “(n) pairs of (horses for) chariot(s)” (above, § 1.1.3.), n ṣimittu giš gigir(meš) also means “n wooden yoke(s) for chariots”. See e.g. HSS XV 145 (quoted above, § 1.1.1.), which lists several items, including horses and equestrian materials of various kinds: lines 2–3: “[1]yoke for a chariot,25 one pair of wheels” (2[1-en ṣí-]-mi-it-tu4 gišgigir 3⸢il⸣-te-nu-tu4 ma-gàr); lines 7–8: “1 set of armour for a horse, whose pads (?) are of bronze, and whose b. are

and not ištēnūtu gišgigirmeš (or, 4 gišgigirmeš and not 2 ṣimittu gišgigirmeš). Note the unique expression in line 50: we do not have “75 (chariots belonging to) PN” but “75 itti PN”, i.e. “75 (chariots that are stationed) with PN”. The following, and final, entry in line 51, after the isolated wording of line 50, records “2 chariots (belonging to) PN” but, instead of writing 2 gišgigirmeš PN, writes 2 ki.min PN “2 ditto (= chariots belonging to) PN”. 24 In this regard, I point out HSS XV 13 (cf. Dosch 2009, 160–161), which records different amounts of chariots (gišgigirmeš) under the command (ša šu) of various people. An almost identical text is HSS XV 99 (cf. Dosch 2009, 158–159), a double list of chariots “of the left (wing)” and “of the right (wing)”, under the command (ša šu) of various people. However, the wording of this text is a bit different from HSS XV 13. The beginning of line 1 is broken: [x x x x]-ti giš ⸢gigir⸣ 2[ša] šu PN; all subsequent lines read as follows: “n ki.min ša šu PN”; the total in line 9 is “58 gišgigir ša šumēli” and the total in line 16 is “36 gišgigir ša imitti”. The pivotal problem raised by this text is how to restore line 1 and, consequently, how to interpret the text as a whole. The length of the break, and the presence of the sign ti after the break, exclude a restoration consisting of a simple number (“n gišgigir”). The only plausible suggestion seems to restore [n ṣi-mi-it]-ti (so, in fact, Dosch 2009, 158. Kendall 1975, 328 and Maidman 2010, 38 do not attempt any restoration). If so, line 1 should be translated “[n pai]rs (of horses for) chariots”, and not “[n pai]rs of chariots”, because, as said above, chariots are never counted in “pairs”. Consequently, the entries in lines 2–4, 6–8 and 10–15, each listing “n ki.min ša šu PN”, should be understood “n ditto (= ṣimittu gišgigir = pairs (of horses for) chariots) of PN”. But how to understand the gišgigir in the totals of lines 9 and 16? Are they “chariots” or “pair of horses for chariots”? See, in this regard, the bizarre translation proposed for line 1 by Dosch 2009, 158: “Gespanne Streitwagen”, vs. “Streitwagen” for lines 9 and 16. However, in terms of numbers, the counts do not change, since 1 chariot always corresponds to 2 (i.e. “1 pair” of) horses. Therefore, the 36 “chariots” of line 16, are the total of the 32 “ditto” = “pairs of horses” of lines 10–15 plus the 3 [+1?] “that did not go” (lines 17–19). 25 E.R. Lacheman (HSS XV, x) defines the text “an inventory including ‘1 team of chariots’”. 23

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also of bronze” (7il-te-nu-tu4 sà-am anše.kur.ra 8ša mi-li-šu-n[u š]a zabar 9 ù pí-in-na-n[u-]šu-nu26 ša zabar-ma). HSS XV 95, a memorandum concerning wheels and other equipment for chariots, mentions in lines 3–6: “33 leather uppasannu27 4and 2 yokes (ṣimittu), 5 taḫapšu-blanket of PN, 6atta’e28”.29 In most cases, yokes were manufactured with ḫalm/watru-wood: HSS XIII 227 = HSS XV 207: 9: “9 minas of wool for 3 yokes of ḫalwatru-wood”; AASOR XVI, 8: 25: “ḫalwatru-wood for 2 yokes” (ša 2 ṣi-mi-it-ti giš.meš ḫa-al-wa-ad-ru); HSS XV 96: 1–2 and 6–7: “20 yokes of ḫalwatru-wood” (20 ṣí-mi-it-tù gišḫal-waad-ru);30 HSS XIII 283: 1–6: “2 chariot yokes of šēnu-wood,31 4 chariot yokes of Cf. AHw, 864b, s.v. pinnu: “ein Knopf?”; CAD B, 237b, s,v, binâtu 1b: (reading píin-na-t[i-]šu-nu also possible) “(the parts covering) the limbs”; Kendall 1975, 225: “appendages”. 27 CAD U–W, 182b: (an object of wool or leather); AHw, 1424a: “ein Lederteil am Wagen”; Kendall 1975, 323: “a leather strap (?) as part of a harness”. 28 Meaning unknown: cf. Kendall 1975, 178, 314. 29 This passage has been differently translated: correctly CAD U–W, 182b: “three leather u.-s and two crosspieces”. Kendall 1975, 314 and 323: “2 yokes (padded with) taḫabšu”, but p. 178: “2 pairs of taḫabšu mats”. Since taḫapšu are never counted in “pairs”, here 2 ṣimittu can only mean “2 yokes”: hence my reading taḫapšu. See in fact lines 11–12: 1 taḫapšu atta’e ša PN. 30 Note however that, after the yokes, in lines 3 and 7 the text mentions 29 and 11 “ploughs” (gišapin!?, text: gìrmeš): these ṣimittu are yokes for oxen? 31 The term (giš)šēnu denotes a kind of wood, used for the manufacture of chariots and wagons (ereqqu gišmar.gíd.da), rather than parts of chariots and wagons (Cf. CAD Š/II, 292b, s.v. šēnu B: “a part or material for chariots or wagons”; CAD Ḫ, 48b, s.v. ḫalmadru: “2 yokes for šēnu-chariots, 4 yokes for chariot(s) of ḫ.-wood”). See especially HSS XIII 492, which records several deliveries of different materials for the construction of chariots and wagons: a total of 152 wooden beams (gišgušūru), 30 and 50 gištallamšukru (lines 4 and 7: part of a wagon, cf. CAD T, 99b, and AHw, 1311a), 3 and 4 gišši-i-nu ša giš mar.gíd.da (lines 12 and 16), 5 minas of copper (line 14), and 1 mina of glue / varnish (?) (line 21: ši-im-tu4: CAD Š/III, 9b, s.v. šimtu; alternatively: šimṭu “plucked wool”: CAD Š/III, 20, s.v. šimṭu, and AHw, 1239b, s.v. šim/nṭu “ausgezupfte Wolle”). HSS XV 80 lists various materials and parts of chariots, among which 34 gišši-i-nu ša gišmar.gíd. da and 7il-te-en-nu gištal-la-am-šúk-ru. JEN 212: 18–19 mentions ištēnūtu gišmagarrē ša šuduāti ša še-ni “one pair of š.-wheels of šēnu-wood”. Forty years ago (Zaccagnini 1977, 29–30) I argued in favour of wheels circled with (metal) hoops, even if the pertinent evidence mainly concerns wagons (gišmar.gíd.da), rather than chariots. Today, I am no longer in favour of that hypothesis: see main text. CAD Š /II, 289–292 appropriately distinguishes between šēnu B (p. 292b): “(a part of or material for chariots or wagons)”, and šēnu A1 (pp. 289b–292a): “sandal, shoe” but, as concerns JEN 212: 18–19 (iltēnūtu gišmagarrē ša šuduāti ša še-ni), refers to CAD M/I, 33b, s.v. magarru 1d, where no translation is provided; instead, CAD Š/III, 408b translates JEN 212: 18–19 “a set of wheels with š.-s at the ‘shoes’”. AHw 1214a, s.v. šēnu 7a “ein Radreifen?”. In her critical review of Guichard 1994, Schneider-Ludorff 1995 states that in Nuzi texts dealing with chariots ṣimittu does not mean the “yoke” 26

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ḫalwatru-wood. Total: 6 chariot yokes which PN, on behalf of PN2, joined (irkusu) and gave to Kupasa (= PN3) and Akkul-enni (= PN4)” (11[+1]-ta ṣí-it-⸢tu4⸣ giš gigirmeš ša še-ni 24 ṣí-mì-it-tu4 gišgigir-tu4 ša gišḫa-al-tar-ri 3šu.nígin 6 ṣí-mì-it-ti 4 gišgigir-tu4meš); lines 9–17: “2 yokes for overland chariots (92-ta ṣí-mìit-tu4 gišgigir-tu4 ša edin.na), 3 chariot yokes of ḫalwatru-wood. Total: 5 chariot yokes which PN3 joined (irkusu) and were given to PN3 and PN4”.32 Note that the same Kupasa (= PN3) and Akkul-enni (= PN4) are also mentioned in HSS XIII 276: 1–8: “PN and PN2 took out 4 yokes for chariots (14 ṣimittu gišgigir-tu4meš) from the armory and gave them to Kupasa, PN5 and Akkul-enni”.33 1.2.2. magarru: “wheel”

Chariot wheels are counted with numbers and in “pairs” (ištēnūtu). HSS XV 294 is a contract concerning the repair of one broken chariot wheel. Lines 1–13: “Thus (declares) PN: I have broken a wheel of the chariot of PN2 and I have taken it away (?)34 (3mugarrišu ša gišgigir 4ša PN 5ultebirmi ḫušumma ēpušmi). Now I will repair within 5 days his broken wheel (6magarrišu ša šebru), and it will be just as his (old) wheel (8kīma magarrišu imaššalma) and I will give it to PN2. If I do not repair and deliver it within 5 days, I will pay a new chariot wheel to PN2 (111 magarru 12eššu ša gišgigir ana 13PN2 diri)”. HSS XIII 326 records an almost identical agreement, albeit with different deadlines and penalty clauses, concerning the repair of “one pair” of (chariot?) wheels.35 Lines 1–14: “The men of the city of Ṣilliyawe will pay to PN a pair of but the “team of horses” (Gespann) or “unit” (Einheit) and translates HSS XIII 283: 1–2 “2 Streitwagen mit šenu-Bereifung, 4 Streitwagen mit ḫalwatru- Bereifung”, under the assumption that the text refers to two different kinds of chariots, whose wheels are circled with leather “shoes” (šenu) or with wooden hoops (ḫalwatru); also (HSS XIII 227 =) HSS XV 207: 9 “X Wolle für 3 Paar ḫalwatru-Radreifen”. For his part, Guichard 1994 suggested that ḫalwatru and šenu indicated two different types of chariot boxes, and translated the above quoted HSS XIII 283: 1–2: “n jougs de chars de type šenu”,”n jougs de chars de type ḫalwattaru”, plus “n jougs de chars de campagne” (ša edin.na) in line 9). Guichard also stated that, by metonymy, the ḫalwatru-bodywork indicates the chariot as a whole: AASOR XVI, 8: 25: “2 jougs de char-ḫalwatru”. 32 Cf. CAD R, 96a; CAD I–J, 218b. 33 Correctly CAD Ṣ, 198a: “four yokes for chariots”, and CAD N/I, 183b, s.v. nakkamtu 1f: “four chariot yokes from the storehouse”, but CAD N/I, 354b, s.v. narkabtu 1a6’: “four chariot teams brought out from the armory”, and A/II, 380a: “four sets (of reins [sic!]) for chariots”. Note that there is no evidence that nakkamtu “storehouse, treasury” ever served as a stable for horses (cf. CAD N/I, 184–185): a further indication to exclude that ṣimittu narkabti here means “team of (two) chariot (horses)”. 34 CAD M/I, 33a: “I broke PN’s wagon wheels”; CAD Š/II, 249b: “I broke PN’s wagon wheels”; CAD Ḫ, 262b: “I have broken the wheels … I have taken them(?)”: magarri erroneously translated as plural. Correctly, instead, CAD M/I, 356a: “I will make a wheel – it will be similar to his wheel, and I will give it to PN” (lines 6–9). 35 The text does not specify if the wheels are chariot-wheels: CAD Š/I, 402a: “chariot

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wheels which will be just as his wheels (2iltēnūtu 3magarrē ša kīma 4magarrišu mašlu 5ana PN umallū). If the month Kenūnu (= November – December) of the city of Arrapḫe and the month Ḫuru (= December – January) come to an end and they do not pay the wheels (9u [šumma] magarrē 10lā umallū), if the month of Mitirunnu (= January – February) reaches them, they will deliver twice (as many) wheels which will be just as his wheels (13magarrē ša kīma 14magarrišu mašlu 15 ušannūšunūti)”.36 HSS XV 95, quoted above (§ 1.2.1.), records putwe-wheels (gišmagarru pu-ut-we-e) belonging to various people: 2 wheels in line 1, and 1 wheel in lines 7 and 9. These are the only mentions of single wheels and of “2 wheels” which are not counted as “one pair”. In all other instances, the documents always mention ištēnūtu (giš)magarru “a pair of wheels”. HSS XV 145: 2–3, also quoted above (§§ 1.1.1. and 1.2.1.), mentions “one yoke (ištēn ṣimittu) for one chariot” and “a pair of wheels” (ištēnūtu magarru). In addition to HSS XIII 326, just mentioned, see JEN 212: 18–19 (above, n. 31): iltēnūtu gišmagarrē ša šuduāti ša še-ni “a pair of š.-wheels of šēnu-wood”, and the parallel JEN 587: 10–11: iltēnūtu mugerrū ša šuduāti. See also HSS V 1, a declaration about “a pair of wheels (2ištēnūtu gišmagarri) of šakkullu-wood” (lines 1–2), to be compared with the plurals ša gišmagarrimeš šâšunu īnāšunu “the hubs of these wheels” (in line 10)37 and gišmagarrimeš (in line 18). See lastly the long inventory HSS XV 167 which includes, in lines 15–17, “1 pair of wheels with six (spokes) of ḫalwatru-wood, 1 pair of wazuḫri-wheels” (15iltēnūtu magarru 16šeššātu ša ḫalwatri 17iltēnūtu magarru wazuḫri). 1.3. Military equipment of horses and chariot drivers 1.3.1. sariam: “armour”, gurpisu: “helmet”, paraššannu: “(cover for the back of the horse)”

The basic armour of the Nuzi warriors (and, specifically, of the chariot drivers) consisted of an armoured tunic (sariam ša amēli)38 and a helmet (gurpisu), of

wheels”. The content and the terms of the agreement are quite surprising, especially in comparison with those of the closely similar text HSS 294. An unnamed group of people from the well-known city of Ṣilliyawe undertake to (build? and) deliver to PN “one pair”, i.e. 2 wheels, within two months (!), whereas in HSS XV 294 no more than 5 days are allowed to repair 1 wheel. In HSS XIII 326, non-fulfilment of the obligation involves a double payment, i.e. 4 wheels, whereas in HSS XV 294 the defaulting subject will only pay “a new wheel”. 37 Correctly CAD I/J, 157b “the hubs of these wheels”; viceversa CAD M/I, 33a erroneously transliterates the sign ša of ša-šu-nu in line 10 as “4”, reads 4-šu-nu and translates “the hubs of these four wheels”. 38 Cf. the detailed analysis of Kendall 1975, 263–286, centred on the bronze scale-armours. 36

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various shapes, styles and materials.39 The horses were equipped with sariam ša sīsê and gurpisu; a further piece of accoutrement was the paraššannu, a cover or blanket placed on the animal’s back and covering his flanks.40 The chariots also had sariam as part of their defensive equipment.41 The terminology used for counting sariam, gurpisu and paraššannu differs from that used for horses and chariots. First of all note that gurpisu (“helmet”) is only counted with numbers, and never in “sets”. As regards sariam and paraššannu, ṣimittu – meaning “set” or “pair” of objects – is not used: in its place, the term tāpalu is used.42 Above all, it is important to stress that all the collective numerals (ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu [in HSS XV 14]) in these cases do not indicate “one pair” (ištēnūtu) and “n pairs” (tāpalu and ṣimittu), but “one set” and “n sets” (“ein Garnitur” and “n Garnitur”). In fact, they are used with objects formed by a set of different components: ištēnūtu sariam is “one set of armour” (“ein Garnitur Panzer”), and not “one pair of armours”; 2 tāpalu sariam is “2 sets of armour”, and not “two pairs of armours”. Incidentally note that some lists of military equipment omit to write ištēnūtu (“one set”) before sariam and paraššannu, and only record n tāpalu sariam (“n sets of armour”).43 The contemporary presence in the same texts of three different terms for “set(s)” raises the problem of how to interpret and translate them. Even more important for a precise understanding of ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu is to ascertain the actual number of the objects that are counted in “sets”: i. e. the numerical relationship between ištēnūtu and tāpalu, as well as between ištēnūtu and ṣimittu. I will now analyze some texts which help clarify both questions. JEN 527,44 a long inventory of various equipment for chariot drivers, horses and chariots, records the complete set of armour for 4 chariot drivers (rākib narkabti). Lines 1–7a list four times “1 set of leather armour for the body of a man (ištēnūtu sariam kuš ša im lú), with n kalku according to their (i.e. of the armour) girth, and their sleeves of bronze”; the total in line 8 is: 4 tāpalu sariam annūtu “these are the 4 sets of armour”. The 4 sets of armour are coupled to 4 helmets: “3 bronze helmets (gurpisu) for a man, crested (ṣuppuru)” and “1 bronze helmet for a man, crested with leather” (lines 9–10). It is clear that ištēnūtu means “one set” and tāpalu “n sets”; as said above, helmets (gurpisu) are simply counted with numbers.

Kendall 1981, 202–203. Kendall 1975, 242–245, and 224 Fig 8. 41 See especially HSS XV 13 and 82, discussed below. 42 To my knowledge, there is only one exception: HSS XV 14, discussed below, which lists ṣimittu sariam for horses and tāpalu sariam for men. 43 E.g. HSS XV 15: 21, 30, 39, [51], 53, 73, 90 (2 tāpalu sariam ša amēli), 55 (3 tāpalu), 41 (4 tāpalu), 56 (2 tāpalu sariam ša sīsê). The same in HSS XV 20: 35, 40 (2 tāpalu sariam ša amēli), 33 (3 tāpalu). 44 Cf. Kendall 1975, 344–346. 39 40

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JEN 53345 is another inventory of armour (sariam) for men (lines 1, 6, 8, 10) and horses (lines 2, 4). Lines 1, 8, 10 list “1 set of leather armour for a man” (ištēnūtu sariam kušmeš ša lú).46 Line 4 records “1 set of leather armour for horses” (ištēnūtu sariam kušmeš ša anše.kur.rameš); instead, in line 2, after ištēnūtu sariam kušmeš ša lú, the text records 1 sariam kušmeš ša anše.kur.ra, lit: “1 leather armour for a horse”. The difference in the way of counting the same object (“1” and ištēnūtu) can be explained by considering that the “one set” (ištēnūtu) mentioned in line 1, includes a leather armour for a man plus a leather armour for a horse,47 both given to one person.48 HSS XV 1449 is a long list of equipment, belonging to the left wing of the army, that was lost (in battle):50 it provides very interesting information about the contemporary use of the three collective numerals. As mentioned above (n. 42), this is the only text in which ṣimittu and tāpalu – both meaning “n sets” (and not n “pairs”) – are attested together, in addition to ištēnūtu (“one set”). The objects which were lost are: “armour for a man” (sariam ša amēli), “armour for a horse” (sariam ša sīsê) and “paraššannu-covers” (for horses). The three numerals are used as follows: ištēnūtu (“1 set”) is used with sariam ša amēli, with sariam ša sīsê and with paraššannu; tāpalu (“n sets”) is used only with sariam ša amēli; ṣimittu (also “n sets”) is used with sariam ša sīsê and paraššannu.51 It is clear that ṣimittu, originally meaning “pair (of horses)”, applies to components of horse equipment (i. e. armour and covers).52 I provide just a few quotes from this text: Lines 20–22: 207 tāpalu sariam ša amēli – 213 ṣimitti sariam ša sīsê – ištēnūtu paraššannu Lines 23–25 (and lines 54–55): 235 tāpalu sariam ša amēli – 24ištēnūtu sariam ša sīsê 252 ṣimitti paraššannu.

22

In lines 57–59, the (broken) totals of the equipment for men (sariam ša amēli) are only reckoned in tāpalu, and the (broken) totals of the equipment for horses Cf. Kendall 1975, 347. Line 6 “1 set of bronze armour for a man”. 47 In other words: “One set: (1) leather armour for a man, 1 leather armour for a horse”. Alternatively, in line 2 one can read 1 sariam. 48 Dosch 2009, 127 translates both ištēnūtu sariam and 1 sariam in lines 1–2 “1 Lederpanzer”, and all the other ištēnūtu “Ein Bronzepanzer” / “Ein Lederpanzer”. The numerical difference between “1” and “Ein” is not evident to me. Kendall 1975, 347 translates both ištēnūtu sariam and 1 sariam “one suit of armor”. 49 Cf. Dosch 2009, 155–158; Maidman 2010, 60–64. 50 Line 1: “tablet of the equipment (unūtu) that did not come (back from the battle)”; lines 59–60, at the end of the total: “[ ]that did not come (back)[from the city of Z]izza, of the left (wing of the army)”. 51 Note the isolated scribal lapsus in line 49: [n ṣi]mitti (sic!) sariam [ša amēli]. 52 ṣimittu (together with ištēnūtu) is also used to count tutiwe, a kind of fastening related to armour and garments. Interestingly enough, tāpalu never occurs with tutiwe (see below). 45 46

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(sariam ša sīsê and paraššannu) are only reckoned in ṣimittu: ištēnūtu are not mentioned, and this is a clear indication that the totals in tāpalu and in ṣimittu include and add up the respective entries in ištēnūtu. A closely parallel text is HSS XV 16,53 a memorandum of equipment of the right wing of the army, that did not come (back):54 it lists “armour for the (man’s) body” (sariam ša nímeš), “armour for a horse” (sariam ša anše.kur.ra) and “covers for a horse” (paraššannu ša anše.kur.ra).55 These items are recorded both in ištēnūtu and tāpalu but, unlike HSS XV 14, ṣimittu is not used for the equipment of the horses: sariam and paraššannu are counted in tāpalu. The 3 totals in lines 43–45 are in tāpalu, and ištēnūtu are not mentioned. As said before, the different interpretations and translations of ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu derive from the different numerical relatioships that have been hypothesized between ištēnūtu and tāpalu, and between ištēnūtu and ṣimittu. I once again draw attention to the two texts HSS XV 14 and 16. In HSS XV 14 the three terms have been translated by Maidman 2010, 63–64 “a unit” (ištēnūtu), “n sets” (tāpalu) and “n suits” (lit. “pairs”) (ṣimittu), whereas Dosch 2009, 156–157 translates all three terms “Paar”, regardless of their number. Viceversa, in HSS XV 16 Dosch 2009, 168–169 translates n tāpalu “n Paar” and ištēnūtu “1 Garnitur”. The quintessence of the problem is easy to define: what is the numerical relationship of ištēnūtu with tāpalu and ṣimittu? In commenting on the figures of HSS XV 16, Dosch 2009, 169 notes that the numbers of the totals (in lines 43–45) are only given in tāpalu-units and not also in ištēnūtu-units, and this means that the figures in ištēnūtu have been converted into tāpalu. However, she did not attempt any reckoning in order to quantify the relationship between the two units. The only way to try to solve the problem is to compare the figures of the totals (that do not mention ištēnūtu) with the arithmetic sums of the various entries (that make use of ištēnūtu and tāpalu). Unfortunately, some figures are totally or partly lost and, moreover, two totals (HSS XV 16: 44 and 45) are certainly wrong. Nevertheless, an accurate reading of the relevant figures yields interesting results. In HSS XV 16, the arithmetic sums of the addends give the following figures: – armour for men: 2 ištēnūtu; 113 tāpalu – armour for horses: 7 ištēnūtu; 19 tāpalu – covers for horses: 7 ištēnūtu; 13 tāpalu If we compare these figures with those of the totals in lines 43–45, we realize that they only make sense if we posit that ištēnūtu and tāpalu are numerically equivalent. Both terms indicate single sets of objects (armour, cover), but ištēnūtu is used to record “one set”, whereas tāpalu is used to record “more-than-one set”. Cf. Dosch 2009, 166–169. Lines 46–47: “these equipment (unūtu) did not come (back from the battle). Tablet of the right (wing of the army)”. 55 anše.kur.ra only in the total (line 45). 53 54

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Which means, for example, that ištēnūtu + 2 tāpalu equals 3 tāpalu; or: ištēnūtu + ištēnūtu equals 2 tāpalu. If it is so, the numbers of the sums are as follows: armour for men: 115 tāpalu; armour for horses: 26 tāpalu; covers for horses: 20 tāpalu. These figures are in good agreement with the totals given in lines 43–45 and, in any case, exclude that ištēnūtu can be considered a sub multiple of tāpalu. These are totals (in tāpalu) compared with the figures of the arithmetic sums (also reckoned in tāpalu): – line 43: 1 ma-ti [10 + 3 +]2 tāpalu armour for men = same figure of the arithmetic sum (115 tāpalu) – line 44: 26!(text: 23)56 tāpalu armour for horses = same figure of the arithmetic sum (26 tāpalu) – line 45: 24 tāpalu covers for horses ≠ slightly different figure of the arithmetic sum (20 tāpalu) As said before, the inventory HSS XV 14 is the only text that, in addition to ištēnūtu, makes a contemporary use of ṣimittu and tāpalu. Here too, the items of the list are “armour for men” (sariam ša amēli), “armour for horses” (sariam ša sīsê) and “paraššannu-covers (for horses)”. The arithmetic sums of the addends give the following figures: – armour for men: (no ištēnūtu); 123 [+ 5?]57 tāpalu – armour for horses: 4 [+ n] ištēnūtu; 27 [+ n] ṣimittu = 31 [+ n] ṣimittu – covers for horses: 6 ištēnūtu;58 12 [+ 359] ṣimittu = 21 ṣimittu The numbers of armour for horses are too broken to allow a comparison with the equally broken numbers of the total (in line 58). Instead, the other figures are in good agreement with the totals of lines 57 and 59. The armour for men are only counted in ṣimittu, and never in ištēnūtu: therefore, even if the total in line 57 corresponds to the sum of the addends, it does not give evidence for the relationship between ištēnūtu and ṣimittu. Instead, this clue is provided, in all probability, by the total of the paraššannu-covers in line 59: – line 57: 128 tāpalu armour for men = same figure of the arithmetic sum (123 [+ 5?] tāpalu). – line 59: [20+]160 ṣimittu covers for horses = same figure of the arithmetic

I read “6” (3 double vertical lines) instead of “3” (3 single vertical lines) of the copy. All the figures of the sariam ša lú are preserved, except for those in lines 5 and in line 49. In line 5 I restore ⸢10 ta-pa-lu⸣ sà-ri-am ša lú. The restoration [5?] in line 49 is suggested by the sequence of the numbers of sà-ri-am ša lú, which in most cases alternate between 5 (lines 14, 23, 39, 46, 54) and 8 (lines 11, 31, 35, 43, 51). 58 Line 48: [1-nu-tu4 pa-r]a-aš-ša-an-nu. 59 Line 25: [1?+]2 ṣí-mi-it-t[i/u4] pa-ra-[aš-ša-an-nu]. Line 29: [2+]1 ṣí-mi-it-t[u4] pa-[raaš-ša-an-nu]. 60 According to the cuneiform copy, the restoration in line 59 poses no problem, also in the 56 57

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sum (21 ṣimittu). Having ascertained the meaning of the “pair” ištēnūtu - tāpalu, it may be useful to examine a “couple” of other texts that throw further light on the use of the two words. HSS XIII 195,61 an inventory of various military equipment, lists “3 tāpalu body armour of bronze, ištēnūtu body armour for the breast (weighing) one mina of bronze, ištēnūtu body armour of leather with its sleeves of bronze” (lines 14– 18), and “5 helmets [of ]” (line 19). These items (3+1+1) represent 5 complete “sets” of armour for 5 warriors, each consisting of one body armour and one helmet.62 HSS XIV 264 (= 616)63 is another inventory of equipment for horses, horsemen and chariots, taken from the storehouse. In lines 1–14 we have 2 sets of armour and 1 set of paraššannu-covers for horses and 3 [+ 3?] sets of armour for men. Horses: lines 1–4: “1 set (ištēnūtu) of bronze armour (sariam) for horses, together with its! (text: their) helmets (gurpisišunu), with its! (text: their) pads (ša milišunu), everything belonging to them (made) of bronze”;64 lines 5–6: “1 set (ištēnūtu) of leather armour for horses, its! helmets and its! pads (of) bronze”; lines 7–8: “1 set (ištēnūtu) of paraššannu-covers for horses and its! helmets of bronze”. Men: lines 9–11: “3 sets (tāpalu) of bronze armour (sariam), with their helmets (gurpisišunu), for the body of a man (11[ša] ra-ma-ni-šu ša lú)”; lines 12–14: “[3? sets of ar]mou[rs for men], their [sle]eves and helmets (of) bronze”.65 Therefore, again: 3 single sets (ištēnūtu) for 3 horses and 3 [+ 3?] sets (tāpalu) for 3 [+ 3?] men. HSS XV 82,66 partly broken, lists several amounts of chariots, under the

light of the figure obtained from the sum of all the entries of paraššannu. Cf. Kendall 1975, 351; Maidman 2010, 36–37. 62 If in the broken lines 21–22 of the transliterated text we read 3 gírmeš and ⸢2⸣ gírmeš, we would also have 5 daggers in the military equipment of the 5 warriors. 63 Cf. Kendall 1975, 375–376. I have discussed the various components of the equipment in Zaccagnini 1977, 31–32. 64 ištēnūtu has been differently translated, mainly because of the plural suffixes -šunu: Kendall 1975, 376: “one pair of copper horse armors with their helmets …”, but p. 225: “one copper coat of mail for a horse complete with its helmet …”, and p. 284: “a copper (scaled) sariam of a horse together with its helmet …”; Zaccagnini 1977, 31: “1 Satz Panzer aus Bronze, für Pferde …”, with n. 56, in which I suggested that ištēnūtu means “einen Satz von zwei Panzern (für die zwei) Pferde”, and the objections of Farber 1976– 1980, 341a, who correctly pointed out “iltennūtu “Satz” (nicht unbedingt = ‘Paar’)”. CAD K, 105b: “one bronze coat of mail …”; cf. CAD P, 179b: “one (set of) paraššannu” (in line 7). 65 Lines 12–13 are badly broken; moreover, Lacheman’s transliteration (HSS XIV, p. 32), partly followed by Kendall 1975, 375, does not correspond to the cuneiform copy (HSS XIV, Pl. 109). 66 Cf. Dosch 2009, 145–146; Kendall 1975, 331–332. 61

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command of various people, followed by different amounts of armour (sariam). In the absence of any explanatory terms, it is difficult to understand what kind of relationship there is between chariots and armours;67 moreover, we are not told whether these sariam are the chariot’s own armour or armour for the men; in one section, mention is made of armours for “pairs of chariot (horses)” (ṣimittu gišgigirmeš).68 At any rate, what we are most interested in is the use of tāpalu (n “sets”), in parallel with the term for “one set”. The eight extant entries are patterned according to two standard wordings: (1a) lines 1–2 and 12–13: “n chariots (are) under the command of PN and (have) 2 sets of armour each” (u 2.ta.àm tāpalu sariamšunu); (1b) lines 18–19: “15 chariots (are) under the command of PN and (have) 4 sets of armour each” (u 4.ta.àm tāpalu sariamšunu); (2) lines 3–5, 6–8, 9–11, 20–22: “n [= 5, 15, 12, 15] chariots (are) under the command of PN and, of them, 3 chariots (have) 1 set of armour each” (u ina libbīšunu ša 3 gišgigirmeš 1-en(-na).ta.àm sariamšunu). Single sets and multiple sets are carefully distinguished: ištēn(a).ta.àm69 “one (set) each” but 2.ta.àm tāpalu “2 sets each” and 4.ta.àm tāpalu “4 sets each”. Further note that lines 14–17 mention 36 gišgigirmeš … u ina libbišunu ša 3 ṣimittu gišgigirmeš 1-en-na. ta.àm sariamšunu “36 chariots … and, of them, 3 pairs of chariot (horses) (have) 1 set of armour each”. HSS XV 1370 is another list, closely similar to HSS XV 82: it records 167 chariots, 14 of which are equipped with one set of armour (sariam); multiple sets (tāpalu) are not mentioned. The standard wording of the entries is: “n chariots under the command of PN: of them, n chariots (have) 1 set of armour each” (ina libbišu ša n gišgigir 1-en.ta.àm sariamšu(nu).71 1.3.2. ašâtu: “reins”, tutiwe: “corset ?”

Two other pieces of equestrian equipment are counted in ištēnūtu and ṣimittu: “reins” (ašâtu) and “corset (?)” (tutiwe). Both items are considered “sets” consisting of various components and therefore they are not counted with numbers: single sets are recorded as ištēnūtu (“one set”), more sets are counted in ṣimittu (“(n) sets”). tāpalu is never used to denote “n sets” of ašâtu and “n stes” of tutiwe.72 Dosch 2009, 146 suggests that the text is probably a list of defective armours. See above, § 1.1.3. 69 The distributive ta.àm excudes the use of the term ištēnūtu. 70 Cf. Dosch 2009, 160–161; Kendall 1975, 326–327. 71 The chariots that are provided with sariam are 2 (in lines 6, 8, 14), 3 (in lines 11, 16) and 1 (in lines 9, 12). Note the obvious absence of the distributive marker ta.àm in lines 9 and 12, which record the presence of one set for one chariot: 6 chariots … ina libbišu ša 1 gišgigir 1-en sariamšu “1 chariot (has) 1 set of armour” (lit: “within 1 chariot, (there is) his set of armour”). 72 I remind that the only text which makes contemporary use of tāpalu and ṣimittu is HSS XV 14, which lists “sets” of armour (sariam) for men and for horses, and “sets” of 67 68

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As concerns reins, I point out the unique occurrence of the expression 1 ṣimittu ašâtu “one pair of reins” in HSS XIII 195: 9, to be confronted with the expression ištēnūtu ašâtu “one set of reins” in HSS XV 17: 27. As we have seen, the pair ištēnūtu / (n) ṣimittu is only attested in lists of horses, where ištēnūtu means “a team” of 2 horses, i.e. “a pair” of horses, whereas n ṣimittu means “n pairs” of horses, and there are no occurrences of 1 ṣimittu horses. In all likelihood, ištēnūtu ašâtu73 denotes “a single set of reins” used for a single horse, whereas ṣimittu ašâtu74 denotes one or more “pairs of reins”, used for one or more pairs of horses.75 tutiwe was a component of horse equipment as well as a piece of men’s clothing, for which various interpretations have been proposed:76 since it probably derives from Akkadian d/tudittu “pectoral”,77 it must have been a kind of fabric or leather corset for men,78 which was also attested in armoured versions,79 and a piece of the harness of horses, possibly a sort of belly band.80 As regards the use of ištēnūtu and ṣimittu with tutiwe, ištēnūtu tutiwe is “one set of t.”; n ṣimittu tutiwe should be translated “n sets of t.”, and not “n pairs of t.”.81 tutiwe for horses are only attested in single sets (ištēnūtu); tutiwe for men

covers for horses (paraššannu): tāpalu is used with the equipment for men and instead ṣimittu is used with the equipment for horses. 73 See also HSS XV 212: 1–2: “2 minas [n shekels] of wool for (manufacturing) ištēnūtu ašâtu”; 4–6: “3 minas 40 shekels of wool for (manufacturing) ištēnūtu ašâtu and ištēnūtu tutiwena”. 74 See also JEN 527: 26: 3 ṣimittu ašâtu; HSS XIV 264 (= 616): 29: [n] ṣimittu ašâtu. 75 Cf. Kendall 1975, 176. 76 Cf. Kendall 1975, 183–187: a piece of armour in the shape of a “skirt” for men; the bellyband of a horse’s harness; Kendall 1981, 202–203 n. 9 and 221–222 n. 61: pairs of wide shoulder straps. AHw, 1374b: “ein Bronzestück am Panzer?”. 77 AHw, 1365b, s.v. t/dudittu: “ein Brustschmuck für Frauen”; CAD D, 168b, s.v. dudittu: “pectoral”. However, CAD T, 498 notes that tutiwe also occurs among garments and since dudittu “toggle-pin” [sic!] is not attested in Nuzi, it may be a general term for “fastening”. Note that CAD T, 40b, s.v. taḫapšu, and CAD R, 391b, s.v. riwītu, translate iltēnūtu tutiwena (in HSS XV 213: 1 and 4) “one set of mail”; CAD Š/III, 368a, s.v. šūru adj., does not translate tutiwe (in HSS XIV 253: 4). 78 E.g. HSS XIII 225: 19: iltēnūtu dutiwe ša kaspi “one set of t., of silver (i.e. with silver decorations?)”; HSS XIV 247: 27: 10 ṣimittu tutiwe.meš tamkarḫu “10 sets of tamkarḫucoloured t.”; HSS XIII 431: 44: 5 ṣimittu ša dutiwe ša mardatu “5 sets of t. of mardatu fabric”. HSS XIV 253: 1–7: “PN took 23 blue-green šūru hides in order to make tutiwe”. 79 Cf. CAD T, 498a, s.v. tutiwe a; Kendall 1975, 184–186. 80 HSS XV 212: 4–6: see above, n. 73; HSS XV 213: 1–3: “9 minas of wool given to PN for one set of t. (1-nu-tu4 du-ti-we-na.meš) and taḫapšu-blankets for the horses of riwīta”; 4–6: “9 minas of wool given to PN for one set of t. (1-nu-tu4 du-ti-we-na-a) and taḫapšu-blankets for the horses of riwītena”. Note “1 set of dyed kaziršu t.” (1-nu-tu4 du-ti-we ba-aš-lu ka4-zi-ir-šu) as part of the complete equipment of a ceremonial chariot (HSS XV 17: 28–29). 81 So Kendall 1981, 202 and 203 n. 9 (“pairs of tutiwa”), in accordance with his

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are also listed in larger quantities (ṣimittu). 1.4. Pairs of objects. šēnu: “shoes / sandals”, šuḫuppatu: “boots”, kaballu “leggings”

Shoes and footwear of various kinds are always counted in “pairs”: ištēnūtu (“a pair”) and n tāpalu (“n pairs”), but not in ṣimittu. Numbers are not used: but see HSS XIII 192, discussed here in n. 82. Shoes (šēnu) were made of leather82 and also of wool;83 single pairs (ištēnūtu) are never mentioned alone but are always associated with other clothings accessories. See e.g. HSS V 17: 9–11: “I took a set of naḫlaptu-cloak and a pair of shoes” (9iltēnūtu na-aḫ-la!(NA)-ap-tù 10ù iltēnūtu še-nu); Genava NS 15 (1967) 15, No. 7: 11–13 records a suit of a woman’s clothing which includes “one dress, one naḫlaptu-cloak, one ḫullānu-wrap, a set of nēbeḫu-belt …, a pair of shoes” (12 iltēnūtu íb.lá [m]a?-ar-šu 13[il-te-e]n-nu-tù kuš še-e-⸢nu⸣). Note the unusual assortment of goods in HSS V 76: 6–8: “a pair of shoes (6iltēnūtu šēnu), one dress, one sheep, one pig with its 10 piglets”. Genava NS 15 (1967) 17, No. 9: 1–2 lists “3 pairs of shoes” (13 tāpalu kuššēnum[eš]) together with “3 pairs of boots (?) (šuḫuppatu)” (23 tāpalu kuššu-ḫu-pát [ ]).84 At Nuzi šuḫuppatu, perhaps “boots (?)”, were a kind of women’s footwear, also counted in “pairs” (ištēnūtu and tāpalu). Genava NS 15 (1967) 15, No. 7, quoted above, in line 16 lists “one pair of boots” ([il-te-en-nu]-tù kuššu-ḫu-pát-⸢tù⸣, and Genava NS 15 (1967) 17, No. 9: 2 “3 pairs (tāpalu) of boots”. Three closely related texts (HSS XVI 398, 399 and 401) list several women, together with their personal belongings and various items of apparel, which included “their boots” (itti kuš šuḫuppatišunu: HSS XVI 399: 12–13; 401: 18) but no shoes or sandals (šēnu). See in particular HSS XVI 398: 7–13: “These six women of GN [with] their six garments, six (perfume) boxes, six pairs of boots (106 tāpalu šuḫuptišunu), with their headgears (11itti paḫussišunu) and with their ḫaštarišunu”: every woman was supplied, among many other things, with a pair of “boots (?)”. Also kaballu, possibly “leggings”, were counted in “pairs” (ištēnūtu and tāpalu). HSS XV 163: 3: ištēnūtu ka4-ba-al-lu; 169: 22–23: 2 tāpalu ka4-bá-al-lu; 174: 8: 2 tāpalu ka-bal-lu; HSS XIII 431: 17: [n] tāpalu ka4-bal-li; HSS XIV 247: 37–38: “2 pairs of leggings with multicoloured trim (2 tāpalu ka-pa-al-lu.meš ša

interpretation of the term tutiwe (“pairs of wide shoulder straps or “bandoleers” over the[ir] armor”). Also, CAD T, 498a: “one set of t.” (iltēnūtu) vs. “n pairs of t.” (ṣimittu). 82 HSS XIII 192 (transliteration also in CAD Š/II, 290b): “2 sheep hides of (?) 2 zijanātiblankets, for making one (!) shoe (2ša 2 zijanāti ana 31-en še-ni 4ana epēši), have been given”. The meaning of this short delivery note is far from clear, especially as concerns the manufacture of “one (sic!) shoe”. 83 HSS XIII 373: 10–15: “2 minas of wool for pampalû-garments and for shoes for the servants (12a-na še-ni-e 13ša ṣú-ḫa-re-e)”. 84 E.R. Lacheman, Genava NS 15 (1967), 18 and CAD Š/III, 211a read: šu-ḫu-pát-tù.meš, but tù.meš not in copy.

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birmi), 4 pairs of dyed (bašlu) leggings, 1 dyed ušpaḫḫu-garment, 63 pairs (šu-ši 3 tāpalu) of bleached (babbar.meš) leggings”. 1.5. Furniture: eršu (gišná): “bed”

Beds were counted with numbers: see e.g. 1 gišná (HSS XIV 247: 106; 133: 21); 2 gišnámeš (HSS XV 132: 18); 3 gišná (HSS XV 133: 20); 12 gišnámeš (HSS XV 132: 17). However, the texts very frequently show that beds were also counted in ištēnūtu and (n) tāpalu. Clearly enough, ištēnūtu gišná does not mean “a pair of beds” (i.e. two beds) but “one bed set”, “ein Bettgarnitur”: i.e. bestead, mattress, pillow, blanket, etc.,85 and n tāpalu gišná(meš) does not mean “n pairs of beds”86 but is simply the plural of ištēnūtu “n bed sets”, exactly as in the case of armour (sariam: above, § 1.3.1.): ištēnūtu sariam “one set of armour” and (n) tāpalu sariam “n sets of armour”. See e.g. HSS V 66: 28: 1-nu-ti gišná “one bed set”; TCL 9 1: 10–11: 101 il-te-en-nu-tù (sic!) gišná ⸢x⸣ 11ù 3 ta-pa-lu gišnáme 87 “‘One’ bed set and 3 bed sets”. The contemporary presence in the same inventory of beds counted with numbers and in tāpalu suggests that n gišná means “n bedsteads” whereas n tāpalu gišná means “n sets of (fully equipped) beds”: see the various beds of different kinds counted with numbers in HSS XV 130: 33 gišnámeš (line 7), 1 gišná (lines 25, 26, 29) and in “sets”: 3 tāpalu gišná (lines 27, 28). Other occurrences of n tāpalu gišná(meš): HSS XV 154: 8–10: 3 tāpalu gišná, 1-nu-tu4 gišná, 5 tāpalu gišnámeš; HSS XV 153: 3 and 167: 14: 3 tāpalu gišnámeš; SCCNH 1, 389, No. 9: 5: 8 tāpalu gišnámeš; HSS XIX 10: 13: 2 gištāpalu gišnámeš. 1.6. Clothing. Contemporary use of numbers, ištēnūtu and tāpalu

The Nuzi documents attest to a great variety of clothes and accessories, for men and women, whose precise definition is still quite obscure. For the purposes of the present research, it will be sufficient to consider only the pieces of clothing most frequently mentioned: túg (whose Akkadian reading is unknown): “garment, dress”,88 naḫlaptu (gú.è): “outer garment, cloak, mantle”, ḫullānu “(a blanket or wrap, used as a piece of clothing)”, nēbeḫu (íb.lá) “(a belt or sash, used as a piece of clothing)”, kusītu “a particulare type of dress”. Common to all these objects is the way in which they are counted: with cardinal numbers, in ištēnūtu and in tāpalu (but not ṣimittu). The inventory of garments HSS XV 169 provides good evidence of the different ways of counting the various pieces of clothing. túg of different qualifications are all counted with numbers (7 entries in lines 16–22: from 1 túg up to 7 túgmeš); lines 1–2 mention

Thus, CAD I–J, 282 and AHw 246b. CAD E, 316a correctly translates HSS XV 130: 27–28: 3 tāpalu gišná “three sets of beds”; instead CAD T, 178a, s.v. tāpalu 1e: “pair, set of two – furniture”, translates “three pairs of couches”. In AHw 1320a, s.v. tāpalu “Paar v. Ggst.n”, eršu is not included. 87 Line 10: correctly CAD I–J: 282b “one bed fully equipped”. 88 But also “piece of (wool-)cloth”. 85 86

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4 tāpalu naḫlaptu tuttupu “4 sets of t.-cloak”, but lines 3–5 and 6 mention ištēnūtu naḫlaptu tuttupu “1 set of t.-cloak” and line 9: ištēnūtu naḫlaptu ša gadameš “1 set of linen cloak”; lines 10–11: 4 tāpalu ḫullānu lubullu [sic!] “4 sets of wrap for clothing”, but lines 11–12: ištēnūtu ḫullānu lubullu “1 set of wrap for clothing”; lines 14–15: 3 tāpalu kusītu lubultu “3 sets of kusītu dress”. While the numbers do not raise particular problems,89 the precise meaning of ištēnūtu and tāpalu has not yet been established. As in the case of pieces of equipment for men and horses (see above, § 1.3.1.), ištēnūtu is used to indicate “one set”, whereas tāpalu is used to indicate “n sets”): the main problem is to ascertain the numerical relationship between garments counted in ištēnūtu and garments counted in tāpalu. The former word is normally, and correctly, translated “one set”,90 “ein Garnitur”, but the latter has not been translated, as it should be, “(n) sets” (i.e. the plural of ištēnūtu), but instead “(n) pairs (of two things)”, “Paar”.91 In the following, I will provide a different “arithmetic” interpretation of the series: (cardinal numbers) – ištēnūtu – tāpalu. 1.6.1. túg: “garment”

túg(meš), meaning “garment(s), clothes” and also “(wool-)cloth(s)”,92 are always counted with numbers, but we have a few occurrences of ištēnūtu túgmeš and one occurrence of n tāpalu túgmeš. Their analysis provides useful insights for the present subject-matter. 1.6.1.1. ištēnūtu túgmeš

The expression ištēnūtu túgmeš only applies to specific types of clothing. See for instance HSS XIII 45: 1–3: ištēnūtu túgmeš šinaḫilu adi ḫullānu “a set of ‘second quality’ garments, together with a wrap”; the same expression occurs in HSS XIII 112: 3–4: ištēnūtu túgmeš šinaḫilu adi ina ḫullānu. HSS XV 139: 14–15 and 19–20: 14[ištenūt]u túgmeš lubultu 15[a]du ina kusīti “a set of clothing, including a

Note however the spelling 1-en giš⸢x⸣ and 2-na mardatu (HSS XIV 234: 16 and 36); 1-en túg nūḫe and 2-na túgmeš šilannu (HSS XV 225: 4 and 2), but 1 kusītu and 2 túg tuttupena (ibid: 8 and 6). 90 “ištēnūtu X” is translated by CAD as “a set of X”. Note however HSS XIV 249: 11: ištēnūtu naḫlaptu (gú.èmeš) šinaḫilu ištēnūtu nēbeḫu šinaḫilu which is translated “one outfit of second quality cloaks” (CAD N/I, 139b), vs. “one n. of second quality” (CAD N/II, 143b). 91 Actually, CAD translates “n tāpalu X” sometimes “n sets of X” and sometines “n pairs of X”. For the latter translations see, e.g., CAD Ḫ, 229a: 4 tāpalu ḫullānu “four pairs of ḫ.” (HSS XIII 127: 6); 5 tāpalu ḫullānu “five pairs of ḫ.” (SMN 431 [= HSS XIII 431]: 45!); CAD N/II, 143b: 2 tāpalu nēbeḫu 2 tāpalu kusītu “2 pairs of n., 2 pairs of kusītu garments” (HSS XV 167: 11); CAD N/I, 139b: 4 tāpalu naḫlaptu tuttupu “four pairs of … n.s” (HSS XIV 520 [= 234]: 39–40). 92 For a selection of occurrences of woolen túgmeš of standard measures and weights see Zaccagnini 1981. 89

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k.-garment”. Other documents record the same sets of clothing, but mention is made of 1 túg instead of ištēnūtu túgmeš. See for instance HSS XIII 225: 5–7: 1 túg qadu naḫlaptu u qadu ḫullāni “one garment, with a cloak and with a wrap”; cf. lines 8–9 and 20–21: 1 túg iltēnūtu naḫlaptu u ḫullānu “one garment, a set of cloaks and of wraps”; HSS XIV 248: 1–3 and 21–22: 1 túg ištēnūtu naḫlaptu ištēnūtu ḫullānu šinaḫilu “one garment, a set of cloaks and a set of ‘second quality’ wraps”; HSS XIV 249: 1: 1 túg nūḫe adi ina ḫullāni “one n.-garment, together with a wrap”; line 3: 1 túg šilannu adi ina ḫullāni “one š.-garment, together with a wrap”; etc. It is therefore quite evident that, in arithmetic terms, both ištēnūtu túgmeš and 1 túg mean “one” piece of clothing, consisting of a single unit (1 túg) or of a “set” of various parts (ištēnūtu túgmeš: note the plural marker meš). 1.6.1.2. n tāpalu túgmeš

n tāpalu túgmeš are only attested in HSS XIII 455 which records seven deliveries of various quantities of wool to be woven for the manufacture of “n tāpalu túgmeš”. These cloth(e)s are all of the same weight: 12 minas of wool are used for making 4 tāpalu túgmeš (lines 1–2, 7–8); 6 minas for 2 tāpalu (lines 12–13, 29–30); 30 minas for 10 tāpalu (lines 16–17); 24 minas for 8 tāpalu (lines 21–23). This means that 1 “set” of túgmeš 93 weighed 3 minas.94 These allocations of wool for the manufacture (epēšu) of “n tāpalu túgmeš” should be compared with the deliveries of “n túgmeš” to be completed (epēšu). See HSS XIII 455: 1–6: 112 ma.na sígmeš ša é.gal-lì 2ana 4 tāpalu túgmeš 3ša lúmeš ta-lu-uḫ-le-e 4PN ša GN 5ilqe ù 4 tāpalu túgmeš 6ippuš: “PN of GN took 12 minas of wool of the palace, for 4 tāpalu túg-garments of taluḫlu-men,95 and he will make 4 tāpalu túg-garments”, to be compared with HSS XIII 193: 5–7: 54 túgmeš-ti ana 4 lúmeš ta-lu-uḫ-li-ti 6ana qāt PN 7ana epēši nadin: “4 túg-garments, to be completed for 4 taluḫlu men, under the authority of PN, have been given”. Similarly HSS XIII 455: 29–33: 296 ma.na sígmeš 30ana 2 tāpalu túgmeš 31 epēši ana PN 32ša GN 33nadnu: “6 minas of wool for making 2 tāpalu túg-garments have been given to PN of GN”, and 12–15: 126 ma.na sígmeš ana 132 tāpalu ana PN 14ša GN nadnu 15sígmeš PN2 [ilqe]: “6 minas of wool for 2 tāpalu have been given to PN of GN, (and) PN2 took the wool”, to be compared with HSS XIII 193: 1–2: 12 túgmeš ša lúmeš ta-luḫ-li-ti 2ana qāt PN ana epēši nadin: “2 túg-garments, to be completed for taluḫlu-men, under the authority of I remind that the technical word for “one set” is ištēnūtu: tāpalu is only used to indicate more than one “set”: in other words, it represents the plural of ištēnūtu. Cf. above: n tāpalu sariam: “n sets of armour” (§ 1.3.1); n tāpalu eršu: “n bed sets” (§ 1.5.); below: n tāpalu bītātu kuppātu: “n sets of stables” (§ 1.7.2.). 94 This figure is exactly half the standard weight of the wool cloths – of standard dimensions: 15 × 5 ammatu – that were woven in Nuzi: 6 minas or 4 1/2 kuduktu = 360 shekels. 95 See the discussion in Wilhelm 1980, 90, 163–164; Morrison 1983, 118–119. Previously Mayer 1978, 201–203. 93

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PN, have been given”. The strict parallelism between 4 túgmeš and 4 tāpalu túgmeš, and between 2 túgmeš and 2 tāpalu túgmeš, seems evident. If so, tāpalu does not mean “pair(s)” but “set(s)”: 2 tāpalu túgmeš are “2 sets of túg-garments” (i.e. 2 pieces), and 4 tāpalu túgmeš are “4 sets of túg-garments” (i.e. 4 pieces), precisely as 2 túgmeš are 2 pieces and 4 túgmeš are 4 pieces. As in the case of ištēnūtu túgmeš / n túgmeš, the parallel use of n tāpalu túgmeš / n túgmeš 96 suggests that the garments mentioned in HSS XIII 455 were of a certain quality, perhaps composed of a “set” of parts, thus requiring the use of n tāpalu (“n sets”) instead of simple numbers. 1.6.2. Outfits

Even if it is impossible to know precisely the shape, size and function of the various pieces of clothing, a recurrent assortment of clothes consisted of one “garment” (túg), one “outer garment” (naḫlaptu (gú.è)) and one “wrap” (ḫullānu). Both naḫlaptu and ḫullānu were counted with numbers and, more often, in “sets”: ištēnūtu and (n) tāpalu. As in the case of túg, ištēnūtu means “one set” and n tāpalu means “n sets”, and not “n pairs”. In this regard, a decisive piece of evidence is provided by HSS XIII 225, which lists several deliveries of clothes, consisting in túg, naḫlaptu and ḫullānu, and provides the separate totals of all three items. I summarize the content of this document (in brackets the lines). túg: they are only counted with numbers: 1 túg (15 times: lines 1, 2, 5, 8, 18 (×2), 19, 20, 22, 27, 29, 30, 35, 41, 43), 3 túgmeš (10), 2 túgmeš (16, 17); three entries are broken (35, 36, 39). Arithmetic total: 22 [+ n] túgmeš. In 7 instances, túg are associated with naḫlaptu and ḫullānu. The terminology of the entries shows minor variants, which however do not prevent a full understanding of the document: – 1 túg qadu naḫlapti u qadu ḫullāni (5–7) – 1 túg iltēnūtu naḫlaptu u ḫullānu (8–9) – 3 túgmeš u 2 tāpali naḫlaptu (10–11) – 1 túg iltēnūtu naḫlaptu u ḫullānu (20–21) – 1 túg u naḫlaptu (30) – [n túgmeš] 1 naḫlaptu u ḫullānu (39–40) – 1 túg naḫlaptu u ḫullānu (41–42)97 Total: 32 túgmeš 5 tāpalu [ḫullānu] 8 tāpalu naḫlaptu (45–46). túg: It is impossible to check the arithmetic total (22 [+ n] túgmeš) against the total in line 45 (“32 túgmeš ”), but it is relevant to note the exclusive use of numbers also in the total sum. See other occurrences of “túg for taluḫlu-men”: HSS XIII 193 passim; HSS XIV 113: 1–4: 13 túgmeš ša lúmeš 2ta-lu-uḫ-le-e 3ša PN 4ša ilqu; line 5: 4 túgmeš ša ki.min; lines 8–9: 5 túgmeš ša ki.min; HSS XV 173: 1–3: 124 túgmeš 2ša lúmeš 3ta-lu-uḫ-le-e. 97 That is: “1 túg, (1) naḫlaptu and (1) ḫullānu”. 96

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naḫlaptu: 7 entries: 4 times “1 n.” (6, 30, 39, 41), 2 times “iltēnūtu n.” (8, 20), and 1 time “2 tāpalu n.” (10–11); the total in line 46 is “8 tāpalu naḫlaptu”. These 8 tāpalu correspond to the sum of 4 + (1) iltēnūtu + (1) iltēnūtu + 2 tāpalu = 8 pieces (tāpalu), which means that iltēnūtu is “one set” (= 1 piece) – and not “1 pair” (= 2 pieces), and 2 tāpalu are “2 sets”(= 2 pieces) – and not “2 pairs” (= 4 pieces). ḫullānu: 5 entries: 3 times “1 ḫ.” (1, 40, 42) and 2 times “(iltēnūtu) ḫ.”98 (9, 21); the total in line 45 is “5 tāpalu [ḫullānu]”. That is: 3 + (1) iltēnūtu + (1) iltēnūtu = 5 pieces (tāpalu), which means, again, that iltēnūtu is “one set” (= 1 piece) – and not “1 pair” (= 2 pieces). Presumably, the “naḫlaptu-sets” and the “ḫullānu-sets” were more elaborated pieces of clothing than the (normal, standard) naḫlaptu and ḫullānu, counted with numbers, but for reasons of accounting simplicity the totals of naḫlaptu and ḫullānu are expressed in “sets” (tāpalu). However, it is essential to realize once again that both 1 naḫlaptu and iltēnūtu naḫlaptu mean “one” piece of naḫlaptu clothing, consisting of a single unit (1 naḫlaptu) or of a “set” of various parts (iltēnūtu naḫlaptu); 2 tāpalu naḫlaptu means “2 sets of naḫlaptu clothing” (i.e. 2 pieces) and not “2 pairs of naḫlaptu clothing” (i.e. 4 pieces). The same applies to ḫullānu and all other types of clothing of the rich Nuzi repertoire. 1.7. Real estate structures 1.7.1. bītātu (émeš): “houses”

HSS XV 287 and 288 are two lists of houses given to male and female palace slaves. Each line of both texts runs as follows: 1 émeš ana (f)PN nadnu “one housing complex [lit: “houses”] is given to (f)PN” (HSS XV 287: 1–22; 288: 1–5, 8–9, 13). In HSS XV 288: 6–7 the wording is different: 3 tāpalu émeš ana fṢuḫartiya nadnu u PN ilteqešunūti “3 sets of dwelling structures are given to fṢuḫartiya and PN has taken them”; a closely similar wording is in lines 11–12: 2 tāpalu éḫi.a ana f Ṣuḫartiya nadnu u PN2 ilteqešunūti “2 sets of dwelling structures (etc.)”. It is difficult to understand what exactly means ištēn bītātu (“one (set of ?) houses”), as opposed to “n tāpalu bītātu”: a plausible explanation would be to consider ištēn bītātu (“one” + “houses”) a variant writing of ištēnūtu bītu (“a unit, one set of houses”) and n tāpalu bītātu “n sets of houses”, in accordance with the wellknown parallelism and opposition between ištēnūtu (singular) and tāpalu (plural). Beyond the simple level of lexicographic analysis, one might ask if the architectural and topographical finds of Nuzi (and Tell el Fakhar) can provide any evidence for the presence of single vs. multiple housing units and residential structures as alluded to in the textual records. The textual documentation (for which see Zaccagnini 1979, 39–45) provides precise evidence of houses bordering on other houses on one, two and even three sides, which plausibly suggests the 98

The texts have “iltēnūtu naḫlaptu u ḫullānu”, i.e. “iltēnūtu naḫlaptu and (iltēnūtu) ḫullānu”.

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existence of multiple residential blocks / quartiers, albeit not necessarily inhabited by single (extended) family groups. 1.7.2. bītātu (émeš) kuppātu: “stables”

HSS XIII 363 is a long list of real estate properties, which include various stables. Four lines (49, 52, 54, and 56) mention each “1-nu-tu4 émeš kuppātu”; the total in line 63 has “4 tāpalu émeš kuppātu”. Here too, we have the opposition between ištēnūtu and tāpalu: ištēnūtu bītātu kuppātu “one set of stables” and n tāpalu bītātu kuppātu “n sets of stables”. 1.8. ištēnūtu: “a unit(y) (of people)”

JEN 651 is a judicial dispute raised by Enna-mati son of Teḫip-tilla, against Šukrapu son of Eteya, concerning 6 homers of land which Šukr-apu, together with 3 other people, had transferred to Teḫip-tilla by means of a real estate adoption (JEN 703). These four individuals, even if all with different fathers, are called “brothers” vis-à-vis the adoptee. Thus declares Enna-mati (JEN 651: 12–15): “These 4 brothers (124 š[ešmeš] annâti), of the city GN, adopted my father Teḫip-tilla and, as a unit, gave him these 6 homers of land” (14u 6 an[še a.š]àmeš annâ ana ilti-in-nu-tum-ma 15ittadnu). Both CAD and AHw refer iltēnūtu to the fields,99 but ittadnu is perfect G and not N, and the hapax of a single plot of land qualified as an “undivided unit” makes little sense. Instead, it is to believe that iltēnūtu refers to the four people, who are not natural brothers but are qualified as “(legal) brothers” and act “as a unit”: that is, they bear common legal responsibility towards the counterparty (Teḫip-tilla and his son). In fact, during the trial, Šukr-apu declares: “We gave 6 homers of land to Teḫip-tilla and we adopted him” (lines 24–26), “and Enna-mati produced the old tablet (of the adoption contract) before the judges and he read it:100 ‘These 6 homers of land, these 4 brothers have jointly (33itti ḫ[a-m]i-iš-ma) given to my father Teḫip-tilla’” (lines 27–35). In conclusion, il/štēnūtu means an “undivided unity of people”.101 2. Amarna Bearing in mind the notable differences of the Amarna Akkadian dialects, the “collective numerals” (ištēnūtu, tāpalu and ṣimittu) deserve particular attention. A fundamental partition must be made between the Akkadian of the Great Kings and the Western Akkadian of the Syro-Palestinian kinglets, vassals of the Pharaoh.

CAD I–J, 282b, s.v. ištēnūtu 2: “these six homers of field-land have been given as an undivided unit”. AHw, 401a, s.v. ištēnūtu 2: “Felder ana iltinnūtumma”. 100 In the following lines, the content of the contract is summarized and reproduced in accordance with the public reading of the tablet. 101 The Ugaritic occurrences of the expression ištēnūtu “a unit(y) (of people)” are discussed in § 7.1.1. 99

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Moreover, as concerns the correspondence of Tušratta king of Mittani (EA 17 – 29), a remarkable difference can be traced between the lexicon of the letters and that of the two inventories of gifts (EA 22 and 25), which probably issue from two separate scribal bureaus. The main features of the use of “collective numerals” are the following: (1) ištēnūtu is only used in the letters of Tušratta, with the meaning of “one set”, and also “a pair”: ištēnūtu tudinātu kù.gi ištēnūtu anṣabātu kù.gi “one set of gold toggle pins, one set (/ pair ?) of gold earrings” (EA 17: 42–43); ištēnūtu na4meš “one set of stones” (EA 26: 66 and 27: 112, 113); ištēnūtu aškirušḫu “one set of a.-container (?) (EA 18: Rev. 4)”.102 There are also two isolated occurrences in his two gift inventories: in the broken passage of EA 25 III 13103 and in EA 22 III 39, in a list of equipment for horses and chariot drivers, which will be discussed below. (2) ṣimittu is only used in the letters of the Great Kings, in relation to horses, with the meaning “n pairs (of horses)”. It also occurs in a broken passage of the gift inventory of Tušratta EA 22 IV 33–41, where it probably means “chariot yoke”. (3) tāpalu, in relation to horses, is used in the letters of two Western kinglets (Rib-Hadda and Tagi) with the same meaning of ṣimittu: “n pairs (of horses)”: see below, § 2.1. In three other texts tāpalu means “set”: 1 tāpal nalbašu “one set of cloaks” (EA 112: 44: letter of Rib-Hadda);104 12 tāpal túg.gadameš “12 sets of linen garments” (EA 265: 13: letter from Tagi);105 3 tāpal Ḫar ša gìr “3 sets of (2) foot-bracelets”, i.e. “3 pairs”106 (EA 14 I 78: inventory of gifts from Egypt to Babylonia).107

To be compared with 25 šu aškirušḫu “25 sets of a.” in the inventory EA 25 III 27, 29, and [n] šu aškirušḫu: ibid. I 1 and III 32. 103 [ ]kù.babbar 1-nu-tu4 pa-ab-be(?)[ ]. 104 Cf. CAD N/I, 200b: “one set of cloaks”; but CAD T, 177b, s.v. tāpalu 1: “pair, set of two”; Moran 1992, 186: “a pair of mantles”; Rainey 2015, 601: “one pair of cloaks”. 105 Unlike the above translation of EA 112, Moran 1992, 314 correctly translates “1[2 se]ts of linen garments”, with appropriate quote of A. L. Oppenheim, JCS 21(1967!), 250, n. 76: “the dress called túg.gada could not have consisted of a single piece”. 106 semeru, in the meaning of “shackles for hands and feet” will be discussed below, § 3.2. šeršerratu. 107 This unique Amarna occurrence of tāpalu semeru (Ḫar) deserves some comment: the previous lines (74 and 78) mention [n] and 10 hand-bracelets (Ḫar šu-ti). It seems therefore reasonable to assume that the 3 tāpalu foot-bracelets were intended for the two ankles of three people, thus representing “3 sets” of 2 bracelets each, i.e. “3 pairs”. The gift inventories of Tušratta often mention hand- and foot-bracelets, which are always counted with numbers. As concerns foot-bracelets, I draw attention to EA 25 II 24, which records “2 foot-bracelets”, i.e. 2 single objetcs, and not one set of 2 pieces. Even more explicit is the evidence of EA 25 III 63 which states that “10 foot-bracelets of gold” are “for 10 young boys”: this means that the bracelets were intended for just one

102

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(4) šu. The ideogram šu is used in the two gift inventories of Tušratta (EA 22 and 25), and only in EA 29, the last of his letters.108 It is always preceded by a cardinal number, from 1 onwards, and replaces both ištēnūtu and tāpalu,109 meaning “one set, one pair” or “n sets, n pairs”. I provide some examples showing some objects counted with numbers, in “sets” or “pairs”, and the equivalences between šu and ištēnūtu or tāpalu: tudittu: “toggle pin”. Single pins: 19 tudinītu “19 toggle pins” (EA 14 IV 10: inventory of Egyptian gifts). Sets of pins: ištēnūtu tudinātu “one set of toggle pins” (EA 17: 42: letter of Tušratta); 1 šu tudinātu “one set of toggle pins”: i.e. šu = ištēnūtu (EA 25 I 22–32: inventory of Tušratta’s gifts); 2 šu tudinātu “two sets of toggle pins” (EA 25 III 56); 100 šu tudinātu “100 sets of toggle pins” (EA 25 III 64): i.e. šu = tāpalu. naḫlaptu (túggú): “outer garment, cloak”. Single garments: only in Tušratta’s correspondence, to be compared with the evidence of the Nuzi texts (above, § 1.6.2.): 1 túggú ḫurri 1 túggú uru “1 Hurrian style cloak, 1 city-cloak” (EA 27: 110: letter of Tušratta); 1 túggú uru “1 city-cloak”, 1 túggú uru ša Tukriš “1 citycloak Tukriš style” (EA 22 II 40, 37: inventory of Tušratta’s gifts).110 Sets of garments: 1 šu túggú ḫurri ša uru “1 set of cloaks, Hurrian style, for the city”, 1 šu túggú ḫurri ša gada “1 set of cloaks, Hurrian style, of linen” (EA 22 II 36, 39): i.e. šu = ištēnūtu;111 10 šu túggú ḫurri 10 šu túggú uru “10 sets of cloaks, Hurrian style, 10 sets of city-cloaks” (EA 22 III 24): i.e. šu = tāpalu.112 a/inṣabtu “ring, earring”. Single rings: 19 inṣabāti ša kù.gi ša ubāni “19 gold

ankle of 10 people (and not for the two ankles of 5 people, in which case the text would have mentioned 5 tāpalu foot-bracelets). A different case is recorded in lines III 58 and 61–62, both of which list “12 hand-bracelets of gold, 8 foot-bracelets of gold: this is the jewelry for the two (principal) nurse-maids”: this means that these bracelets are not presented as “sets” (tāpalu) of two pieces each – 6 for the two arms and 4 for the two ankles of the two nurses –, but as single pieces of personal ornament. 108 In EA 29 [n] šu is used with anṣabtu “[n] pairs of earrings” (lines 186, 188), 3 šu túg [ ] “3 sets of [ ] garments” (line 183) and 1 šu ša šumeš “1 set for the hands” (lines 183, 186, 188). 1 šu ša šu “1 set for the hand” is mentioned in the inventory EA 22 II 9 and is probably also attested in the letter EA 27: 111, which has been commonly restored [1 šu] ⸢ša qa-ti⸣ “1 pair for the hands”. However, since in the following lines 112 and 113, the same text records ištēnūtu na4meš “one set of stones”, I would not hesitate to restore [ištēnūtu] ša qāti, albeit with the same meaning “1 set of (2) / a pair for the hands”, also in the light of the interesting comparative evidence of the Ugaritic inventory PRU III, p. 183 (RS 16.146+): 5: 2 tāpal Ḫarmeš gìrmeš u ša šu-ti kù.gi “2 pairs of foot-bracelets and (hand-)bracelets of gold”. That is: ištēnūtu “1 set / pair” / 2 tāpalu “2 sets / pairs”. 109 The lexical series á = idu II 262 gives the equivalence šu-u šú = ta-[p]a-lu (cf. CAD T, 177a, lexical section). 110 Cf. HSS XIII 225: 6, 30, 39, 41: 1 naḫlaptu. 111 Cf. HSS XIII 225: 8, 20: iltēnūtu naḫlaptu. 112 Cf. HSS XIII 225: 10–11: 2 tāpali naḫlaptu.

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rings for the finger” (EA 14 I 75 inventory of Egyptian gifts). Sets of (ear)rings: ištēnūtu anṣabātu “1 set of earrings” (EA 17: 43: letter of Tušratta); 1 šu inṣabātu “1 set of earrings” (EA 25 I 16, 17, 18, 20: inventory of Tušratta’s gifts): i.e. šu = ištēnūtu; 2 šu inṣabātu “2 sets of earrings” (EA 25 III 55, 59); 30 šu inṣabātu “30 sets of earrings”113 (EA 25 III 66): i.e. šu = tāpalu.114 2.1. Horses

Horses could be counted with numbers, in ṣimittu and tāpalu, but not in ištēnūtu.115 Horses counted with numbers are always in even digits (2 horses,116 4 horses117): a clear indication that they represent one or more teams of 2 draft animals. See in particular two passages of the two letters of Aššur-uballiṭ, king of Assyria: EA 15: 11–12: “I have sent to you a beautiful chariot, 2 horses”; EA 16: 9–11: “a beautiful royal chariot, outfitted for me, and 2 white horses, likewise outfitted for me; one chariot not outfitted”. An identical formulation of EA 15: 11–12 can be found in the bold announcement of Tušratta in EA 17: 36–38: “I have sent one chariot, 2 horses, one lad and one maiden from the booty of the land of Hatti”.118 n ṣimittu horses n “pairs” of horses are attested in one letter of KadašmanEnlil, two letters of Burra-Buriyaš, kings of Babylonia, two letters of Tušratta king of Mittani and one letter of the king of Alašiya. There are no occurrences of ṣimittu in the letters of the Syro-Palestinian vassals. Kadašman-Enlil sends “[ o]f 10 wooden chariots [and 10 pairs of ho]rses ([10 lá ša anš]e.⸢kur⸣.ra)” (EA 3: 332–33); Burra-Buriyaš sends 5 ṣi-mi-it-ta ša si-si-i “5 pairs of horses” (EA 7: 58) and 5 lá ša anše.kur.rameš ša 5 gišgigir gišmeš “5 pairs of horses for 5 wooden chariots” (EA 9: 37). The king of Alašiya sends 5 ṣimittu anše.kur.ra (EA 37: 9). In addition to EA 17: 39–40, quoted above (n. 119), Tušratta sends “10 pairs of horses (and) 10 wooden chariots with their full equipments” (10 ṣimittu anše.kur. rameš 10 gišgigirmeš gišmeš qadu mimmušunu: EA 19: 84). The combined evidence of the first and the second group of texts shows that “2 horses” were the standard complement to the delivery of “1 chariot”,119 and, correspondingly, “n ṣimittu horses” were coupled with the same amount of “n chariots”. n tāpalu horses: n “pairs” of horses. As mentioned above, ṣimittu is not attested in the Amarna correspondence of the small kings. Instead, “n tāpalu horses” are

The 30 pairs of earrings are “for 30 [dowry]-women”. For EA 29: 186, 188: [n] šu anṣabātu, see above, n. 109. 115 The few Nuzi occurrences of ištēnūtu anše.kur.rameš have been discussed above, § 1.1.1. 116 EA 34: 22 (king of Alašiya); 83: 11 and 88: 48 (Rib-Hadda of Byblos). 117 EA 22 I 1 (Tušratta: inventory of gifts). 118 Immediately after, the king of Mittani announces the gift for “his brother” of 5 gišgigirmeš 5 ṣimittu anše.kur.rameš “5 chariots (and) 5 pairs of horses” (lines 39–40). 119 As in Nuzi, chariots are always counted with numbers. 113 114

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mentioned in a letter of Tagi and in seven letters of Rib-Hadda.120 In EA 266: 27–32 Tagi sends various items of equestrian equipment, among which “leather harness for a pair of horses” (28[ša t]a-pal anše.[kur.ra]). In Rib-Hadda’s letters, tāpalu horses are a recurrent object of his obsessive requests for military help to Pharaoh: 20 tāpalu horses (EA 103: 42–43; 106: 42–43); 30 tāpalu horses (EA 76: 26; 85: 20; 107: 40–41: “30 pairs of horses together with (30) chariots”);121 50 tāpalu horses (EA 71: 23–24).122 2.2. Military equipment of chariots: ṣimittu: “crosspiece of a yoke”

There is one isolated group of occurrences of n ṣimittu in the broken passage of EA 22 IV 33, 38, 40–41,123 an inventory of gifts sent from Tušratta to Amenophis III, probably meaning “chariot yoke”.124 2.3. Military equipment of horses and chariot drivers 2.3.1. sariam: “armour”, gursipu:125 “helmet”

Armour (sariam) and helmets (gursipu) for men and horses are only attested in a short section (III 37–41) of the inventory EA 22, which finds strict parallels in similar lists from the Nuzi archives. These are the objects sent by Tušratta: 1 šu sariam of bronze (and) 1 gursipu of bronze, for a man (37); 1 šu sariam of leather (and) 1 gursipu of bronze, for sarku-soldiers (38–39); 1-nu-tu4 sariam of leather for horses, studded with bronze plates(?) (39–40); 2 gursipu of bronze, for horses (41). As always, helmets (gursipu) are counted with numbers. Armour for men: 1 šu sariam can only mean “1 set of armour”, and not “1 pair of armours”. Armour for horses: ištēnūtu sariam literally means “1 set of armour” but one wonders what the difference is with 1 šu sariam, which also means “1 set of armour”. The presence of helmets together with armours helps understanding the difference between the two expressions: two men are the recipients each of “1 set” of armour (one of bronze and one of leather) and one helmet of bronze, whereas “1 set” of armour and 2 helmets are for (2) horses (plural in lines 40 and 41: anše. kur.rameš): i.e. the usual team of 2 animals yoked to one war chariot. Therefore, ištēnūtu here means “one pair”, “one set of (2)”, i.e. the ensemble of the two armour for the two horses.

As will be seen, ṣimittu is not attested in Western Akkadian (e.g. Alalakh and Ugarit) and in its place tāpalu is always used. 121 Cf. the requests of 30 chariots (together with troops of various kinds, counted in round numbers): EA 127: 37; 131: 12. 122 Cf. the identical request of 50 chariots (together with troops) in EA 132: 57. 123 Line 33: ša 10 ṣimittu [ ]; 38: [n] ṣimittu [ša] gigir [ ]; 40 and 41: 10 ṣimittu [ ]. 124 Cf. CAD Ṣ, 198a; AHw, 1103a; etc. 125 Amarna writing for gurpisu. 120

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2.3.2. katappû: “bridles”, appatu: “reins”, širinnatu: “snaffles”

EA 22 I 15–20 lists 1 šu kuška.tab “1 set of (2), a pair of bridles”, meticulously described in all “their” (-šunu) precious components: 1 šu = ištēnūtu. Lines I 24–30 of the same inventory list 1 kušappatu “1 rein (sic!)” i.e. “1 (set of) reins (for a single horse)”, also described in all “its” (-šu) gold components. In the Nuzi texts the word for “reins” is ašâtu which is counted in ištēnūtu “1 set” and ṣimittu “1 pair” (above, § 1.3.2.), but is never preceded by a cardinal number. The Amarna occurrence has been generally understood as “1 (set of) reins”,126 but the singular possessive pronoun indicates that it was considered as a single piece, regardless of its actual form and practical use. Line I 45 lists 1 šu širinnatu kù.babbar “1 set of snaffles, of silver”: again, 1 šu = ištēnūtu. 2.4. Pairs of objects. šēnu: “shoes / sandals”, šuḫuppatu: “boots”, kaballu: “leggings”, taḫbātu: “leggings”

In the two Mittanian inventories shoes and footwear are exclusively counted in šu “pairs”, precisely as in the Nuzi texts, which use ištēnūtu (“a pair”) and n tāpalu (“n pairs”) (above, § 1.4.) In EA 22 and 25 the amounts of footwear articles are only attested as “a pair” (1 šu, corresponding to ištēnūtu) or as “10 pairs” (10 šu, corresponding to 10 tāpalu). – šēnu (kuše.sír): 1 šu “a pair of shoes”: EA 22 II 23, 29, 33, 35; cf. 1 šu kuš betatu “a pair of b.-shoes”: EA 22 II 27; 10 šu šēnu betatu: “10 pairs of b.-shoes”: EA 22 III 26.127 – šuḫuppatu: 10 šu kuššuḪubmeš (EA 22 III 25), 10 šu šuḫuppatu (EA II 41): “10 pairs of boots”. – túgkaballu: 1 šu “a pair of leggings”: EA 22 II 26, 32, 34, 35. – túgtaḫbātu: 10 šu túgtaḫbātu “10 pairs of leggings”: EA 22 III 26.128 3. Alalakh The Alalakh IV texts use tāpalu, with the meaning “1 set, a pair” and “n sets, n pairs”, with reference to horses and metal objects, among which bronze chains. ṣimittu is not attested; ištēnūtu, with the meaning “1 set, a pair”, is only attested in in AT 440, an inventory of jewels and objects of various kinds, with Hurrian names.

Moran 1992, 51; Rainey 2015, 163; CAD A/II, 182a “one (pair of) reins”. But Adler 1976, 149: “ein Zügel”. 127 Cf. the Emar occurrences of šēnu, counted in “pairs” (tāpalu): 1 ta-pal kuše.sír “a pair of shoes”: Emar VI 369: 92; 3 ta-pal e.sirx (muš)meš “3 pairs of shoes”: Emar VI 303: 5’. 128 Cf. the Emar occurrences of (túg)taḫbātu, counted in “pairs” (tāpalu): [n] ta-pal túgtaḫa-ba-tu “[n] pairs of leggings”: Emar VI 303: 6’; 10 ta-pal taḫ-ba!-tu “[n] pairs of leggings”: Emar VI 361: 4. 126

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3.1. Horses

Horses were counted with numbers and in tāpalu “pair(s)”. As an example, I will quote three texts. AT 329 is a list of horses, male (nita) and female (sal), which are counted in 1 ta-pal “1 pair” and 2 ta-pal “2 pairs”. The text consists of three sections. The first section (lines 1–6) lists 1-year-old horses,129 belonging to the king and the city palace, from various villages: twice 1 tāpal nita and 1 tāpal sal (lines 2, 3), once 2 tāpal nita (line 4) and 2 tāpal sal (line 5); no total is added. The second section (lines 7–10) lists horses from various towns and villages: three times 1 tāpal sal (7, 8, 9) and once 2 tāpal sal (10). Lines 12–13 provide the total: šu.nigín 5 anše.kur.ra na-ku-ri be-ta-e-na. Whatever the meaning of the two words that qualify the horses, the text should be amended: šu.nigín 5 anše.kur.ra … “Total: 5 of horses …”. The third section (lines 14–18) lists 1-year-old ‘young’ horses,130 which three people have taken for (their) mariyannu-service: 2 tāpal nita (15), 2 tāpal sal (16), 1 tāpal sal (17). Even if one wants to refer the total in the preceding lines 12–13 to these horses,131 we should anyway read 5 anše.kur.ra, since also in this case there are 5 tāpalu horses. AT 338, a fragmentary list of [horses] from various villages, records single and “pairs” (tāpalu) of male and female animals: 12 tāpal nita GN 21 sal 1 nita GN2 3 [n] tāpal nita GN3. The semantic and arithmetic difference between “1 horse” and “1 tāpal horse” (i.e. “a pair” = 2 horses) is fully supported by the evidence of AT 330, another list of male and female horses given to various people. The animals are all counted as 1 ta-a-pal “1 pair” (lines [1], 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14), line 16 however records 1 anše.kur.ra nita “one male horse”, and the total, in line 18, is: [2+]5 ta-a-pal ù 1-en[anše.kur.ra nita] “5 pairs and one [horse]”. 3.2. šeršerratu ((murub4).šèr.šèr): “chains, fetters, shackles”

AT 396 (JCS 8 [1954], 29) is a note concerning “2 sets of bronze chains (2 tāpal šèr.šèr zabar), weighing 2,750 (shekels of) bronze, which were sent from the town GN”. The mention of šeršerratu in the Alalakh text finds interersting parallels in Nuzi and Middle Babylonian documents. It should preliminarily be observed that the two Alalakh “sets of chains” weighed more than 10 kg each,132 which probably excludes that they were used as fetters or shackles. However, the Nuzi delivery note HSS XIV 258 provides a good parallel for AT 396: “27 minas 30 shekels of copper chains (urudu šèr-šèr-

Line 1: ṭuppi anše.kur.raḫi.a mu *1. Line 14: anše.kur.ra ṣuḫāru mu *1. 131 Cf. Wiseman, AT, p. 95. 132 The Late Bronze Age Alalakh mina consisted of 60 shekels of 7.83 g and weighed 470 g. The 2,750 shekels of the two bronze chains made up 45 5/6 Western minas, corresponding to 43 Mesopotamian minas of 500 g, for a total weight of 21, 532 g. 129 130

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ra-tu4), belonging to the palace of Nuzi, were handed over to PN, the governor”: the weight of this chain amounts to 13,750 g. Two Nuzi delivery notes mention “1 set” (ištēnūtu) of chains. HSS XIII 204: 1–4: “1 set of chains (11-nu-tu4 še-er-še-er-ra-ti), weighing 5 minas 12 shekels, belonging to the palace, [was given] to PN”. HSS XIII 54: 1–8: “1 set of copper chains (11-en-nu-tu4 urudu 2še-er-še-ra-tu4), weighing 8 minas 50 shekels of copper, belonging to the palace, were handed over to PN”. One Middle Babylonian text from Dūr-Kurigalzu mentions the fettering of a fugitive: Iraq 11 (1949), 143, No. 2: 8–9: “he fettered him with a copper chain weighing 6 minas (1 urudu murub4.šèr.šèr 6 ma.na ki.lá.bi)”. It is interesting to note that the text has “1” šeršerratu, and not “ištēnūtu” šeršerratu, but the weight of the chain closely resembles those of the Nuzi “sets” of chains. An almost identical weight is recorded in another Middle Babylonian text (CBS 8512: 6), quoted in CAD Š/II, 321a: “6 5/6 minas of copper, the weight of (one) copper chain (6 5/6 ma.na urudu ki.lá murub4.šèr.šèr urudu)”. Other Nuzi texts mention “chains” (šeršerratu) and “shackles” (semeru, always written syllabically) of copper and bronze, of lower weight: these objects are always counted with numbers,133 and never in ištēnūtu, but they are certainly not different from the others. HSS XV 157: “2 minas 30 shekels of bronze, belonging to the palace, in order to make shackles of chains (ana še-mi-ri še-er-ra-ta ana epēši), were handed over to PN”: the weight is 1,250 g; HSS XV 299: “PN took 7 minas 5 shekels of bronze, belonging to the palace, in order to make 2 shackles (ana epēši ana 2 še-mi-ri): he will make (them) and give (them) back to the palace”: each shackle weighs 1,750 g; HSS XV 323: “1 mina 38 shekels of bronze, in order to make a shackle (ana še-mi-ri epēši), was handed over to PN”: this shackle weighs only 834 g. 3.3. Various objects

AT 440 is a list of objects with Hurrian names. They are listed in single pieces (ištēn) or in single sets (ištēnūtu); there are no objects counted in tāpalu. The number “one”(ištēn) is always written 1-en (lines 10, 15–17); “one set” (ištēnūtu) is written 1-en-nu-tu4 (lines 4 and 1: 1-en-[nu-tu4]) and 1-nu-tu4 (lines 11–14); in lines 2 and 3 the text has 1-en ditto, after 1-en-[nu-tu4] of line 1, thus suggesting the equivalence 1-en ditto = ištēnūtu. After ištēnūtu (in line 4), line 5 has 4 ditto, which should be interpreted as 4 ištēnūtu “4 sets”. For the interpretation of šinamni (in line 8), see below (n. 135). The sequence of numerals in lines 4–10 is worthy of note: 41-en-nu-tu4 [a]n-ṣa-ab-tu4 k[ù.babbar] 54 ditto az-la-aḫ-ḫé-na kù.babbar 61-en ditto a-arza-ar-ni eḫ-li!-pá-ak-kí 71-en ditto ma-áš-ḫé kù.gi ḫi-a-ru-uḫ-ḫé 8ši-na-am-ni mani-in-ni eḫ-li-pá-ak-kí 96 šu-u-ur-ra gištúg 101-en šu-u-ri ši-in-ni p[i-ri(?)]: “1 set (ištēnūtu) of silver (ear)rings, 4 sets (4 ditto = 4 ištēnūtu [?!]) of silver a., 1 set

133

See, e.g. HSS XIV 247: 74: 6 šeršerretu urudu 1 šeršerratu zabar.

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(1-en-ditto = ištēnūtu [?]) of a. of raw glass, 1 set (1-en-ditto = ištēnūtu [?]) of gold mašḫu-ring, a pair134 of maninnu-necklaces of raw glass, 6 šuri-containers of boxwood, 1 šuri-container of ivory (?)”.135 There are only few words whose meaning is not completely obscure: – ištēnūtu anṣabtu kù.babbar “1 set (/pair) of silver (ear)rings” (line 4). Precise parallels can be found in texts from Amarna and Qatna. See in particular EA 17: 43: ištēnūtu anṣabātu kù.gi “1 set of gold earrings”, and EA 25 I 16, 17, 18, 20: 1 šu (=ištēnūtu) inṣabātu kù.gi “1 set of gold earrings” (gifts of Tušratta).136 The Qatna inventories only use numbers: 2 inṣabtu kù.gi “2 gold (ear)rings” (= 1 pair ?) (RA 43 [1949], 140: 19); 1 inṣabtu kù.gi (ibid., 170: 346; 174: 379); 6 inṣabtu kù.gi (= 3 pairs ?) (ibid., 142: 48). – šinamni maninni eḫlipakki “a pair of m.-necklaces of raw glass” (line 8). Here too, there are interesting parallels in texts from Amarna, Qatna and also Boghazköy. The Amarna maninnu are all gifts of Tušratta: in most cases they are single items (1 maninnu), carefully described in every detail: EA 19: 81–82 (2 entries); 25 I 38–62 (18 + [5] entries); EA 21: 35 (1-en maninnu). EA 22 I 12 mentions “2 maninnu for horses”, i.e. two single and separate necklaces for one pair of horses yoked to one chariot. The Qatna inventories mention “2 maninnu of gold, lapis lazuli and carnelian” (RA 43 [1949], 158: 206). The most interesting parallels can be found in some Hittite inventory texts: 1-nu-tum manniniš kù.[gi] “1 pair of gold m.-necklaces” (KUB XII 1 III 14); 1-nu-tum manniniuš nunuz kù.[gi] “1 pair of m.-necklaces of beads of gold” (KUB XLII 78 II 3); [n t]a-pal

ši-na-am-ni is to be interpreted as šin=am=ni: “two” + factive suffix (= to double up”) + nominal morpheme, i.e.”double, a doubled object”, “a pair”, a meaning which resembles the basic meaning of tāpalu “set of two, pair”. But what is the precise meaning of šinamni? What is the difference between ištēnūtu anṣabtu “1 set of earrings” (line 4) and šinamni maninni, which I have translated “a pair of m.-necklaces” (line 8)? At Nuzi, the contemporary use of ištēnūtu and tāpalu, both meaning single “sets” of objetcs, shows that ištēnūtu is used to indicate “one set”, whereas n tāpalu is used to indicate “more-than-one sets”: see, e.g. HSS XV 16, which lists armour for men and horses, and covers for horses (cf. above § 1.3.1.), and HSS XIII 225, which lists various clothes (cf. above § 1.6.2.). In other documentary sources, which do not use ištēnūtu (Mari, Ugarit, Emar, Alalakh) the same word tāpalu is used to indicate both “one set” and “n sets”. But, unlike the other Alalakh texts, AT 440 does not use tāpalu: in its place, the word for “set” is ištēnūtu, which is (abnormally) used to indicate both “one set” (line 4) and “4 sets” (line 5). Each “set” is a unitary object consisting of several parts. Viceversa, šinamni is “a doubled object”, “a pair”, i.e. a unitary object consisting of two single parts: šinamni maninni would correspond to 1 tāpalu maninni “a pair of m.-necklaces”. [My best thanks go to Mauro Giorgieri, for very useful advice and fruitful discussion]. 135 Giorgieri calls my attention to ištēn šuri “1 šuri” (line 10) // 6 šura “6 šuri” (line 9), which shows the correct construction of the Hurrian plural with the morpheme -na: šuri + -na > šur(i)=ra. 136 For other references see above, § 2 with ns. 114–115 sub a/inṣabtu. 134

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manniniuš “[n] pairs of m.-necklaces” (KUB XLII 84 8).137 Unlike the previous texts, the Hittite terminology corresponds exactly to that of the Nuzi documents: both use ištēnūtu for “1 pair / set” and tāpalu for “n pairs / sets”. – ištēnūtu (1-en ditto) mašḫe kù.gi “1 set of gold mašḫu-ring” (line 7). At Amarna and Qatna, mašḫu-rings are only counted with numbers. EA 17: 43, after ištēnūtu anṣabātu kù.gi “1 set of gold earrings”, mentions 1 mašḫu kù.gi. The Qatna inventories (RA 43 [1949] 140ff) often mention gold mašḫu of gold, from 1 to 10 pieces (lines 146, 148, 23, 164, 154, 166), of lapis lazuli (1 piece: lines 25, 126a; 6 pieces: lines 196, 258), and of pappardillu-stone (1 piece: line 308). 4. Mari The Mari texts use only tāpalu “set, pair”, in the singular and in the plural. ṣimittu, which occurs in texts dealing with precious metals and metal works, is neither a “yoke” nor a “pair” (of draft animals or of objects), but a small piece of metal (Arkhipov 2012, 67–68). However, there is an isolated occurrence of the plural ṣimdātu “pairs, teams (of draft animals)”: ARM I 50: 11–12: ṣimdāt anše.nun.na-ka ù anše.kur.ra-ka “your teams of mules and horses”. As in the documentary sources of the mid-second millennium, the Old Babylonian documents from Mari count the same objects with numbers and in tāpalu. I provide some examples, with specific reference to the objects already mentioned above. 4.1. (giš)magarru: “(chariot) wheel”

Among the frequent mentions of “2 magarru”, I quote ARM X 123: 20: 1gišgigir parîm ša 2 gišmagarruša “a two-wheel chariot (pulled) by mules”; cf. ARM XXXII, p. 470 (M 10061): 2’, 12’: 1 gišgigir 2 gišmagarru. The only attestation of “1 set of (2), a pair” of wheels is in ARM XXXII, p. 384 (M 11325): 1–3: 12 eme5.kur.ra babbar 21 tāpal gišmagarri zabar 321 tāpal gišmagarri {zabar} “2 white she-asses, 1 pair of bronze wheels,138 1 pair of wheels”. 4.2. appatu: “reins”

ARM XXI 294: 5’, XXII 317 (= XXX, pp. 535–536): 6, and VII 243: 5’ mention 2 appatu “2 reins” among various chariot equipments. ARM XVIII 45, another list of chariot accessories, mentions (line 5) 4 appatu sag “4 reins of superior quality”, to be confronted with a letter in which the king of Mari asks one of his officials to quickly send him 2 tāpal appatim ša anše.kur.raḫi.a “2 pairs of reins for horses” (Lafont 2002, 411, No. 64: 6–7). We have seen that at Nuzi ašâtu “reins” are counted in ṣimittu “pairs”, to be used with “pairs of horses” (ṣimittu anše.kur.rameš), but there are also two occurrences of ištēnūtu ašâtu “a single

137 138

Cf. Siegelová 1986, 442, 462, 126. I.e. wheels reinforced or decorated with bronze plates.

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set of reins”, for individual horse (above, § 1.3.2.). In the same way, the Amarna texts distinguish between 1 appatu “1 (set of) reins”, for a single horse, and 1 šu katappû “1 pair of bridles” for a pair of horses (above, § 2.3.2). Horses and chariots (gišgigir) are often attested in the Mari texts. Particularly noteworthy are two mentions of “2 horses” from Qatna, sent as a gift and as brideprice,139 one mention of “horses for chariots”140 and the mentions of “horsedrawn chariots”.141 It is therefore clear that the Mari chariots – whatever their shape, accoutrement and funcion – were (also) drawn by a pair of horses: this explains the contemporary presence of single reins for individual horse and pairs of reins for pairs of horses. 4.3. (kuš)mešēnu: “shoes”, šuḫuppatu (kušmešen šuḪúb): “boots”, kaballu: “leggings”

In a letter of Šamši-Adad, the king gives orders to his son to supply food and shoes for Tilmun messengers and other people who are leaving with their caravan (10 Tilmunite men, 5 servants, 7 artisans, 10 escorts, for a total of 32 people): every person should receive “2 shoes each” (2-àm kušmešēni): the total amount of shoes is 64 (ARM I 17: 19–29). The should be no doubt that “2 shoes” actually means “2 (pairs [i.e. tāpalu] of) shoes” and, consequently, “64 shoes” means “64 (pairs [i.e. tāpalu] of) shoes”. In fact, the Mari texts almost always count “shoes” ((kuš)mešēnu) and “boots” kuš ( mešen šuḪúb) with numbers;142 viceversa, “leggings” (kaballu) are frequently counted in “pairs” (tāpalu).143 As concerns “boots”, the mentions of “1” piece are very frequent but and also “2”,144 “3”,145 “5”146 pieces are consistently attested. Odd numbers of boots strongly suggest that they are 1 or 3 or 5 (pairs of) boots and not 1 or 3 or 5 (unpaired) boots; on the other hand, 2 mešen šuḫuppatim are “2 (pairs of) boots” and not 2 boots (i.e. a pair). However, there are also few mentions of n tāpal mešēn(i) šuḪúb “n pairs of boots”: ARM XXX: 482–483 (A 3543): 21’–23’ records 21’1 kušmešen šuḪúb sag 22’3 tāpal kušmešen147 šuḪúb 23’ kap-ta-ru-ú “1 (pair of) high quality boots, 3 pairs of boots of Cretan style”; ARM XXIV 277 (= ARM XXX: 384–385): 36–39: 364 kaballu ia-am-ḫa-du 374 ARM V 20: 7; Charpin 2015, 6–8: 11. ARM XXVI/2: 526–527 (No. 533): 12’–13’: “There are no white horses (to be yoked) to a chariot” (12’anše.kur.ra babbar ša gišgigir). 141 n gišgigir(ḫi.a) ša anše.kur.ra(ḫi.a): ARM XXXII: 451–452 (M 5092): 5, 7, 17, 48. 142 Textual references in Durand 2009, 165–168. Note the mention of 5 ta-pa-al kuššuḪúb “5 pairs of boots” in two texts from Tell al-Rimah: OBTR 195: 1 and 196: 1. 143 Ibid., 48–49. 144 ARM XIII 2: 11; ARM XXX, p. 231 (M 6779): 7; p. 291 (M 8240): 4; p. 322 (M 10706): 4. 145 ARM XXX, p. 297 (M 5983+): 24; p. 326 (M 5295): 11; p. 483 (M 5199): 5’. 146 ARM XXX, p. 321 (M 6422): 2. 147 See also ARM XVIII 57: 9: 3 tāpal kušmešeni “3 pairs of shoes”, and cf. 65: 5: 2 kušmešēnu tāpalu “2 shoes (being) a pair”. 139 140

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kaballu ḫašmānim 388 tāpal kušmešeni sag 395 tāpal kušmešen šuḪúb “4 (= 2 pairs of) leggings148 of Yamḫad style, 4 (= 2 pairs of) leggings of blue colour, 8 pairs of high quality shoes, 5 pairs of boots”; ARM XXX, pp. 330–331 (M 11391): 4–6: 41 tāpal mešen šuḪúb 5ia-am-ḫa-di-tumki 61 tāpal kabali “1 pair of boots of Yamḫad style, 1 pair of leggings”. The particular quality of these footwear149 justifies the unusual accuracy of the numeric notation. kaballu (“leggings”) are frequently attested:150 they are counted with numbers and in “pairs” (tāpalu). As concerns numbers, it is interesting to note that kaballu are never attested with “1” or with any other odd number,151 whereas there are 14 instances of “2 kaballu” and 4 instances of “4 kaballu”.152 This clearly shows that the numbers correspond to the quantities of the single pieces, and do not indicate “pairs”, as in the case of shoes and boots: there are no single leggings (in fact, there are no occurrences of “1” kaballu), but only even amounts, i.e. pairs of leggings: “2 kaballu” = 1 pair, “4 kaballu” = 2 pairs. As concerns leggings counted in “pairs” (tāpalu), the quantities range from 1153 to 6154 and include 2,155 3,156 4,157 and 5158 pairs. 5. Chagar Bazar Five Old Babylonian texts from Chagar Bazar record barley allotments to horses (and mules).159 Horses are counted with numbers and in pairs (ṣimittum, plur. ṣimdātu), just like at Nuzi. I quote the relevant data. Nos. 22 and 31 are two identical lists of barley rations for one month:160 “5,250 qa of barley, according to the correct sūtu-measure, food for 20 horses, at 5 qa each; 3 ṣimdātim (of horses), at 15 qa each; 10 mules, at 3 qa each. Day 1st, month IV, limmu: Adad-bāni” (No. 22: 1–4, 9–11, and No. 31: 1–4]).161 Also the list No. 72 records the delivery of

The numerical terminology of kaballu will be discussed below. The goods listed in M 11391 are sent by Yarim-Lîm, king of Aleppo. 150 Cf. Durand 2009, 48–49. 151 13 kaballu (ARM XXX, p. 260 [M 11506]: 7) is a unique occurrence in a list of “surplus” (watartum) of clothes and garments. 152 The textual references can be checked in www.archibab.fr. 153 E.g. ARM XXIII 444: 7; XXIV 185: 4; 215: 3; XXX, p. 308 (M 11375): 3; p. 330 (M 11391): 6; p. 472 (M 11916); 7. 154 ARM XXX, p. 543 (M 10765): 2’. 155 ARM XXX, p. 322 (M 10706): 3. 156 ARM XXX, p. 233 (M 9898): 4. 157 ARM XXIII 444: 3; XXX, p. 541 (M 5508): 12’. 158 ARM XXX, p. 299 (M 12189): 20. 159 Talon 1997, Nos. 22, 31, 65, 72, 74. 160 The texts do not specify the period of the rations, but they are dated to the first day of the month. 161 Amounts of daily barley rations: 20 horses × 5 qa = 300 qa; 3 pairs of horses × 15 qa 148 149

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barley rations for one-month: “1,350 qa: food for 9 horses (…); 1,650 qa: food for 11 horses (…); 900 qa: food for 2 ṣimdātim (…); 450 qa: food for 1 ṣimittim (…); 900 qa: food for 10 mules (…). Total: 5,250 qa of barley, according to the correct sūtu-measure, food for 20 horses, 3 ṣimdātim, 10 mules. Day 1st, month V, limmu: Adad-bāni”.162 The identical texts Nos. 65 and 74 list barley rations for one day: “30 qa of barley, according to the correct sūtu-measure: food for 4 mules at 7 1/2 qa each; 20 qa: food for 1 ṣimittim, 40 qa: food for 4 horses at 10 qa each; 15 qa: food for 3 mules at 5 qa each. (…) Total: 145 qa of barley, according to the correct sūtu-measure: food for the teams (ṣimdātim) of PN”. The two texts are respectively dated on the 7th and 10th day of month IX, limmu of Adad-bāni. It is interesting that these equids, as a whole, are collectively defined as “(animal) teams”. 6. Middle Babylonian texts 6.1. Horses

Middle Babylonian barley rations count horses with numbers and in pairs (níg.lá = ṣimittum) but there are also some occurrences of “half pairs”, i.e. single horses, in the expressions: “n (and) 1/2 níg.lá (scil.: anše.kur.ra)” i.e. “n pairs (of horses) + 1 single (horse)”. Balkan, Kassitenstudien, pp. 23–24, No. 16 is an itemized list of “horses which have been released to be mounted”, totaled as “10 stallions” (14[p]ap anše.kur.rameš 15pu-ḫa-a-lu[m]). Text No. 5 (ibid., p. 17) is an itemized list of 6 níg.lá, totaled as “6 pairs of horses, as gift” (7šu.nigín 6 níg.lá anše.kur.r[ameš ] 8ri-mu-tum). I provide some examples of ration lists for “n and a half pairs of horses”. PBS 2/2 20: 2–4 records barley rations as food for three days in succession for 32 1/2 pairs of horses: the amount is 488 qa, which means that each pair receives 15 qa, and the single horse of the team, half ration, i.e. 7.5 qa163 – which is precisely the same amount of the daily barley rations for ṣimittum-horses at Chagar Bazar.164

[i.e. 7.5 qa per horse] = 45 qa; 10 mules × 3 qa = 30 qa. Total: 175 qa × 30 days = 5,250 qa: the arithmetic sum corresponds to the totals given in line 1 of both texts. I point out the different quantities of barley which are assigned to pairs of horses and to individual horses. The same situation is also attested at Nuzi, even if the amounts of the rations are lower: individual horses receive 2 qa per day, but pairs of horses normally receive 4 qa (Zaccagnini 2016, 34–45). 162 The text does not specify the period of the rations and the unitary daily amounts of the various rations, but they are the same as those of texts Nos. 22 and 31. Amounts of barley rations: 1,350 qa ÷ 9 horses ÷ 30 days = 5 qa; 1,650 qa ÷ 11 horses ÷ 30 days = 5 qa; 900 qa ÷ 2 pairs of horses ÷ 30 days = 15 qa [i.e. 7.5 qa per horse]; 450 qa ÷ 1 pair of horses ÷ 30 days = 15 qa [i.e. 7.5 qa per horse]; 900 qa ÷ 10 mules ÷ 30 days = 3 qa. 163 488 qa ÷ 64 + 1 horses = 7.5 qa. 164 The following lines show that 15 qa is the standard daily barley ration for one pair of horses: line 5: 32 pairs: 480 qa for 1 day (= 7.5 qa for 64 horses); lines 6 and 7: 31 pairs:

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Petschow 1974, No. 31: 2–3 records 180 qa of barley as food for “3 pairs (níg.lá = ṣimittum) of horses which went out to the Sealand as delivery (?) for 4 days”: again, the daily ration for one pair of horses is 15 qa (i.e. 7.5 qa per horse). In line 4 “285 qa is the food for 9 1/2 pairs of horses which pulled the chariots for 4 days”; in this case the horses receive half ration: 285 qa ÷ 19 horses = 15 qa ÷ 4 days = 3.75 qa (i.e. 7.5 qa per ṣimittum). BE 14 56a records several outputs of barley revenue as food for different receivers during a period of seven months (from month VII of Nazimaruttaš 12 to month I of Nazimaruttaš 13), and includes various deliveries for horses. In line 15, 200 qa is the food for 1 horse for 2 months and 20 days, i.e. 80 days (from the 18th of month VIII to the 8th of month XI), which corresponds to a daily amount of (only) 2.5 qa. The same low amount is attested in lines 11–12, which record 590 qa as food for 2 1/2 pairs of horses for 1 month and a half, i.e. 45 days (from the 2nd of month VII to the 17th of month VIII), which corresponds to a daily amount of 2.6 qa per single horse.165 Even lower is the food allocation for 2 pairs of horses in line 17: 150 qa for 20 days (from the 13th of month XI to the 4th of month XII), correspond to 1.87 qa per single horse.166 6.2. Military equipment of chariots, horses and chariot drivers

Chariot “wheels” (magarru) are counted in “pairs” (ṣimittu (níg.lá)). See e.g. PBS 2/2 81: 8: 12 gišmeš 2 níg.lá ma-gar-rù “12 pieces of lumber (for making) 2 pairs of wheels”.167 Also “reins” (ašâtu) are counted in “pairs” (ṣimittu (níg.lá)). PBS 2/2 54, a document recording various items of chariot equipment debited to two people, mentions 2 níg.lá kuš a-ša-a-ti (lines 4 and 8) and 1 níg.lá kuš a-ša-a-ti (line 6). The obvious translation is “2 pairs” and “1 pair” of reins: however, I wonder if “1 ṣimittu ašâtu”, corresponding to Nuzian “ištēnūtu ašâtu”, means “one (single) set of reins” used for a single horse,168 whereas “2 ṣimittu ašâtu” indicate “2 pairs of reins” used for two pairs of horses. Other pieces of harness, counted in ṣimittu, include baziḫarzi (a leather

465 qa for 1 day (= 7.5 qa for 62 horses); lines 11–12: 1 pair: 30 qa for 2 days (= 7.5 qa for 2 horses). Instead, in lines 8–10, 3 pairs of horses received 180 qa for 3 days, i.e. only 5 qa each. 165 590 qa ÷ 45 days = 13.1 qa ÷ 5 horses = 2.62 qa [i.e. 5.25 qa per pair of horses]. 166 I wonder whether one should emend 2! gur (i.e. 300 qa) which would correspond to the half daily ration for one pair of horses: 300 ÷ 20 days = 15 qa ÷ 2 pairs of horses = 3.75 qa per horse, the same as in Petschow No. 31: 4, quote above. 167 Other deliveries of lumber for various “pairs” of wheels in lines 9: 8 gišmeš 2 níg.lá kimin; 16: ša 5 níg.lá ma-gar-ri; 17: ša 2 níg.lá kimin; 18: ša 15 níg.lá kimin. 168 Cf. the “half pairs” of horses, i.e. “single horses” mentioned above.

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object);169 šīḫu (a rope ?);170 šaḫumaš (a bronze fitting for armour and horses);171 išk/tamdi “horse bit”;172 siriam “armour” for horses and for men.173 With these words, ṣimittu has always been interpreted as “pair” but the parallel occurrences of single objects suggests that a translation “set” is also possible. The 2 ṣimittu išk/tamdi are presumably “2 pairs of horse bits” for the 2 pairs of horses harnessed to 2 chariots, but can also be understood as “2 sets of horse bits” for one pair of horses harnessed to one chariot. Rather, the “2 pairs (ṣimittu) of armour for horses (and) 1 armour for a man” (PBS 2/2 99: 4–5) have an exact parallel in the Ugaritic inventory KTU 4.169: 4–6, which records “five pairs (ṣmdm) and a reserve armour for horses, one (aḥd) armour for men” (see below, § 7.2.2.): the armours for horses are meant for “pairs” of horses, the armours for men are meant for single (“one”) chariot drivers. 7. Ugarit 7.1. Akkadian texts 7.1.1. ištēnūtu: “a unit(y) (of people)”

Two Akkadian documents, issued from the Hittite chancery, provide a unique attestation of the term ištēnūtu, in its literal meaning “a unit”: “Since long time, the king of Ugarit and the king of Siyannu: they were a unit (1-en-nu-tu4 šunu)”.174 Viceversa, in PRU IV, p. 133 (RS 17.116, a letter of the king of Amurru): 28 is to be read [ ] 1 é-tum ni-i-nu “we are one family”.175 7.1.2. tāpalu: “set(s), pair(s)”

The Akkadian texts of Ugarit do not use the term ṣimittu: in its place, as in the other documents stemming from the Western archives of the Late Bronze Age, the word tāpalu is used, meaning “one set, one pair” and “n sets, n pairs”, with reference to horses, oxen and precious metal objects. The fragmentary text Ugaritica V, No. 105 lists assignments of “pairs of horses” (ta-pal anše.kur.ra) to various people: the preserved figures are 1, 2, and 3 tāpalu. In the “General’s letter” Ugaritica V, No. 20: 5 the sender requires assignment of 3 ta-pal gišgigirmeš. The expression has been understood as “three pairs of chariots”,176 but it certainly means “3 pairs PBS 2/2 99: 9: 2 níg.lá baziḫarzi. PBS 2/2 99: 8: 2 níg.lá šīḫi; 63: 5: 1 šīḫu; cf. 54: 3: “including the leather šīḫi”. 171 PBS 2/2 49: 1: 2 níg.lá šaḫumaš; 54: 14: 1 šaḫumaš; 99: 10: 2 šaḫumaš. 172 PBS 2/2 54: 3: 2 níg.lá ištamdi; 99: 2: 2 níg.lá iškamdi; cf. 93: 3. 173 PBS 2/2 99: 4–5: 2 níg.lá siriam ša anše.kur.rameš 1 siriam ša lú. 174 PRU IV, p. 71 (RS 17.335+): 3–4; also PRU IV, p. 80 (RS 17.382+): 3–4. A similar occurrence of ištēnūtu, referred to a plurality of people, is attested at Nuzi (JEN 651: 12–14): see above, § 1.8. 175 Cf. Izre’el 1991, II, 73. Previous reading [lúmeš] 1-ú-tum: cf. CAD I–J, 282b “we form a unit”. 176 J. Nougayrol, Ugaritica V, p. 74: “trois couples de chars”; Lackenbacher 2002, 68: “trois 169 170

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of (horses for) chariots”,177 just like at Nuzi n ṣimittu gišgigirmeš means “n pairs of (horses for) chariots” and not “n pairs of chariots” (cf. above, § 1.1.3.): the use of tāpalu, instead of ṣimittu, is common in Western peripheral Akkadian. “Pairs” of oxen are attested in PRU VI 49: 11’: ištēn (1-en) ta-pal gud “a pair of oxen”, in a list of goods which includes several single (1-en) items (lines 11’–14’) and “2 chairs” (line 13’). KTU 4.308: 17 is the total, written in Akkadian, of a list of villages with numbers of [oxen]: “6 pairs of oxen: total” (6 ta-pal gudmeš šu.nigín).178 The inventory of the belongings of Queen Aḫatu-malki (PRU III, pp. 182–186 (RS 16.146+) includes (lines 2, 5, 8) some “pairs” of gold objects: “4 pairs of gold pendants” (4 tāpal šuqullali), “2 pairs of gold foot-bracelets and (hand-)bracelets” (2 tāpal Ḫarmeš gìrmeš u ša šu-ti kù.gi), “2 pairs of gold buckles(?)” (2 tāpal ša qabli). 7.2. Ugaritic texts

The collective numerals in Ugaritic administrative texts are in most cases used with horses, chariots and equestrian equipment. The evidence of the alphabetic documents from Ugarit shows surprising and as yet unnoticed similarities with that of the Nuzi texts yet shows considerable complexity as regards the meaning of some key words. There is no Ugaritic equivalent of tāpalu (“(n) sets”); ṣmd corresponds to Akkadian ṣimittu and means “set of two, pair”: it is used in the singular (ṣmd: “one set”), in the dual (ṣmdm: “two sets”), and in the plural (ṣmdm (“n sets”). Another term, frequently attested in parallel with ṣmdm (only in the plural: “n pairs”, but never with the singular ṣmd “one pair”), is aḥdm, whose grammatical and semantic interpretations gave rise to a lively and still open debate.179 As I will show in some detail, aḥdm corresponds to ištēnūtu and means “a pair” (of horses), i.e. 2 horses, not necessarily (trained to be) yoked to a chariot.180 7.2.1. Horses 7.2.1.1. Numbers and “pairs” (ṣmd)

In few texts horses are counted with numbers: the letter KTU 2.33: 24, 32 deals

paires de chars”; Izre’el / Singer 1990, 23: “three pairs of chariots”. Izre’el (ibid., 30) speculates that “3 tāpal narkabāti seems to be a contamination of 3 tāpal sīsî “3 pairs of horses” and 3 narkabāti “3 chariots”, altrough we would have expected ṣimittu “team” (or the like) instead of tāpal”. 177 Cf. CAD T, 177b: “three chariot teams(?) …”. 178 Note the presence of the plural marker meš with “6 tāpal” oxen and its absence with “1 tāpal” oxen. 179 See below, § 7.2.1.2. 180 For trm aḥdm “a pair of steering poles”, mentioned together with ‘šr ṣmdm trm “10 pair of steering poles”, see below § 7.2.2.

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with the dispatch of “2,000 horses” (alpm śśwm); in the letter KTU 2.45: 17–20 the sender mentions that “the king will hand over to PN good quality horses, and the king will deliver to you good quality horses: 60” (śśwm n‘mm lk ṯṯm). In two other cases it is not clear whether śśwm is a plural or a dual. KTU 4.867: 2–3 mentions “5 talents, price of the horses (mḫr sswm): the text does not say which metal and how many horses,181 but it seems preferable to interpret sswm as a dual, considering that lines 4–5 mention “1 talent of copper and 2 talents of tin, price of (two) oxen and of a maidservant” (mḫr alpm w amt). Viceversa, in KTU 4.863: 9’ and 21’, which records food deliveries for horses, śśwm is plural. In all other documents, horses (śśw) are counted in “pairs”: ṣmdm (plural and dual), ṣmd (singular: only in KTU 4.377 passim). Incidentally, it should be noted that donkeys (ḥmr) are never counted in “pairs” but only with numbers;182 oxen (alp) are counted with numbers183 but, more often, in “pairs” (ṣmd):184 cf. the interesting text KTU 4.691: 1–2, 7–8: “5 (head of) cattle (alp bqr), 13 sheep (ṣin); 2 donkeys (ṯt ḥmrm), 3 labourers, 2 pairs of oxen (ṣmdm alpm)”. 7.2.1.2. ṣmd(m) and aḥdm: “pairs” of horses

Starting points for a brief analysis of the terminology used in counting the horses will be KTU 4.384 and 4.377. KTU 4.384 records horses185 stationed in various towns (lines 2–6) and with various people (lines 8–14). The animals are listed as follows: ṣmdm (“pairs”: lines 2, 3, 9, 10); aḥdm (lines 5, 12, 13, 14?: aḥd);186 [aḥ]dm or [ṣm]dm (lines 4, 6); ṣ[m]dm w ḥrṣ (line 11);187 tlmdm (“tamed , trained (?)” (line 8).188 As mentioned above, the meaning of aḥdm has been very controversial for a long time.189 aḥdm and ištēnūtu are grammatically different: the first is the plural

Cf. Bordreuil / Pardee 2012, 128. KTU 4.380: 7, 11: “2 donkeys” (ṯn ḥmrm); KTU 4.268: 1–5: “4 donkeys for the (transport of) copper; 2 (donkeys) for the (transport of) tin; 4 donkeys for the (transport of) red purple”. 183 KTU 4.275: 18: “2 oxen” (ṯn alpm): not “1 pair of oxen”. 184 KTU 4.367: 10: “20 pairs of (yoked) oxen” (‘šrm ṣmd alpm). Cf. the “pairs of (yoked) oxen” (ṣmd(m) (alpm)) in the census list KTU 4.618: 1–22: line 1: “10 pairs” (‘šr ṣmdm); line 4: “8 pairs” (ṯmn ṣmdm); line 7: “6 pairs” (ṯṯ ṣmdm); line 10: “16 pairs” (ṯṯ ‘šr ṣmdm); lines 15, 17: “5 pairs of (yoked) oxen” (ḫmš ṣmd alpm). 185 Heading in line 1: “Horses (construct: śśw) of PN from (?) GN”. 186 Rather than aḥd? 187 The term ḥrṣ will be discussed below sub KTU 4.377. 188 See also KTU 4.89, which lists pairs of draft animals in three GNs: ṯlṯ ṣmdm in GN, ṣmdm (dual: 2 pairs) in GN2, aḥdm in GN3; the broken record KTU 4.302 which lists arb‘ [ ], ṯlṯ ṣmdm, ṣmdm (dual: 3 times), aḥdm (twice); KTU 4.427: 23 (total of a list of horses): “twenty pairs of horses” ([‘]šrm ṣmd śśw); etc. 189 Cf. simply del Olmo Lete / Sanmartín 2015, 32–33, with selected previous bibliography. The parallel with Akkadian ištēnūtu “one set, a pair”, originally suggested by Gordon 181 182

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of aḥd, the second is the abstract of ištēn, yet both mean a “unit” of two horses, “a pair”. aḥdm (“a pair”) of horses is only attested in documents which also mention n ṣmdm “n pairs” of horses, but since the Ugaritic texts also use the singular ṣmd to indicate “a pair” of horses (e.g. KTU 4.377: 17, 19, 21), what is the difference between ṣmd and aḥdm? The most plausible hypothesis is that the first term indicates a team of 2 horses (trained to be) yoked to a chariot, the other refers to “a pair” of horses not yet trained for pulling a chariot or who could also be used separately. The comparison with the Nuzi texts mentioning ištēnūtu sīsû (anśe.kur.ra(meš)) “a team of (2) horses, a pair of horses”, in parallel with those that mention n ṣimittu sīsû (anśe.kur.ra(meš)) “n pairs of horses” is decisive in order to understand the distinction between Ugaritic “aḥdm horses” and “ṣmd horses”. As we have seen above (§§ 1.1.1. and 1.1.2.), at Nuzi both ištēnūtu anše.kur.ra(meš) and ṣimittu anše.kur.ra(meš) mean a “pair” of horses. Like aḥdm, ištēnūtu is never preceded by a number, which means that the digit “1” is implied, and it always means “one pair”, i.e. 2 horses. Viceversa, unlike Ugaritic ṣmd, Nuzian ṣimittu is always preceded by a number greater than “1”: in other words, ṣimittu is used to count from 2 “pairs” up, i.e. from 4 horses up. However, what matters is that the few Nuzi occurremces of ištēnūtu sīsû attest to a use other than being yoked and pulling a war or ceremonial chariot. 7.2.1.3. ṣmdm and ḥrṣ: “pairs (of horses) and a reserve”

KTU 4.377: 1–25 is a list of “pairs” of horses190 associated with 22 individuals. The term ṣmd occurs only in some lines: “3 pairs” (ṯlṯ ṣmdm) in line 1, and “1 pair” (ṣmd) in lines 17, 19, 21; in lines 5 and 6 the text mentions ṣmd w ḥrṣ. The latter term, of uncertain etymology, means an “extra” item, to be used as a “reserve” or “replacement”.191 Therefore, ṣmd w ḥrṣ in KTU 4.377: 5 and 6 means “a pair and a reserve (scil. horse)”: in all, 3 animals: two yoked horses and one reserve.192 KTU 4.384, discussed above, records in line 11: ṣ[m]dm w ḥrṣ “2 pairs

1965, 354, § 19.126 (cf. id., Or 67 [1998], 284), has not been taken into due consideration, with the partial (and ignored) exception of Uehlinger 1990, 354–359 (“Excursus 3: Zu ugar. aḥdm und akk. iš/tenūtu”), esp. 357. 190 Horses (śśwm) are not explicitly mentioned, but the reference to the mariannu at the end of the list (lines 33–34: “28 pairs? (ṣ!md) delivered into the hands of the mariannu”) suggests that the “pairs” of draught animals are horses, rather than oxen. 191 Cf. del Olmo Lete 2012, esp. 12–14; for additional bibliography see del Olmo Lete / Sanmartín 2015, 365. For “a reserve wheel” (ḥrṣ apnt), a “reserve armour” (ḥrṣ ṯryn) and “a reserve cloak/padding” (ḥrṣ (ḫpnt)) see below, § 7.2.2. 192 It is not at all clear how the total in lines 23–24 (‘šrm ṣ[md] ṯṯ kbd “in all: 26 pairs [ ]”) is connected with lines 1–22: I can only suggest that, with the exception of the person in line 1, who has “3 pairs” at his disposal, the other 21 people have “a pair” each, and the two peple in lines 5 and 6 also have “(one) additional, reserve horse” (i.e. 2 horses, arithmetically corresponding to “a pair”). In total, we would have “25 pairs” of horses

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(of horses) and a reserve”: also in this case, the reserve horse is a single horse. See also the fragmentary list of draught animals KTU 4.368 which mentions: “3 pairs” (line 1: ṯlṯ ṣmdm), “2 pairs” (lines 21, 22: ṣmdm), “a pair and a reserve” (lines 2, 5, 7, 8, 15: ṣmd w ḥrṣ). Also in this case, the Nuzi texts offer interesting comparative evidence. Two ration lists for horses mention the amounts of barley which was eaten daily by n ṣimittu anše.kur.ra u 1 anše.kur.ra matru “n pairs of horses and one additional / supplementary horse”.193 In spite of the etymological differences,194 the conceptual meaning of the two expressions is basically the same. In addition to Akkadian matru, the Hurrian word anzannu, which is attested at Nuzi in very different contexts,195 occurs in the ration list HSS XVI 443: 1–3, with the identical meaning of matru: “x barley for 14 pairs and (one) extra / supplementary horse (ana 14 ṣimittu u anzannu anše.kur.rameš) of the king’s bodyguard”.196 7.2.2. Military equipment of chariots

tr: “steering pole (?)”. Together with other chariot accessories, it is mentioned in three texts.197 In KTU 145: 5 and 363: 10 the word is in the plural;198 in KTU 4.167: 1–7, the steering poles are counted in ṣmdm and aḥdm: “3 chariots plated with gold; 10 “pairs” of steering poles (‘šr ṣmdm trm), to be plated; and a “pair” of steering poles (trm aḥdm), plated; 3 royal chariots that are not plated [ ] their steering poles ([ t]rhm)”. Since each chariot had one, and not “a pair” of steering poles,199 the exact meaning of “pairs” of steering poles is not clear, and even less (instead of “26 pairs” of the text). HSS XIV 79: 3–4, 9–19 (5 ṣimittu); HSS XVI 96: 3–4 (8 ṣimittu): Zaccagnini 2016, 36–37. 194 matru derives from (w)atāru “to exceed in quantity (number or in size)”. 195 Cf. CAD A/II, 152b. 196 Also HSS XV 238: 1–4: “x barley for [n+]6 pairs and one extra / supplementary horse ([n+]6 ṣimittu u 1 anzannu anše.kur.rameš)”. Cf. Zaccagnini 2016, 38 with n. 65. 197 KTU 4.167: 3, 4, 7, 9; KTU 4.363: 10; KTU 145: 5. In these and other similar texts, mrkbt (=Akkadian narkabtu “chariot”) specifically indicates the “chariot body”, and not the “(war) chariot” as a whole. 198 KTU 4.145: “8 chariot bodies that entered the royal palace, with their wheels (apnthn), their arrows (ḥẓhn), their steering poles (trhn). But 2 chariot bodies do not have quiver(s) (uṯpt). And 3 pairs and a reserve wheel (ṯlṯ ṣmdm w ḥrṣ apnt), by the hands of the chief of the workmen, who delivered (them) to the storehouse”. KTU 4.363: “3 tunics (ktnt), 10 cloaks for men ([ḫp]nt bnšm), with their helmets (grbzhm = Akkadian gurpisu); and 12 cloaks/paddings for horses (ḫpnt śśwm), of 2 cubits, of tkyġ-style, with their llḫ; and 23 cloaks/paddings for horses – 2 worn out: this is for 6 chariots, and a reserve (ḥrṣ) (cloak/ padding), [with] their [steering poles] ([yd tr]hn)”. 199 Cf. the Nuzi text HSS XV 202, which lists the component parts of a chariot given to a carpenter for assembly, among which (lines 6–10) “one chariot yoke, one chariot pole, one chariot shaft?” (61-en ni-ru ša giš[gigir] 71-en ma-ša-an-du4 8ša gišgigir 9il-te-en-nutu4 10[ṣ]í-i-ṣú ša gišgigir). 193

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is the differemce between ṣmd-pairs and aḥdm-pairs. apn: “wheel”. As a rule, wheels are counted in pairs (one or more ṣmd) but “2 wheels” can also be registered with the dual apnm, as documented by the interesting record KTU 4.88 which lists (lines 1–2): “2 pairs of wheels (ṣmdm a[pnt) in the hands of PN”, “2 wheels (apnm)” to 6 people each (lines 3–8), and “3 pairs (ṯlṯ ṣmdm) [of wheels (?)]” (line 9). The only plausible explanation of the difference between “a pair of wheels” and “2 wheels” is that the former are of exactly the same type, and are to be used for the same chariot, the latter may also be used separately. In this regard, see also KTU 4.809: 7, which mentions arb‘apnt “4 wheels”. In any case, there are no odd numbers of wheels in the Ugaritic texts, with the obvious exception of the (individual) “reserve” (ḥrṣ) wheels, which are mentioned twice, after “n pairs of wheels”: KTU 4.145: 8–9 (see above, n. 199): “3 pairs and a reserve wheel”, and KTU 4. 169: 7–8: “4 pairs of wheels and a reserve” (arb‘ ṣmdm apnt w ḥrṣ). The Nuzi evidence concerning chariot wheels (magarru) is strictly parallel to that of Ugarit. As seen above (§ 1.2.2.), magarru at Nuzi are counted with numbers only in HSS XV 95: 7, 9: “1 wheel” and 1: “2 wheels”. In all other cases, magarru are counted in “pairs” (ištēnūtu). ṯryn: “armour”. The inventory KTU 4.169: 4–6 mentions “5 pairs and a reserve armour for horses, one armour for men” (ḫmš ṣmdm w ḥrṣ / ṯryn śśwm / ṯryn aḥd d bnš). In principle, ṣmd, used in connection with “suits of armour”, could also mean a “set” (= 1) of armour, and not a “pair” (= 2) of armours, as is the case of the other objects counted with ṣmd (horses and wheels). However, the juxtaposition between ṣmd(m) and aḥd, with reference to the armour (ṯryn) of the two horses yoked to the chariot, and to the one chariot driver, decidedly favours the usual meaning “pair”. Once again, the Ugaritic mention of ṯryn finds an appropriate counterpart in the abundant Nuzi evidence concerning “armour” (sariam) for horses and men, discussed above, § 1.3.1. As specifically concerns the “5 pairs and 1 reserve armour for horses” of KTU 4.169: 4–5, I point out the interesting Nuzi parallel in JEN 527: 22–23:”One set of armour and a reserve, for horses” (22ištēnūtu u ištēn anzan[nu sariam] 23ša anše.kur.ra). Conclusions The use of “collective numerals” in Akkadian texts of the second millennium can be summarized as follows: ištēnūtu is only attested in Hurro-Mittanian and Hittite scribal milieus: Nuzi, Boghazköy, Amarna letters of Tušratta, the Alalakh inventory AT 440. It is the abstract noun from the numeral ištēn “one” and indicates “a (unitary) set”, “ein Garnitur” made up of different parts (e.g. a necklace, a suit of armour, a bed set, an

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outfit for men, etc.).200 At Nuzi, more than one “set” is tāpalu “(n) sets”. ištēnūtu also indicates “a pair” of objects (e.g. shoes and other types of footwear, chariot wheels, etc.). Again, more than “one pair” is tāpalu “n pairs”. At Nuzi there are few occurrences of ištēnūtu sīsû: “one team of 2 horses”, “one pair of horses”, to be distinguished from n ṣimittu sīsû: “n teams of 2 horses”, “n pairs of horses”. At Ugarit, the Akkadian texts do not use ištēnūtu with horses, but the Ugaritic texts sometimes use the term aḥdm, plural noun of aḥd “one”, with “horses”, to indicate “one (possible) pair of horses” (aḥdm śśwm), to be distinguished from ṣmd(m) śśwm “one, or more (effective) pair(s) of horses”. ṣimittu. Apart from “crosspiece of a yoke for chariots”, ṣimittu indicates “team(s) of 2 draft animals” and, in particular, “pairs” of horses. It is attested at Nuzi, in the Amarna letters of the Great Kings (Babylonia, Mittani and Alašiya), and in Old and Middle Babylonian administrative documents. Western peripheral Akkadian (Mari, Alalakh IV, Amarna letters from Syria) uses tāpalu instead of ṣimittu to indicate n “pairs” of horses. The Ugaritic ṣmd(m) śśwm corresponds to ṣimittu sīsû “pair(s) of horses”. ṣimittu, at Nuzi and in Middle Babylonian texts, is also used to indicate “sets” and “pairs” of pieces of harness and military equipment for horses, chariots and chariot drivers. tāpalu means “set”, “pair” of horses and objects. As seen above, at Nuzi n tāpalu (“n sets, n pairs”) is the plural of ištēnūtu (“one set, one pair”); in Western peripheral Akkadian (Mari, Alalakh IV, Amarna letters from Syria, and also Ugarit), tāpalu is used for “one set, one pair” and for “n sets, n pairs”. The ideogram šu, only attested in EA 22, 25 and 29, corresponds to both ištēnūtu and tāpalu and means “one set, one pair” and “n sets, n pairs”. Bibliography Adler, H.-P., 1976: Das Akkadische des Königs Tušratta von Mitanni. AOAT 201. Kevelaer / Neukirchen-Vluyn. Arkhipov, I., 2012: Le vocabulaire de la métallurgie et la nomenclature des objets en métal dans les textes de Mari. ARM XXXII. Leuven. Bordreuil, P. / Pardee, D., 2012: Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville. RSO XVIII. Lyon. Charpin, D., 2015: Le mariage d’une princesse de Qabra avec un prince de Qatna. In L. Marti / Ch. Nicolle / K. Shawaly (eds.): Recherches en HauteMésopotamie II. Mission archéologique de Bash Tapa (campagnes 2012– 2013) et les enjeux de la recherche dans la région d’Erbil. Mémoires de

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Two Hittite edicts, found at Ugarit, and a juridical document from Nuzi use ištēnūtu as a substantive (“a unit”), with reference to two or more people, without a subsequent object.

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NABU 17. Paris. Pp. 5–12. Deller, K. / Fadhil, A., 1972: nin.dingir.ra / ēntu in Texten aus Nuzi und Kurruḫanni. Mesopotamia 7: 193–213. Dosch, G., 2009: Zur Struktur der Gesellschaft des Königreichs Arrapḫe: Texte über die Streitwagenfahrer (rākib narkabti). In G. Wilhelm (ed.): General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 11/2 in Honor of David I. Owen on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. SCCNH 18. Bethesda. Pp. 71–228. Durand, J.-M., 2009: La nomenclature des habits et des textiles dans les textes de Mari. ARM XXX. Paris. Farber, W., 1976–1980: Kampfwagen. A. Philologisch. RlA 5: 336–344. Gordon, C.H., 1965: Ugaritic Textbook. Roma. Götze, A., 1931: ištēnūtu und tapalu. ZA 40 [= NF 6]: 79–80. Guichard, M., 1994: Les chars et leur carrosserie, NABU 31: 29–31. Güterbock, H.G., 1943: review of J. Friedrich, Hethitisches Elementarbuch. I (1940). Or 12: 151–155. Hoffner, H.A. / Melchert, H.C., 2008: A Grammar of the Hittite Language. 1: Reference Grammar. Winona Lake. Izre’el, S., 1991: Amurru Akkadian: A Linguistic Study, I–II. Atlanta. Izre’el, S. / Singer, I., 1990: The General’s Letter from Ugarit. Tel Aviv. Kendall, T., 1975: Warfare and Military Matters in the Nuzi Tablets. PhD. Diss. Brandeis University. –– 1981, gurpisu ša awēli. The Helmets of the Warriors at Nuzi. In M.A. Morrison / D.I. Owen (eds.): Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: in Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on his seventy-fifth birthday. SCCNH 1. Bethesda. Pp. 201–231. Lafont, B., 2002: La correspondance de Mukannišum trouvée dans le palais de Mari. Nouvelles pièces et essai d’évaluation. In D. Charpin / J.-M. Durand (eds.): Florilegium Marianum VI. Recueil d’études à la mémoire d’André Parrot, Mémoire de NABU 7. Paris. Pp. 373–412. Maidman, M.P., 2010: Nuzi Texts and Their Uses as Historical Evidence. Atlanta. Mayer, W., 1978: Nuzi-Studien I. Die Archive des Palastes und die Prosopographie der Berufe. AOAT 205. Kevelaer / Neukirchen-Vluyn. Moran, W.L., 1992: The Amarna Letters. Baltimore / London. Morrison, M., 1983: Review of Wilhelm 1980. AfO 29–30: 113–121. del Olmo Lete, G., 2012: Los caballos en Ugarit. Un estudio lexicográfico ((ṣmd(m), ḥrṣ, aḥd(m)). Aula Orientalis 30: 5–15. del Olmo Lete, G. / Sanmartín, J., 20153: A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the alphabetic Traditon. Leiden. Petschow, H.P.H., 1974: Mittelbabylonische Rechts- und Wirtschaftsurkunden der Hilprecht-Sammlung Jena. Berlin. Rainey, A.F., 2015: The El-Amarna Correspondence. Leiden / Boston. Schneider-Ludorff, H., 1995: Die Streitwagen und ihre Räder (Bemerkungen zu M. Guichard, “Les chars et leur carrosserie” in NABU 1994/31)”. NABU 75: 64–65.

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Siegelová, J., 1986: Hethitische Verwaltungspraxis im Lichte der Wirtschafts- und Inventardokumente. Praha. Talon, Ph., 1997: Old Babylonian Texts from Chagar Bazar. Brussels. Uehlinger, Ch., 1990: Weltreich und ‘eine Rede’. Eine neue Deutung der sogenannten Turmbauerzählung (Gen 11,1–9). Göttingen. Wilhelm, G., 1980: Das Archiv des Šilwa-teššup, 2/I. Wiesbaden. Zaccagnini, C., 1977: Pferde und Streitwagen in Nuzi, Bemerkungen zur Technologie. Jahresbericht des Instituts für Vorgeschichte der Universität Frankfurt a.M.: 21–38. –– 1979: The Rural Landscape of the Land of Arrapḫe. Roma. –– 1981: A Note on Nuzi Textiles. In M.A. Morrison / D.I. Owen (eds.): Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians: in Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on his seventy-fifth birthday. SCCNH 1. Bethesda. Pp. 349–361. –– 2016: The Last Parades of the King of Nuzi. Kaskal 13: 21–56.

Descending along a “difficult path” on a rainy day, at Arslantepe. (Photo by Roberto Ceccacci)