Cuneiform Inscriptions Research Articles

Barbartemplets ovale anlæg

Barbartemplets ovale anlæg

A comparative clinical study of several enemas.

The use of solutions to cleanse the lower intestine (enema, clyster) dates back to the dawn of recorded history. Lieberman points out that some of the earliest references to enemas are found in the cuneiform inscriptions on Babylonian and Assyrian tablets (ca. 600 B.C.). Celsus (25 B. C.-50 A. D.) gave an exact description as to when and how to administer an enema. He used sodium chloride solution or sea-water enemas to remove "excreta accumulated near the exit." Avicenna (980-1037 A. D.) is credited with the introduction of the "clyster-purse" or collapsible portion of an enema outfit made from ox skin or silk cloth and emptied by squeezing with the hands. The popularity of enemas has varied from era to era, the 18th century apparently marking a particularly low point in their extent of use. Today, however, the value of a satisfactory enema solution properly used is well nigh universally

Bahrain

Bahrain

Mesopotamian Laws and the Historian

THE STUDY of cuneiform tablets, in over a century of patient research, has opened up a new world which in terms of time covers several millennia-all of them before the beginning of the Christian era-and, as far as subject matter is concerned, every conceivable kind of human pursuit. Students of the Ancient Near East, when faced with cuneiform inscriptions, could not avail themselves of a stream of living tradition leading from the present back to the past. Everything that man may have known about them at some remote day, had long since been forgotten; what remained of the glory of the ancient empires lay buried in the ground. Thus modern scholars had to decipher the script anew, philologists had to reconstruct unknown languages, excavators had to search for the remains of forgotten civilizations, before the historian could begin to piece together into a more or less comprehensive picture the innumerable details which slowly emerged. Even today our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia is still fragmentary. Only too often we lack reliable information, or must laboriously obtain it by fitting a fragment picked up here to another fragment recovered there. The outsider, who from his schooldays remembers Gilgamesh and the Epic of Creation, Hammurapi, Assurbanipal, and Nebuchadrezar, imagines that one has only to set to work on any mound in Mesopotamia and there will appear libraries of tablets inscribed with the literature of the ancients. This is an illusion. Not only does it require hard work and some kind of a sixth sense to find anything worthwhile, but libraries have been found so far only a very few times. For the most part, what is dug up-a small batch here, another one there-are the modest documents of daily life, the letters, deeds and contracts, the business notes and accounts which were kept in shops, in offices and in private houses. In consequence, cuneiformists are compelled to pay much attention to legal matters. From contracts, briefs and protocols, and from the formulae used, they try

Hurrian Consonantal Pattern

CBS University Museum, University of Pennsylvania. Unpublished Nippur tablets collated by A. T. Clay and cited by him in PNCP. Ch.B. Chagar Bazar; applies also to names from that locality compiled by C. J. Gadd in Iraq, VII (1940), 35-42. HSS Harvard Semitic Series. Mari Hurrian tablets published by F. Thureau-Dangin in RA, XXXVI (1939),1-28. NDA Moshe Berkooz, The Nuzi Dialect of Akkadian: Orthography and Phonology (Language Dissertations, No. 23 [Philadelphia: Linguistic Society of America, 1937]). PNCP A. T. Clay, Personal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of the Cassite Period (Yale Oriental Series, Researches, Vol. I [New Haven, Conn., 1912]). RS Tablets found at Ugarit (Ras Shamra). RS 1-48 published by Charles Virolleaud in Syria, Vol. X (1929), Pls. LXI-LXXV, after p. 308; RS 49, Syria, XV (1934), 153; RS 50, Syria, XII (1931), 389; RS 372, Syria, XX (1939), 125-29.

Further Archæological Excavation in Syria

SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY'S third season of excavation on the ancient sito of Allalakh at Atchana near Antioch, as anticipated, has enlarged and added further detail to the picture of a great meeting place of the civilizations of East and West at an entrance gate to western Asia; but at its close it held out promise of an even greater field of discovery still to be explored. Of this a glimpse may be afforded when the numerous cuneiform inscriptions retrieved in the season just past have been submitted to inspection. Sir Leonard in his preliminary report (The Times, August 2 and 3) opened with an account of the further excavation of the earlier palace, which preceded that of the fifteenth-century Hittite king, Nig-me-pa. This earlier building, cannot, Sir Leonard thinks, be much later than the time of Hammurabi, and he assigns it tentatively to the eighteenth century B.C. The structural features, which point to its use in part for administrative and business purposes, in part as a royal residence, convey the impression of a sense of dignity and propriety, combined with an unusual appreciation of space and air, particularly noticeable in the arrangement of the upper residential chambers, with a loggia giving an extensive view over the city, and an approach by newel stairs, of which the first two flights are nearly perfectly preserved. It was, however, from a private house of the fifteenth century that the much desired further evidence was obtained of the contact with Crete, for which mainly the excavation of Atchana was undertaken. This now took the form of a fresco, which is exactly similar to a scheme of decoration found at Knossos, and a 12-wick lamp in red porphyry in the form of the capital of a column, which at Knossos would be hailed, Sir Leonard says, as a typical, but unusually fine, example of Minoan art.

Cuneiform Inscriptions from Tarsus

THE CUNEIFORM inscriptions which ietty Goldman discovered at Tarsus,' although neither numerous nor spectacular, deserve our close attention. Among them there is a Hittite land deed, which except for the two Arzawa letters is the only Hittite tablet found outside of Bokazk6y. The remainder, Neo-Assyrian tablets, push the boundary of the territory where cuneiform tablets have been found a considerable distance to the west. Both varieties present valuable information to a patient interpreter. It is the aim of this paper to make the texts accessible in autographs,2 to interpret them and to add comments on such points as need clarification or deserve emphasis.

The Inscription from Kythera

The inscription from Kythera (Fig. 1) to which Miss Thomas drew attention in the last part of the JHS (lviii, p. 256), is an early Babylonian cuneiform inscription which has already been the object of considerable study on the part of Assyriologists. It was first discussed by Hugo Winckler (SB Preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1897, 262–4) as part of an article by Ulrich Kohler (Ueber Probleme der gr. Vorzeit, l.e., 258–274). Winckler successfully deciphered lines 4 and 5, and established the correct reading of some of the signs in the first lines. He thought the inscription dated between 1500 and 1200 b.c., and thus, as Köhler added, from the finest period of Mycenean culture. Köhler (p. 265) further said that the cuneiform tablet might have been brought to Kythera at that time with other oriental bric-á-brac, like the Egyptian scarabs found in Rhodes and in the plain of Argos.Many years later the study of this inscription was again taken up by Eckhard Unger (Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte xiii (1929) p. 313, pl. 58A), who went beyond Winckler and succeeded in reading the third line as well. On the other hand, his deciphering of the first two lines, his restoration of the third and fourth, his assertions on its place of origin (according to him Tilmun in the region of the Persian Gulf), and the date he gives it are not proof against criticism. For this, however, he is hardly to blame, since it is only very recently that the American excavations in Western Asia have shed light upon the author of this inscription.

The Restoration of Order by Darius

IN THIS JOURNAL 54. 40-50 (1934), I attempted a complete restoration of a cuneiform inscription of Darius in the Old Persian, to which I gave the title The Restoration of Order in the Empire I; I accompanied it with the Akkadian version, in which I enjoyed the collaboration of my colleague Prof. E. A. Speiser, without whom I could not have ventured into the Akkadian field. Since then, Prof. F. H. Weissbach has republished a part of this same inscription in ZDMG 91. 80-6 (1937), with the help of certain other fragments which he had identified as belonging to it. It is in the light of these additions that I wish to treat the inscription again. With one exception, the fragments were published by Pere V. Scheil in Vols. xxi and xxiv of the Memoires de la Mission Archeologique de Perse, Mission en Susiane (Paris, 1929 and 1933). Scheil himself identified as belonging together two OP fragments and one Elamite, given in 21. 61-4, and six OP fragments and a nearly complete Akk. copy on the two sides of a tablet, in 24. 11625. To these, Weissbach has added two Elam. fragments, given by Scheil 21. 71-6, as Nos. 20 and 21; one small OP fragment, given by Scheil 21. 23 at the right of the middle row of fragments, and indicated by a question-mark; an OP fragment of unknown provenience, which Weissbach had listed in his Keilinschriften der Achdmeniden as Inc. b, page xxix and page 130. Of this inscription, then, we have 10 OP fragments, 3 Elamite fragments, and a nearly complete Akkadian copy. After this article was in galley-proofs, I received Weissbach's article in Zeits. f. Assyr. 44.140-69 (1938), which lists an eleventh OP fragment (his /3, containing portions of lines 1-4 and of 46-51), and a second Akkadian fragment, both in the Louvre, unpublished, but to appear in a new volume by Scheil. The data in his article have been used here as far as possible. The first part, down to the middle of line 30 in the OP version, contains the praise of Ahuramazda, the titles of Darius, the statement of his acquisition of the empire and the list of the provinces;

Egypt and Asia under the Twelfth Dynasty

A DISCOVERY of no little importance in its bearing on the relations of Ancient Egypt and Asia under the Middle Kingdom is reported from Toud, the ancient Tuphium, twenty-five miles south of Luxor, where an expedition of the Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale is now at work. According to a dispatch from the Cairo correspondent of The Times in the issue of March 2, four small bronze caskets have been found which contain a tribute from Asia to Amenemhet II, one of the Pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty who reigned from 2000 to 1790 B.C. They were excavated from sand among the foundations of a temple of Mont, the god of war. The contents of the caskets are lapis lazuli beads and amulets, and ingots of gold, silver and lead. The amulets are said to be of a type hitherto unknown in Egypt. In addition to figures of Asiatic divinities, a human-headed eagle and a winged lion, each of the boxes contained a cylinder with a cuneiform inscription, which has not yet been deciphered.

Archives from Ekech. Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods. By Raymond Philip Dougherty. Goucher College Cuneiform Inscriptions. Vol. II. 11¾ × 9, pp. lxv + 76. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933. £1 4s. 6d.

Archives from Ekech. Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods. By Raymond Philip Dougherty. Goucher College Cuneiform Inscriptions. Vol. II. 11¾ × 9, pp. lxv + 76. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933. £1 4s. 6d.

The Captives in Cuneiform Inscriptions (Continued)

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Captives in Cuneiform Inscriptions (Continued)Samuel I. FeiginSamuel I. Feigin Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 51, Number 1Oct., 1934 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/370441 Views: 1Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures (1895-1941), which is continued by the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (1942-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Captives in Cuneiform Inscriptions

The Captives in Cuneiform Inscriptions

Dr. T. G. Pinches

WE regret to record the death of Dr. Theophilus Goldridge Pinches, the distinguished Assyriologist, which took place at the age of seventy-eight years, at Muswell Hill, London, on June 6. Dr. Pinches originally was engaged in his father's business as a die-sinker; but, taking up the study of cuneiform inscriptions, he joined the staff of the British Museum in 1878, retaining that position until 1900, when he retired on pension. He was lecturer in Assyriology at University College, London, and in the University of Liverpool, resigning the latter post, owing to ill-health, only a year or two before his death.

Another Inscription of Xerxes

By the courtesy of Prof. J. H. Breasted, head of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, the Illustrated London News for April 8, 1933, has a page of illustrations in color, representing recent finds of the Institute's expedition at Persepolis, under the field-directorship of Dr. Ernst Herzfeld. Among them is an Old Persian cuneiform inscription of Xerxes, on colored enameled bricks, forming a plaque to ornament a wall of the royal palace; in this function it is identical with the inscription on similar enameled bricks, found by Scheil at Susa and published by him as No. 12 of his Inscriptions des Ach6m6nides A Suse (cf. my comments in JAOS 51.218-21 and 53.2-3), which formed a frieze about the great hall of Darius's palace at that place. The present inscription is in fourteen lines, each of one row of six bricks (if we may trust the slight indications in the illustration); the background is of greenish-blue, while a yellow marginal band makes easy the identification of the edge fragments: the whole is said to have been put together out of over 100 pieces. The text is, except at one point, quite certain, for the mutilated characters and those lost in the gaps (indicated in the picture in black on an uncolored background) are readily restored by the formulaic phrases. Line 8, where the second brick is lost, offers the only difficulty. The first brick bears the na-a which concludes the familiar word vasna 'by the will', after which we expect Auramazdaha 'of Ahuramazda', which indeed does follow, but not immediately: it starts with the last character of the third brick, on which stands ya / a. Now the spacing is quite regular, every line having 14 or 15 characters (among which I include the word-dividers) in all. Each short brick bears two or three characters, three resulting in crowded spacing; sometimes a character is divided between two bricks. Now as the ya of brick 3 stands close to the left margin of the brick, it is clear that brick 2 bore but two characters. The illustration in the London News shows a restored divider and a blank; in which instance a word written with two characters, the second

Excavations at Susa (Persia), 1930–1931

The ruins of ancient Susa, prior to the Achaemenid period (sixth century B.c.), are shaped like a square, each side of which is 700 metres long. The angles face the cardinal points. The southern angle is however prolonged by an external mound, which M. Dieulafoy has called the ‘the Dungeon’.The acropolis of Susa occupies the main portion of the northwestern side and we are continuing there the systematic exploration inaugurated by M. de Morgan. This year we widened and lengthened a trench which last season had reached the natural soil, and here we found a big ditch dug in the middle Elamite period. It was 8 metres wide, and 6.25 metres deep; we excavated 10.25 metres of its length without reaching its other end. The sides were covered by raw (sundried) bricks, which in some places were protected by thick walls of kilnfired bricks. Some of these burnt bricks have cuneiform inscriptions recording the dedication of Elamite temples. In the silting of this ditch we found fragments of arragonite vases, often inscribed with the names of the Achaemenid sovereigns Xerxes and Artaxerxes, and fragments of horns and ears of the stone protomas of the bulls forming the capitals of the columns of the Apadana. It seems that this ditch was originally a tank of water, belonging to the Elamite temples of the God Shushinak and of the Goddess Nin-Har-Shag. Water was brought into the tank by means of an aqueduct. The ditch was filled up gradually during the post-Achaemenid periods (Parthian and Sassanid). The fact that the ground surrounding the ditch corresponded to levels anterior to the third millennium B.c., was very perplexing until the real nature of the ditch was fully ascertained. However, during the course of clearing the remains we found a fragment of the pedestal of a Sumerian statue,chiselled out of a blue stone. Judging from its style it can be dated to the period of Agade, 2700 B.C.

Personal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of Cappadocia. By F. J. Stephens. Yale University Press. 1928.

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Personal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of Cappadocia. By Ferris J. Stephens.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsPersonal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of Cappadocia. By Ferris J. Stephens.E. A. SpeiserE. A. Speiser Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 33, Number 3July–September 1929 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/498378 Copyright © 1929 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Cuneiform Inscriptions in Syria

Cuneiform Inscriptions in Syria

Writing upon Parchment and Papyrus among the Babylonians and the Assyrians

RECORDS UPON clay and stone have been associated with the Babylonians and the Assyrians so generally that belief in the widespread use by them of either parchment or papyrus has gained meager headway. However, indications are not wanting that ancient scribes in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley wrote upon perishable substances as well as upon materials of lasting quality. Little direct proof of this has come from archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia. The conditions of that land with respect to moisture in the soil are such as to hinder the preservation of parchments and papyri buried in the debris of ruined cities. It is conceivable that a portion of a site sufficiently elevated and having unusual protection from dampness might yield manuscripts, especially if definite precautions had been taken to shield them, but the typical mounds of Babylonia and Assyria have thus far been noted mainly for the cuneiform inscriptions which they have furnished.1 For this reason