Scribal Education Research Articles

Synoptic Singularity? The Chronicler’s Redaction of Samuel-Kings and Gospel Composition

One of the puzzles facing scholarship on gospel relationships is explaining the high yet varying degree of verbatim agreement among the Synoptics. On antiquity’s compositional spectrum, this high but inconsistent verbatim agreement appears anomalous to many. Some scholars point to the Synoptists’ scribal education to make sense of the data. This article highlights the fact that the Chronicler’s use of Samuel-Kings exhibits a similar dynamic, a phenomenon that has received little attention from scholars investigating the use of sources among ancient authors. Given this compositional overlap, I propose that the Synoptists, having been immersed for years in the warp and weft of sacred Jewish texts in a Greek-speaking synagogal school, took note of and ultimately imitated the Chronicler’s redaction of Samuel-Kings in composing their gospels. After presenting the evidence of the Chronicler’s varying compositional technique, the study concludes with implications and indicates further how attention to the Chronicler’s redaction of Samuel-Kings sheds light on the question of the feasibility of scribal reordering of sources in antiquity.

Spelling correctness as a witness of changing documentary culture in Tuscia (eighth–ninth centuries)

This paper discusses the evolution of documentary culture in early medieval Tuscia by quantitatively examining the Latin spelling of charter scribes in relation to the following factors: time, the distinction between the formulaic and non‐formulaic parts of the document, the scribe’s domicile, the scribe’s professional status, and the document type. The paper asks what the spelling of charters tells us about administrative and socio‐cultural changes in charter production and in scribal education. The research data is 997 charters from the Late Latin Charter Treebank, and the approach that of philological corpus linguistics.

Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law by Sara J. Milstein

Reviewed by: Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law by Sara J. Milstein Jessie DeGrado Sara J. Milstein. Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 216 pp. Sara Milstein’s new book provides a stimulating challenge to the hypothesis that the non-Priestly laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy were directly inspired by Mesopotamian law collections such as the Laws of Hammurabi (LH). Milstein argues instead that the laws preserved in Exodus 21–22 and Deuteronomy 12–23 reflect a complex process of adapting and expanding materials produced for scribal education in Israel and Judah during the Iron II–III periods (roughly 850–586 BCE). The introduction surveys Mesopotamian law collections and legal pedagogical texts from the third and second millennia BCE. Over the past fifty years, scholars have increasingly recognized that law collections, once referred to as law codes, neither record specific verdicts nor provide binding precedent. Rather, they both express an idealized form of justice that might indirectly inform decisions and, equally significant, function as political propaganda for the king who promulgated them. In addition to the scholarship cited by Milstein (6–12), interested readers can consult Pamela Barmash’s recently released monograph, The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions (Oxford: OUP, 2020). Chapter 1 further sketches the contents of the Mesopotamian scribal curriculum in the Old Babylonian period. This includes legal phrasebooks containing lists of contractual clauses, which students copied to gain facility with common legal phraseology, and model contracts. Also included in school curricula were fictional court cases (sometimes called model cases), which Milstein argues were used to teach legal formulations and phraseology in a livelier and more playful form. Finally, scribes in training often copied lists of casuistic laws, which were often excerpted from longer law collections but could also be innovated around a specific topic, such as rented oxen. The bulk of the work is devoted to identifying pentateuchal texts that embed pedagogical genres like those found in the Old Babylonian scribal curriculum. In chapter 2, Milstein identifies several clusters of laws in Exodus and Deuteronomy that exhibit features like the Mesopotamian fictional cases. Special attention is given to what Milstein terms the “slandered bride cluster” (Deut 22:13–19), the “manslaughter cluster” (Deut 19:4–13), and the “illicit intercourse cluster” (Deut 22:23–29). Each example embeds a longer base case featuring an innocent party, followed by several more laconic casuistic laws that cover guilty verdicts. Milstein terms the base cases Hebrew legal fictions (HLFs), which she considers an “analogous group to the Mesopotamian fictional cases” (72). These longer laws would have been independently drawn from scribal exercises and supplemented with short laws exploring guilty outcomes. Milstein identifies several potential indicators of an original pedagogical function for the base cases, including the use of dialogue, [End Page 176] colorful scenarios, and contract language. The latter point is fleshed out in more detail in chapter 3, which compares language from the HLFs to phrases attested in contracts from the Late Bronze Age city of Emar. Chapter 4 presents an ambitious reappraisal of the relationship (or lack thereof) between the legal material in Exodus 21:18–22:16 and Mesopotamian law collections. Milstein advances two separate lines of argument in this chapter. First, she observes that the compilation of laws in Exodus is both shorter than Mesopotamian law collections and covers a more restricted set of topics. In this respect, Exodus 21:18–22:16 resembles the extracts or lists of laws used in Mesopotamian scribal training more than the lengthier compositions we refer to as law collections. This leads Milstein to a second argument, which is that discontinuities and errors constitute further evidence of dependence on scribal pedagogical texts. These include a case concerning self-defense and home burglary that interrupts a law concerning stolen animals (Exod 21:37–22:3) and the placement of general talionic principles immediately after the law of accidental miscarriage (Exod 21:22–25). Overall, Milstein’s book provides an important critique of atomistic comparison between Exodus 21:1–23:5 and the Laws of Hammurabi. Namely, even if one postulates that Judean scribes accessed...

Jutta Krispenz, ed. Scribes as Sages and Prophets: Scribal Traditions in Biblical Wisdom Literature and in the Book of the Twelve

Jutta Krispenz, ed. <i>Scribes as Sages and Prophets: Scribal Traditions in Biblical Wisdom Literature and in the Book of the Twelve</i>

The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions by Pamela Bartash

Reviewed by: The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions by Pamela Bartash Ben Dewar (bio) The Laws of Hammurabi: At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions Pamela Bartash Oxford University Press, 2020. x + 320 pp. $99 hardcover. The monograph under discussion is an "histoire totale" (3) of the Laws of Hammurabi and the stele bearing it, investigating the ideological messages present in the text and image, the scribal culture that influenced the text's composition, and the reception of the Laws in later periods. Bartash's core argument is that Mesopotamian law collections were written by taking a series of stock legal situations and improvising a series of statutes based on them that expressed the scribe's own notions of what was fair and just. The Laws merged this tradition with that of royal inscriptions to create an innovative new expression of royal power. In chapter one, Bartash argues that the image on the stele alters the standard investiture scene in several ways to present Hammurabi as closer in status to the god Shamash. Furthermore, pairing this image with an unusually long text in an archaiz generalization ing, top-to-bottom script creates an original and eye-catching monument. Chapter two focuses on three textual traditions relating to justice that were pre-existent when the Laws was written: acts of equity described in royal hymns and inscriptions, social reform edicts, and law collections. Bartash analyses the content and rhetoric of these three types of text, arguing that they all demonstrate the role of justice in royal legitimation, but do so in different ways. Chapters three and four explore how the Laws' author combined the traditions discussed in chapter two into a new expression of royal justice. Chapter three analyses the Laws as a royal inscription, analysing how the author engaged with the discourse practices of Mesopotamian commemorative inscriptions. Chapter four compares the Laws with other law collections to argue that it is more complexly structured than its earlier counterparts. Bartash argues that, like the authors of earlier law codes, the Laws' scribe [End Page 209] improvised a series of example statutes based on his knowledge of legal texts and terminology internalised during scribal education. However, the Laws' scribe innovatively structured their improvised statutes, demonstrating a more complex conceptualisation and systematisation of law and implying a number of legal principles. The Laws therefore marks an important step, Bartash argues, towards the generalization and abstraction of law. Bartash demonstrates the conceptualization and systematization present in the Laws in chapter five, which uses the adoption statutes from the Laws as a case study for the concepts discussed in chapter four. Chapter four ends with an excursus on scribes and their education. The placement of this section is slightly confusing. The excursus outlines scribes' internalisation of the discourse practices and streams of tradition engaged in chapter four. One would therefore expect it to be placed earlier in the book. This is, however, a minor criticism, and the reader does not feel lost for not having read the excursus before chapter four. Chapter six tackles the important question of the legal authority of the Laws. Previous scholarship has often debated whether the Laws represents the law as it was practiced in Mesopotamia by identifying legal cases in royal letters or archival records that mirror circumstances described in the Laws. Bartash argues that this methodology applies modern conceptions of legal precedent to a culture whose legal system did not operate on precedent, and emphasizes the consistency of law while ignoring the need for discretion in the adjudication of individual legal cases. Bartash instead focuses on the flexibility of Mesopotamian law; the Laws is not a written record of the code actually enforced, but one scribe's expression of their own ideas—formed through intensive engagement with pre-existing legal literature—on what is fair and just. This novel approach to the Laws resolves many of the problems surrounding the nature of the Laws, and greatly improves our understanding of Mesopotamian law. Chapter seven explores the reception of the Laws in later periods. First, Bartash considers instances of scribal improvization in later law collections. She argues that the exportation of the...

Some remarks on change and innovation in ancient Near Eastern customary law

The article presents the ways customary law could be gradually changed in the ancient Near East. They included working with existing institutions while modifying their consequences as well as their scope of application with tools such as legal fiction. However, the conservative nature of the ancient oriental culture, as well as that of the scribal education made any sudden, radical modification impossible, and even if a new contract type was created, it would keep the pretense of following a long-established practice.

Introduction and General

Introduction and General Andrew E. Steinmann, Atilla Bodor, Christopher T. Begg, Isaac Kalimi, and Thomas Hieke Andrew E. Steinmann Concordia University Atilla Bodor The Biblicum Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America Isaac Kalimi Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz Thomas Hieke Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz 2548. [The Northern Soldiers-Tomb (H11.1) at Asyut] Mohamed Abdelrahiem, The Northern Soldiers-Tomb (H11.1) at Asyut (The Asyut Project 13; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2020). Pp. viii + 109. Paper €34. ISBN 978-3-447-11431-5. Since 2003, the Asyut Project's Egyptian-German team has been working on Gebel Asyut al-gharbi situated close to the modern city of Asyut on the west bank of the Nile in central Egypt. One of the areas investigated is a structure known as the Northern Soldiers-Tomb (H11.1) due to its painted decoration of marching warriors. The tomb has suffered severely from extensive quarrying activities in the past so that today only parts of the walls and the subterranean burial chambers are still preserved. The fieldwork conducted under the auspices of the Asyut Project at the tomb focused on cleaning the inner hall and the shafts, surveying the tomb's decorations and preparing facsimiles as well as plans of the component sections. A.'s short volume presents the results of these activities. In so doing, he provides a thorough description of the tomb's architecture and decoration, details its long research history, and introduces a selection of finds from the tomb that provide evidence of the long-term use of the Asyutian necropolis. Based on the data collected in his work, A. is able to date the tomb to the end of the 11th or the very beginning of the 12th Dynasty and identify its owner as a "nomarch" of Asyut whose name was Djefai-Hapi. A. likewise highlights the tomb's extensive re-use as a burial ground through the centuries: constructed originally during the late Dynasty 11, the tomb houses several shafts and small niches that contain (or once contained) remains of burial equipment from later periods, especially from the Middle Kingdom and Roman-Byzantine times. [Adapted from published abstract] A.'s volume comprises seven brief chapters: (1) Location of the Tomb; (2) Research History of the Tomb; (3) Architectural Features; (4) Representations and Inscriptions; (5) Finds; (6) Dating the Tomb and Identifying the Tomb Owner; and (7) Re-use of the Tomb. These chapters are illustrated with numerous drawings, photos, charts, and maps. The volume's end-matter consists of a bibliography, indexes, and a total of 55 colored plates depicting the tomb's current appearance and a sample of the finds made there.—C.T.B. Google Scholar 2549. [The Laws of Hammurabi] Pamela Barmash, The Laws of Hammurabi at the Confluence of Royal & Scribal Traditions (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). Pp. x + 319. $99. ISBN 978-0-19-752540-1. Since its discovery at the very beginning of the 20th century, the "Code of Hammurabi" has continued to be one of the best known ANE artifactual finds ever made. As B.'s monograph makes clear, however, already in ancient times, the Code had a significant impact on the Mesopotamian legal tradition: synthesizing and elaborating as it did earlier [End Page 940] legal materials, it became a model for subsequent law collections and a resource for the training of aspirant scribes that itself spawned a multi-century commentary literature whose influence made itself felt throughout the wider ANE. B.'s treatment of the Code's multifaceted tradition-history consists of an introduction followed by seven chapters and a conclusion. The chapters are titled, respectively: The Stela of the Laws of Hammurabi and the Representation of Political Power; Royal Legitimation through the Establishment of Justice; The Laws of Hammurabi as a Royal Inscription; Scribes and Statutes (with an Excursus: Scribes and Scribal Education); Adoption in the Laws of Hammurabi; The Legal Authority of the Laws of Hammurabi; and The Afterlife of the Laws of Hammurabi: The Continuation of Scribal Improvisation outside Mesopotamia and the Creation of Commentaries in Mesopotamia. The volume's end-matter features a bibliography and indexes of subjects and authors and of...

›Writing on the Heart‹ (Jer 31:31–34): An Allusion to Scribal Training? A Response to Joachim J. Krause

AbstractThis contribution includes a critical discussion of Joachim J. Krause, »›Writing on the Heart‹ in Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Light of Recent Insights into the Oral-Written Interface and Scribal Education in Ancient Israel,« ZAW 132 (2020): 236–249.

Learning to be a Biblical Scribe: Examples from the Letter Writing Genre

The paper illustrates how scribal education shaped and influenced biblical literature. It discusses how educational curriculum can be reconstructed from Hebrew inscriptions and comparative examples in cuneiform literature. The Hebrew educational curriculum was adapted from cuneiform models in the 12th century BCE. These models were known in Canaan, and then used by early alphabetic scribes. The best repository of ancient Hebrew scribal practice comes from the desert fortress of Kuntillet ʿAjrud where all the categories of elementary scribal education are known. Perhaps the most important of these was letter writing, which was a basic part of a scribe’s everyday duties. Not surprisingly, letter writing was also one of the foundations of scribal education, and it was adapted and used for writing biblical literature in ways both mundane and profound. This included both the structuring of biblical narrative and the genre of writing prophets.

The Scribes Who Wrote Khety: Some Remarks on Colophons and Scribal Education

This paper considers the identity of the scribes who wrote The Teaching of Khety. On some of the manuscripts containing excerpts of this text (papyri, ostraca, writing boards) names of scribes have...

›Writing on the Heart‹ in Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Light of Recent Insights into the Oral-Written Interface and Scribal Education in Ancient Israel

AbstractThe interpretation of the »new covenant« in Jer 31:31–34 hinges on how to understand Yhwh’s promise to write his Torah on the heart of the Israelites. According to a widely held view, the latter aims at abrogating the institutions of the book of the Torah and its handing down by means of teaching and learning. From this point of view, Jer 31:31–34 seems to exhibit a decidedly anti-Deuteronomistic outlook. In the present article, this view is confronted with more recent insights into the oral-written interface and its role in scribal education, the basic assumption being that such education is the lifeworld presupposition behind the promise of writing on the heart.

Translating the Scribe: Lithographic Print and Vernacularization in Colonial India, 1857–1915

Focusing on the lithographic print revolution in North India, this article analyses the role played by scribes working in Perso-Arabic script in the consolidation of late nineteenth-century vernacular literary cultures. In South Asia, the rise of lithographic printing for Perso-Arabic script languages and the slow shift from classical Persian to vernacular Urdu as a literary register took place roughly contemporaneously. This article interrogates the positionality of scribes within these transitions. Because print in North India relied on lithography, not movable type, scribes remained an important part of book production on the Indian subcontinent through the early twentieth century. It analyses the education and models of employment of late nineteenth-century scribes. New scribal classes emerged during the transition to print and vernacular literary culture, in part due to the intervention of lithographic publishers into scribal education. The patronage of Urdu-language scribal manuals by lithographic printers reveals that scribal education in Urdu was directly informed by the demands of the print economy. Ultimately, using an analysis of scribal manuals, the article contributes to our knowledge of the social positioning of book producers in South Asia and demonstrates the vitality of certain practices associated with manuscript culture in the era of print.

The Writings: Psalms

The WritingsPsalms Christopher T. Begg, David A. Bosworth, Bradley C. Gregory, OSST J. Edward Owens, Thomas Hieke, and Paul R. Redditt 433. [Psalms; Lutheran Tradition] Christopher König, "David as Example: Psalm Exegesis and Secular Authority in Early Modern Lutheranism," NTT 72 (2018) 153-70. K.'s article analyzes the depiction of the biblical King David in the political thought of M. Luther and early Lutheranism. Luther drew his images of David primarily from his exegesis of various psalms. For Luther, David's faith made him the premier biblical model of a monarch. Early Lutheran sermons depict David as an example of a good administrator. The sermons considered by K. admonish Lutheran magistrates and princes to support the church and to obey the law, thus legitimating, while also circumscribing, secular government and princely rule. The example of David also provided early Lutheran preachers with a means for criticizing unlawful or despotic rulership and thereby contributed to the early modern history of the concept of freedom. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 434. [Psalms] June Dickie, "Singing the Psalms: Applying Principles of African Music to Bible Translation," Scrip 116 (2017) 74-89. The psalms were composed in order to be sung, and translated psalms should also be rendered in such a way as to be easily singable. To do this requires an understanding of the characteristics of indigenous song and rhythm. Against this background, D.'s article seeks to synthesize some important principles of African (particularly Zulu) music, and notes certain errors made by previous translators in their renditions of biblical texts intended for singing by African congregations. Next, D. cites various examples drawn from a recent study that attempts to apply the principles previously presented by her to the translation of a number of psalms into isiZulu. The hope is that sensitivity to features of African (Zulu) music will facilitate a translation of the psalms that communicates the aesthetic beauty, rhetorical power, and memorability of the originals to the fullest extent possible. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] [End Page 132] 435. [Psalms of Lament] June Dickie, "African Youth Engage with Psalms of Lament to Find Their Own Voice of Lament," JTSoA 160 (2018) 4-20. The biblical psalms of lament show certain characteristics that can assist African youth struggling with various issues to voice their own laments. In this empirical study, "pain-bearers" from various sectors in South Africa (refugees, AIDS sufferers, and members of the LGBT community) participated in short workshops where they studied Psalms 3 and 13. They then composed their own laments using features of biblical laments: complaints, petitions, requests for justice, and an honest expression of their mood (often oscillating between negative and positive statements). Analysis of the biblical and contemporary lament compositions shows that they include elements considered essential by trauma therapists (establishing safety, reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring connections with one's community) and lament researchers (restoring the voice of a subject, providing a sense of justice, and connecting with God), and thus could result in biological healing, a possible application of the work of neuroresearchers. One might then suggest that the expression of lament has the potential to promote wholeness for sufferers. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 436. [Psalms] Ko Ming-him, "Torah Meditation: A Theological Theme for the Editing of the Psalter," Jian Dao 50 (2018) 1-16 (Chinese). As a "Torah in miniature," the Psalter has a redactional orientation that invites the reader to enter into a meditation on the Torah that brings about a transformation of life. Against this background, this paper discusses Sumero-Akkadian scribal education, exploring how this training was designed to influence the religious beliefs of the scribes in training. It further suggests that the Levitical singers who were responsible for editing the Psalter can be situated in a context similar to that of Mesopotamian scribal training. The paper argues as well that the invitation to Torah meditation was one of the prime concerns of those who edited the Psalter, as becomes clear in Psalms 1, 19, and 119. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 437. [Psalms] Ruth Poser, "Ja...

Shigeo Yamada &amp; Daisuke Shibata (éd.), Cultures and Societies in the Middle Euphrates and Habur Areas in the Second Millennium BC – I. Scribal Education and Scribal Traditions

Shigeo Yamada &amp; Daisuke Shibata (éd.), Cultures and Societies in the Middle Euphrates and Habur Areas in the Second Millennium BC – I. Scribal Education and Scribal Traditions

Review of scribal education in ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew epigraphic evidence by Christopher Rollston

In this illustrative and thorough article, Christopher Rollston argues for the existence of, in R’s words, “a formal, standardized scribal education” in Ancient Israel (47). R bases his argument on a systematic analysis of the epigraphic evidence of Old Hebrew (i.e. Iron Age II Hebrew, ca. 1000-550 ce) and offers the following as his supporting arguments: (i) In terms of the ductus, the stance, and the relative spatial relationship of graphs, the Old Hebrew (OH) script: (a) displays synchronic consistency, (b) demonstrates discernable, diachronic development, and (c) differs markedly from those of nearby polities (Phoenicia, Arameans); (ii) In terms of orthography, the OH script exhibits synchronic (and arguably regional) consistency with distinctive features that were in opposition with the features of the Phoenician and Aramaic national scripts; and (iii) In terms of content, hieratic numerals (which derive from a complex number system originally borrowed from Egypt) were inscribed on many OH documents, suggesting that an administrative or governing body routinized their usage (and practical dissemination) throughout Iron Age Israel

An Investigation of Clerical Script in Chu Regions during the Qin and Han Periods, and its Relationship to “Scribal Writing” (秦漢楚地隷書及關於“史書”的考察)

The term ‘shishu 史書’ refers to “scribal writing,” which implemented an orthography and character selection in accordance with the standard clerical script found on Qin and Han official documents. At the beginning of the Han period, divergent strands of clerical script were still pervasive in the region that once belonged to Chu. “Scribal writing” was therefore employed throughout the empire in order to fully standardize writing. By the mid-Western Han, this “scribal writing” thereby came to be synonymous with Han clerical script. The role of the Cang Jie pian 蒼頡篇 in Han scribal education is also explored. “史書”是指字形、用字都合乎秦漢官方規範的隸書。漢初楚地充滿了不規範的隸書，國家要用史書來完成漢字的規範化，到了西漢中期以後“史書”成爲漢隸的同義詞。文章還分析了《蒼頡篇》在漢人學字中的地位。

Writing Sumerian, Creating Texts: Reflections on Text-building Practices in Old Babylonian Schools

Sumerian lexical and literary compositions both emerged from the same social sphere, namely scribal education. The complexities of inter-compositional dependence in these two corpora have not been thoroughly explored, particularly as relevant to questions of text-building during the Old Babylonian period (c. 1800–1600 bce). Copying practices evident in lexical texts indicate that students and scholars adopted various methods of replication, including visual copying, copying from memory, and ad hoc innovation. They were not confined to reproducing a received text. Such practices extend to copying literary compositions. A study of compositions from Advanced Lexical Education in comparison with several literary compositions shows a complex inter-dialectic between the corpora, in which lexical compositions demonstrate dependence on literary compositions and vice versa. Thus, Old Babylonian students and scholars could experiment with multiple text-building practices, drawing on their knowledge of the lexical and the literary, regularly creating new versions of familiar compositions.

Understanding Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: A View from Kuntillet ʿAjrud

Understanding Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: A View from Kuntillet ʿAjrud

‘Die pen is magtiger as die swaard’: Oor skrifgeletterdheid, skrifgeleerdes en Israel se Tweede Tempeltydperk

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’: Literacy and scribes in Israel during the Second Temple period. This article is divided in two parts. Part one examines scribal education and scribes in the ancient Near East and Israel. Although no real evidence exists for scribal schools and education in Israel, it is argued that some form of institutionalised training must have taken place in order to produce literary texts of such a high quality as are found in the Hebrew Bible. Comparative material from Mesopotamia serves to trace the education of scribes in general. Part two focuses on the Second Temple period in ancient Israel. Ezra the scribe emerges as a typical scribe from that era. Post-exilic Israel was grappling with its identity, and sought guidance from ַ [as was written in the Torah]. However, it appears that there were different interpretations of the written Law during this period. Scribes of the Ezra circle advocated a radical policy of exclusivity on the basis of what was written in the Law; others who wrote the texts of Trito-Isaiah and Ruth pleaded for a more inclusive attitude towards foreigners. The conclusion is that the battle was fought not with the sword, but with the pen, therefore: ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’

The Exercise Tablets from Chantier B in Susa Revisited

This article is the publication of the thirty-three exercise tablets excavated in Susa, Chantier B by R. Girshman during the winter 1966-67. They originate from four different layers, spanning about 450 years. Most of them are lentils and all of them are the leftovers of elementary scribal education, discarded and found under the floors of houses or in the street. They bear witness to the formation of scribes during this whole period and, in particular, to the use of the well known Silbenalphabet A during most of this period. These tablets had been published formerly in transcription only but new photographs as well as a better understanding of their dating warrants a revised re-publication with copies and photos.