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RS 1.009 (CTA 36, KTU 1.46): reconstructing a Ugaritic ritual1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
In an article published in UF, 16, 1984, entitled ‘The ritual KTU 1.46 (= RS 1.9) and its duplicates’, M. Dijkstra proposed that to the large fragment of the ritual tablet RS 1.009 should be joined four fragments. None of these is supposed to be a physical join, neither with RS 1.009 nor with any other of the smaller fragments, but all five fragments are said to have originally been part of the same tablet. To Dijkstra's transliteration (pp. 71–2) is added a sixth fragment, RS 1.009A, about the ascription of which to RS 1.009 Dijkstra is not sure (see p. 70). The reconstruction, with assumed proper placement of each of the five primary fragments was illustrated in a collage made up of Dijkstra's own copies of the small fragments and Virolleaud's copy of the primary fragment (p. 76). My intention here is to discuss the validity of the hypothetical reconstruction. The texts given below, based on new collations, are presented here for the first time. Philological aspects of the interpretation of the texts will not be dealt with here; for such matters see my forthcoming edition of the Ugaritic ritual texts.
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- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 229 - 242
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1995
References
2 A preliminary version of this paper was presented orally at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Kansas City, November 23, 1991. Principal abbreviations used below are: AO = accession number in the Département des Antiquités Orientales of the Louvre. CTA = Herdner, A., Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 à 1939 (Mission de Ras Shamra, 10; Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique, 79). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale; Geuthner, 1963Google Scholar. JNES = Journal of Near Eastern Studies. KTU = Dietrich, M., Loretz, O., and Sanmartín, J., Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 24/1). Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1976Google Scholar. RS = field number of tablets excavated at Ras Shamra (for a complete listing, see TEO). TEO = P. Bordreuil, Pardee, D., La trouvaille épigraphique de l'Ougarit, 1: Concordance (Ras Shamra-Ougarit, V, 1). Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1989Google Scholar. UF = Ugarit-Forschungen.
3 Since the original oral presentation of this paper, I was able in the summer of 1992 to recollate the tablets. I have had the good fortune to do so more than once since first studying them in 1980–81. The fact that they are located in three different museums means that my list of scholarly debts is long, too, long to be repeated here (cf. my Les textes para-mythologiques [Ras Shamra-Ougarit, IV, Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988], 2–3).Google Scholar
4 Les textes rituels (Ras Shamra-Ougarit, Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations).
5 The text on the verso of this tablet is mistakenly attributed to RS 1.019 in KTU (cf. Pardee, , Syria, 65, 1988, 173, n. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, JNES, 48, 1989, 43, n. 10).Google Scholar
6 The translation of lines 10–18 is based on the reconstructed text.
7 Though not certain, the restoration {[… šrp. w šl]mm}, ‘[ …(as) a burnt-offering. And (as) a sacrifice of well-]being …’, is plausible.
8 Though not certain, the restoration {[kmm. w]}, ‘[the same; and]’, is plausible.
9 Objects in the Aleppo museum bear an old Aleppo museum number (A…), a new Aleppo museum number (M…), and, often, the old Louvre number dating back to their sojourn in Paris.
10 This is the fragment labelled ‘AO 19.998A’ by Dijkstra, , 76Google Scholar, following KTU (see TEO, 66, 384).Google Scholar
11 Perhaps read {šl┌m┐[m]}, ‘(as) a sacrifice of [well-being]’, but the apparent presence of a sign, which appears to be {'}, before this formula is unexplained.
12 Various considerations that cannot be discussed here for reasons of space have necessitated the reversal of the recto/verso orientation of this tablet, as was suggested by Dijkstra, , UF, 16, 1984, 75Google Scholar (further study of the tablet has led me to accept Dijkstra's proposal on this point, which I had not yet done when this paper was first read). The line numbers in parentheses are those of the editio princeps. Note that line ‘7’ in the editio princeps is not in fact on the tablet, hence the skip from ‘6’ to ‘8’. The editors of KTU also did not find this line ‘7’; on the other hand, their line ‘1’, which according to their reading would have preceded what is indicated here as line 15, is not on the tablet either. Thus their line numbers are higher than those of the editio princeps through to their line ‘7’, but are in agreement beginning with line ‘8’.
13 Restore either pdr, as in line 28, or pdry, following RS 24.253: 14.
14 On the varying forms of {’}, see now Pitard, Wayne, ‘The shape of the ‘ayin in the Ugaritic script’, JNES, 51, 1992, 261–79Google Scholar (published after the oral presentation of this paper).
15 Bordreuil, P. and Caquot, A., Syria, 56, 1979, 296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 I testi rituali di Ugarit, I. Testi (StS, 54; Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 1981) 55–8.Google Scholar
17 The reading of the second sign of this month name as {m} is very unlikely, and this text probably does not, therefore, refer to a month named šmn (cf. Xella, , Testi [1981], 74–5Google Scholar). The comparison of RS 1.003 and RS 18.056 at this point makes the hypothesis plausible according to which š 
[…] would designate an intercalary month.