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More ‘Assyrian Deeds and Documents’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

J. N. Postgate
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Extract

In a sense the present article continues the work of the Rev. C. H. W. Johns in publishing the neo-Assyrian legal and administrative texts from Nineveh. The majority of the new texts come from the excavations of R. Campbell Thompson at Nineveh, but in addition to these I have copied some small fragments from the older K texts, and a few pieces from the excavations of 1904 and 1905. Further, by the kindness of the authorities of the Ashmolean Museum, I have been able to include a single text, which is probably not from Nineveh (No. 1).

No one would maintain that these texts, many of which are ‘useless’ fragments, are of great importance. None the less, I have copied every piece, since there is always the chance of a join to a larger published text, and since publication of even the smallest fragment saves later scholars the trouble of establishing its unimportance on the original. I have given transliterations of almost every one, and translations of most, in the hope that this will make them more accessible to the non-specialist, and prompt the specialist to study the texts more deeply in taking issue with my own interpretations. This journal has seen the publication of many similar texts from Nimrud over the past 20 years, and it is equally fitting that texts excavated by Campbell Thompson should find a place in Iraq, with which he was so closely associated.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1970 , pp. 129 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1970

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References

1 Many of the Campbell Thompson pieces had already been copied by him, and these copies are in the possession of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities; as only a very few of them were ready for final publication, it seemed better to recopy the whole group. I am grateful to Drs. R. D. Barnett and E. Sollberger for their permission to publish these texts, and to Mr. C. B. F. Walker for his practical assistance. I would also like to thank Mr. A. R. Millard for agreeing that I should publish the two texts with Aramaic dockets. The manuscript was read by Prof. K. Deller and S. Parpola, who have generously offered a number of suggestions and corrections.

2 For drawing my attention to this tablet I am indebted to Mr. D. A. Kennedy; for permission to publish it, and for their generous help at the museum, I must thank Prof. O. R. Gurney and Dr. P. R. S. Moorey.

3 I have not given the dimensions or other physical details of the tablets, since these may easily be extracted from the relevant Catalogue. With the exception of No. 1, all the tablets come from Nineveh, and I have only given the provenance where further details are known (from W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Catalogue of the Kouyunjik Collection: Second Supplement). In the transliterations I have made use of the following conventions and abbreviations: Obv. = Obverse, B.E. = bottom edge, Rev. = reverse, T.E. = top edge, L.S. = left side; line numbers written thus: 1′ indicate that the line count from the head of the tablet or column cannot be determined, because of damage. Except in the rendering of personal names, no attempt has been made to indicate the Assyrian reading of logograms.

4 It is preferable to take the men as subject for indu, and to understand: ‘they were imposed (the silver) as a penalty’. The same construction, with sartu as retained accusative after a stative, is found in ARU 657 (= ADD 160) 10–II.

5 I have translated the word u(p)piš throughout as ‘bought’ This is only for convenience, and is not an effort to define its meaning.

6 Abstract formation from ma’ū, which must therefore be the correct nA reading for A.MEŠ; it is already known as the oA form.

7 Cf. also a place sa-ma-a-nu in the province of Šibaniba ( JCS 7 (1953), 145 Google Scholar).

8 Probably better to avoid emendation, and read KASKAL, translating ‘I. shall get them (i.e. the other debtors) moving’, ‘organise them’; for the phrase cf. ABL 659 + 474 ( Deller, K., AOAT I, 60 Google Scholar), Rev. 4–5. I.'s position as the representative of the debtors remains unchanged under this interpretation.

9 Prof. Deller points out to me that in ND.2309 ( Iraq 16 (1954)Google Scholar, Plate VII), one would expect the father of the girl (m nu-ur-TI-i) and her owner (m.dMAŠ.TI-i) to be the same man. He would therefore read dMAŠ.TI-ias Nûrtî (from *Ni'urtî), and exclude the possibility of reading Ti-i as balāṭī. The idea is certainly plausible, and explains why this ending Ti-i has apparently only been found with Ninurta. Otherwise, we must fall back, as did B. Parker, on the assumption that Ninurta-TI-i was acting as an intermediary ( Iraq 16 (1954), 39 Google Scholar).

10 a-di-a: so the copy, my translation ad sensum. CAD A, Pt. I, 134a s. v. adû A suggests a-di-a- <na>(= adannu), which is unlikely; Deller emends to a-ki'-a, ‘thus he shall put’, as does CAD A, Pt. I, 266a!

11 Also 4 túg dáp-pa-sat ḪÉ.MED (VAT 9849, 18; courtesy Prof. Deller).

The passage ADD 953 Rev iv 10–19 is explained by the existence of a talent of 30 minas only, which was used by the Assyrians for wool; this can be shown from ADD 954 (coll.), which lists quantities of SÍG ḪÉ.MED, red wool, and SÍG MI, black wool. Lines 14–16 read: ‘In all 26 minas of red wool, 26 minas of black wool, total 1 talent 22 minas’.