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Abstract
The present contribution presents a previously unidentified and unique tallying system found on Late-Babylonian tablets from the Eanna temple archive. The tallies are composed of a series of nine vertical wedges, grouped in triplets, followed by a Winkelhaken. The vertical wedges can stand for either 1 or 10, and the Winkelhaken concludes the series as either 10 or 100, respectively. So far, this system is attested only on administrative tablets from the Eanna from the first two decades of Nebuchadnezzar II's reign (ca. 604–585 BCE). While the tally system itself is unique, the grouping, or chunking, of verticals in triplets suggests Aramaic influence.
الملخص
تصف المساهمة الحالية نظام عد وفرز فريد من نوعه لم يتم التعرف عليه من قبل موجود على الرقم البابلية المتأخرة من أرشيف معبد إينا Eanna. تتكون الأرقام من سلسلة من تسعة أسافين عمودية ، منظمة بمجموعات ثلاثية يليها اسفين معقوف Winkelhaken. يمكن أن تمثل الأسافين الرأسية إما رقم 1 أو 10 ، ويختتم الأسفين المعقوف Winkelhaken كل سلسلة إما كرقم 10 أو 100 على التوالي . هذا ولقد تم لحد الآن توثيق هذا النظام فقط على الرقم الإدارية من إينا Eanna من العقدين الأولين من حكم نبوخذنصر الثاني (حوالي 604–585 قبل الميلاد). وفي حين أن نظام العد نفسه فريد من نوعه ، فإن التجميع أو التقسيم الرأسي في مجاميع ثلاثية يشير إلى تأثير آرامي .
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- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2022
Footnotes
This contribution was written under the auspices of the ANR/FWF French-Austrian project I 3927, Material Culture of Babylon during the 1st millennium BCE, headed by Francis Joannès and Michael Jursa. I would like to thank Stephen Chrisomalis, Frank Simons and the two reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. All errors and views are naturally my own. The following abbreviations and conventions are use: BE (Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania); BM (British Museum); CDLI (Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative); Cyr (Cyrus); FLP (Free Library of Philadelphia); GC (Goucher College Cuneiform Inscriptions); IMT (Istanbul Murašû texts); Lo.E (Lower Edge); MARV (Mittelassyrische Rechtsurkunden und Verwaltungs-texte); NBC (Nies Babylonian Collection); Nbk (Nebuchadnezzar); NCBT (Newell Collection of Babylonian Tablets); Obv (Obverse); PN (Personal Name); PTS (Princeton Theological Seminary); Rev (Reverse); RN (Royal Name); TCL (Textes cunéiformes. Musée du Louvre); UCP (University of California Publications in Semitic Philology); YBC (Yale Babylonian Collection); YOS (Yale Oriental series); and X/Y = X son of Y.
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