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Old Babylonian Letters from Tell Asmar

1991; American Oriental Society; Volume: 111; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/603769

2169-2289

Samuel Greengus, Robert Whiting,

Linguistics and language evolution

The basic description of HED remains W. von Soden, "Der hymnische-epische Dialekt des Akkadischen," ZA 40 (1931), 163-227 (= HED I) and ZA 41 (1933), 90-183 (= HED II).References to HED are cited in the relevant sections of GAG and are not given again here.For in and an see GAG §114 c-d.13 GAG §31 e and §84 c. 14 Cf.GA G §30 f and E. Reiner, LAA, p. 56. 15 Other sizeable bodies of texts from this period include: the Mari liver omens, M. Rutten, "Trente-deux modeles de foies en argile inscrits provenant de Tell-Hariri (Mari), " RA 35 (1938), 36-70, which for the most part consist of very brief inscriptions and seem to represent a conglomeration of orthographic and linguistic traditions (for commentary see I. J. Gelb, RA 50 [1956], 1-10); the administrative texts from the reigns of ISbi-Irra and Su-ilisu of Isin published in BIN 9 which contain many Akkadian loan words, but which include among the 535 texts published only one letter written in Akkadian (no.475).A recent addition to the number of texts available from this period is the publication of the early administrative texts from Mari (H.Limet, Textes administratifs de l'dpoque des Sakkanakku, ARM 19 and ARMT 19, which also republishes the texts of this type previously made known by Jestin, RA 46 [1952], 185-202; cf.Gelb, RA 50 [1956], 1-10).While these texts are apparently post-Ur III and contemporary with the BIN 9 texts, they represent a completely different tradition from the Isin texts which are a continuation of the Mesopotamian Ur III tradition (the post-Ur III administrative texts from Tell Asmar also continue the same tradition as the Isin texts).For lack of a better term, the texts from Mari can be said to belong to a Syrian tradition in contrast to the Mesopotamian tradition of the Isin and Eshnunna texts.The recent discoveries at Ebla have shown that Syria had its own cuneiform tradition from at least the middle of the third millennium B.c., and that Mari fell within its sphere, if not continuously, at least from time to time.As progress is made on the materials from Ebla, it may be possible to say whether this was the origin of the tradition of the Mari administrative texts.Whatever the origin of this tradition, it seems to be one of the sources of the idiosyncrasies of the Mari liver omens mentioned above.16 While this is an assumption, it can be pointed out that the texts of the immediately preceding Ur III period from Tell Asmar are virtually identical to corresponding texts from southern sites; the administrative texts from Tell Asmar which are contemporary with the earlier letters are virtually identical to the administrative texts from Isin published in BIN 9; and the letters of the later period from Tell Asmar are similar in writing and language to contemporary documents in Akkadian from Larsa, Sippar, and Tell ed-Der.While there were certainly local "dialects," the differences between them seem to be small and the few texts of this period are characterized more by coherence than diversity.