Markham J. Geller

The Last Wedge

The ability to read Sumerian and Akkadian - the latest and most widely used languages written in cuneiform script - was dependent upon the survival of scribal schools within the temples. These scribal schools themselves survived as long as Babylonian temples remained in use in Babylonia, and as long as priests still learned the traditional scripts. The argument utilised is an extreme one, namely that as long as any priest could read the ancient script, cuneiform was not yet technically a dead language. The question is when this was likely to have taken place. The Graeco-Babyloniaca tablets, re-edited here, as well as references to cuneiform in Classical sources are adduced to argue that cuneiform could have still been read in the third century AD.

Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East

© School of Oriental and African Studies 1987. All rights reserved. A group of scholars from Britain, Holland, Germany, and Israel met at the Warburg Institute and the School of Oriental and African Studies in November 1983, to discuss the use of figurative language in Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, and biblical Hebrew literature. The papers were presented in memory of Henri Frankfort, and consequently also took into account figurative expression in ancient art and architecture. The original impetus for the colloquium came from Thorkild Jacobsens extended visit to London as guest of the British Academy, and all of the participants came to honour both Frankforts memory and Jacobsens presence. This volume represents the fruits of that meeting.

Freud, Magic and Mesopotamia: How the Magic Works

Lancienne Mesopotamie presente un systeme magique extremement riche tant par la quantite que par la variete des sources textuelles. Les textes magiques faisaient lobjet dincantations et furent ecrits sous la forme de paroles therapeutiques qui sapprochent de certaines therapies actuelles en psychologie. Les anciennes tablettes cuneiformes datant de 700 Av. J.-C. presentent des tableaux symptomatiques que Freud et ses successeurs definiront comme nevrose, phobie ou depression. Les symptomes sont causes par la colere des demons châtiant le patient qui a ose les offenser. LA. analyse le role joue par les demons dans le psychisme des mesopotamiens a la lumiere des concepts de la psychanalyse. La peur, et non le sujet de la peur, prend une place comparable a celle observee dans les societes europeennes. Les incantations magiques eloignent les demons, et permettent au patient de decrire oralement son anxiete et ses mecanismes psychologiques de defense.

Akkadian Evil Eye Incantations from Assur

Abstract During the course of preparing an article on Sumerian ‘evil eye’ incantations, it appeared that ‘igi ḫul’ in Sumerian was more likely to mean ‘evil face’ in most instances in the Sumerian incantations, rather than ‘evil eye’. Despite the fact that the Sumerian ‘igi ḫul’ and Akkadian īnu lemuttu compositions represent the same genre of incantations, with some parallel phrases, nevertheless the fundamental nature of the incantations differs. Furthermore, the first millennium evidence for Akkadian ‘evil eye’ incantations was based mostly upon two Assur tablets in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, which had been edited by E. Ebeling and further discussed by M. L. Thomsen and J. N. Ford, but never copied or collated. Since collation of the tablets indicated many errors in the published editions of these texts, a copy and re-edition of the tablets is briefly presented here.

The Elephantine Papyri and Hosea 2, 3

Les ketubot des papyri dElephantine constituent une source pour letude du texte ecrit de la lettre de divorce dont parle la Bible (Deut. 24: 1, Is. 50: 1, Jer.3:8)| Osee 1-3 constitue egalement une telle source. Si les papyri dElephantine ne contiennent pas de textes dactes de divorce, les contrats de mariage en laissent deviner le contenu, voire la forme. Paralleles en vieux-babylonien. Des actes de divorce en demotique, contemporains des textes dElephantine, ressemblent aux modeles talmudiques. Analyse du texte de Osee relatif a son mariage: les formules sont semblables aux formules dElephantine et du Talmud.

Philology versus Linguistics and Aramaic Phonology

The recent publication of The Cambridge Encylopedia of the Worlds Ancient Languages provides an occasion for assessing the present state of our knowledge of ancient languages. Any assessment, however, will inevitably be influenced by methodology and point of view, depending upon whether the reader is a linguist or a philologist. The present author would broadly define the difference in the following way, at least as far as ancient languages are concerned: linguists tend to focus on the rules of language and general theories about language which can be generated from these rules, while philologists, although concerned with formal grammar, tend to scrutinize the textual evidence upon which a grammar is based. These two approaches are sometimes difficult to reconcile.

Fragments of magic, medicine, and mythology from Nimrud

The publication of copies of new cuneiform texts offers an ideal opportunity to look for further duplicates and continue the process of adding to the known editions of the literary corpus. A selection of texts from the Nabu Temple helps to elucidate some aspects of magic and medicine, including the use of mythology to explain the role of the gods in therapy.

Legal documents of the Hellenistic world : papers from a seminar arranged by the Institute of Classical Studies, the Institute of Jewish Studies and the Warburg Institute, University of London, February to May 1986

Law and justice and Ptolemaic Egypt, Joseph Meleze-Modrzejewski family law in Hellenistic Babylonia, G.P.J. McEwan Hellenistic marriage contracts, Ranon Katzoff marriage and the family in Ancient Egypt I - marriage and family law, H.S. Smith marriage and the family in Ancient Egypt II - marriages, wills and leases of land - some notes in the formulae of Demotic contracts, Cary J. Martin appearance and reality in written contracts - evidence from bilingual family archives, P.W. Pestman ptolemaic wills, W. Clarysse recht im hellenistischen Babylonien - tempel-sklaven-schuldrecht - allgemeine charakterisierung, Joachim Oelsner zum ptolemaischen sklavenrecht, Reinhold Scholl land ownership in Babylonian cuneiform documents, Robartus J. van der Spek.

Early christianity and the Dead Sea scrolls

Chez les sectaires dont les regles sont consignees dans les manuscrits de Qumran, on trouve deja des prises de position contre le divorce. Ainsi, le rejet de cette pratique sorigine dans le judaisme sectaire et pas seulement dans le christianisme primitif