Lexical lists

16th tablet of the Urra=hubullu lexical series, Louvre Museum

The cuneiform lexical lists are a series of ancient Mesopotamian glossaries which preserve the semantics of Sumerograms, their phonetic value and their Akkadian or other language equivalents.[1] They are the oldest literary texts from Mesopotamia and one of the most widespread genres in the ancient Near East. Wherever cuneiform tablets have been uncovered, inside Iraq or in the wider Middle East, these lists have been discovered.[2]

History

The earliest lexical lists are the archaic (early third millennium) word lists uncovered in caches of business documents and which comprise lists of nouns, the absence of verbs being due to their sparse use in these records of commercial transactions. The most notable text is LU A, a list of professions which would be reproduced for the next thousand years until the end of the Old Babylonian period virtually unchanged. Later third millennium lists dating to around 2600 BC have been uncovered at Fara and Abū Ṣalābīkh, including the Fara God List, the earliest of this genre. The tradition continued until the end of the Ur III period, after which marked changes in the form of the texts took place. This era, the Old-Babylonian period, saw the emergence of the UR5-ra = hubullu themed list. Similarly, lists of complex signs and polyvalent symbols emerged to support a more nuanced scribal training.[3]:13–18

The Kassite or Middle-Babylonian period shows that scribal schools actively preserved the lexical traditions of the past[4] and there is evidence of the canonization of some texts, such as izi = išātu and Ká-gal = abullu. The works SIG7+ALAM (ulutim) = nabnītu and Erim-huš = anantu are thought to have been composed at this time. The first Millennium represents a further expansion and refinement of the texts and the introduction of commentaries and synonym lists.[5]

Function and typology

Lexical lists fall within one or more of the following broad categories:

The extant texts can be classified by typology as follows:

This would also have included wax-covered writing boards, examples of which have regrettably not survived.

List of lexical and synonym lists

The following provides a listing of the various synonym, lexical and grammatical lists whose occurrences have yielded a name used in antiquity or significance has resulted in a designation in modern Assyriology, where the MSL (Materialem zum sumerischen Lexikon / Materials for the Sumerian Lexikon) or other references in square parentheses give the primary publication of the lexical texts, the synonym texts not qualifying for inclusion in this (MSL) series.

Generically identified Neo-Babylonian grammatical texts (NBGT) and Old-Babylonian grammatical texts (OBGT) have been omitted.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Jeremy A. Black (1996). Sumerian Grammar in Babylonian Theory (Studia Pohl). Loyola. p. 3.
  2. ↑ Yoram Cohen (Forthcoming). "Lexical Lists: Compositions for Reading and Writing the Cuneiform Script". Shnaton. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Niek Veldhuis (1997). Elementary Education at Nippur: The Lists of Trees and Wooden Objects (Doctoral Dissertation). Groningen.
  4. ↑ Niek Veldhuis (2000). Kassite Exercises: Literary and Lexical Extracts. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 52. pp. 80–82. JSTOR 1359687.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 Jon Taylor (2007). "Babylonian lists of words and signs". In Gwendolyn Leick. The Babylonian World. Routledge. pp. 432–443.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Antoine Cavaigneaux (1980–83). "Lexikalische Listen". In Erich Ebeling, Bruno Meissner, Dietz Otto Edzard. Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: volume 6, Klagegesang - Libanon. Walter De Gruyter. pp. 609–641.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 W. G. Lambert (1969). "Götterlisten". Reallexikon Der Assyriologie Und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, Bd. 3/6. p. 478.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 A. R. George (1993). House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia. Eisenbrauns. p. 5.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Niek Veldhuis (2010). "Guardians of Tradition: Early Dynastic Lexical Texts in Old Babylonian Copies". In Heather D. Baker, Eleanor Robson, Gábor Zólyomi. Your praise is sweet: A memorial volume for Jeremy Black. British Institute for the Study of Iraq.
  10. ↑ Niek Veldhuis (2011). "Levels of Literacy". In Karen Radner, Eleanor Robson. Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Oxford University Press. p. 78.
  11. ↑ Ulla Koch-Westenholz (1994). Mesopotamian Astrology. Museum Tusculanum Press. p. 187.
  12. ↑ tāmartu, CAD T p. 111.
  13. ↑ makkūru, CAD M1, p. 133.
  14. ↑ Niek Veldhuis (1998). "A Late Old Babylonian Proto-Kagal / Nigga Text". Acta Sumerologica 20: 211.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Niek Veldhuis (2006). "How did they Learn Cuneiform? “Tribute/Word List C” as an Elementary Exercise". In Piotr Michalowski, Niek Veldhuis. Approaches to Sumerian Literature: Studies in Honour of Stip (H. L. J. Vanstiphout). Brill.
  16. ↑ William W. Hallo (Jan–Apr 1982). "Notes from the Babylonian Collection, II: Old Babylonian HAR-ra". Journal of Cuneiform Studies 34 (1/2): 84. JSTOR 1359994.
  17. ↑ Yoram Cohen (2012). "The Ugu-mu Fragment from Ḫattuša/Boğazköy KBo 13.2". Journal of Near Eastern Studies 71 (1): 1. JSTOR 664449.
  18. ↑ Jeremiah Peterson (2013). "A Preliminary Catalog of Old Babylonian Sources for the Curricular Personal Name List Ur-Nanshe". NABU (2): 34–36. n. 21
  19. ↑ Daisuke Shibata (2009). "An Old Babylonian manuscript of the Weidner god-list from Tell Taban". Iraq 71: 35.