Elena Devecchi | Università degli Studi di Torino (original) (raw)

Books by Elena Devecchi

Gli annali di Hattusili I nella versione accadica (Studia Mediterranea 16), Pavia 2005

Edited Books by Elena Devecchi

S. de Martino - E. Devecchi (eds.), Anatolia between the 13th and the 12th century BCE

Eothen 23, Firenze, 2020

Current Research in Cuneiform Palaeography 2. Proceedings of the Workshop organised at the 64ᵗʰ Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Innsbruck 2018. Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag, 2019

The present volume collects the papers presented at the second workshop devoted to „Current Resea... more The present volume collects the papers presented at the second workshop devoted to „Current Research in Cuneiform Palaeography“ and brings new insights to a field of cuneiform studies that during the last decade had been witnessing ever growing attention among scholars. The contributions provide a wide perspective on the topic by investigating text corpora that date from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BCE and derive from the whole Ancient Near East (from southern Mesopotamia, to Anatolia, Syria and the northern Levant).
With contributions by A. Bramanti, S. Fischer, G. Müller, J. Mynářová, R. Pirngruber, M. Touillon-Ricci, K. Wagensonner und L. Warbinek

Zaphon 2, 2020

talugaeš witteš. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of ... more talugaeš witteš. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Edited by Michele Cammarosano, Elena Devecchi and Maurizio Viano.
Kasion 2. © 2020, Zaphon, Münster. ISBN 978-3-96327-110-6 (Buch) / ISBN 978-3-96327-111-3 (E-Book)

Libiamo ne’ lieti calici. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Lucio Milano on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday by Pupils, Colleagues and Friends (AOAT 436), Münster 2016.

Papers by Elena Devecchi

Aula Orientalis 42/2, 2024

The paper presents the first publication of a cuneiform tablet accompanied by a sealed envelope, ... more The paper presents the first publication of a cuneiform tablet accompanied by a sealed envelope, originating from Kassite Nippur and now housed in the collections of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. The text documents the receipt of beer containers by a previously unknown brewer, Taqīšu, who was active during the reign of Kurigalzu II. Based on prosopographic analysis, the document can be linked to Nippur’s so-called “archive of the granary”. The seal, featuring a martial motif and inscribed with a brief anonymous prayer to Marduk, is identified as belonging to the pseudo-Kassite style.

(with L. Peyronel and T. Pedrazzi) Valorizzare e comunicare le collezioni dell’Oriente Antico in Italia. Il progetto ArCOA

Scienze dell’Antichità 29.3, 2023

ArCOA – Archivi e Collezioni dell’Oriente Antico is a project launched by the University of Milan... more ArCOA – Archivi e Collezioni dell’Oriente Antico is a project launched by the University of Milan and by the Institute of Heritage Science of the CNR, having the University of Turin as a research partner. It aims at studying, communicating and promoting the collections of ancient Near Eastern artefacts hosted in the Italian institutions. In the paper an overview of the activities carried on by the ArCOA team is presented, illustrating the digital archive and the others dedicated digital tools, the survey of the collections, and the future developments. The ArCOA potential for supporting the study and enhancing the knowledge of the Near Eastern collections in Italy is illustrated through case study of archival records pertaining the acquisition history of objects in the Museo di Antichità di Torino.

(with E. Scarpa) Società, amministrazione ed economia nella Babilonia di età cassita: un progetto di digital prosopography

Scienze dell’Antichità 29.3, 2023

The surviving archival records from Kassite Babylonia (14th-13th centuries BC) offer a glimpse in... more The surviving archival records from Kassite Babylonia (14th-13th centuries BC) offer a glimpse into the complex network of interactions resulting from the activities managed by the main economic and administrative institutions. Thousands of people appear in the documents, although in most cases we only know their names – rarely their patronymic and/or profession. The project presented in this paper aims at carrying out a prosopographical study in order to define the actors’ “functional” and “behavioral” profiles on the basis of the contexts in which they were active and the interactions they had with each other. To this aim, a prosopographical database has been designed to collect, organize, and query the prosopographical data and extract significant knowledge through data visualization and statistical analyses.

From Hand to Hand: Tracking the Workflow of Kassite Officials

Mesopotamia 58, 2023

Cuneiform tablets from Kassite Babylonia record the names of thousands of individuals who interac... more Cuneiform tablets from Kassite Babylonia record the names of thousands of individuals who interacted at different levels with the institutions that produced these texts. A useful criterion to recognize, among them, those who had an active role in the resource management is looking for personal names that follow the term “hand” (Akk. qātum), which in this context signifies authority and control over goods and individuals. The paper offers a detailed study of the data about Mudammiq-Adad, a scribe whose “hand” played a significant role in the administrative system recorded by the texts from Dūr-Enlilē. By analyzing his activities and interactions with other individuals, this study sheds light on a network of closely interacting agents, offers new insights into the role of scribes within the administration and highlights the collaborative rather than hierarchical nature of their participation in the operational dynamics of the economic organization they worked for.

The Governance of the Subordinated Countries

S. de Martino (ed.), Handbook Hittite Empire, 2022

The present chapter aims at highlighting the strategies and mechanisms of governance that the Hit... more The present chapter aims at highlighting the strategies and mechanisms
of governance that the Hittite empire employed at the acme of its territorial expansion and in the best-documented phase of its history, i.e., from the middle of the fourteenth until the end of the thirteenth century BCE, in order to successfully rule and maintain control over a vast and varied territory that encompassed most of Western, Central, and Southern Anatolia and extended eastward just beyond the course of the Euphrates, embracing the Northern Levant and parts of Upper Mesopotamia. The impact, nature, and extent of Hatti’s rule will be analyzed mainly on the basis of the textual evidence, in particular with regard to the empire’s influence on the political, military, and economic organization of the subordinated countries.

N. Borrelli (ed.), Ana šulmāni. Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Simonetta Graziani, 2022

Babylonia under the Sealand and Kassite Dynasties, 2020

Agriculture represents the basis of the entire Mesopotamian economy, and Kassite Babylonia makes ... more Agriculture represents the basis of the entire Mesopotamian economy, and Kassite Babylonia makes no exception to this rule. However, in spite of the centrality of this subject for the reconstruction of ancient Near Eastern economic and social history, the mechanisms developed by the central administration in order to control and exploit the production of agricultural goods during the Kassite period have been largely neglected in Ancient Near Eastern Studies.1 This research gap cannot be ascribed to the lack of sources. In fact, several documents from Nippur recording the collection of agricultural revenues, their storage and their disbursement for various purposes have been known since the very first publications of the epigraphic material recovered during the archaeological campaigns conducted at the site. A number of these texts have been discussed by Torczyner in his investigation of the administrative activities recorded in the Nippur texts,2 which remains a fundamental contribution to the understanding of Middle Babylonian accounting techniques and of the economic 1 Note the absence of the Kassite period from general studies on Mesopotamian economic history (e.g., Yoffee 1995; Hudson and Wunsch 2004; D'Agostino 2013), from specialized publications such as the volumes of the Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture (the only exception being an article on irrigation in Kassite Babylonia, see van Soldt 1988), and also from investigations of specific topics, like in the case of the entry "tax" ("Steuer") in the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, where the taxation systems of all other periods are discussed (RlA 13: 161-77). 2 Torczyner 1913; the author used only texts published in BE 14 (Clay 1906a) and BE 15 (Clay 1906b). Elena Devecchi, Torino Note: This research was carried out as part of the project "Nach der Ernte: Die Verwaltung landwirtschaftlicher Produkte im kassitenzeitlichen Babylonien" supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Project no. 278641349). I would like to thank Walther Sallaberger for having discussed with me the topic of this paper and having commented upon earlier drafts of it; I am also indebted to the editors of this volume and to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. 3 Ellis 1976: 109-32, 148-66; Ellis included also other administrative documents from Nippur appeared in PBS 2/2 (Clay 1912), as well as letters published in BE 17 (Radau 1908) and PBS 1/2 (Lutz 1919). 4 See especially Petschow 1974 and Sassmannshausen 2001. 8 Formally, tēlītu is a taPRīSt-form, i.e. a nomen actionis usually associated with the D stem, even though GAG §56 l notes that taPRīSt-nouns can be occasionally derived from the G stem. Indeed, AHw regards tēlītu as a form deriving from elû G, not from elû D as one would expect (AHw: 1345 s.v. tēlītu). 9 A seemingly different use of tēlītu is attested in still unpublished rosters from Nippur which record the results of inspections of groups of workers, such as those referred to by Tenney 2011: 16-17. These texts have not been considered for this study, which will focus on tēlītu only in the context of collection and redistribution of agricultural products.

Journal of Near Eastern Studies 79, 305-322, 2020

in M. Vallerani (ed.), Valore delle cose e valore delle persone. Dall’Antichità all’Età moderna. Roma, 2018

Questo volume è stato realizzato con il contributo del Dipartimento di Studi storici dell'Univers... more Questo volume è stato realizzato con il contributo del Dipartimento di Studi storici dell'Università degli Studi di Torino, fondi ricerca locale (RILO) 2016 e 2017. viella libreria editrice via delle Alpi, 32 I-00198 ROMA tel. 06 84 17 758 fax 06 85 35 39 60 www.viella.it

Gli annali di Hattusili I nella versione accadica (Studia Mediterranea 16), Pavia 2005

S. de Martino - E. Devecchi (eds.), Anatolia between the 13th and the 12th century BCE

Eothen 23, Firenze, 2020

Current Research in Cuneiform Palaeography 2. Proceedings of the Workshop organised at the 64ᵗʰ Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Innsbruck 2018. Gladbeck: PeWe-Verlag, 2019

Zaphon 2, 2020

Libiamo ne’ lieti calici. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Lucio Milano on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday by Pupils, Colleagues and Friends (AOAT 436), Münster 2016.

Aula Orientalis 42/2, 2024

(with L. Peyronel and T. Pedrazzi) Valorizzare e comunicare le collezioni dell’Oriente Antico in Italia. Il progetto ArCOA

Scienze dell’Antichità 29.3, 2023

(with E. Scarpa) Società, amministrazione ed economia nella Babilonia di età cassita: un progetto di digital prosopography

Scienze dell’Antichità 29.3, 2023

From Hand to Hand: Tracking the Workflow of Kassite Officials

Mesopotamia 58, 2023

The Governance of the Subordinated Countries

S. de Martino (ed.), Handbook Hittite Empire, 2022

N. Borrelli (ed.), Ana šulmāni. Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Simonetta Graziani, 2022

Babylonia under the Sealand and Kassite Dynasties, 2020

Journal of Near Eastern Studies 79, 305-322, 2020

in M. Vallerani (ed.), Valore delle cose e valore delle persone. Dall’Antichità all’Età moderna. Roma, 2018

Untersuchungen zur Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie 11/1, 2017

In the 13th century BCE the relations among the various Near Eastern Great Powers follow basicall... more In the 13th century BCE the relations among the various Near Eastern Great Powers follow basically the same channels established already during the previous century and continue to be based on the so-called exchange system (exchange of messages, royal wives, specialists and goods). There are, however, some substantial differences with respect to the 14th century. One, which is particularly significant, especially if one focuses on Babylon, is the type of sources at our disposal. Documentation comparable to the Amarna Archive is lacking, and even though various sources refer to Babylonia following the Amarna Age, only very rarely does one "hear the voice" of the Kassite kings on international affairs. Only a small percentage of the relevant sources comes from Babylonia, and they are usually of little help for the reconstruction of international relations in the 13th century.1 Much more useful in this regard are literary-historical texts, such as chronicles, royal inscriptions, and epic poems, but it is well known that the content of such sources-mostly of Assyrian origin-is to some degree distorted by their propagandistic and celebrative nature. Their accounts can be checked at least in some cases against the evidence provided by other types of documents, such as dossiers of international (Babylonia-Ḫatti, Assyria-Ḫatti, Egypt-Ḫatti) and more local correspondence (e.g., the Middle Assyrian archives of Dūr-Katlimmu and Ḫarbe and the Syrian archives of Ugarit and Emar), administrative texts and even religious compositions, which all contribute to broaden the picture in other directions. Altogether the evidence for the 13th century is much more varied with regard to genre, geographical provenience and chronological distribution than that available for the 14th century, allowing one in some cases to achieve a more multi-faceted reconstruction of international relations, but often not as detailed as for the Amarna Age. On the political and historical level, the main difference with respect to the previous century is the central role definitively attained by Assyria on the international scene. The expansionistic policies inaugurated by Aššur-uballiṭ I and pursued by Adad-nārārī I, Shalmaneser I and Tukultī-Ninurta I not only had direct and immediate consequences for the neighbouring kingdoms (Babylonia and Ḫatti), but also influenced the dynamics of interaction among all the Near Eastern powers of the time. The intensity of the relations and therefore the amount of available sources unavoidably reflects the physical proximity of the respective countries; thus one can recognize three main areas of interaction: between Babylonia and Assyria (and Elam) in the east (Mesopotamia); between Ḫatti and Assyria in the centre (north-eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey); and between Ḫatti and Egypt in the west (the Levant and northwestern Syria). Of course, the physical distance, though considerable, did not prevent the establishing of diplomatic relations between Babylon and Ḫatti and between Babylon and Egypt. This presentation will first provide an outline of the relations maintained by the Kassites with Assyria, Ḫatti and Egypt and then address the problems related to two specific moments of the common histories of these Great Powers: the chronological setting of the interdynastic marriages 1 Beside the sources discussed here, see the recent excursus by Sassmannshausen (2001a, 130-151), on the presence of different groups of foreigners in Kassite Babylonia, mainly attested as labourers in administrative texts and letters.

The article presents the cuneiform texts dating in the Neo-Babylonian period recovered at Tūlūl a... more The article presents the cuneiform texts dating in the Neo-Babylonian period recovered at Tūlūl al-Baqarat (Iraq) between 2012 and 2016. They include a peculiar school tablet which hands down an extract of Syllabary A, a “palaeographic” exercise with the name of king Nabopolassar, and an excerpt of the divine list Anum, and several bricks stamped with Nebuchadnezzar II’s standard inscription.

A Stranger in the House - the Crossroads III. edited byJana Mynářová, Marwan Kilani and Sergio Alivernini, 2019

Type-setting layout: AGAMA ® poly-grafický ateliér, s.r.o., Praha Print: TNM print, Chlumec nad C... more Type-setting layout: AGAMA ® poly-grafický ateliér, s.r.o., Praha Print: TNM print, Chlumec nad Cidlinou Abstract: The second millennium BC was a period of unprecedented interconnectedness, characterized by the increasing movement of people in conjunction with the transmission of technologies across the Near East. Employing a Communities of Practice approach, this paper investigates the human networks through which this specialized knowledge might have transferred, suggesting that the interaction between foreign and local military and technological specialists was the locus of this transmission. The Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period were characterized by waves of West Asian immigrants moving into the Eastern Delta, bringing with them their mastery of new production processes and technologies. This period also saw the introduction of West Asian military practices and values, including a corpus of military related Semitic loan words. Therefore, this paper will propose that the mixture of immigrant and Egyptian specialists in hybrid military communities of practice played a major role in this cultural exchange. I will also explore the cultural significance behind the adoption and maintenance of these foreign technologies and military values, as well as their impact on the New Kingdom Egyptian military and conceptions of kingship.

Die Welt des Orients, 2010

The article discusses the formal features of the Aleppo Treaty (CTH 75) and its position in the d... more The article discusses the formal features of the Aleppo Treaty (CTH 75) and its position in the diversified corpus of documents issued by the Hittite kings for the rulers of subjugated territories, especially for those who were members of the Hittite royal family. A renewed analysis of the text as well as comparison with the Tarhuntašša treaties allows to hypothesize that its peculiarities do not depend on its being an official copy of an older document, but may well belong to the original document issued by Muršili II and reflect the very nature of CTH 75, which in many ways bears more similarity to a land grant than to a subjugation treaty. An appendix is dedicated to the prosopographical analysis of the human witnesses who are listed at the end of the Treaty. 1 This article, which is based on a chapter of my PhD dissertation "Editti e trattati nel mondo ittita: tipologia, struttura e modalità di redazione" (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia 2008), is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented at the 55 eme Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris 6-9 July 2009). I wish to thank Stefano de Martino, Theo van den Hout, Shai Gordin, Marco Marizza and Jared L. Miller for having read this paper and offered me a number of useful remarks. I owe important improvements on the reading of some witnesses' names to the kind suggestions of Jared L. Miller and Daniel Schwemer.

"The comparison between the ancient near eastern treaty tradition and the biblical covenant conce... more "The comparison between the ancient near eastern treaty tradition and the biblical covenant conception always played a central role in the studies dedicated to the history of the religious relations between the ancient near eastern and the biblical world. It is maintained here that the Hittite treaties and other documents which share structural and functional similarities with them did not directly influence the biblical covenantal theology; nonetheless they are very important for the investigation of the ancient near eastern treaty tradition and the understanding of the biblical covenant conception. This contribution offers on the one hand an overview on the corpus of the Hittite treaties, their peculiar features and the history of the studies dedicated to them, while on the other hand it investigates the theological importance of the oath taking as part of the ratifying of a treaty. The resulting improved understanding of the Hittite treaty conception allows new insights also into the Old Testament covenantal theology.

In der Erforschung religionsgeschichtlicher Beziehungen zwischen der altorientalischen und biblischen Überlieferung nimmt der Vergleich zwischen der altorientalischen Vertragstradition und der biblischen Bundeskonzeption einen zentralen Stellenwert ein. Obwohl die hethitischen Vasallenverträge und die ihnen strukturell und funktional ähnlichen innenpolitischen Dokumente die alttestamentliche Bundestheologie offenbar nicht unmittelbar geprägt haben, sind sie für die Erforschung der altorientalischen Vertragstradition und das Verständnis der Bundeskonzeption weiterhin von hoher Relevanz. Neben einem Überblick über die hethitische Textüberlieferung und deren wesentliche Charakteristika sowie einem forschungsgeschichtlichen Abriss widmet sich der Beitrag vor allem der theologischen Bedeutung, die mit dem Abschluss eines Staatsvertrags und dem dabei geleisteten Eid verbunden war. Das dadurch erzielte bessere Verständnis des hethitischen Vertragskonzeptes eröffnet auch neue Einsichten in die Entstehung der alttestamentlichen Bundestheologie.
"

Rev. of S. Richardson (ed.), Rebellions and Peripheries in the Cuneiform World (= AOS 91)