Neo-Sumerian Administrative Texts in the British Museum. BM 107926-108315, Nisaba. Studi Assiriologici Messinesi 9, Di.Sc.A.M.: Messina 2005 (312 pp.). ISBN 88-8268-010-X [co-author: Marcos Such-Gutiérrez] (original) (raw)
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The Hellenistic city of Aï Khanoum is situated on the confluence of the rivers Oxos and Kokcha in the eastern portion of the ancient country of Baktria (modern northern Afghanistan). Although its ancient name is unknown and the excavations of the site between 1964 and 1978 were never completed by the French mission under Paul Bernard, the cultural remains found at Aï Khanoum have nonetheless presented us with our best understanding of the Hellenistic Far East. 2 Among the items that were unearthed at the site was a series of inscriptions , or so-called economic labels, 3 the majority of which were found at the palace treasury and the temple à niches indentées, and appear in two primary 1 I am grateful to the journal's anonymous reviewers. Their insightful comments, objections, and suggestions have led to many improvements. Naturally, all remaining errors are my own. Funding for this article was provided in part by the Margo Tytus Visiting Scholars Program at the University of Cincinnati Classics Department for which special thanks must be given to Professor Getzel M. Cohen. 2 A concise overview of the Central Asian sites attributed to the Achaemenid and Hellenistic Periods has appeared in two versions (Leriche 2007 in English and Leriche 2009 in German). It is hoped that a revised version will include na extensive bibliography for the sites listed. As matters stand, the histori-ography of each site tends generally to remain inaccessible to all, save those already familiar with them. 3 For reasons of consistency, I have adopted Rapin's (1983, 319; 1992, 301) abbreviations to distinguish each text. Thus " Akh IIIB 77 " and " Akh IIIB 78 " refer to excavations of the treasury at Aï Khanoum in 1977 and 1978 respectively; " P.O. " designates the inventory of small objects (" petits objets "); " Cér. " indicates the inventory of ceramics; and " inv. gén. P.O. " is used for texts found outside the treasury that are catalogued in the general inventory of small objects (" l'inventaire general des petits objets "). Similarly, I have followed his use of designating these texts as graffiti, labels, or ostraca (Rapin 1983, 316–317). Previously, some of the better preserved texts were the subject of special studies, see
TSU, 2023
The analysis of archaeological material made it possible to answer the following questions: when, where, why and how was the system of economic accounting, mathematics, the art of writing and script originated and developed producing the social-economic revolution. The work describes an accounting system used in Near East since the Neolith Age. The accounting was kept with the help of clay tokens, denoting numbers and various goods. Sometimes the clay tokens were attached to clay bullae hung on wool ropes or were put into spherical bulla-envelopes and then sealed. They were stamped on the outer surface of the clay bullae and denoted the number of tokens in the bullae. The process of stamping with the tokens on the outer surface of the clay bullae resulted in the appearance of pictographic, linear and cuneiform scripts in 3500–2800 BC. These scripts are found on numerous clay tablets, the deciphering of which proves that writing is an immediate result of counting goods and was used for economic and administrative registration. The detailed correspondences between several Mesopotamian and Common Kartvelian forms are given in the appendix.
Gnomon (München), 2021
The benefits of the CIIP project for the scholarly community are obvious and enormous and the team merits the admiration and thanks of all those with any interest in ancient Judaea/Palestine, both for the quality and the speed of their common work. By this point the series has already established itself as a reference and no further comment is required by way of introduction. Volume IV covers a geographical region of very special interest, over a period of extraordinary change: from Alexander to Muhammad. While the wise decision was made to devote a separate (2-part) volume to Jerusalem itself, Judaea and Idumaea represent the real heart of the territory explored in the CIIP. The distinctive and decisive social and religious history broadly binding the 172 locations handled in this volume-from tiny sites, quite off the map, to important centers like Hebron, Bethlehem, and Beit Guvrin-lends particular promise for further study of the multitude of micro-histories catalogued here. In various ways, the successive, intricate processes of Hellenization, Romanization, and Christianization are all detectable in the corpus, right up the moment of the Muslim Conquest. A vast deposit of information is naturally included in the 1580 concentrated pages and more than 1300 inscriptions (#2649-3978) comprising Parts 1 and 2. The format is like that followed in the other volumes, and no general historical and archeological introduction is offered at the beginning of the volume. This lack of a synthetic orientation, of course, reflects the challenging nature of the contents, which, besides the chronological and geographical diversity typical also of other similar collections (e.g. CIL, IG), is also unusually linguistically diverse, so that an adequate conspectus is simply very difficult to gain. The bigger sites are, nevertheless, given separate introductions proportioned to their importance; and obviously the true core of the publication is the assemblage and decipherment of the specific artifacts. Here the familiar presentation is attractive, compact, and complete. Each individual entry includes a brief description, including the findspot (when known), a transcription, translation, short (or sometimes rather developed) commentary, and a focused bibliography. Nearly always, photographs or drawings are also provided. A 60-page Index of Personal Names (cumulative with the earlier volumes) along with three maps and a key to the named locations is included at the back of Part 2. An additional index of foreign words and phrases would have been a large undertaking (not made easier by the multiple languages involved), but an