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8/18/2019 DEJONG ELIS OB Economic Text and Letters.pdf
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Old Babylonian Economic Texts and Letters from Tell Harmal
Maria de J. Ellis
Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3. (1972), pp. 43-69.
Stable URL:
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O L D B A B YL O N IA N E C ON O RI IC T E X T S A N D L E T T E R S F R O M T E L L H A R N A L
~ I A R I A
J.
ELLIS
E
Yale University
I n vzemorium A. G'oetze
~h~ excavations at ~ ~ 1 1 conducted ill~~~~l
the la te 194 0~s y the
G ~ yielded ~
ma ny tab lets dating to th e Old Babylonian period
before and during the time of Hammurapi. 111-
cludcd amon g these tex ts were several da te l ists;
a geographical list,3 and
texts,' as
as
the famo us copies of the L~~~ of
Egn unn a, wh ich LVere published by A. Goetze.5
T he g rea t bu lk of th e tex ts, holvever, LVere arcllival
in nature, including economic texts, contracts,
and a qua ntit y of letters. Fifty of these letters
LVerc
publislled by ~~~ t~~ in
sumer
4,6 but
a
considerable number remain unpublished. xone
of the economic te xt s fro m th e offjcial excavatiorls
have so far beerl published, but transliteratiorls
and translations of ~~~~~l texts lThich mere ac-
quired
from
dealers i l l the 19201~
rid
3 0 1 ~ n d
are
in the ya le ~ ~ b
collection
l
mcrc prcserited by
S.
Simmons in JC S 12 and 14;7
copies of th ese t ab le ts mill appe ar in a volum e of
Early Old Babylonian texts to be published by
th e l'ale Bab ylon ian Collection.
Goetze made preliminary tran sliterati ons of al-
most a thou sand of th e economic texts and letters
from Tel l Harmal ; in 1967 he turned seventy-
four of these texts over to me for publication. I
copied them during a stay in Baghdad in 1967-
1 . For preliminary publications of t he excavations,
see Sumer 4 137-39, as well as the pamphlet of the I>i -
rectorate-General of Antiquities ent itl ed: Tell Harmal
1959).
2 .
Teha Baqir, Sumer
5 34-85 136-43.
3 . Cf Selim J . Levy, Sumer 3 50-83.
4 . Cf. e.g. Taha Baqir, Sumer 6 39-54; 130-48; 7 28-45;
-4.
C;oet,ze, Sumer
7 126-55; W .
von Soden, Sumer
8 49-56;
F:.
LI. Bruins, Sumer
9 241-59.
5 . See the definitive publication in AASOK 31 and the
recen t comnierlts by B. Landsberger, Symbolae David 2
65-105. Cf. a review of t he latt er, with further comments
by
J . J .
Finkelstein in JAOS
90 245ff.
The text has re-
cently been trea ted by R Yaron, The ws of EBnunna.
l i .
Sumer 14 3-78 = pp. 1-76 in the separate reprint),
plus pls.
1-24.
The article includes a di_scussion
o f
the
administrative organization of ancient Sadupp um, pp.
3-9.
7 . See JCS 13 71-93; 105-119; 14 23-32; 49 -55.
6K8 T he tex ts include twelve letters (nos. 63-
74 ); h e remainder are economic texts. These fall
into five main categories: 1) those dealing with
~ ~ ~ ~
:ibJu ('-lo
)
(2) those accounting f or carts
( G IS .~ I A R .G ~ nos. 13-20); (3) l ists of.DA;
harvesters (GUR US SE.GU R~,,.KU~; os. 21-36);
U lists of lvorkers (G UR US : nos. 37-56); an d
(5) me mo rand a listing disbu rsem ents(? ) of beer
P C ~
PN (nos. 57-61).1° Te xt s
11
and 12 deal
~ f' it h iPku, a ty pe of bread, lvhilf' no. 62 records
the division
of inheritance.
The present article is intended merely to make
the texts public, and to that end corlsists only of
this introduction, a catalogue of the texts ex-
c e r~ t e d rom the Iracl Aluscum General Register,
and the autograph copies of the texts. Th e d('ci-
sion for this fo rm of p ublic ation is based
11
several
reasons. Some of the texts should be treatcd
extensively, while others require little or nothing
~ ~ i ~ ~
8 . am indeb ted to officials of the Ilirectora te- ;ell -
era1 of Antiqu ities of I raq and of th e Iraq Museum ,
especially to Sayyid Fuad Safar, Dr. Faraj Basmachi,
and Dr. Fauzi Keschid, for permission to copy and pub-
lish these tablets, and for their kindness and help d11r1ng
my visit to Iraq t o work on the texts .
9 . These texts are an important addition t o the corpus
of at test ations for the term iibiu. As such they, w ~ t h
some further as yet unpublished material from Tell
Harma l, are tr eated extensively in my stu dy of LIesopo
tamian agricultural revenues to be published as a vol-
ume in the series Studi a Pohl)
10. No 59 was assigned to me under the impressio~~
that it also deals with
pat
PN.
I rather tend to douht
this, on several grounds. First , the
pat
texts deal ex-
clusively with beer; no 59 is a lis t of grain
Secol~dly,
the texts are cast in the form amount beer
pa t
PN date; if more than one person is listed, t he notlce
1s repeated zn toto with the exception of the d ay 111 the
date. No. 59 is a list of several persons, with a sub-tota l
The signs must probably be tak en as par t of the first
personal name listed, although at th e moment I cannot
suggest what i t may have been.
11. These texts were originally assigned to me under
the impression that Bibiu was also mentioned in them.
but s tud y of the text s has shown th at they ar e concerned
with ii-zp-ku rather than with Bi-ib-izr. For Bipku and
a similar confusion of it and BibBu see e.g . ARhI
9
234;
-4RMT 11 266, 277, 280, 281, 283, 286-91.
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in th e w ay of editio n; among these are the lists of
harv esters an d workers. An extended discussion
here would therefore be very uneven in balance.
I t would also not allow the material to be used
to the best effect, since the texts, especially the
lists an d letters, are best studied in the context of
the cntire archive from Harmal. I have now
begun such a stu dy, using A . Goetze s preliminary
transliterations as well as some others, which I
made in
1967,
of texts not seen by Goetze.I2
The texts published here will bc discussed with
the rest of the archive.
Catalogue and extract from the Iraq Museum
General Register
Text Seal no. 13 Ibl number Findspot
to
IM register
Room 134, Level I1
Room 134, Level I1
Room 134, Level I1
Room 134, Level I1
Room 129, Level I1
Room 134, Level I1
Room 134, Level I1
Room 133, Level 11
Room 143, Level I1
Room 143, Level I1
Room 134, Level I1
Room 134, Level I1
Room 133, Level TI
Room 133, Level I1
Room 136, Level I1
Room 136, Level I1
Room 133, Level IT
Room 133, Level TI
Room 136, Level TI
Court 110, Level I1
Room 5, Level I1
Room 5, Level I1
Room 5, Level I1
Room 5, Level I1
Room 133, Level TI
12. Among the inscriptional material found during
the excavations at Tell Harmal were also
a
group of
brick-bullae, which I transliterated but did not copy in
1967. These tex ts are_ of some interes t for th e economic
situa tion of ancient Saduppum and its surroundings.
lLoom 109, Level I1
I'loom 136, Level I1
Iloom 109, Level
I
Iloom 109, Level I1
Room 136, Level I 1
Room 136, Level I1
Room 101, Level I1
Room 136, Level I1
lloom 133, Level I1
lloonl 109, Level I1
ILoom 136, Level I1
Surf ace
Itoom 133, Level I1
Room 133, Level I1
lloom 133, Level I1
lloonl 109, Level I 1
Square 5K Level I1
Room 109, Level TI
Room 133, Level I1
Iloom 82, Level I1
Room 133, Level I1
Room 133, Level I1
lloom 133, Level I1
Iloom 109, Level 11
I<oom 101, Level IT
Hoom 133, Level I1
Room 101, Level 11
ltoom 134, Level 11
Iloom 118, Level I1
Room 133, Level I1
I'loom 136, Level I1
Room 143, Level I1
Room 143, Level TI
Room 109, Level
T
Room 133, Level IT
Hoom 134, Level IT
ltoom 133, Level IT
Room 5, Level T
Room 155, Level l I
lPoom 191, Level TI
lioom 11, Level IT
Room 100, Square 10,
Level TI
68 Room 11, Level I1
69 Room 11, Level I1
70 Room 211, Level TI
71 Room 197, Level TI
72 14, case
Room 133, Level I1
73 Room 11, Level 11
74 Room 211, Level I1
13. There are illegible seal tr aces on text s 11, 13, 16,
and 60.
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BABYLONI~~N
COXOMIC
EXTS XD LETTERSFROM TELLHARMAL
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6
LLIS OLDBABTLONIAUCONOMICEXTS
ND
LETTERS
ROM
TELLHAR~IAL
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