Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses fur Hethitologie Wurzburg, 4.-8. Oktober 1999.

• Author: Beal, Richard H.
• Position: Book review

Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses fur Hethitologie Wurzburg, 4.-8. Oktober 1999. Edited by GERNOT WILHELM. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten, vol. 45. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2001. Pp. xxiv + 759, 18 plates. [euro]88.

This volume bringing together an international cross-section of scholars interested in the Hittites, their neighbors, predecessors, and immediate successors has something for everyone. In particular, there is much of historical interest.

Donbaz discusses some of the Old Assyrian tablets recently found in the merchant quarter of Kanes. These contain four previously unattested limmus (year names), probably from the end of the Ib period, and mention a previously unattested merchant settlement (karum) at Kuburnat. The most interesting text is addressed "To the gods and city (of Assur) from the community of merchants (tamkarrutum)" and explains the dangers of the journey.

Miller suggests a location for the country of Tikunani south of Ergani and discusses what is known about its relations with its neighbors, especially Samsi-Adad I of Assyria and Hattusili I of Hatti. Since much of his argument depends on the evidence from Semsara, it is frustrating that his map does not show its location. The map also correctly shows two rivers. Habur, the one familiar tributary of the Euphrates and the other a tributary of the Tigris near Zakho. However, when mentioning the Habur, Miller should then specify which of the two rivers he means. On p. 413 we see Turukkean refugees flooding "toward the Habur" valley. Kuwari, who is at Semsara (far to the east of the Tigris), is supposed to control them or, failing that, to send them to Subat-Enlil, which is located in the easternmost part of the (Euphratean) "Habur triangle." But which Habur are they flooding towards? The Tigridian Habur is closer to Semsara and is more or less between it and Subat-Enlil, yet would this obscure Habur be referred to by an Assyriologist in this manner? I also fail to see where in the texts published by Eidem (his Text 911 is in Iraq 47 [1985]: 98) it says that these refugees are to be sent "as captive workers" or "as bond-servants" (p. 413). Eidem (Shemshara Archives 2, 21), without any evidence and rather out of the blue, mentions "a practice well known from later sources, that of mass deportation." But in later periods this practice did not result in "captive workers" or "bond-servants," but rather in a resettled peasantry, a valuable developmental...