Alltagstexte aus neuassyrischen Archiven und Bibliotheken der Stadt Assur.

• Author: Galil, Gershon
• Position: Studien zu den Assur-Texten, vol. 3 - Book review

Alltagstexte aus neuassyrischen Archiven und Bibliotheken der Stadt Assur. By BETINA FAIST. Studien zu den Assur-Texten, vol. 3. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2007. Pp. xx + 250, plates. [euro]54.

The third volume of the series Studien zu den Assur-Texten presents transliterations and translations of 115 previously unedited texts from Assur held by the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. These important texts, unearthed about a century ago (1903-1914), and first published in cuneiform only in 2005 (Faist 2005), open new horizons for a better understanding of the society and the economy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The volume under review opens with a short introduction (pp. 1-9) that presents the texts by archives, chronological setting, and type of documents (mainly by tables). Most texts (sixty-seven of them) are dated to the seventh century (668-610 B.C.), and only nine to the eighth century (782-705 B.C.). The majority of the documents are legal transactions, mainly contracts (thirty-six) or conveyances (twenty-nine), and seventeen are court decisions (most of them denu-texts).

The introduction is too short, especially in comparison with the introductions of StAT 1, StAT 2, SAAB 5, SAAB 9 or the volumes of the SAA series. One would expect to find brief discussions of the seventeen new court decisions or of the main archives (N2, N27, N28, and N31, with 19-25 new texts in each archive), but Faist decided to present these detailed studies in other places, including in a forthcoming article on archive N31 which will be published in collaboration with H.-U. Onasch (see p. 126).

In the second and primary chapter of the book (pp. 10-173) the new texts are presented by archives. Each text is defined by text type, date, scribe's name, format and size, sealing, and more, followed by a transliteration, a translation, and a short commentary. But again, the introduction to each archive is brief and mainly presents the new texts in chronological order in a table with a few notes.

The book is completed by a catalogue and a concordance (pp. 175-86), and provided with detailed indices arranged in order similar to the volumes of the SAA series: first the logograms and their readings, then a full glossary, and indices of names, sources, and subjects. The volume concludes with two short appendices: the first is a copy of a few texts which were not published in cuneiform in KAN 3, and second is a catalogue of the seals of these texts, prepared by Evelyn...