Archaic Administrative Texts From Uruk: The Early Campaigns.

• Author: Powell, Marvin A.

This work by the Berlin archaeological-assyriological collegium, done with the skill we have come to expect, brings us another step forward in the tortuous and time-consuming process of interpreting the earliest written records produced by our (rather peculiar) species.

Introductory material consists of: a thoughtful and useful "Vorwort" by Hans Nissen; a fascinating introduction by Robert Englund; and succinct, informative descriptions of the seal impressions (plus catalogue) by Rainer Boehmer.

The body of the work (by Englund) consists of: (1) a text-catalogue that identifies find spots (where these could be established) and other useful information; (2) a German-English and English-German glossary of terminology used in the Uruk excavation reports; (3) a concordance of 601 texts previously published by Adam Falkenstein in Archaische Texte aus Uruk [ATU] (Leipzig: O. Harrassowitz, 1936); (4) a transliteration of the texts in the volume under review; (5) a "glossary" of these texts, which includes drawings of the signs "glossed" and constitutes an important supplement both to ATU and to M. Green et al., Zeichenliste der archaischen Texte aus Uruk [ZATU = ATU 2] (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1987); (6) text copies. The work concludes with very nice drawings of the twenty individually identifiable seals, by Christine Gully and Helga Kosak, and photographs of thirty-three tablets or sealings and of one findspot.

This is primarily raw material. It is difficult and conveys mostly discrete images with vague impressions of relationships. One can, therefore, hardly ask legitimately for historical interpretations. The work, however, contains a great deal of preliminary analysis in the transliterations and in the "glossary," both of which provide basic tools necessary to study the material. Editing a work like this requires immense patience and meticulous attention to detail, and there is evidence of this throughout. Indeed, if careful editing can bring us to an understanding of the archaic texts, this and other works from the Berlin collegium will do so.

Not to be forgotten is the 3.5-inch disk (see pp. 6 and 23 for details) containing, among other files, the current Berlin database on the archaic texts. This brave decision to share with other scholars a database put together with enormous labor may well mark a watershed in the history of our profession. I confess exponentially rising aversion to staring at a CRT, but also see the handwriting on the...