Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500-300 B.C.

• Author: CASTEL, CORINNE
• Position: Review

Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500-300 B.C. By OLOF PEDERSEN. Bethesda, Md.: CDL PRESS, 1998. Pp. xxii + 291, maps. $42.

Olof Pedersen has dedicated several books to archives and libraries discovered in the city of Assur (compare his Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur: A Survey of the Material from the German Excavations I-II [Uppsala, 1985-86]). During recent years there has also been a large number of studies treating individual archives or parts of archives, but only a few studies dealing with libraries. Finally, we have seen a few analyses of archives or libraries in individual cities.

This new work is the first comprehensive overview presenting the main finds and reaching general conclusions about the occurrence and use of archives and libraries for the period 1500-300 B.c., including a few collections of texts that continued the cuneiform tradition into the following centuries. This study treats the entire ancient Near East--that is, Mesopotamia, Mitanni and Hatti, the Elamite and Persian regions, and the Western Alphabetic area. The Egyptian sphere is mentioned when the use of tablets with cuneiform writing is documented for the correspondence among the great powers of the time. The basic material has been taken from a large number of different publications. Recent references and discoveries are mentioned. The plans of cities and buildings where texts have been found have been produced on a uniform scale, oriented with north at the top, and supplied with indications of the findspots of the archives and libraries. For all these reasons this study is an extremely useful reference work tha t is easy to consult. With its general presentation of the various areas, periods, and sites it is intended for a broad audience of assyriologists and archaeologists, professionals as well as students.

This study focuses on collections of texts found in or near their original place of storage. Texts not known to have been found together but which have been grouped according to their contents into what have sometimes been called "archives" are, as a rule, not treated here. This choice seems wise: most examples of "archives" are considered apart from their context of discovery, which is, of course, essential for understanding what constituted an "archive" in the ancient Near East. This term must no longer be employed in its accepted meaning of a collection or repository of records no longer in use but preserved for their...