A bibliographical list of cuneiform inscriptions from Canaan, Palestine/Philistia, and the land of Israel.

• Author: Horowitz, Wayne

INTRODUCTION

TODAY WE ARE ABLE to place eighty-nine objects in our corpus. These range from well-known texts such as the Taanach letters, which have been studied and translated a number of times (Taanach 1-2, 5-6), to mere scraps of clay, and include texts belonging to a wide variety of genres, including literature, royal inscriptions, letters, administrative texts, inscribed cylinder seals, lexical texts, mathematical texts, omens, and a magical/medical text. More than a third of the inscribed objects come from three sites: Taanach (17), Hazor (15), and Aphek (8). Samaria has yielded six objects, including late fourth-century coins, (4) while Megiddo has yielded five, but only one cuneiform tablet. (5) No other site has provided more than four items. In fact, a majority of sites have contributed only an item or two.

Sites yielding epigraphic finds range from Hazor in the north to Beer Sheva in the south, and from Ashkelon and Ashdod on the Mediterranean coast to Jericho and Bet Shean by the Jordan River. Although a majority of the items have been recovered as the result of controlled archaeological research, a number are chance finds; for example, the Megiddo Gilgamesh tablet (Megiddo 1) was discovered by a kibbutz shepherd on his rounds with his flocks. (6)

Items in our corpus date to both the first and second millennia B.C., with the earliest texts being those from Hazor, which can be associated with the archives of Mari and the Middle Bronze II cities of Syria. A few other items may also date to the Middle Bronze Age--or to the late Middle and/or early Late Bronze Ages. Just over half of the tablets can be dated with certainty to the Late Bronze Age, in many cases on the basis of clear epigraphic and linguistic similarities to the fourteenth-century Amarna archive in Egypt. A smaller number of texts date to the first millennium, including roughly fifteen belonging to the Neo-Assyrian period. A few isolated texts date to the Late Babylonian, Persian, and/or Hellenistic periods. Unlike the situation in Babylonia, we as yet find no evidence at all for the transcription of Greek or Aramaic into cuneiform characters. (7)

Most of the texts are written in Akkadian of one type or another, ranging from the standard Akkadian of the Mesopotamian homeland to local "creolized" Akkadian with West Semitic features. The West Semitic local language(s) are directly represented in our corpus in lexical lists, glosses, and three texts inscribed in a "southern" version of the alphabetic cuneiform script dating to the Late Bronze Age best known from Ugarit. (8) A few academic texts and short inscriptions on cylinder seals are written in Sumerian, and one text, a fragment of a Persian-period royal inscription, preserves some Elamite. (9) The texts also include a wide variety of personal names representing diverse languages and cultures, including Babylonian/Assyrian, Hurrian, Egyptian, Indo-Iranian, and various West Semitic languages including Hebrew. (10) As an appendix we offer entries for five items in hieroglyphic Hittite, but do not collect objects inscribed in Egyptian or linear alphabetic scripts. (11)

Most of the objects are clay cuneiform tablets, but the corpus also includes other inscribed objects such as the aforementioned cylinder seals, two inscribed fragments of clay models of sheep livers, a clay jar stopper, an inscribed bronze ringlet, and stone stelae. The items themselves are today to be found in diverse settings, ranging from the collections of The Israel Museum, Rockefeller Museum, and Institute of Archaeology of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, to private and museum collections in Tel-Aviv, Istanbul, Chicago, and Ann Arbor. The present location of some items still escapes us. Some of the objects have already been the subject of intense study while others remain unpublished.

The comprehensive re-edition and study of these documents provokes certain basic questions, many of which will be addressed in our book as well as in further articles under preparation by the participants in the research project. (12) For example, Why was there cuneiform in Canaan? How was it used and by whom? In what way does the cuneiform record reflect the linguistic, political, and social history of the region in the Bronze and Iron Ages? The present contribution is meant simply as a basic resource to fill a long-standing need.

LIST OF CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS (13)

Below we provide an entry for each of the objects, arranged by site. These entries typically include a list of primary editions and studies for each object. "Primary editions" offer transliterations and translations from the original texts, and usually handcopies and/or photographs. "Studies" present additional epigraphic, linguistic, and historical observations, etc. (14) Unless otherwise noted, the language of the texts is Akkadian or one of its dialects. (15) When possible we also date the objects, (16) and indicate those held in museum or other public collections.

1. Tel Aphek (17)

   Aphek 1. Lexical fragment (Israel Museum). Primary publication: Rainey (1975): 125-28 (photo, pl. 24); Studies: Edzard (1985): 251; Demsky (1990): 161-62; van der Toorn (2000): 105; NEAEHL, 69 (photo). Date: Late Bronze Age. Comment: When complete, most likely contained Sumerian, Akkadian, and West Semitic entries.

   Aphek 2. Administrative fragment (Israel Museum). Primary publication: Rainey (1975): 128 (photo pl. 24). Study: Demsky (1990): 163. Date: Late Bronze Age.

   Aphek 3. Fragment of a trilingual lexical text (Israel Museum). Primary Publication: Rainey (1976): 137-39 (photo, pl. 9, nos. 1-3). Studies: Edzard (1985): 251; Isre'el (1998): 425-26; Demsky (1990): 161-62; Dalley (1998): 59 (copy); van der Toorn (2000): 105. Date: Late Bronze Age. Comment: When complete, most likely contained Sumerian, Akkadian, and West Semitic entries.

   Aphek 4: Fragment (location unknown). Primary publication: Rainey (1976): 139 (photo, pl. 10, no. 1). Date: Late Bronze Age.

   Aphek 5: Fragment (location unknown). Primary publication: Rainey (1976): 140 (photo, pl. 10, no. 2). Date: Late Bronze Age.

   Aphek 6: Fragment (18) (Israel Museum). Primary publication: Hallo (1981): 18-20 (photo, pl. 3, nos. 1-2; copy, p. 19). Study: Edzard (1985): 252. Date: Late Bronze Age.

   Aphek 7: The Governor's Letter (Israel Museum). Primary publication: Owen (1981): 1-15 (photo pls. 1-2; copy, pp. 2-3). Studies: Singer (1983): 3-25; (1999): 698, 716; Edzard (1985): 251; Zadok (1996): 114; NEAEHL, 69 (photo). Date: Late Bronze Age.

   Aphek 8: Administrative fragment (location unknown). Primary publication: Owen (1981): 15 (photo, pl. 2, no. 2). Date: Late Bronze Age.

2. Ashdod

   Ashdod 1: Inscribed cylinder seal (Israel Antiquities Authority). Primary publication: Shaffer (1971): 198-99 (photo, Figures and Plates, pl. 97; copy, p. 198). Studies: NEAEHL, 95 (photo). (19) Date: Second millennium (uncertain). (20)

   Ashdod 2-4: Three fragments of a stele (location unknown). (21) Primary publication: Tadmor (1971): 192-97 (photo, Figures and Plates, pls. 96-97). (22) Studies: Freedman (1963): 138; Dothan (1964): 87; Tadmor (1966): 95 (photo, fig. 11); Hestrin (1972): 32, 58 (photos). Photos: Cogan and Tadmor (1988), third plate following p. 228, (b); Stern (2001): 14-15; NEAEHL, 100; Galling (1968): 61, 1. Date: Neo-Assyrian (Sargon II).

3. Ashkelon

   Ashkelon 1: Lexical fragment (Ashkelon Excavations). Primary publication: Huehnergard and van Soldt (1999): 184-92 (photo and copy, p. 185). Date: Late Bronze Age. Comment: When complete, most likely contained Sumerian, Akkadian, and West Semitic entries.

4. Beer Sheva

   Beer Sheva 1: Votive cylinder (Israel Antiquities Authority). Primary publication: Rainey (1973): 61-70 (photo, pl. 26; copy, p. 66). Studies: Beck (1973): 56-60; Collon (1987): 133-34, no. 564 (photo); Stern (2001): 332; NEAEHL, 172 (photo). Date: Neo-Assyrian.

5. Ben Shemen

   Ben Shemen 1: Stele fragment (Israel Museum). Primary publication: unpublished. Studies: Tadmor (1973): 72 [Hebrew]. (23) Date: Neo-Assyrian (Sargon II).

6. Bet Mirsim

   Bet Mirsim 1: Cylinder seal with cuneiform signs and hieroglyphics (Rockefeller Museum). (24) Studies: Albright (1932): 9-10 (photo, 8, fig. 3); (1935): 215 n. 69, 217 n. 73; (1938): 45-46 (pl. 30, no. 1, 3); Rowe (1936): 237-38 (photo, pl. 26, S. 11); Parker (1949): 11, no. 20 (photo, pl. 3, no. 20); Collon (1987): 52-53, no. 203 (photo). Date: Middle Bronze Age. Comment: Decorative cuneiform signs.

7. Bet Shean

   Bet Shean 1: Inscribed cylinder seal (Rockefeller Museum). Primary publication: Rowe (1930): 23 (photo, pl. 34, no. 3). Studies: Nougayrol (1939): 52 (copy, pl. 7, RB. 1); Parker (1949): 6, no. 1 (photo, pl. 1, no. 1); Demsky (1990): 164; James and McGovern (1993), vol. 1): 231, no. 1 (photo, vol. 2, pl. 58a); Galling (1968): 13, A 3 1. Date: Old Babylonian/Middle Bronze Age. Comment: Sumerian or Sumerograms.

   Bet Shean 2: Cylinder letter of Tagi to Labaya (Israel Museum). Primary publication: Horowitz (1996): 208-18 (photo and copy, 211). Studies: Horowitz (1994): 84-86 (photo, 85); (1997a): 97-100 (photo, 97); Rainey (1998): 239-42; van der Toorn (2000): 99, 105. Date: Late Bronze Age, Amarna Period.

8. Bet Shemesh

   Bet Shemesh 1: Alphabetic cuneiform abecedary (Rockefeller Museum). Primary publications: Grant (1933): 3-5 (photo, 4); (1934): 27 (photo, pl. 20; copy, 29, no. 1); Albright (1934): 18-19 (copy, 19); Barton (1933): 5-6 (photo, 4; copy, 5); Albright (1964): 51-53; Loundine (1987): 243-50 (copy, 244); Sass (1991): 315-26 (photo and copy, 326). Studies: Virolleaud (1960): 85-90; Weippert (1966): 313-14; Cross (1967): 14 *; Naveh (1982): 28-30 (copy, 28, fig. 22); Puech (1986): 207-8 (copy, 202); Dietrich and Lorenz (1988a): 61-85; (1988b): 277-96, 303, 305-7; (1989): 104; Zadok (1996): 115; NEAEHL, 250 (photo); Galling (1968): 14 B 1. (25) Date: Late Bronze Age. Comment: West Semitic alphabet.

9. Gezer

   Gezer 1: Envelope fragment (Israel Museum). Primary...