Studies in the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians, vol. 7: Edith Porada Memorial Volume; vol. 8: Richard F. S. Starr Memorial Volume.

• Author: Lion, Brigitte
• Position: Review

Edited by D. I. OWEN and G. WILHELM. Bethesda, Md.: CDL PRESS, 1995. Pp. viii + 159; viii + 474. $50; $60.

Beginning with volume 7, SCCNH became an annual publication edited jointly by D. I. Owen and G. Wilhelm. Volume 7 is offered in honor of Edith Porada, for her work on Nuzi glyptic that included a study of the impressions on tablets from the Tehip-tilla archive (Seal Impressions of Nuzi, AASOR 24 [1944-45] [New York, 1947]).

In part I of vol. 7, J. Fincke adds four new words derived from Nuzi tablets to the Hurrian lexicon. Together with Fincke, Wilhelm and I. Roseler give new readings for several passages of EA 24, the Mitannian letter found at Tell el-Amarna. On the basis of Hurrian documents from Bogazkoy published in V. Haas, Corpus der hurritischen Schriftdenkmaler, I (Rome: Multigrafica Editrice, 1984), M. Giorgieri and Wilhelm analyze vocalizations in/i/and/e/ and the choice of cuneiform signs with which to write them. It seems that signs with /i/ in the Babylonian syllabary could represent either/e/or /i/, but that signs with/e/most often represent/e/.

1. Wegner gives an etymology for the name of the goddess Sa(w)uska and derives it from the Hurrian adjective savosi, "great," a meaning now recovered through the Hurro-Hittite bilingual from Bogazkoy. D. Schwemer details the keldi (= "well-being") sacrifice associated with an ambassi or "burnt-offering?' This ritual, well known at Bogazkoy, has parallels in Ugarit (slmm and srp) and elsewhere in Syria and Palestine and can now be linked to its homonym in the Bible.

Owen adds a sixth Old Assyrian tablet to those already published in HSS 10. The remaining articles in this section treat texts dating from the fourteenth century B.C.E. Among the Nuzi documents in the British Museum, J. Fincke has found joins for six tablets and M.P. Maidman has added a new tablet to the Tehip-Tilla archive. Wilhelm studies the lists of "tables from the bit papahi," the last being a room in the temple, perhaps a storehouse, but certainly not a cella. Wilhelm also gives his collations for the Wullu texts in the Louvre, thus completing K. Grosz's contribution in The Archive of the Wullu Family, CNI Publications 5 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1984). T. Richter gives a developed study for the mag/qrattu, "threshing floor," with all the occurrences from Nuzi.

In part II, "Nuzi Notes," there are a number of joins to previously published texts as well as philological notes. A lexical index completes the...