Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians, vol. 9: General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 10/2.

• Author: LION, BRIGITTE
• Position: Review

Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians, vol. 9: General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 10/2. Edited by D. I. OWEN and G. WILHELM. Bethesda, Md.: CDL PRESS, 1998. Pp. viii + 396.

This new volume of the SCCNH series, like the previous ones, enhances our knowledge of the Hurrian language and of the Nuzi texts.

A large part of the General Studies section is devoted to Hurrian lexicography and grammar. During recent excavations in Ugarit, a new copy of the syllabic vocabulary "A" was found. This Sumero-Akkadian vocabulary was already well known, but the Ugarit version adds a third column with Hurrian words. B. Andre-Salvini and M. Salvini publish here this new vocabulary, with photographs, a complete index of Hurrian words and a reverse French-Hurrian index. Other detailed studies treat recently published Hurrian texts: T. Richter analyzes the Hurrian personal names on the Tigunanu-prism (M. Salvini, The Habiru Prism of King Tunip-tessup of Tikunani, Documenta Asiana 3. Rome, 1996), and M. Giorgieri proposes a new reconstruction and interpretation for the Hurro-Hittite incantation that introduces the magical ritual of the "old woman" Salasu from Kizzuwatna (V. Haas and I. Wegner, Die Rituale der Beschworerinnen [SU.GI.sup.SAL], ChS 1/5, no. 40. Rome, 1988). Several new Hurrian words are identified in these studies: karulumma epesu, "to store," from Akkadian karum; melumma epesu. "to drive," tektumma epesu, "to set free" (by J. Fincke); kirman(i), "eighteen or eighty," and kirmanzi, "eighteenth or eightieth" (by M. Giorgieri and I. Roseler); arana, "gift, tribute," a term which is found in four sale contracts from Emar (by A. Skaist); and sinussi, "blinkers for horses" (by G. Wilhelm). A list of divine names from Emar gives the equivalence AN.AN.MAR.TU = [e.sup.d]-ni a-mur-[ri-we], "the god of Amurrum" (T. Richter). G. Wilhelm and M. Giorgieri re-examine several passages of the Mittani letter from El-Amarna, while G. Wilhelm devotes an article to the suffix-duplication of the Hurrian instrumental case (in -ae).

Regarding Nuzi documentation, P. Negri-Scafa studies the references to the city gates of several towns in the Arrapha kingdom, and tries to locate and identify them. Gates are often mentioned as the place where the scribes wrote their tablets. For the cities of Arrapha and Nuzi the names of different gates are known, and the author collects the names of the scribes working there, as well as those of the...