A Corpus of Ammonite Inscriptions.

• Author: Burlingame, Andrew

A Corpus of Ammonite Inscriptions. By WALTER E. AUFRECHT. 2nd ed. University Park, PA: EISENBRAUNS, 2019. Pp. xxviii + 619, illus. $69.50.

With his publication of A Corpus of Ammonite Inscriptions in 1989, Walter Aufrecht provided a tremendous resource for scholars whose varied interests and agendas required them to engage epigraphic material written in the Ammonite language. Those familiar with this field are aware already of the difficulties involved in chasing down all potentially relevant texts and, especially, of locating important bibliography, which tends to be scattered across a range of publishing venues, many of which are poorly indexed and/or difficult to access. By bringing together all texts having been identified as Ammonite in the secondary literature and by providing an exhaustive bibliography for each such text, Aufrecht's 1989 monograph rendered the primary texts and the literature devoted to them far more accessible to a much wider range of scholars than had previously been the case.

Since 1989, research devoted to Ammon, its language, script, history, and culture has continued to develop. Several large-scale studies of Ammonite culture and history have appeared (e.g., Hiibner 1992; MacDonald and Younker 1999; Tyson 2014). Ongoing archaeological surveys and excavations within the territory of ancient Ammon (see, e.g., the steady stream of publications of new finds at Tall Jawa and the sites investigated by the Madaba Plains Project; recent surveys can be found in Tyson 2014) have continued to bring new data to light, including new textual material. Epigraphic anthologies like Ahituv 2005 and 2008 and digital initiatives like InscriptiFact have made Ammonite texts accessible to an ever-broader audience. Surveys of Ammonite texts, language, and palaeography have continued to appear as well (see, e.g., Bordreuil 1992; Israel 1997; Segert 1997; Aufrecht 1999; Beyer 2009, 2012; Parker 2002; Yun 2005; Aufrecht 2014; Herr 2014; Rollston 2014; Lemaire 2017; Wilson-Wright 2019; the textual surveys found in Hiibner 1992 and Tyson 2014, cited above, should also be consulted). Some of the most important new developments in the study of Ammonite texts and language have resulted from a series of epigraphic studies of Ammonite ostraca carried out by Matthieu Richelle, both independently (2012, 2018) and in collaboration with Michael Weigl (Richelle and Weigl 2009). As the Ammonite corpus consists largely of inscribed seals, the significant bibliography on iconography and sigillary production and practice that has appeared since 1989 has similarly changed the picture of the Ammonite corpus in numerous ways (see, among many others, Hiibner 1993; Keel 1994, 1995, 1997, 2010a, 2010b, 2013, 2017, 2020; Avigad and Sass 1997; Eggler and Keel 2006).

With so many critical developments having taken place, it is no surprise that Aufrecht's 1989 corpus required an update. This important work now appears in its second edition. The strengths of the first edition continue to characterize the second edition, and its significantly expanded textual coverage makes it a vital resource for those interested in Transjordanian palaeography, lexicography, dialectology, and onomastics. As in the first edition, Aufrecht aims to collect all texts that have been classified as Ammonite at some point in the secondary literature. As a result, many of the texts appearing in this volume are also treated in other studies devoted to Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite, Edomite, Philistine, or Aramaic seals and texts. The utility of this resource, in other words, is not restricted to topics more narrowly related to Ammon.

Because a number of reviews of the first edition are available elsewhere (helpfully collected on p. xiii n. 1 of this second edition), the following remarks will be directed toward the ways in which the second edition differs from the first.

As in the first edition, Aufrecht employs a siglum (*) to indicate that he has personally examined a given text (a model of epigraphic explicitness worth emulating), but, in addition to placing this siglum before the numbered entries within the body of the text, he has also added them to the list of texts in the Table of Contents, facilitating quick reference. The Text Concordances appearing on pp. xxi-xxviii now include a number of additional works, perhaps most notably Avigad and Sass 1997 (this portion of the concordance was contributed by Craig Tyson), which will allow readers to relate Aufrecht's corpus to other reference works in the field more efficiently. The introductory articles have not changed significantly in their substance (though note a new entry on the topic of provenance, p. 3), but the bibliography devoted to each topic treated (language, onomastics, palaeography, iconography, and the debated plaster texts from Deir 'Alla) has been updated and expanded considerably, making the first eighteen pages of this second edition an immensely useful resource.

The appendices found in the first edition have been reorganized and updated. In appendix II, Aufrecht indicates his preferred classification of each of the texts appearing in the corpus. He has helpfully flagged...