Cuneiform Inscriptions in the Collection of the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem: The Old Babylonian Inscriptions.

• Author: Seri, Andrea

Cuneiform Inscriptions in the Collection of the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem: The Old Babylonian Inscriptions. By JOAN GOODNICK WESTENHOLZ and AAGE WESTENHOLZ. Cuneiform Monographs, vol. 33. Leiden: BRILL, 2006. Pp. xiii + 191, illus. [euro]99.

Volume 33 of the Cuneiform Monographs series includes nine Old Babylonian texts housed in the Bible Lands Museum of Jerusalem. These are the so-called Larsa ritual tablet (no. 1), cones of Isme-Dagan (no. 2) and Lipit-Istar of Isin (no. 3), a cone of Sin-iddinam of Larsa (no. 4), a foundation tablet of Rim-Sin of Larsa (no. 5), an account of silver payments (no. 6), a real estate sale document (no. 7), an account of delivery of silver (no. 8), and a ledger with tabulated bookkeeping (no. 9). Except for the four administrative documents, the other cuneiform items were already known from previous editions--as is the case with the Larsa ritual, or from duplicates--as with the four royal inscriptions. The care that the authors took in editing the texts and in preparing the critical apparatus is to be commended.

The book has a catalogue of texts, a concordance of museum numbers, an extensive bibliography, indices (of divine, personal, and geographic names), as well as an index of words, photographs of all the items, and autograph copies of only two of the tables (no. 1 and 9). The inscriptions are arranged in three sections. Part one, the largest by far, is devoted to the Larsa ritual tablet; part two deals with the royal inscriptions, and part three with the administrative documents. Each text is provided with a description, transliteration, translation (no. 9 is not translated) and thorough philological notes.

In their study of the Larsa ritual tablet, the authors discuss its contents and genre. Since its first publication in 1963, the character of this text has been much debated. Disagreements revolve around whether this is a descriptive ritual or an expenditure, and therefore, whether this is an administrative or a literary text. Different points of view are presented and the conclusion is that "[t]here can be no question that this text is an account of expenditures in connection with some cultic activity" (p. 5). The authors further acknowledge that "we have no idea why this tablet was written" (p. 6).

The Larsa ritual tablet is dated to the sixty-first regnal year of Rim-Sin of Larsa, and it apparently belonged to the archives of Balamunamhe. Unlike other interpreters, Joan and Aage Westenholz...