Enuma Elis: The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth.

• Author: Pearce, Laurie

Enuma Elis: The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth. By PHILIPPE TALON. State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts, vol. 4. Helsinki: THE NEO-ASSYRIAN TEXT CORPUS PROJECT, 2005. Pp. xix + 138. $34 (paper).

The publication of the cuneiform text, transliteration, and translation of Enuma Elis as a volume in the affordable State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts series is a welcome addition to the growing number of tools and cuneiform text editions available for the teaching of Akkadian. Having adopted this edition for use in an intermediate Akkadian course, I found that both its strengths and its idiosyncrasies enriched the learning process. The critical apparatus presented after each four-line stanza of the composite transliterated text (pp. 33-76) affords the newly intermediate student ample opportunity to consider the significance of textual variants without imposing on him the time-consuming, cumbersome task of consulting all exemplars and/or preparing a "score" edition. For the advanced reader of Akkadian, the "Manuscripts" section of the book (pp. xiii-xviii) provides a compilation of the text sigla, publication information, and line numbers preserved for all exemplars, thus facilitating study of the text in greater detail.

The format and content of the present volume introduces positive changes over those of previous volumes in the SAACT series. Here the apparatus containing the variants appears following each stanza rather than at the bottom of the page. The decision to print the transliteration and translation in four-line stanzas is particularly useful as a means of introducing the student to the notion of the existence of Akkadian poetics. The significant change in content is the inclusion of a translation of the text, here into French, an addition particularly welcome for the student.

Two idiosyncratic tendencies, one related to the selection of readings for inclusion in the composite text, the other in the preparation of the glossary, pose potential problems for the less-advanced reader; the adoption of the lectio difficilior in the face of a grammatically (and sometimes syntactically) preferable reading attested in a variant, and the assignment of lexemes to non-standard entries in the glossary. Keeping in mind editor Robert Whiting's caution that the composite text "does not represent any ancient text that ever existed," and that the avowed purpose of the volume "is pedagogic (either for classroom use or for self-study)" [p...