Mesopotamian Chronicles.

• Author: Novotny, Jamie

Mesopotamian Chronicles. By JEAN-JACQUES GLASSNER, edited by Benjamin R. Foster. Writings from the Ancient World, vol. 19. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, 2004. Pp. xx + 365. $24.95 (paper).

Jean-Jacques Glassner, for the second time in eleven years, has collected into a single, concise volume most of the known chronicles of ancient Mesopotamia, dating from approximately 2200 B.C. to 140 B.C. Mesopotamian Chronicles is not just a revised English translation of Chroniques Mesopotamiennes (Paris: Les Belles Letters, 1993): this book provides transliterations for each text B. R. Foster's and N. Wyatt's first-rate editorial and translation work makes Glassner's insightful and informative essays and his carefully prepared text editions available to a much wider readership in up-to-date, readable English translations. The volume is also not just an updated version of A. K. Grayson's Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Locust Valley, N.Y.: Augustin, 1975), since it contains important chronographic texts not included in Grayson's publication: the Chronicle of the Single Monarchy (= the Sumerian King List), the Assyrian Royal Chronicle (= the Assyrian King List), the Royal Chronicle of Lagas, the Tummal Chronicle, the Eponym Chronicles, and the Chronicle of the Last Kassite Kings and the Kings of Isin.

Parts I (Mesopotamian Historiography) and 11 (Analysis of the Compositions), which contain five very insightful and informative essays, should be required, or at least suggested, reading for students studying Mesopotamian historiography or historical texts. The essays have been updated from the 1993 edition.

Part I, "The Future of the Past" carefully examines Sumerian, Akkadian, Amorite, Babylonian, and Assyrian historiographies; concepts of time in Mesopotamia; copies and compilations of royal inscriptions, royal letters, lists of year names, eponym lists, king lists, and historical predictions; and literary compositions (historical narratives, annals, pseudoautobiographies, and prophecies or apocalyptic writings).

Part II, in four easily readable essays, focuses on analyzing the compositions edited in the volume. In the first essay, "Definition," Glassner carefully defines the text corpus and examines the authors, format, style, success, and objectivity and accuracy of the fifty-three texts included in the volume. As for style, he proposes the following classifications: royal chronicles; Assyrian chronicles; local chronicles...