The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor's Archive from Nippur.

• Author: Mandamayev, M.
• Position: Review

By STEVEN W. COLE. Oriental Institute Publications, vol. 114; Nippur, IV. Chicago: THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, 1996. Pp. xliv + 458; 3 figs., 128 text copies. $65.

In the first of these volumes, 128 cuneiform tablets are edited in autograph copies, transliterations, and translations; they are also provided with a commentary. These tablets were discovered at Nippur by the Oriental Institute's expedition under the direction of McGuire Gibson. The find consisted of 113 letters, eleven lexical texts that probably were scribai exercises, three rosters, and, one literary composition that is the earliest known version of the work "Advice to a Prince." The majority of the tablets is relatively well preserved. The volume also contains an introduction, which describes paleography, physical characteristics, and the language of the texts, as well as two glossaries of Akkadian words, and indices of personal, geographical, and tribal names. The letters constituted the archive of the governors of Nippur. They lack dates but, to judge from their contents, they must have been composed sometime between 755 and 732 B.C., for one of the Nipput governors corresponded with a ruler named Nabu-nasir, who apparently was Nabonassar, king of Babylonia from 747 to 734. Another ruler mentioned in these letters is Mukin-zeri, the Chaldean chief who seized the throne of Babylonia in 732. The letters are written in an early Neo-Babylonian colloquial dialect and provide valuable information about a dark period in the history of southern Mesopotamia that lasted for half a millennium between 1225 and 725 B.C.

At the time when these letters were written, the central government in Babylon did not control Nippur, which also remained independent from Assyria. Most of the texts are business letters that throw substantial light on daily life in Nippur and its region. From them we learn that Nippur was linked to Babylon; Kalhu, the capital of Assyria; Der; and some Elamite cities. The agents of the governors of Nippur and merchants traveled in these regions trading various commodities. For instance, one letter records that twenty talents (c. 606 kg) of iron were brought to Nipput fom Kalbu (no. 41). Kudurru, the governor of Nippur, asks his correspondent to obtain and send him five minas of silver worth of blue-purple and red-purple wool (no. 1). The author of a letter asks the addressee to send two hundred available bows, because the servants were rebelling (no. 10). The same Kudurm informs the above-mentioned Mukin-zeri that people from the Bit-Yakin tribe kidnapped four men and stole five donkeys and that petty dealers in Uruk were discovered selling the plunder. Kudurru requests his correspondent to help him reclaim the captives (no. 18). According to one letter, the entire Aramean Puqudu tribe was coming to Nippur to attend a festival (no. 27). In no. 92, three hundred laborers were digging canals and preparing fields for planting on a farm. In all probability, this farm...