Palmyrene Aramaic Texts.

• Author: Briquel-Chatonnet, Francoise
• Position: Review

By DELBERT R. HILLERS and ELEONORA CUSSINI. The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project. Baltimore: THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. xvii + 458, 3 maps. $65.

As stated in the introduction, this book had its origin in the files of the Aramaic Lexicon Project. The authors had aimed to gather all the texts available in Palmyrene Aramaic in order to check the complete lexicographical material. But, as this lexicon was to be a long-time project, they decided that the files could become a useful research tool. Hence this publication, which will be most welcomed by anyone who has had to plough through CIS II, the different volumes of the Inventaire des inscriptions de Palmyre, the catalogues of Ch. Dunant and M. Gawlikowski, as well as many dispersed articles.

2832 entries are recorded, each receiving a new number under the sigla PAT (for Palmyrene Aramaic Texts). The order chosen is totally arbitrary, the inscriptions being classified neither by their genre, ancient or actual location, nor by the chronological order of their publication, but by the alphabetical order of their first or more important publication, sequentially from Acta Archeologica to Yale Classical Studies. This means that, to find a specific inscription, one has to know where it was first published. After sigla and reference, a headnote gives all useful information on the inscription: the date, if included in the inscription, converted to A.D. (PAT 1684: read "A.D). 262 or 267" instead of the non-converted years "A.D. 573 or 578"); the place of origin and present location, with eventual museum number; the genre of the inscription, the object on which it is written and, if it is the case, indication of its connection to a group; and finally, the bibliography of the inscription, with special mention to plates or figures where it is reproduced. At the end of the notice, one may find a few textual notes, such as alternative readings proposed by other scholars.

This inventory of texts is followed by an exhaustive glossary of more than eighty pages that gives the meanings of the words and some citations in context. This second part will be of no less use than the list of texts. The volume ends with an English-Aramaic index to glossary, a list of personal names, an appendix about calendar and dating, maps, and concordances of text references.

Because this compilation had originally a lexicographical goal, only a few inscriptions, mainly those found in Istanbul or in Italian...