Puzzling Out the Past: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman.

• Author: Lam, Joseph
• Position: Book review

Puzzling Out the Past: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman. Edited by Marilyn J. Lundberg; STEVEN FINE; and WAYNE T. PITARD. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 55. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. xvi + 334, illus. $245.

This volume gathers together eighteen essays on Northwest Semitic languages and literatures in honor of a pioneer in the area of digital preservation and publication of ancient texts. Bruce Zuckerman, through his roles as director of the West Semitic Research Project, co-director of the InscriptiFact database, and founder of the journal Maarav, has for decades been at the leading edge of the use of technology to enhance the traditional study of ancient texts and artifacts. The diversity of topics represented in the book, coming from Zuckerman's many colleagues and friends, is a testament to his breadth of influence in the field and his collaborative spirit.

Caveat lector--this volume is not for the faint of heart. Not only are the essays highly specialized, but they represent a wide range of fields related to Northwest Semitic philology--from Amama cuneiform epigraphy to Syriac lexicography, from Anatolian archaeology to Qumran poetry. In fact, given this combination of topical diversity and technical detail, few readers will possess the expertise (particularly the familiarity with the secondary literature on each narrow topic) to engage critically with all of them. That caveat aside, the articles are all of a high quality, and the editors are to be lauded for producing such a visually appealing volume, largely owing to the unusually rich set of illustrations and plates contained in it.

Three of the articles in the volume represent primary publications of inscribed artifacts: Jacob Bitton, Nathan Dweck, and Steven Fine, "Yet Another Jewish Tombstone from Late Antique Zoar/ Zoora: The Funerary Marker of Hannah Daughter of Levi" (pp. 7-12); Avraham Faust and Esther Eshel, "An Inscribed Bulla with Grazing Doe from Tel 'Eton" (pp. 63-70); and P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., "An Inscribed Arrowhead of a Crown Prince of Babylon" (pp. 127-29). The inscribed Hebrew bulla (containing a proper name) presented by Faust and Eshel, in particular, is notable for its having been discovered in controlled excavations and is datable archaeologically to the eighth century b.c.e.

Four of the studies are primarily epigraphic in character: Marilyn J. Lundberg, "New Drawings and Photographs of Four...