Testi cuneiformi neo-sumerici da Drehem: n. 0001-0412.

• Author: Heimpel, Wolfgang

By Alfonso Archi and Francisco Pomponio. Catalogo del Museo Egizio di Torino, serie seconda: Collezioni, vol. 7. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Universitario, 1990. Pp. 215 67 plates.

This volume contains a republication of 250 Drehem texts of the Egyptian Museum of Turin which were previously published by G. Boson in TCS(1) and by Boson and G. Rinaldi in a series of articles in the journal Aegyptus, and a publication of 150 hitherto unpublished Drehem texts. A. Archi contributed copies of the texts and F. Pomponio the remainder: a short but informative introduction; a classification of the texts according to administrative key words along the lines laid down by A. Goetze in his review of SET in JCS 17 (1963): 34ff.; a catalog tabulating for each tablet the text number, dimensions, date, content, administrative key word, type of transaction, and the agents of the transaction; and brief notes, transliterations and comments, indices of proper names, and a glossary with translation of nearly all words.

The volume is very welcome indeed. Boson's and Rinaldi's copies looked so unlike Ur III cuneiform that they did not inspire confidence, and the systematic work of collating Ur III texts that G. Pettinato initiated had so far bypassed the collection in Turin. Archi's new copies are clearly a great step forward. Cf. e.g., the first two lines in Boson TCS 108 = TCNSD (as we will abbreviate the present volume) 313:

Boson Archi

1 amar anse-munus-ga 1 amar [seg.sub.9]-bar-munus-ga

1 [sila.sub.4] sa-[du.sub.1] 1 [sila.sub.4]-hur-sag

Before the appearance of this volume, we had to guess to arrive at a satisfactory text. Cf. a good guess of K. Maekawa, "The Ass and the Onager in Sumer," ASJ 1 (1979): 52: " 1 [sila.sub.4] sa-[dug.sub.4](]) [an error for hur-sag?]."

Archi's copies make a trustworthy impression. There are a few cases where doubts arise and collation seems warranted. See, for example, 123:1 where the ange-bar-nita can only be [seg.sub.9]-bar-nita, or 210:8 where anse-nita-niga must be lulim-nita-niga. In other cases "sic!" is required as in 365, where the inscription on the margin does not correspond to the text of the tablet, or in the case of the name A-bi-la-ta where we expect -sa (see the corrections and remarks to Akkadian PNs below).

Pomponio's transliterations are accurate (cf. the small number of corrections below), and his comments enrich the volume considerably. Obviously, he has done much prosopographical work. For scores of individuals from Drehem and Umma texts he provides many references, particularly references for the known earliest and latest dates bracketing the office tenure of an individual. Note however, that the references for the temple stewards Sesdada, Urtilla, and Watarum in the comment to text 11 are better organized and more complete in the tabulation of S. Oh'e, "An Agricultural Festival in Tummal in the Ur III Period," ASJ 8 (1986): 127ff. For the reader who is interested in prosopography I have tabulated Pomponio's contributions in short form toward the end of this review. There are also interesting remarks and observations on other topics, such as the times of day of offerings (text 257), terminology of fattening (text 135), the meaning of ba-[ug.sub.7] (text 179), the animals connected with the Wa-da-al-tum (text 294), and the validity of M. Coopees Akiti year hypothesis (text 396). Pomponio pays generally close attention to the intricacies of dating. Curiously, in his comments the year dates of Sulgi are based on the now current assumption of a 48-year reign, while in his catalog they follow the former assumption of a 46-year reign.

Most texts are dated to the day. They record one or a few transactions and involve small numbers. Sixty-five texts are dated to the month, yet these too are short and rarely contain large numbers. An exception is text 98 in which Ludigira records the receipt of 1,595 large and small cattle from Abbasaga. Texts 34 and 264 are dated to the year, and even they are short and record modest numbers. The absence of...