Journal of Cuneiform Studies 

About: Journal of Cuneiform Studies is an academic journal published by University of Chicago. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Sumerian & Hittite language. It has an ISSN identifier of 0022-0256. Over the lifetime, 734 publications have been published receiving 8167 citations.

A Classification of the Babylonian Astronomical Tablets of the Seleucid Period

Abstract: I. Summary While hunting through the published astronomical cuneifcrm texts of the Seleucid period for Sirius data, it occurred to me that there is need for a brief sketch cf the types and contents of these scattered documents. Chiefly by exploiting the discovery made by Kugler, between 1907 (SSB I) and 1924 (SSB II, Part 2), of the correct interpretation of remarks like FAF NU IGI and ki FAP NU IGI, I have reached some general conclusions as tc the types cf items which are predicted elements in contrast to those which reflect cbservations. A somewhat startling result is that all classes of Seleucid astronomical texts contain at least some predictions.1 This investigation is strictly limited to texts of the Seleucid period. The few available texts of the New-Eabylcnian and Persian periods present problems of their own. Though relations between some categories of astronomical texts from the three periods are undeniable, the paucity of the pre-Seleucid material makes it advisable to exclude it for the time being.

The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assur: A Chronological-Historical Study

Abstract: The military expeditions of Sargon II started in the second year of his reign (720) and were conducted almost yearly until his death in 705 B. C. The difficulty in dating these campaigns lies mainly in the fact that their order in the Annals of Khorsabad is inconsistent with that in the fragmentary Prisms of Nineveh. The Prisms date the campaigns of Sargon by one palu earlier than the Annalsl. An unpublished fragment of Sargon's Annals from the Tablet Collection of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago A.16947, which seems to be the only known speci-

Essay on Overland Trade in the First Millennium B.C.

Abstract: Assyriologists know from experience that a publication or a study of a new type of cuneiform text is often followed by the "discovery22 of similar tablets in museums or private collections. Such tablets escaped previous attention due to lack of interest, to failure to realize their specific importance, or, simply, to the superabundance of unpublished material stored in these institutions. This paper is intended to draw attention to a very rarely attested type of Neo-Babylonian economic document, and to demonstrate -it is hoped the bearing of these texts on overland trade in the First Millennium B.C. and on the history of technology in the ancient Near East. At the same time it is an appeal to those in charge of the many thousands of unpublished tablets of the same genre and period to search-or to permit others to do so for similar documents, and thus to help to elucidate a remarkable phase in the development of Mesopotamia's relations with its neighbors to the East and the West. The point of departure is two tablets from Uruk, YOS 6 1681 and TCL 12 84. I became interested in

A Catalogue of Texts and Authors

Abstract: In a previous paper in this journall evidence of scribal ancestors was collected. It was found thatl scribes in the late period profess descent from ancestors, some of whom are known from other sources as authors or editors of literary texts. The clearest evidence on this point came from fragments of a catalogue from the library of Ashurbanipal in which works are listed and ascribed to named scholars. At that time only two fragments had been published, though the writer was able to add a third. As the result of further researches four more new pieces have been identified, one of which has been joined to one of those previously known. The text of the catalogue is still incomplete, but the various fragments can now be put in order and the impression given is so different from the previous one that a full new edition is called for. This catalogue is no recent discovery. Like so much else in the British Museum, it was first identified by T. G. Pinches, before 1880.2 He showed the two duplicating pieces to Sayce, who put out a transliteration with notes in the Zettschrift Lfur KeilschritLforschung, volume I, 187-194 (1884). For the time this was quite a creditable edition. Cuneiform copies were not published until 189T, when Paul Haupt gave them in the second part of his Das babylonische Nimrodepos, pp. 90-92. In most cases Haupt read the tablets more accurately than Sayce, though not always,3 but he published no edition, nor did any other scholar until the present writer gave a transliteration in the aforementioned article. The present edition is based on new copies of all the pieces, which are given on pp. 60-63. Acknowledgements are made to the late Dr. F. W.

The Deeds of Suppiluliuma as Told by His Son, Mursili II

Abstract: copies of some texts, including Suppiluliuma fragments. He soon realized that many of the newly found pieces joined one another and that more joining fragments could be expected as the exeavations went on. For this reason he postponed publication of the copies he had made. After his untimely death, his wife and H. Otten could make available the existing copies only in the state he had left them; of the tro posthumous volumes, KUB XXXII and XXXIV, the latter contains a number of Suppiluliuma fragments, namely Nos. 23-30 and though not expressly so designated, Nos. 31, 32, and 35. It was because of these circumstances that some of these fragments were only later recognized as forming parts of the larger units. Ever since I had noticed a dozen Suppiluliuma fragments among the tablets of 1933,7 I had hoped to be able to publish the new texts together with a translation of the old. The fact that after 1935 I no longer officially belonged to the team working on the Bogazkoy tablets made an early realization of that hope impossible. At one time in Ankara I copied two fragments whieh had been pieced together in Berlin and later noticed that two others, published separately as XXXIV 24 and 30, could be combined with them to form one almost complete column which I subsequently published in IF 60.8 By that time, however, the tablets had been removed from Ankara for reasons of safety durillg the war. Since they remained in their shelter long after the end of hostilities, for lack of appropriate storing space while the Bedesten Museum was under construction, the tablets were again made available in the museum at Ankara orlly after I had left Turkey in 1948.9 Consequently) I