Yoram Cohen

Volume 24 of the Israel Oriental Studies Annual includes eight articles. The Ancient Near Eastern section consists of five articles, of which four deal with Hittite and Anatolian subjects, and one with cuneiform writing in the west, specifically, Hazor.
We start with the Hittite and Anatolian related articles. Two articles deal with Hittite sources that pertain each in a different way to Hittite kingship and its relationship with the divine world. The first offers a new indirect join to the Puḫānu Text, which roughly put tells of how the Storm-god helped the Hittite king in his conquests. The article includes a discussion about the significance of this discovery for our understanding of this difficult composition (Burgin). The second article reconsiders the importance of IBoT 1.30+ (CTH 821, Königtum und göttliches Recht) by trying to contextualize some key statements of this fundamental composition that allows to reconstruct the ideological underpinning of Hittite kingship (Gilan). The third article concerned with Hittite sources introduces the šašta- oracles and attempts to explain the operations of this obscure divinatory procedure which follows the behaviour of the sheep in the pen (Cohen). The fourth article is a first-hand account of the archaeologist James Mellaart and the remarkable ancient written sources which he claimed to have had in hand (Hawkins).
The final article of the Ancient Near Eastern section discusses the “Laws of Hazor” text fragment and its relationship to other cuneiform law collections. It raises the question whether the “Laws of Hazor” was a local composition or a copy of some yet undiscovered law collection from Mesopotamia or elsewhere (Darabi).

The Semitic section includes three articles. The first is the second instalment of Etymogical Investigations on Jibbali/Śḥerέt Anthroponyms, with the first instalment published in IOSA 22 (Castagna). It adds twenty-four personal names, including also laqabs (i.e., nicknames or secondary names) of families and not only individuals. The second article is a discussion of the relationship between Ethiopian Semitic languages and ancient Egyptian. By investigating lexical sets, a more detailed picture of the cultural and sociolinguistic ties around the Red Sea can be revealed. It is suggested that language contact in that area began very early as the result of commercial expeditions led by ancient Egypt (Cerqueglini). Sealing the Semitic section and volume 24 is a study of spoken Ashkenazic Hebrew among Hassidic communities (Yampolskaya et al.). The article discusses the sociological implications of spoken Ashkenazic Hebrew vis-à-vis Yiddish among male and female members of Hassidic communities in the United States and the UK.

The title of volume 24 – ‘Let the Tabarna, the King, be Dear to the Gods!’ – is a quote from a Hittite composition studied in this volume by Amir Gilan. It is a statement of a longer evocation calling upon the gods to protect the Hittite King, also bearing the title Tabarna or Labarna. Thus, it is an expression of the sacred ties between kingship and the divine. The evocation continues by stating that “the lands belong to the Storm-god alone! Heaven and earth, (and their) denizens, belong to the Storm-god alone! He (the Storm-god) has made the Labarna, the king, his steward and has given him the entire land of Ḫattuša.” In this way, Hittite kingship is seen as an instrument in the hands of the chief god, the Storm-god, who rules over the world. The Hittite king’s role, as Gilan explains, is to administer the land of Ḫattuša for the benefit of his god. This reconstruction of the ideology of Hittite Kingship invites us to consider the various expressions of political power set in religious or ideological frameworks in the Middle East and beyond, from ancient times to our own age.
The IOS Annual is generously supported by the School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, and the School of Cultural Studies, Tel Aviv University and by the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University. The Editors thank managing editor Yael Leokumovich and acknowledge her contribution in editing this volume. We also extend our thanks to Isra Nashef, our Arabic editor.

The Editors welcome original studies in the languages, philology, histories and religions of the Middle East and the wider Mediterranean World. We invite scholars of the ancient Near East and related fields, such as Biblical Studies, the Classics, and Archaeology of Mesopotamia, the Levant and the Mediterranean, scholars of Semitic and Afroasiatic languages and cultures, and scholars of Arabic, Arabic linguistics, socio-linguistics, dialectology, philology, philosophy, and literature to send in their contributions to the IOS Annual.
Information about in-house style and submitting a contribution can be found at http://www.brill.com/iosa.

The Babylonian šumma immeru (‘If the Sheep’) omens are concerned with ominous signs drawn from the behaviour of the sacrificial sheep at the time of its sacrifice. They are part of the diviner’s craft of divination and are related to the technique of extispicy (i.e., the examination of the entrails). The literary history and the transmission of the šumma immeru omens is long and convoluted. The omens are attested from the Old Babylonian period to almost the very end of cuneiform civilization at Seleucid Uruk. Manuscripts of the omens and of their commentaries arrive from Babylonia, Assyria, Anatolia and Northern Syria. This book is the first comprehensive study of this omen genre. It offers complete text editions and commentaries of the omens, some previously unpublished. It places the šumma immeru omens within the context of Babylonian divination, and investigates how texts reached a “canonical” status that had become immune from changes during millennia of textual production, transmission and reception.
Chapter 1 Introduction
Part I – Research and Publication History of the šumma immeru Omens
1. The Standard Version (ca. 1880s—1940s; 1980)
2. The Assur Manuscripts (1930s; 2012)
3. The Old Babylonian Version (ca. 1940s–1950s)
4. The Late Bronze Age Version (1970s–Present)
5. The Sealand Dynasty Manuscript (2013)
6. General Discussions and Related Sources
Part II – An Introduction to the šumma immeru Omens
1. Mesopotamia––Land of Sheep and Wool
2. Sheep Terminology and the Terms for the Sacrificial Animal in Divination
3. How did Extispicy Omens Come About?
4. Divination Literature, Omen Compendia and the šumma immeru Omens
5. How to Read the šumma immeru Omens?
6. The Name of the šumma immeru Omen Compendium
Part III – The Extispicy Ritual
1. The Ritual Purity of the Diviner
2. Finding the Right Sheep for the Extispicy Ritual
3. Placing the Oracle Question in Front of the Gods
4. The Slaughter of the Sacrificial Animal
5. “Reading” the Sheep
6. “Reading” the Liver
Chapter 2 The Old Babylonian šumma immeru Version
1. Edition and Translation
2. Commentary
3. Discussion
Chapter 3 The Late Bronze Age šumma immeru Version
1. Edition and Translation
2. Commentary
3. Discussion
Chapter 4 The Intermediate Versions of the šumma immeru Omens
1.Intermediate Version 1 (= IMV1)
2. Intermediate Version 2 (= IMV2)
3. Intermediate Version 3 (= IMV3)
4. An Extract of an Intermediate Version of the Series (IMV4)
Chapter 5 The Standard Version of the šumma immeru Omens
1. Edition
2. Commentary
3. Discussion
Chapter 6 The šumma immeru Commentaries of the Standard Version
1. The Uruk Commentary 1
2. The Uruk Commentary 2
3. The Late Babylonian Commentary (LBC)
4. Discussion
Chapter 7 Related Sources to the šumma immeru Omens
Part I: Divination Literature
1. The Sealand Dynasty Omen Compendium
2. The Assur Bone Omen Compendia
3. The Emar Bone Omen Compendia
4. The Bārûtu Series and Related Texts
5. Omen Reports and Queries
6. Bird Divination
7. An Omen Compendium from Tigunānum of Severed Hooves and Fetlocks
8. Tablet 41 of the šumma ālu Omen Series
9. The šumma izbu Omen Series
10. Omens from a Ewe Confined Overnight
11. The Hittite šašta Oracles
Part II: Manuals, Vocabularies and Lexical Lists Relating to the Body Parts of the Sacrifical Sheep
12. The Ritual of the Diviner
13. A Manual of Sacrificial Procedure
14. Vocabulary Lists and Lexical Lists
Chapte 8 The Sheep Body Parts
1. The Head Region
2. The Hind Area of the Animal
3. Areas of the Abdomen and Rib Cage
Chapter 9 Conclusion and Discussion
Part I: The Apodoses of the šumma immeru Omens – Past, Present and Future
1. The Past: The Presence of the God during the Extispicy Ritual
2. The Present: The šumma immeru Formula – Let Go of the Sheep! Kill the Enemy!
3. The Future: How will the exta look like?
Part II: The Structure, Content and Development of the šumma immeru Omens
1. The Old Babylonian Version and Related Texts
2. The Sealand Dynasty Manuscript
3. The Late Bronze Age Version and Related Texts
4. The Intermediate Versions 1–4
5. The Standard Version and the Bārûtu
6. The Commentaries of the Standard Version
7. A Cross-Cut Comparsion between the šumma immeru Versions
Part III: The Many Lives of the šumma immeru Omens
1. Text Standardization or Canonization?
2. Text Production of Omen Collections
3. Extispicy Omens: From Old Babylonian Collections to the Bārûtu
4. The Many Lives of the šumma immeru Omens
Bibliography
Indices

This issue of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel edited by Yoram Cohen, as
guest-editor, is dedicated to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (602–
562 b.c.e). It contains seven papers that deal with the man and his deeds as
documented in contemporaneous records, monuments, inscriptions and
archaeological remains, and as reflected in later sources. The papers are
concerned with the actuality and the aftermath of Nebuchadnezzar’s campaigns
to the West and the political, social and ideological structuring of the
Neo-Babylonian Empire. The following introductory paragraphs highlight
some of their shared issues.
Ran Zadok brings forth evidence regarding foreigners in the Neo-Babylonian
Empire, dealing with diverse population groups, such as the Assyrians
in the southern alluvium and deportees from the Phoenician cities. He
illuminates the role of each community in the imperial economy.
Michael Jursa and Shai Gordin complement Zadok’s paper by offering us
a micro-historical study of a priestly family in Uruk. They demonstrate the
steps undertaken by the imperial administration in order to consolidate and
strengthen the Neo-Babylonian Empire once its borders were established.
Two studies focus on the military activities of Nebuchadnezzar along
the Southern Levantine coast and his interaction with the Egyptians. Dan
Master reconstructs the economic and social status of the mercantile city of
Ashkelon prior to its destruction by the Babylonians. Dan’el Kahn interprets
a variety of Egyptian and other sources to clarify several issues regarding the
military maneuvers of the Babylonians and the Egyptians.
Rocío Da Riva revisits the monuments of Nebuchadnezzar in Lebanon
and offers a novel analysis of their function by looking closely at the way
they were produced: The execution of the monuments involved not only
material aspects, but also ritual procedures that endowed them with special
significance.
Jonathan Ben-Dov argues for an afterlife and reinterpretation of the image
of Nebuchadnezzar – including its plastic representation in the Lebanon
monuments – as propagated throughout the empire. Ben-Dov engages not
only with Neo-Babylonian and later cuneiform texts about the king and his
dynasty, but also with Aramaic and Hebrew sources.
David Vanderhooft likewise considers the image of the Babylonian king,
addressing how it was reflected in the Hebrew Bible. He demonstrates how,
in quite different ways, Jeremiah and Habakkuk viewed the role of Nebuchadnezzar
as the executioner of God’s intentions.
Each paper of this issue treats one or several aspects of Nebuchadnezzar’s
impact on the ancient Near East from the beginning of his reign and
beyond. When considered together they are to be viewed as a substantial
contribution to our understanding of a watershed event in the history of
ancient Israel and a renewed appreciation of one of the momentous periods
in the ancient Near East.
These papers were delivered at a symposium entitled, “Nebuchadnezzar:
History, Archaeology and Memory,” held at Tel Aviv University on 27 April
2017, under the auspices of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology
and the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient
Near Eastern Cultures.
The symposium was organized by Yoram Cohen and Oded Lipschits. We
wish to thank the Thyssen Foundation, the Office of the Rector, Tel Aviv
University, and the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology for
their generous support, which enabled us to host our international guests
at Tel Aviv.
I sincerely thank the editorial board for accepting the papers for publication
in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel. The assistance and devoted care
of Phillip Michael Lasater during the production of the issue is greatly appreciated.

This volume presents the original texts and annotated translations
of a collection of Mesopotamian wisdom compositions and related
texts of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1500–1200 B.C.E.) found at the
ancient Near Eastern sites of Hattuša, Emar, and Ugarit. These
wisdom compositions constitute the missing link between the great
Sumerian wisdom corpus and early Akkadian wisdom literature
of the Old Babylonian period, on the one hand, and the wisdom
compositions of the first millennium B.C.E., on the other. Included
here are works such as the Ballad of Early Rulers, Hear the Advice,
and The Date-Palm and the Tamarisk, as well as proverb collections
from Ugarit and Hattuša. A detailed introduction provides an
assessment of the place of wisdom literature in the ancient curriculum
and library collections.

The House of Urtenu letters supply invaluable information about the Hittite imperial administration of its Syrian periphery. In the texts discussed here, two main topics arise: a plantation project in Mukiš and a battle near Tuttul between the Hittites and their allies and the Sutu tribes. Both events took place simultaneously and were seemingly given equal relevance by Ḫatti. In our view, the Tuttul battle testifies to the complicated management of the Middle Euphrates imperial borders. Indeed, several first-class actors and their own interests are involved: the Hittite Great King, the viceroy of Karkemiš, Šagarakti-Šuriaš of Babylon, and Niqmaddu III of Ugarit.

More than twenty years have passed since Mario Liverani's annotated translation of the Amarna letters into Italian. 1 From this landmark publication in 1998 to our present day, several important monographs which directly deal with the Amarna corpus have appeared. Mentioned chronologically by year of publication, these include: a petrographically-based provenance study of almost all the Amarna tablets (including the schooling materials) by Yuval Goren, Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na'aman; 2 an analysis of the greetings and salutations formulae of the letters by Jana Mynářová; 3 a palaeographical study of scribal hands by Juan Pablo Vita; 4 and, last but not least, a new edition, translation and commentary of all the Amarna letters by Anson Rainey. 5 Every study made use of its own methodology and expressed its own views, but each, to various degrees, drew conclusions regarding the history and society of Late Bronze Age Canaan. They have demonstrated that while the Amarna corpus is one of the best studied of all cuneiform corpora, much remains to be discussed about these letters, and, where my interest lies, to analyze them as sources for revealing the use and distribution of cuneiform in Canaan. In this respect the collection and publication of all the cuneiform sources from Southern Canaan, viz., the Land of Israel, by Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima is a crucial addition to the discussion. 6 This paper is composed of three independent critical notes regarding 1.) scribal schooling, 2.) scribal hands and 3.) tablet provenance of the Amarna letter corpus.

This article provides a complete and comprehensive edition, translation and commentary of KBo 1.51 from Hattuša. It identifies the source as an Akkadian-Hittite list of body parts, some of which are clearly of bovidae, and compares it to two tablets of the same nature: BM 29963 and HS 2944. By doing so, it establishes the existence of a hitherto unknown Akkadian scholarly composition. It discusses the nature of this particular list in relationship with the lexical corpora (Ḫḫ and Uguĝu) and its role as a functional or instructional text in the world of the diviner. The reconstruction of KBo 1.51 also allows us to reconsider some Hittite words and attribute new meanings to them that are otherwise unattested.

The purpose of this article is to elucidate some plastic representations as aids for instruction in the art of divination. We will first discuss a drawing on a tablet from Babylon, VAT 13141 (Bab 36607), and then continue with two plastic clay models, one from Ebla and the other from nearby Tell Tuqan. As will be argued, these objects have been previously misidentified in the literature, thus obscuring their objective and use.

This article is part of an ongoing research about Hittite rule and administration of Northern Syria, which, following the conquests of Šuppiluliuma and his heirs, became part of the Hittite Empire. 1 Here we will consider CTH 50, a diplomatic document that contains a description of the borders of the kingdom of Carchemish under Hittite rule. We will introduce the source, provide an edition, and conclude with a geo-political consideration of the toponyms it mentions.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss cuneiform writing as a reflection of literacy in Bronze Age Canaan. 1 It will show what cuneiform inscribed artifacts (mainly tablets and seals) can tell us about the way cuneiform literacy was achieved, and how, once achieved, writing was involved in the politics, economy, and social life in Canaan. The conclusion of the chapter will evaluate the spread of literacy and the scope of cuneiform writing in Canaan. The materials presented here are finds recovered during archaeological excavations and those found by accident at or near archaeological sites. They comprise twenty-one letters, twenty-three administrative tablets, eight seals or votive objects, and fourteen school-related or scholarly materials. 2

This article will examine the occurrence of the " Vanity Theme " in Mesopotamian wisdom literature and elsewhere. However, the main interest of this investigation lies in the list of rulers or illustrious men of old which is manifest in a variety of wisdom " Vanity Theme " compositions. We will argue that it will not suffice to speak about the " Vanity Theme " in various literatures of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean. We should try to identify a particular literary expression that is associated with this type of composition. We contend that this expression is the list or naming of " Early Rulers " that comes to serve as an exemplum to the basic assertion of the " Vanity Theme. "

Les neiges d'antan: " Gobernantes antiguos " y el tema de la vanidad en la literatura sapiencial de Mesopotamia y más allá Este artículo examinará la aparición del " tema de la vanidad " en la literatura sapien-cial de Mesopotamia y más allá. Sin embargo, el interés principal de esta investiga-ción radica en la lista de gobernantes u hombres ilustres de antaño que se manifiesta en una variedad de composiciones sapienciales con el " tema de la vanidad ". Argüiremos que no es suficiente con hablar sobre el " tema de la vanidad " en las diversas literaturas del antiguo Cercano Oriente y el Mediterráneo. Deberíamos tratar de identificar una expresión literaria particular que esté asociada con este tipo de composición. Sostenemos que esta expresión es la lista o denominación de los

This article presents a new reading of the colophon of the wisdom composition named Šimâ Milka found at Ugarit. It argues that the teacher of the student who copied the manuscript was called Aššur-rēši-išši and that he was probably an Assyrian present at the city, active in the archive of the Maison aux Tablettes. Discussion will also be given to the student’s name and title as well as to the identity of the deity behind the logogram PAP.PAP.

This article discusses the remains of the šumma izbu omen series from Hattuša. It will identify two previously misidentified Hurrian fragments as belonging to the omen series and demonstrate that they are parallel to Hittite šumma izbu omens found at Hattuša and Akkadian šumma izbu omens from elsewhere. Keywords: Ancient Near Eastern divination, the šumma izbu omen series, transmission and reception of cuneiform literature, Hittite and Hurrian divination.

In Hittite Landscape and Geography Mark Weeden and Lee Ullmann have gathered 28 specialist authors to present an up-to-date account of research on the Geography of Late Bronze Age Anatolia (second half of the second millennium BC) using information both from cuneiform texts and from archaeological excavation and survey. The study of texts and archaeology require different specialisms. This is the first time an attempt has been made to present a coordinated monograph-length view of Hittite geography since 1959, and the first time that any work has tried to balance archaeological and textual data for the same geographical areas. The result is a foundational research tool which will put scholarship on Hittite Geography on a firm footing for the future. Academics, students and general readers interested in the study of the Hittite civilisation especially the field of its Historical Geography and anyone interested in the landscape of Anatolia/Turkey.

The textual finds from the Late Bronze Age city of Emar on the Euphrates River are one of the significant archaeological discoveries in ancient Syria. They provide an almost unparalleled source of information regarding an urban community that preserved the customs and religious beliefs of its semi-nomadic origins. As part of the Hittite empire, it accepted some of the imperial cultic practices, but on the whole, held on to its traditional rituals and cultic practices. This article surveys the rituals of the city that were concerned with the installation of the city's priestesses and the celebration of the festivals in honour of its major gods. A discussion of personal piety as manifest in the ephemeral documents and the private names of the citizens of the city follows.

Le présent article s'intéresse à deux instructions issues de l'oeuvre sapientielle mésopotamienne Šimâ Milka. Il discute d'un terme crucial rencontré dans l'une d'elles, nidnu, lequel doit selon nous être traduit par « salaire », et plus précisément le salaire d'une prostituée. La discussion s'achève par un excursus sur Ézéchiel 16,33 où l'on ren-contre l'hapax nadan.

In 2004 Prof. Wilfred van Soldt delivered his inaugural lecture at this university, on the subject of Babylonian culture of the Late Bronze Age. By this time, some 15 years ago from today, van Soldt was already a well-established scholar of international recognition with several books to his name and many scholarly papers. These stood as evidence to Wilfred's scholarly goal-an intellectual project which created a paradigm shift in Assyriology of how are we to think about scribal culture. He has demonstrated the importance of what we can call the meta-text: the contextual and cultural setting of an ancient document, beyond the very information that the words of the text conveys to its readers, be they administrators or bureaucrats, kings and royals or scribes and scholars in ancient Near East thousands of years away-or the present scholar and student of the field. His was a research maneuver that went beyond the text and brought into play a wide arrays of considerations, which enhance our understanding of how to read the past.

The purpose of my paper is to discuss cuneiform learning and writing as a reflection of literacy in Bronze Age Canaan. I will show what cuneiform inscribed artifacts can tell us about the way cuneiform literacy was achieved in Canaan. The conclusion of the chapter will evaluate the spread of literacy and the scope of cuneiform writing in Canaan. To begin with, I state that, unlike what sometimes is claimed, the use of cuneiform in Canaan was long and continuous. It is to be viewed as starting from the Middle Bronze Age and continuing into the Late Bronze Age, with all modifications. During the MBA the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian was the standard mode of expression in written communication; and in the LBA, the Akkadian was much influenced by Syrian and Hurrian scribal traditions. As much as it is realized today that we cannot speak of a clear break between the Middle Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age in Canaan, so we must acknowledge some continuity in the use of cuneiform during the two phases. Although we lack the evidence, it is self-evident that cuneiform writing never fell out of use, because otherwise it would not have been employed by the Egyptian administration in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age.