Cuneiform Texts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Volume II: Literary and Scholastic Texts of the First Millennium B.C.

Spar, Ira, and W. G. Lambert (2005)

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This important scholarly work is volume two in a series of four volumes that will publish all the more than six hundred cuneiform tablets in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Included are 106 religious, scientific, scholastic, and literary texts, written in Sumerian and Akkadian and primarily dated to the latter part of the first milennium B.C. They shed new light on the civilization of the ancient Near East—on its complex beliefs and customs and surprisingly vast knowledge of mathematics and astronomy—for both the contemporary scholar and interested reader.

The texts are organized in five sections: Documents of the Incantation Priest, Diviner, Physician, and Magician reveal various categories of omens; Literary texts present myths and legends; The Scholastic tradition contains a variety of texts and lists, including mathematical and astronomical texts; and the final section covers Unidentified Fragments. Among the most important texts are No. 42, a fragments of the Babylonian version of the ancient Flood story, and No. 81, which attests to the intellectual achievement of Babylonian astronomers.

Eighteen distinguished international scholars in the field have contributed transliterations and translations of each tablet, and these are accompanied by commentaries and by insightful introductory essays on each genre. The volume was assembled and edited by Ira Spar, Professor of Ancient Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and W. G. Lambert, Professor Emeritus of the University of Birmingham, England. Lambert also contributed several entries and a general introduction that provides contextual information about the transmission of the literary and scholastic tradition in pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia. The precise facsimile drawings of every tablet handmade by Ira Spar are a valuable visual accompaniment to the text.

This publication reaffirms the Museum's ongoing commitment to promote wider knowledge of Ancient Near Eastern civilization. And significantly, it appears at a time when better understanding of the history and culture of that region of the world holds particular relevance.

Volume one of this series (1988) documents 120 tablets, cones, and bricks from the third and second millennia B.C. Volume three (2000) covers private archive texts from the first millennium B.C. Volume four, in preparation, will include an edition of cuneiform tablets written in the first millennium B.C. and inscriptions on bricks, cylinders, and prisms of royal records of the kings of Babylon and Assyria.

Table of contents

Foreword
Philippe de Montebello

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Transmission of the Literary and Scholastic Tradition
W. G. Lambert

Technical Terminology
Chronology of Hellenistic Babylonian Rulers by Ronald Wallenfels
Abbreviations
Bibliographical Abbreviations
Additional Abbreviations
Symbols
Catalogue of Tablets
Concordance
Indexes
Personal Names
Divine Names
Geographical Names
Temple and Chapel Names

Part One: 1–24, Documents of the Temple Cult

Nos. 1–19 Hymns and Prayers

No.1: Old Babylonian balag, to the Mother Goddess Aruru
Konrad Volk

No. 19: Fragment of a Solid Clay Barrel Cylinder with Unidentified Hymn
W. G. Lambert

Nos. 20–23: Rituals
W. G. Lambert

No. 24: Petitions
W. G. Lambert

Part Two: Documents of the Incantation Priest, Diviner, Physician, and Magician

Preface
W. G. Lambert

Nos. 25–29: Documents of the Incantation Priest
Markham J. Geller

Nos. 30–33: Documents of the Physician and Magician

Introduction and Nos. 30–32
Irving L. Finkel

No. 33: Fragment of a Neo-Assyrian Medical Text
W. G. Lambert

Nos. 34–35: Documents of the Diviner: Liver Omens
Ivan Starr

Nos. 36–38: Celestial Omens
Erica Reiner

No. 39: Omens of Daily Life
Sally Moren Freedman

Nos. 40–41: Omens from Abnormal Births
Erle V. Leichty

Part Three: Literary Texts

Nos. 42–43: Myths and Legends

Preface
W. G. Lambert

No. 42: Atra-hasis
W. G. Lambert

No. 43: Fragment of Lugal-e
Stefan M. Maul

No. 44: Historical Literature: Letter of Sin-sarra-iksun to Nabopolassar
W. G. Lambert

Part Four: The Scholastic Tradition

Nos. 45–53: Syllabaries A and B
Miguel Civil

No. 54: A Late Babylonian Number-Syllabary
Laurie E. Pearce

Nos. 55–60: Texts from the Series Urra hubullu
Miguel Civil

No. 61: Late Babylonian Grammatical Text
Miguel Civil

No. 62: Fragment of the Weidner God List
W. G. Lambert

Nos. 63–64: Akkadian Synonym Lists
Anne Kilmer, Daniel Foxvog, John W. Carnahan

Nos. 65–66: Late Babylonian School Exercise Tablets
Petra D. Gesche

No. 67: Inscription on a Clay ball
W. G. Lambert

No. 68: Measurements of the Interior of the E-sagil Temple
Andrew R. George

Nos. 69–71: Commentaries

Preface
W. G. Lambert

No. 69: Explanatory Commentary on a List of Materia Medica
Irving L. Finkel

No. 70: Medical Commentary
Erica Reiner

No. 71: Commentary on Enuma Anu Enlil
Erica Reiner

Nos. 72–77: Mathematical Texts
Joran Friberg

Nos. 78–88: Astronomical Texts
C. B. F. Walker

Part Five:Unidentified Fragments

Nos. 89–94: Unidentified Fragments in Akkadian
W. G. Lambert

Nos. 95–97: Bilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian) Fragments
W. G. Lambert

Nos. 98–106: Miscellaneous Fragments
W. G. Lambert

Plates

Facsimile Drawings
Ira Spar

Photographs of Selected Tablets

Press reviews

John Steele, University of Durham

"The editors and publishers of this fine volume are to be congratulated in bringing to publication this immaculate edition of an important collection of Late Babylonian cuneiform texts."

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