Academic literature on the topic 'Ancient Mesopotamian Text'
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Journal articles on the topic "Ancient Mesopotamian Text"
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Ossendrijver, Mathieu. "A Simulation-Based View on Mesopotamian Computational Practices." Claroscuro. Revista del Centro de Estudios sobre Diversidad Cultural, no. 20 (December 30, 2021): 1–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.35305/cl.vi20.66.
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It is argued that iterative computations which are attested in Mesopotamian and other ancient sources can be productively analyzed and interpreted in a simulation-based framework. Ancient Mesopotamia present us with a rich body of textual evidence for computational practices over a period of more than three millennia. This paper is concerned with Mesopotamian iterative computations of empirical phenomena, where each iteration updates the values of certain quantities from one state to the next state. It will be argued that these computations can be fruitfully interpreted in the so-called simulation-based framework, which was recently developed by philosophers of science in order to better account for the role of simulations in modern science. This is exemplified on the basis of a text from the Ur III period (2100–2000 BCE) about the growth of a cow herd. Other Mesopotamian sources with iteratively computed sequences, in particular various types of mathematical tables, are ignored here, because they do not directly correspond to any phenomena. Section 1 briefly addresses some developments in the philosophy and historiography of science in order to introduce the simulation-based framework. Section 2 discusses the textual example. Section 3 contains the conclusions.
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Yu, Shuqian. "The Role of Death in the Epic of Gilgamesh." Communications in Humanities Research 19, no. 1 (2023): 210–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.54254/2753-7064/19/20231247.
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Humans fear of death and pursuit of eternal life have long been reflected in literary texts. As a representative of ancient Mesopotamian literature, the epic of Gilgamesh not only symbolizes the peak of Near Eastern epics, but also brings an ultimate proposition into literature for the first timeHow to resist the fear of death and how to achieve infinite immortality in a finite life. This paper consists of three parts. The first part is the introduction, which introduces the background and significance of the research. The second part is the text analysis, and the third part is the analysis of the philosophical significance of the image of death by combining the ancient religious view of Mesopotamia and the concept of modern people.
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Crocker, Richard L. "Mesopotamian tonal systems." Iraq 59 (1997): 189–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021088900003417.
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In his article “Babylonian Music Again”, O. R. Gumey provides a welcome update on research on the tablets concerning music of the ancient Near East. Gurney's article also has a corrective effect on a rambunctious article by Martin West that appeared shortly before. Gurney seems to me to have the musical system almost right. West, while he seems to understand the system, presents it in ways that I find illogical, and that I fear will be confusing or misleading. Furthermore, while some of West's conclusions exceed the span of even my own irresponsible imagination, some of his other conclusions seem unnecessarily restrictive, conservative, or simply old-fashioned. Here I want to assert limits of the kind and extent of musical conclusions that we can expect to draw from the available data, but also to explore the kinds of ideas that we can entertain without fear of restriction by those same data.Gurney as well as West report with approval a new reading proposed by Th. J. H. Krispijn. There is more to be said about this reading and about its effect on our understanding of ancient Near Eastern music. Krispijn's new reading is for the text UET VII 74, for which Gurney now gives an updated transliteration (p. 102). I reproduce here Gurney's paradigms for the instructions in Chapters I (ll. 1–12) and II (ll. 13–20) of UET VII 74.(1–12) If the sammu is (tuned as) X and the (interval) Y is not clear, you tighten the string N and then Y will be clear. Tightening.(13–20) If the sammu is (tuned as) X and you have played an (unclear) interval Y, you loosen the string N and the sammu will be (in the tuning) Z. [Loosening].When first interpreting this text twenty-five years ago, it was assumed that Chapter I involved loosening the strings one by one, thus shifting the whole tuning gradually downwards; and in Chapter II, tightening the strings one by one, with the reverse effect. As we then read the text, it did not specify tightening or loosening, and so the choice was arbitrary. Gurney (p. 102) blames the choice on the assumption that the text referred to the harp, whose longest and lowest string was identified as “front”, therefore (according to Nabnītu XXXII) the “first”.
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Fetaya, Ethan, Yonatan Lifshitz, Elad Aaron, and Shai Gordin. "Restoration of fragmentary Babylonian texts using recurrent neural networks." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 37 (2020): 22743–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003794117.
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The main sources of information regarding ancient Mesopotamian history and culture are clay cuneiform tablets. Many of these tablets are damaged, leading to missing information. Currently, the missing text is manually reconstructed by experts. We investigate the possibility of assisting scholars, by modeling the language using recurrent neural networks and automatically completing the breaks in ancient Akkadian texts from Achaemenid period Babylonia.
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Kurtik, Gennady E. "On the origin of the 12 zodiac constellation system in ancient Mesopotamia." Journal for the History of Astronomy 52, no. 1 (2021): 53–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021828620980544.
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This article pursues two main goals: (1) to reconstruct the history of the 12 zodiac constellation system in the astronomy of ancient Mesopotamia; (2) to reveal traces of this system directly in cuneiform texts. Among the most important circumstances led to appearance of this system: (1) development of ideas about the band of zodiac constellations, including—according to MUL.APIN—the total of 18 (or 17) constellations; (2) usage of the schematic year, containing 12 months, 30 days each, and (3) development of ideas about mathematical or uniform zodiac, subdivided into 12 equal parts, 30° each. A sequence of the so-called Normal stars singled out in the zodiacal band is an additional important source shedding light on the history of the Mesopotamian zodiac. The designations of Normal stars adopted in Astronomical diaries and other texts indicate that the system of 18 constellations was used in Mesopotamia until the end of cuneiform civilization. This means that in the second half of the first millennium BC the system of 18 constellations, adopted in MUL.APIN, and the system of 12 zodiacal constellations, borrowed from Babylonians by Greek astronomers, were used in parallel. It is also shown in the article that the system of 12 zodiac constellations was used in magical and astrological text BRM 4.20, dated back approximately to the last third of the fourth century BC.
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Cecilia, Ludovica. "A Late Composition Dedicated to Nergal." Altorientalische Forschungen 46, no. 2 (2019): 204–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/aofo-2019-0014.
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Abstract This article treats a composition that was probably dedicated to Nergal, a god with a long cultic tradition in ancient Mesopotamia who was mainly related to war and death. The text was first edited by Böhl (1949; 1953: 207–216, 496–497), followed by Ebeling (1953: 116–117). Later, Seux (1976: 85–88) and Foster (2005: 708–709) translated and commented upon it. I will present a new reading of the invocation on the tablet’s upper edge, which confirms that the tablet originated in Uruk during the Hellenistic period. Furthermore, I will discuss the many Neo-Babylonian and Late Babylonian grammatical elements of this composition. The high frequency of these elements, typical of the vernacular language, is unusual for a literary text and suggests that not only the tablet, but also the composition of the text stems from the first millennium BCE, and perhaps, just like the tablet, from Hellenistic Uruk. The purpose of this contribution is, therefore, to show through an analysis of this text, that the conservative and poetic literary language was reworked and adapted to the cultural situation of the late period in Mesopotamian literary production.
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Sanders, Seth. "OLD LIGHT ON MOSES' SHINING FACE." Vetus Testamentum 52, no. 3 (2002): 400–406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853302760197520.
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AbstractThe crux of Moses' shining face in Ex. xxxiv is explained by first-millennium Mesopotamian astronomical and lexical sources which attest an ancient understanding of light as material. Moses' face could, quite literally, radiate horns of light, and the need to translate the term as either divine radiance or physical protuberance is a side-effect of modern conceptual categories, irrelevant to ancient Israelite ideas. Furthermore, the well known ancient Jewish tradition of Moses' coronation, and his divine physical transformation attested in newly published Midrashic sources suggests an authentic ancient reading of the text that resolves the contradiction between Ex. xxxiii and xxxiv. While no human could see God and live, in Ex. xxxiv, the Israelites recoil from a transformed Moses who is no longer precisely human.
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Grekyan, Yervand. "Evidence of celestial phenomena in Urartian cuneiform texts?" ARAMAZD: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies 13, no. 1 (2019): 81–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.32028/ajnes.v13i1.952.
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Unlike the ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform sources, there is no direct evidence of keeping records of celestial objects or astronomical phenomena in the corpus of the Urartian cuneiform texts. In spite of this, astral scenes are widely represented in religious symbolism and iconography of Urartian bronze art. An exceptional evidence of an Urartian cuneiform text could fill the lack of information, perhaps, pointing out the apparition of a comet.
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Schwemer, Daniel. "The Storm-Gods of the Ancient Near East: Summary, Synthesis, Recent Studies Part I." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 7, no. 2 (2007): 121–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156921207783876404.
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AbstractIn many regions of the ancient Near East, not least in Upper Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia where agriculture relied mainly on rainfall, storm-gods ranked among the most prominent gods in the local panthea or were even regarded as divine kings, ruling over the gods and bestowing kingship on the human ruler. While the Babylonian and Assyrian storm-god never held the highest position among the gods, he too belongs to the group of 'great gods' through most periods of Mesopotamian history. Given the many cultural contacts and the longevity of traditions in the ancient Near East only a study that takes into account all relevant periods, regions and text-groups can further our understanding of the different ancient Near Eastern storm-gods. The study Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens by the present author (2001) tried to tackle the problems involved, basing itself primarily on the textual record and excluding the genuinely Anatolian storm-gods from the study. Given the lack of handbooks, concordances and thesauri in our field, the book is necessarily heavily burdened with materials collected for the first time. Despite comprehensive indices, the long lists and footnotes as well as the lack of an overall synthesis make the study not easily accessible, especially outside the German-speaking community. In 2003 Alberto Green published a comprehensive monograph entitled The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East whose aims are more ambitious than those of Wettergottgestalten: All regions of the ancient Near East—including a chapter on Yahwe as a storm-god—are taken into account, and both textual and iconographic sources are given equal space. Unfortunately this book, which was apparently finished and submitted to the publisher before Wettergottgestalten came to its author's attention, suffers from some serious flaws with regard to methodology, philology and the interpretation of texts and images. In presenting the following succinct overview I take the opportunity to make up for the missing synthesis in Wettergottgestalten and to provide some additions and corrections where necessary. It is hoped that this synthesis can also serve as a response to the history of ancient Near Eastern storm-gods as outlined by A. Green.
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Schwemer, Daniel. "The Storm-Gods of the Ancient Near East: Summary, Synthesis, Recent Studies: Part II." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 8, no. 1 (2008): 1–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156921208786182428.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractIn many regions of the ancient Near East, not least in Upper Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia where agriculture relied mainly on rainfall, storm-gods ranked among the most prominent gods in the local panthea or were even regarded as divine kings, ruling over the gods and bestowing kingship on the human ruler. While the Babylonian and Assyrian storm-god never held the highest position among the gods, he too belongs to the group of 'great gods' through most periods of Mesopotamian history. Given the many cultural contacts and the longevity of traditions in the ancient Near East only a study that takes into account all relevant periods, regions and text-groups can further our understanding of the different ancient Near Eastern storm-gods. The study Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens by the present author (2001) tried to tackle the problems involved, basing itself primarily on the textual record and excluding the genuinely Anatolian storm-gods from the study. Given the lack of handbooks, concordances and thesauri in our field, the book is necessarily heavily burdened with materials collected for the first time. Despite comprehensive indices, the long lists and footnotes as well as the lack of an overall synthesis make the study not easily accessible, especially outside the German-speaking community. In 2003 Alberto Green published a comprehensive monograph entitled The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East whose aims are more ambitious than those of Wettergottgestalten: All regions of the ancient Near East—including a chapter on Yahwe as a storm-god—are taken into account, and both textual and iconographic sources are given equal space. Unfortunately this book, which was apparently finished and submitted to the publisher before Wettergottgestalten came to its author's attention, suffers from some serious flaws with regard to methodology, philology and the interpretation of texts and images. In presenting the following succinct overview I take the opportunity to make up for the missing synthesis in Wettergottgestalten and to provide some additions and corrections where necessary. It is hoped that this synthesis can also serve as a response to the history of ancient Near Eastern storm-gods as outlined by A. Green.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Ancient Mesopotamian Text"
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Simonson, Brandon. "Aramaic names from Syro-Mesopotamian texts and inscriptions: a comprehensive study." Thesis, 2019. https://hdl.handle.net/2144/37993.
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Scholarship on the onomastics of the ancient Near East typically evaluates a single text corpus or collection of names from a specific region, with a focus on names of a variety of linguistic origins from either alphabetic or cuneiform source material. This dissertation serves as a compilation of Aramaic names from both alphabetic and cuneiform sources geographically delimited to Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Levant (excluding Egypt and Anatolia) during the first half of the first millennium BCE. The product of a methodic evaluation of ancient Near Eastern texts and inscriptions, utilizing both linguistic and conceptual criteria in its selection, this compilation of names is analyzed according to the established taxonomic systems that have been developed in the study of Hebrew, Akkadian, and other Semitic names throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. Additional analyses in this volume include a comparative anthroponomy, a study of theophoric elements, an overview of names based on their morphological features, and various explorations of the elements found within them. Ultimately, this study serves to catalog the individuals with Aramaic names leading up to the time when Aramaic was the lingua franca of the greater ancient Near East,<br>2021-09-07T00:00:00Z
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Schneider, Catharina Elizabeth Johanna. "The warrior ethos within the context of the Ancient Near East : an archaeological and historical comparison between the world-views of warriors of the Fertile Crescent." Thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2778.
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Thesis (D. Litt. et Phil. (Biblical Studies))<br>The Fertile Crescent, due to its geographical characteristics, has always been an area troubled with
conflict and warfare. The men who participated in these wars, from ca 2000 BCE to 1000 BCE
operated from an ethos which was governed by a system of rules, all which were conceived to be the
creation of divine will, to which kings and their warriors (keymen) were subject. The cuneiform texts
from Mari, Ugarit, Ebla, Amarna and others, have not only thrown light on the political, social,
religious and military aspects of those turbulent times, but have also given insight into the formation
of armies as well as the commanders who led those armies and the royal officials who governed
cities and provinces, all appointed by the monarch in order to effect the smooth running of his
kingdom. They also shed light on the formation of coalitions and alliances in order to promote
peace, arrange marriages to the daughters of other ruling powers and to promote trade relations.
These were no easy tasks, considering the diversity of peoples, the birth and fall of kingdoms and
empires, and the ever shifting and changes of loyalties of greedy kings and their men, to attain
power and conquest for themselves.. However, these texts also give glimpses of the human side of
the king and the close relationships between himself and his men of authority, whilst the women of
the court also played their role in some areas of the social field. The responses, of these people
towards matters and events, whether they were confrontations, marriage alliances, trade ventures
or hunting expeditions, occurred within an ever changing world yet, it was also a world with an
ethos of ancient traditions, which did not disappear but instead remained, albeit in adapted or
altered form, to be a part of their contextual reality.<br>Biblical Studies
Books on the topic "Ancient Mesopotamian Text"
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Christopher, Walker, and Dick Michael, eds. The induction of the cult image in ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî ritual. Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Institute for Asian and African Studies, Univesity of Helsinki, 2001.
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Christopher, Walker, and Dick Michael Brennan 1943-, eds. The induction of the cult image in ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mĭs Pî ritual. Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Institute for Asian and African Studies, Univesity of Helsinki, 2001.
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E, Cohen Mark. The canonical lamentations of ancient Mesopotamia. Capital Decisions Ltd, 1988.
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Marchesi, Gianni. LUMMA in the onomasticon and literature of ancient Mesopotamia. Sargon, 2006.
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Yuhong, Wu, ed. Gu dai liang he liu yu xie xing wen zi jing dian ju yao: Hanmulabi fa dian, Marui wang shi dang an di 4 juan xin jian, Yashu wang Xinnaheruibu ba ci zhan yi ming ji = Selected texts of ancient Mesopotamia : Code of Hammurabi, Archives Royales de Mari IV, lettres, Chicago prism of Sennacherib. Heilongjiang ren min chu ban she, 2006.
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Tervanotko, Hanna, and Jonathan Stökl, eds. Text as Revelation. T&T CLARK, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780567689740.
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Text as Revelation analyses the shift of revelatory experiences from oral to written that is described in ancient Jewish literature, including rabbinic texts. The individual essays seek to understand how, why, and for whom texts became the locus of revelation. While the majority of the contributors analyse ancient Jewish literature for depictions of oral and written revelation, such as the Hebrew Bible and the literature of the Second Temple era, a number of articles also investigate textualization of revelation in cognate cultures, analysing Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek sources. With subjects ranging from Ancient Egyptian and Sibylline oracles to Hellenistic writings and the books of Isaiah, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, the studies in this volume bring together established and new voices reflecting on the issues raised by the interplay between writing and (divinatory) revelation.
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Balogh, Amy L. Moses among the Idols. The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2018. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781978720817.
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In Moses among the Idols: Mediators of the Divine in the Ancient Near East, Balogh simultaneously redefines one of the greatest figures in the history of religion and challenges the historically popular understanding of ancient Mesopotamian idols as the idle objects of antiquated faiths. Drawing on interdisciplinary research and methods of comparison, Balogh not only offers new insight into the lives of idols as active mediators between humanity and divinity, she also makes the case that when it comes to understanding the figure of Moses, Mesopotamian idols are the best analogy that the ancient Near East provides. This new understanding of Moses, idols, and the interplay between the two on the stage of history and within the biblical text has been made possible only with the recent publication of pertinent texts from ancient Mesopotamia. Drawing from the fields of Assyriology, biblical studies, comparative religion, and archaeology, Balogh identifies a problem with Moses’s status, and offers an unexpected solution to that problem. Moses among the Idols centers on the question: What is it that transforms Moses from an inadequate representative of Yahweh who is “uncircumcised of lips” to “god to Pharaoh” (Exodus 6:28-7:1)? In this moment, Moses undergoes a status change best understood through comparison with the induction ritual for ancient Mesopotamian idols as described in the texts of the Mis P?, “Washing” or “Purification of the Mouth.” This solution to the problem of Moses’s status explains not only his status change, but also why Moses radiates light after speaking with YHWH (Exod 34:29-35), and his peculiar relationship with YHWH and people of Israel. The comparative, interdisciplinary perspective provided by Balogh allows one to read these and other millennia-old interpretive issues anew, and to do so in a way that underscores the contribution of in-depth comparison to our understanding of ancient civilizations, texts, and intellectual frameworks.
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Steymans, Hans Ulrich, ed. Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Bible. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780567691859.
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Examines the dilemma of whether ancient Near Eastern images – while providing unique aspects of the world-views of the cultures from which the Bible arose – can be interpreted in a way that traceably relates them to the biblical text. To avoid the danger of using images merely as illustrations for concepts found in the Bible, one first needs to behold the image with its own right to been seen. The essays within this volume describe the methods developed by Othmar Keel for bringing imagery into a dialogue with texts from the ancient Orient and their own interpretation, including previously unpublished material from Keel. The contributions begin with an overview of the scholarly work of Keel and the development of his aims and methods, including a revision of an article dealing with semiology in the interpretation of art. The book proceeds to address the research history of iconology in art history, presenting the methodology of Erwin Panofsky and one of his influential predecessors, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, in contrast with Keel’s three methodological steps leading from iconographic analysis to iconology. Contributors then present two case studies of how Keel’s method can be applied to interpret Egyptian and Mesopotamian images, allowing insights into the worldview of an ancient culture and the aim of iconology. The book concludes with a report about how iconographic analysis and iconology is taught on University level.
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Reid, J. Nicholas. Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192849618.001.0001.
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Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia: Confinement and Control until the First Fall of Babylon explores the earliest historical evidence related to imprisonment in the history of the world. While many historical investigations into prisons have revolved around the important question of punishment, this work moves beyond that more narrow approach to consider the multifunctional practices of detaining the body in ancient Iraq. It is the contention of this book that imprisonment arose out of the desire to control and detain the body in relation to labor. The practice of detainment for coercion became adaptable to a variety of circumstances and goals, which shaped the contexts and practices of imprisonment. With time, religious ideology was attached to imprisonment. In one literary text, a prisoner was refined like silver and given new birth in the prison. The misery of imprisonment gave rise to lament through which a criminal could be ritually purified and restored to a right relationship with their personal god. Beyond this literary perspective, this work reconstructs how imprisonment and religious ideology intersected with the judicial process and explores the evidence related to the reasons behind imprisonment, the treatment of prisoners, and the evidence related to the lengths of their stays.
Book chapters on the topic "Ancient Mesopotamian Text"
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Gabbay, Uri. "How Should We Read Ancient Mesopotamian Ritual Texts?" In Rituals, Memory, and Societal Dynamics: Contributions to Social Archaeology. Brepols Publishers, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1484/m.lema-eb.5.144078.
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Jiménez, Enrique. "Quotations for Lexical Lists and Other Texts in Later Mesopotamian Commentaries." In Semitic Languages and Cultures. Open Book Publishers, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/obp.0375.01.
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Lists represent the oldest, and most pervasive, scholarly genre in ancient Mesopotamia. Cuneiform commentaries, first attested in the first millennium BCE, can be regarded as a genre derived from lexical lists. The contribution by Enrique Jiménez studies the ways in which lexical lists are cited in commentaries, and compares them with quotations from texts other than lexical lists.
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Proust, Christine. "Volume, Brickage and Capacity in Old Babylonian Mathematical Texts from Southern Mesopotamia." In Why the Sciences of the Ancient World Matter. Springer International Publishing, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98361-1_4.
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Römer, Thomas. "Biblical Aniconism? Representing the Gods of Ancient Israel and Judah." In When Children Draw Gods. Springer International Publishing, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94429-2_14.
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AbstractThis paper argues that one should not speak of an “original aniconism” in the cult of Yhwh, the god of Israel. In the Northern kingdom and in the first temple of Jerusalem, this god was represented in a theriomorphic and anthropomorphic way. The prohibitions of images of the god of Israel in the Decalogue and other texts were written after the Babylonian exile and are related to the rise of monotheism. During the Persian period Yhwh became the “only” and transcendent god who could no longer be represented by statues or other symbols as were the Mesopotamian gods. However, the Menorah, the candelabra, which was placed in the Second Temple is, in a way, a representation of the divine presence. Aniconism is, however, not a pure invention of nascent Judaism. There are apparently in the Ancient Near East aniconic tendencies that are, nevertheless, compatible with iconic representations of the deities. This may be explained by the facts that ancient people were aware that statues and other images should not be identified with the deities.
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Nowicki, Stefan. "The Role of Women in the Light of Royal Texts from Ancient Mesopotamia." In Dominant, verführend, ewig schuld. V&R unipress, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.14220/9783737014045.19.
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Hornkohl, Aaron D. "1. The Onomasticon with and without yahu Names." In Semitic Languages and Cultures. Open Book Publishers, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/obp.0433.01.
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The chapter examines the evolution of Hebrew onomastics, with special focus on the use of Yahwistic names (names containing the divine element Yhwh) in the Bible. Apparently early biblical texts, like the books of the Torah, Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, contain very few Yahwistic names, in contrast to monarchic and post-exilic periods, where such names are prominent. Th absence of Yahwistic names in Genesis–Samuel suggests that they reliably reflect pre-monarchic naming traditions in which yahu names had yet to become common. One may thus hypothesise three stages in yahu naming practices: pre-monarchic rarity; widespread use of names ending in the long form -yahu during the Divided Monarchy; and ascendancy of names ending in the short form -yah in post-exilic times. Scholars debate the significance of these patterns, with some suggesting that the Torah and other pre-monarchic texts preserve naming conventions from before 900 BCE. This challenges certain versions of the dating of Pentateuchal sources in the framework of the Documentary Hypothesis, which propose later dating for certain sources, and, to a lesser extent, the dominant dichotomous theory concerning BH linguistic periodisation. Despite the lack of direct extrabiblical Hebrew evidence from the pre-monarchic period, the absence of Yahwistic names in biblical texts depicting pre-monarchic times finds indirect confirmation in contemporary Mesopotamian and other ancient Near Eastern writings, supporting the idea that the Hebrew naming traditions found in Genesis–Samuel, which differ from those of the later monarchic and post-exilic periods, are authentically representative of pre-monarchic times.
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Reid, J. Nicholas. "Imprisonment from the Dawn of History to the First Fall of Babylon." In Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192849618.003.0002.
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Chapter 1 introduces the period of investigation as well various Assyriological conventions employed when presenting the primary evidence. This is followed by a discussion of the secondary literature to demonstrate the current state of the discussion about imprisonment in early Mesopotamia. After discussing the state of research on the topic, I introduce the primary sources related to Mesopotamian imprisonment by using a hymn to a prison goddess. This literary text provides both an entry point into the discussion and allows me to explain the methodological approach I use to study the sources related to imprisonment in early Mesopotamia.
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Jauhiainen, Heidi, and Tero Alstola. "Fast(Text) Analysis of Mesopotamian Divine Names." In The Ancient World Goes Digital. BRILL, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004527119_007.
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"Correcting and Marking Mistakes and other Additions to the Written Text." In An Ancient Mesopotamian Herbal Handbook. Peeters Publishers, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1q26v67.12.
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"Enuma Elish." In Schlager Anthology of the Ancient World. Schlager Group Inc., 2024. https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844193.book-part-029.
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The civilization of ancient Mesopotamia that emerged around six thousand years ago is the earliest ancestor of Western culture, and its religion is the precursor of all later Western religion. Perhaps the single most important religious text of Mesopotamian culture is the Babylonian hymn Enuma Elish, which tells of the creation of the universe by Marduk, the chief god of Babylon. Like many ancient books, it has no title in the modern sense, but it is known by three different names: Enuma Elish, its first two words (meaning “When in the height”); the Epic of Creation, after its subject matter; and the Seven Tablets of Creation, after its length. Its main themes are the emergence of order from chaos and the imposition of civilization on a hostile and destructive world—themes that relate to the precarious security of Mesopotamia in its natural and political environment.