Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Aramaic ostraca »

While looking at the Babylonian incantation bowls found at Nippur and kept at the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia during the academic year 1992–93, i when I had the privilege of being a fellow of the Annenberg Institute, I came across three ostraca which seem to have escaped notice so far. Professor Wansbrough has been interested in so many aspects of the history of the Near East that I hope that this new find will also please him.Two of the ostraca in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania are Parthian. The third is written in the Aramaic script but contains apparently a Middle Persian inscription. I hope to publish it shortly.Parthian ostracon 1 (pis. I-II)One of the two Parthian ostraca, B2983 in the Museum collection, is written on a piece of pottery now measuring a maximum of 12 x 7 cm. The potsherd is not preserved in its entirety. It is chipped on the left, at the end of line 1, and the fact that lines 4–6 are missing their endings shows that there was a piece broken diagonally in the lower left side of the pottery piece. It is written in the chancery style of Parthian, both as far as its script and as far as its language is concerned. It is quite close in its opening style and ductus to the Parthian letter on parchment found at Dura Europos.

Abstract: The southern Levant provides two main bodies of documents to examine the use of silver money during the fourth century b.c.e.: ca 1,100 Idumaean ostraca reveal the activities of a rural region and a collection of Aramaic papyri found in the caves of Wadi Daliyeh and the Ketef Jericho ridge in the vicinity of Jericho render witness to more urban behaviours. They deliver contrasting views on the use of silver money—weighed silver or coins—that can be interpreted in light of what we know of the history of the region in the context of the wider Achaemenid imperial space. Abstract: Le Levant Sud a livré deux ensembles documentaires permettant de mieux comprendre l'usage de la monnaie d'argent au ive siècle: environ 1100 ostraca iduméens dévoilent les activités d'une région rurale tandis qu'un ensemble de papyri trouvés dans les grottes du Wadi Daliyeh et à Ketef Jéricho, dans la région de Jéricho, témoignent de pratiques plus citadines. Ils livrent une vision contrastée de l'usage de la monnaie d'argent — pesée ou sous forme de numéraire — qui peut être interprétée à la lumière de ce que nous savons de l'histoire de la région dans le cadre plus general de l'espace impérial achéménide.

L'empire achéménide, dominant une grande partie du Proche-Orient entre 559 et 330 avant notre ère, s'appuyait sur l'exploitation économique des territoires qu'il contrôlait, organisée à travers un réseau administratif élaboré. La Transeuphratène, satrapie à l'ouest de l'empire, jouait un rôle stratégique dans ce système. En Idumée, une région du Levant Sud, un corpus de près de 2 250 ostraca en araméen impérial a été découvert. Bien qu'ils manquent souvent de contexte archéologique précis, étant apparus sur le marché des antiquités dans les années 1970, leur comparaison avec des ostraca provenant de sites comme Maresha, Arad et Beersheba montre qu'ils appartiennent à la même période et au même système administratif. Depuis les années 1990, ces ostraca ont été majoritairement étudiés sous un angle philologique. Toutefois, cette recherche propose une approche innovante en utilisant une base de données relationnelle pour effectuer des analyses quantitatives et comparatives approfondies. Ces documents, principalement économiques, donnent selon nous un aperçu de l'administration locale. L'objectif est de replacer ces textes dans leur contexte historique afin de révéler les mécanismes de gestion locale de la satrapie. La méthodologie comparative, confrontant le corpus d'Idumée à des découvertes similaires ailleurs dans l'empire, permet d'établir des parallèles entre les pratiques administratives des différentes régions. Dans ce cas, un des corpus clés sont les Archives des Fortifications de Persépolis découvertes dans les années 1930 qui ont transformé la compréhension de l'administration achéménide, en fournissant des sources économiques brutes. Ce modèle, où chaque satrapie conservait ses propres archives, soulève la question de l'existence d'un système similaire en Transeuphratène, et en particulier en Idumée. Les ostraca étudiés semblent constituer des traces de ce réseau administratif local à un autre échelon. Ces documents révèlent ainsi un ensemble de transactions économiques et la gestion des ressources locales. Bien que les inscriptions soient parfois lacunaires ou elliptiques, elles permettent de dégager les grandes lignes des pratiques administratives locales. En se basant sur le concept de « paysage institutionnel » de Henkelman, cette étude propose une analyse à deux niveaux : une perspective microscopique qui se concentre sur les détails locaux et une vision macroscopique qui replace ces informations dans le cadre plus large de l'empire. L'un des objectifs majeurs de cette étude est de dégager les thématiques principales présentes dans les ostraca d'Idumée et d'identifier les acteurs clés du système administratif, tels que les administrateurs, les scribes et les collecteurs d'impôts. Cette approche permet de mieux comprendre comment le pouvoir central perse interagissait avec ses provinces périphériques, en adaptant ses pratiques aux spécificités locales. En analysant les ostraca d'Idumée et en les comparant à d'autres sources contemporaines, cette étude cherche à reconstituer une vue d'ensemble du fonctionnement administratif régional. Le corpus d'ostraca d'Idumée offre une opportunité unique d'explorer la gestion des territoires périphériques de l'empire. Par l'étude des termes administratifs récurrents et des transactions documentées, il est possible de mieux comprendre la structure administrative impériale et les pratiques administratives dans cette région
The Achaemenid Empire, which dominated much of the Near East between 559 and 330 BCE, relied on the economic exploitation of the territories it controlled, organized through a sophisticated administrative network. The satrapy of Transeuphratia, located in the western part of the empire, played a important role within this system. In Idumea, a region in the southern Levant, a corpus of nearly 2,250 ostraca written in Imperial Aramaic was discovered. Although many lack precise archaeological context, having emerged on the antiquities market in the 1970s, comparisons with ostraca from sites such as Maresha, Arad, and Beersheba indicate that they belong to the same period and administrative system. Since the 1990s, these ostraca have been predominantly studied from a philological perspective. However, this research offers an innovative approach by utilizing a relational database to conduct in-depth quantitative and comparative analyses. These documents, primarily economic in nature, provide insight into the local administration, and the aim is to situate them within their historical context to reveal the mechanisms of local governance within the satrapy. The comparative methodology, which juxtaposes the Idumean corpus with similar discoveries from other regions of the empire, helps establish parallels between the administrative practices across different regions. One key corpus for comparison is the Persepolis Fortification Archives, discovered in the 1930s, which transformed the understanding of Achaemenid administration by providing raw economic sources. This model, in which each satrapy maintained its own archives, raises the question of whether a similar system existed in Transeuphratene, and particularly in Idumea. The ostraca under study appear to represent traces of this local administrative network on a smaller scale. These documents reveal a series of economic transactions and the management of local resources. Although the inscriptions are sometimes incomplete or elliptical, they allow for an understanding of the key features of local administrative practices. Using Henkelman's concept of the "institutional landscape," this study proposes a twofold analysis: a microscopic perspective that focuses on local details, and a macroscopic view that situates these details within the broader framework of the empire. One of the primary objectives of this study is to identify the main themes present in the Idumean ostraca and to pinpoint the key actors in the administrative system, such as administrators, scribes, and tax collectors. This approach enables a better understanding of how the central Persian authority interacted with its peripheral provinces, adapting its practices to local specificities. By analyzing the Idumean ostraca and comparing them with other contemporary sources, this study seeks to reconstruct an overview of the regional administrative system. The Idumean ostraca corpus provides a unique opportunity to explore the management of the empire's peripheral territories. Through the study of recurring administrative terms and documented transactions, it is possible to gain a deeper understanding of the imperial administrative structure and the administrative practices in this region

After the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (587 BCE), most of the Judean elite (family of king Jehoiachin, civil and military servants, technicians) lived in Babylonia. New cuneiform tablets reveal that they mostly staid in Babylonian villages (al-Yāhūdu, Bît-Abīram, Našar); they were mainly holders of bow-fields but a few ones became dēkū officials. Some of these new documents present West Semitic labels and reveal that the deportees kept, at least for some time, their Hebrew culture even though they apparently used Aramaic and Neo-Babylonian deeds in their daily life. In Egypt, numerous Aramaic papyri and ostraca from Elephantine reveal that the Judean garrison staying there was strongly aramaicized even though they prayed and sacrificed in a Yaho temple and kept their Judean ethnicity. A few funerary stelae discovered in Ayios Georghiou at Larnaca-Kition (Cyprus) reveal the presence of Judean people there, apparently practicing mixed marriages.