BAF-Online: Proceedings of the Berner Altorientalisches Forum
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Sacked and Cursed? New data on the transition from the city-state to the Hittite capital Hattuša
Full text linkWhen: Karum Period: First centuries of the 2nd millennium B.C. when Assyrian and Anatolian merchants took part in large-scale commercial exchanges between Aššur and central Anatolia. Most of the epigraphic finds come from the 19th century BC, and the 18th century is less known. We don’t know how the commercial exchanges came to an end. Until the establishment of the administration at the Hittite capital Hattuša/Boğazköy (1650), there is a hiatus in the epigraphical records for more than a century. Who: Anitta, son of Pithana, an ambitious ruler who created one of the first Kingdom in Central Anatolian (modern Turkey) in the mid 18th century.Where: Boğazköy (modern name, in Central Anatolia) was a city called Ḫattuš and was an exchange place in the Anatolian Network of the Karum period. The site was selected as the capital of the Hittites around 1650 by Ḫattušili I, the first well attested Hittite King
The ethnical history of Kizzuwatna: an onomastic approach
Full text linkThe mixed nature of Kizzuwatna’s population is widely accepted by the scholars, considering the Hurrians and the Luwians its main components. Which of these peoples came to the Cilician plain earlier than another one, is the subject of the discussion between archaeologists and linguists. In the course of this discussion, the onomastic and toponymical data were underestimated and became the subject of my investigation.The onomastic data collected from the historical and ritual texts coming from Kizzuwatna, seals and sealings discovered or bought at the Cilician plain give us a collection of proper names dating to Middle Hittite, New Hittite and Late New Hittite periods. Their distribution by language and period gives us the picture of the Hurrian domination in the Middle Hittite period. By the Late New Hittite period the Luwian names became prevailing. This trend supports the scenario of the Hurrian earlier arrival. Both Hittite and Luwian presence in the Middle Hittite period should reflect the traces of the first conquest of Kizzuwatna by the Old Hittite kingdom, and the Luwian influence increased after the second conquest of Kizzuwatna by the New Hittite kingdom. The geographical distribution between Luwian West and Hurrian East should be further investigated on the ground of the place names of the Cilician plain through ages
At the intersection of material finds and identity
Full text linkTell Abu Sarbut is situated in the Jordan Valley about 80 km north of Amman, the excavation seasons 2012-2015 revealed a small Early Roman hamlet and unexpected and surprising stone vessels were found.The vessels were hand cut or lathe turned, produced around Jerusalem and in Galilee in Capernaum, Sepphoris, Nabratein and also in Gamla in the Golan. Soft chalkstone vessels excavated from Levantine sites dated between 100 BC and 200 AD, are always found together with specific oil lamps, pottery, and sometimes with stepped pools.Such stone vessels are well known from Qumran and Jerusalem, they are considered markers of Jewish identity. There is an on-going discussion on the subject. According to Berlin material possessions encode and reflect religious identity. (A.Berlin, 2005. Jewish Life Before the Revolt. Journal for the Study of Judaism 36, 4:417- 470). Near contemporaneous texts tell that stone vessels were considered impervious to ritual impurity. Different authors state that the phenomenon is a uniquely Jewish one, because these utensils are conspicuously absent from non-Jewish sites.Most of the finds are from Israel only a few were reported from Jordan.The limestone vessels form Tell Abu Sarbut rise the question if these artefacts can reveal the identity of the people once living in that tiny hamlet in the eastern Jordan Valley.An important questions in my research on the material from Tell Abu Sarbut is: What are the conditions to link religious identity to archaeological structures and artefacts? The central question in this might be: Is it legitimate to link artefacts to ethnic groups? I would appreciate ideas and suggestions on both questions.An important questions in my research on the material from Tell Abu Sarbut is: What are the conditions to link religious identity to archaeological structures and artifacts? The central question in this might be: Is it legitimate to link artifacts to ethnic groups? I would appreciate ideas and suggestions on both questions
Detecting word endings in an unknown script
Full text linkDate: Around 2200 BC.Location: Western, southern and eastern Iran.Type: Syllabic Script.Text Corpus: 22 (known a long time), plus 15 (known since 2015).Sign Corpus: 110 sign type, 1340 sign tokens.Status: Principally undeciphered, except the sound values for in, šu, uš, ši, na, and k, drawn from the divine name Inšušinak found in the only bilingual inscription. Several further sound values were proposed. In our paper, some of them are being corroborated, and a new one is presented.Language behind the signs: Based on graphotactical patterns found in the texts, this paper claims that it must be Elamite or a language closely related to it
Visualizing the Provenance of Sumerian Literary Texts
Full text link1) DatingOld Babylonian (ca. 1800–1500 B.C.)2) Place namesAbu Salabikh, Babylon, Ḫattuša, Isin, Kiš, Lagas, Larsa, Mari, Me-Turan, Nippur, black market, Sippar, Susa, Tutub, Uruk, Ur3) Text corporaThe Decad: a group of ten literary texts presumably taught at the beginning of the advanced phase of the Old Babylonian scribal curriculum.Sumerian disputation literature: a corpus of 24 Sumerian literary texts classified as debate poems, dialogues, edubba’a-texts, and diatribes.4) Further termsCollective tablet: cuneiform tablet with two or more literary texts; providing evidence for the sequence of these texts in the scribal curriculum.Literary catalogue: cuneiform tablet listing incipits (‚titles’) of Sumerian literary texts; used to reconstruct the Old Babylonian scribal curriculum
Beauty beyond aesthetics: the abstract thought and the universal language of the natural world to the Sumerian/roman farmer’s eyes
Full text linkSigns of meaning - visual marks that identify individual characteristics of an image that can carry a crystalized meaning. For example, in a landscape described as having a lot of fruit trees, we have the sign of quantity and the sign of fertility, materialized by the fruits. A sign is neither positive neither negative. It just marks a specific characteristic that compounds the symbol. For each sign, we identify just one exact semantic value.Symbol - A symbol corresponds to a compounding of signs. Those signs can be selected in order to construct a complex symbol or a traditional symbol.Traditional symbol - When the compounding of crystalized signs of meaning expresses all the semantic extension of the symbolic image. It represents abstractly an original image that served as basis to the symbolic construction, which is present in the collective mind. The symbolic image is of spontaneous interpretation and is dependent of an empirical knowledge on natural world.Complex symbol or literary symbol - when there is a selective compounding of crystalized signs, in order to construct a symbol, which meaning is dependent of the context. Gravitating signs on beauty abstract concept:Lexicon:uru (na-ur11-ru) – to sowše - barleyab-sin2 (ab-sin2-na) - furrowgu - flaxsar (sar-ra) - garden-be
A Review of Pottery Cultures in Central Anatolia during the Middle Iron Age, taking Yassıhöyük (Kırşehir) as a Case Study
Full text linkMiddle Iron Age (MIA): 9th-8th c. BC in Central Anatolia.Yassıhöyük is a mound located 160 km southeast of Ankara (Turkey), 25 km north of Kırşehir and 30 km east of Kaman-Kalehöyük.Kaman-Kalehöyük is a mound located 100 km southeast of Ankara.Region 1 (Representative Site: Gordion)Gordion was the capital city of Phrygia, 100 km southwest of Ankara.Diagnostic pottery type: monochrome grey wares.Political Entity: PhrygiaRegion 2 (Representative Site: Boğazköy)Boğazköy is a slope settlement located 208 km northeast of Ankara and 82 km southwest of Çorum.Diagnostic pottery type: painted pottery with matt dark paint, Alisar IV ceramics.Political Entity: -Region 3 (Representative Site: Porsuk-Zeyve Höyük)Porsuk is a mound located 359 km southeast of Ankara and 55 km southwest of Niğde.Diagnostic pottery type: -Political Entity: Many kingdoms under Assyrian control (Tabal Region) (More info:http://www.tayproject.org
Akkadian in context
Full text linkContextual approaches to utterances (or other forms of texts) have been developed by scholars working within the pragmatic paradigm in linguistics. Defining and analysing different levels of context can be also of great use to an assyriologist, and it is my intention in this presentation to show how. Now that one has multiple editions of texts at our disposal, one can focus not only on a single type of context, such as historical, political or religious, but approach a text (or a group of texts) from various angles, combining information provided by the different levels of contex
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BAF-Online: Proceedings of the Berner Al...HASBonline – Hefte zur Archäologie des M...Informationswissenschaft: Theorie, Metho...Jahrbuch Diakonie SchweizJournal of Eye Movement ResearchJournal of Radiation Oncology Informatic...BOP SerialsVersants. Revista suiza de literaturas r...BORIS Theses
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