Author: Martin Worthington Publisher: Teach Yourself ISBN: 1444132172 Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 315
Book Description
Do you want to engage with Babylonian culture and literature in the original language?The course will introduce you to a fascinating world of gods and demons, heroes and kings.The readings are drawn from myths, letters, law-codes, medical incantations, and other authentic, ancient writings. The language is presented in the Roman alphabet, with an explanation of cuneiform script, and the main features of Assyrian - cognate with Babylonian - are also explained. Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and interactive features in this book from Teach Yourself, the No. 1 brand in language learning.
Author: Jack M. Sasson Publisher: Penn State Press ISBN: 157506376X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 475
Book Description
For over 40 years, Jack M. Sasson has been studying and commenting on the cuneiform archives from Mari on the Euphrates River, especially those from the age of Hammurabi of Babylon. Among Mari’s wealth of documents, some of the most interesting are letters from and to kings, their advisers and functionaries, their wives and daughters, their scribes and messengers, and a variety of military personnel. The letters are revealing and often poignant. Sasson selects more than 700 letters as well as several excerpts from administrative documents, translating them and providing them with illuminating comments. In distilling a lifetime of study and interpretation, Sasson hopes to welcome readers into a fuller appreciation of a remarkable period in Mesopotamian civilization. Sasson’s presentation is organized around major institutions in an ancient culture: (1) Kingship, treating accumulation of wealth, control of vassals, dynastic marriages, treaty-obligations, as well as illustrating the hazards and vexation of ruling a large territory; (2) Administration, from palaces that teem with bureaucrats, musicians, and cooks, to the management of provinces and vassal kingdoms; (3) Warfare, military establishment and martial practices; (4) Society, including organs of justice (and shortcuts to it), crime, punishment, and civil transactions; (5) Religion, including notices on diverse pantheons, rituals, priesthood, cultic paraphernalia, vows, ordeals, and channels to the gods (divination, dreams, and prophecy); and (6) Culture, including ethnic distinctions, class structure, and moments in the life cycle (birth, childhood, family life, health matters, death, and commemoration). Sasson’s presentation of the material brings to life a world entombed for four millennia, concretizes the realities of ancient life, and gives it a human perspective that is at once instructive and entertaining. The book is accompanied by extensive concordances and indexes (including to biblical passages) that will be useful to those who wish to study the letters more intensively.
Author: Wilfred G. Lambert Publisher: Penn State Press ISBN: 1575068613 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 657
Book Description
For much of the last half of the twentieth century, W. G. Lambert devoted much of his research energy and effort to the study of Babylonian texts dealing with Mesopotamian ideas regarding creation, including especially Enuma Elish. This volume, which appears almost exactly 2 years after Lambert’s death, distills a lifetime of learning by the world’s foremost expert on these texts. Lambert provides a full transliteration and translation of the 7 tablets of Enuma Elish, based on the known exemplars, as well as coverage of a number of other texts that bear on, or are thought to bear on, Mesopotamian notions of the origin of the world, mankind, and the gods. New editions of seventeen additional “creation tales” are provided, including “Enmesharra’s Defeat,” “Enki and Ninmah,” “The Slaying of Labbu,” and “The Theogony of Dunnu.” Lambert pays special attention, of course, to the connection of the main epic, Enuma Elish, with the rise and place of Marduk in the Babylonian pantheon. He traces the development of this deity’s origin and rise to prominence and elaborates the relationship of this text, and the others discussed, to the religious and political climate Babylonia. The volume includes 70 plates (primarily hand-copies of the various exemplars of Enuma Elish) and extensive indexes.
Author: Alexander Heidel Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022611242X Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 177
Book Description
Here is a complete translation of all the published cuneiform tablets of the various Babylonian creation stories, of both the Semitic Babylonian and the Sumerian material. Each creation account is preceded by a brief introduction dealing with the age and provenance of the tablets, the aim and purpose of the story, etc. Also included is a translation and discussion of two Babylonian creation versions written in Greek. The final chapter presents a detailed examination of the Babylonian creation accounts in their relation to our Old Testament literature.
Author: Michael Sokoloff Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 9780801872334 Category : Foreign Language Study Languages : en Pages : 1610
Book Description
The first new dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic in a century, this towering scholarly achievement provides a complete lexicon of the entire vocabulary used in both literary and epigraphic sources from the Jewish community in Babylon from the third century C.E. to the twelfth century. Author Michael Sokoloff's primary source is, of course, the Babylonian Talmud, one of the most important and influential works in Jewish literature. Unlike the authors of previous dictionaries of this dialect, however, he also uses a variety of other sources, from inscriptions and legal documents to other rabbinical literature. A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic also differs from earlier lexographic efforts in its focus on a single dialect. Previous dictionaries have been composite works containing various Aramaic dialects from different periods, blurring distinctions in meaning and nuance. Sokoloff has been able to draw on the most current linguistic and textual scholarship to ensure the complete accuracy of his lexical entries, each of which is divided into six parts: lemma or root, part of speech, English gloss, etymology, semantic features, and bibliographic references. Another important feature in this invaluable reference work is its index of all cited passages, which allows the reader of a given text to easily find the semantics of a particular word. In addition to linguists and specialists in Jewish Aramaic literature, lay readers and students will also find this comprehensive, up-to-date dictionary useful for understanding the Babylonian Talmud.
Author: Gavin White Publisher: ISBN: 9781847535610 Category : Languages : en Pages : 284
Book Description
This book is the first of its kind, specifically written for the layman, to explore the constellations and star-lore of ancient Babylonia. The introduction describes the structure of the archaic cosmos, then goes on to reconstruct the Babylonian constellation figures, and finally gives an overview of the whole star-map.The main body of the book is comprised of an A-Z gazette, which explores the names, appearances and associated lore of each constellation in greater detail.A set of appendices furnishes additional background information on the history of star-lore, the calendar, the cuneiform writing system and the use of the stars in divination.Beyond the familiar figures of the zodiac, the Babylonian constellations have laid in almost total obscurity for the last two thousand years. Here for the first time the complete star-map is reconstructed and many of its secrets revealed, so that now the whole system of celestial symbolism can be restored to something approaching its former glory.
Author: David B. Weisberg Publisher: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
The 173 texts contained in this volume were acquired by the Oriental Institute Tablet Collection over a long period of years from various sources. The texts are dated from 699 to 423 BC, during the Neo-Babylonian period. The more noteworthy subject matter of the texts includes an adoption document, sale of houses and a field (from the Nur-Sin archive), a "datio in solutum," a court protocol concerning a loan of silver with interest specified, a loan of silver with interest specified, proceedings in the assembly concerning personal status, a Mar Banutu text from the town of Hubat, a court record concerning the status of a freed person, a contract with fowlers to supply birds to Eanna, an inventory of the finery of the Lady-of-Uruk for craftsmen, a four-column list of precious objects, a two-column list of words, a tablet whose obverse records part of a contract and whose reverse is from Sb B, a fragment of an Akkadian religious text or medical or astrological commentary, and a fragment of a literary text. The book contains transliterations, translations, text notes, commentary, indices, and a mixture of hand-drawn copies and photographs of the tablets.
Author: Mikko Luukko Publisher: State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts ISBN: 9789521013423 Category : Akkadian language Languages : en Pages : 82
Book Description
The Myth of Nergal and Ereskigal, preserved in two versions, a Middle-Babylonian one from Tell el-Amarna and a much longer Standard Babylonian one probably composed in Assyria in the early first millennium BCE, tells the story of why and how Nergal, son of Ea, the god of wisdom, descended into the Netherworld by the "ladders of heaven," fell in love with Ereskigal, queen of the Netherworld, and eventually deposed her and usurped her throne. Like all Mesopotamian myths, the story is replete with enigmatic details, puns and intertextual allusions making it a heavily encoded text with hidden levels of interpretation. In allegorical reading, the myth was a complement to the Descent of Istar (SAACT 6), and the mission of Nergal could be associated with that of the king as a heavenly savior sent to the rescue of the sinners. This volume provides an in-depth analysis of the myth and the most complete reconstruction of the Standard Babylonian version yet presented. The reconstructed text is given both in cuneiform and in up-to-date transliteration and translation, complete with a critical apparatus, philological commentary, and a full glossary and sign list. The Introduction also contains an edition and discussion of the Amarna version and an extensive study of the god Nergal in Assyrian sources. Ideal both as a textbook for classroom use and as a resource for non-Assyriologists wishing to study the myth first-hand.
Author: Martin Worthington
Author: Jack M. Sasson
Author: Wilfred G. Lambert
Author: Albert Kirk Grayson
Author: Alexander Heidel
Author: Michael Sokoloff
Author: Gavin White
Author: David B. Weisberg
Author: Mikko Luukko
Author: Eliezer Segal