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March 18, 2006
Another Student Exercise from Ugarit
Two good things have happened in the last two days. Yesterday I heard from my favorite librarian that the more important of the two works I've been waiting for is on its way from Harvard. When it arrives, I will be able to resume my work on KTU 4.767 from Taanach. I hope I can have something ready to post soon.
The second thing that happened is that my very own copy to Bordreuil and Pardee's Manuel d'Ougaritique (MOu) in two volumes arrived today. At $60.00 a piece these volumes are not exactly a bargain but the accompanying CD with its great pictures of 55 tablets and the ten new Ugaritic tablets that are only available in these volumes helps justify the price. It will take me some time to get through the grammar and the new texts. So I thought I'd start with something simple, the new abecedary, RS 94.2440 (MOu 55). After all, I've done a few posts on abecedaries from Ugarit recently. Josef Tropper has a report on this tablet, as well as the other new Ugaritic tablets, in the current Ugarit Forschungen.
RS 94.2440 contains two complete, mostly identical, versions of the Ugaritic alphabet, both in canonical order (lines 1 and 2 of the tablet), and five place names.
Text of lines 3-6:
Obverse:
3) atlg
2-3 lines at bottom of obverse unreadable, indication there was once writing.
Reverse:
First line of reverse is unreadable but may have contained writing.
4) mlk . ar
5) hlb rpš
6) hlb krd
Comments:
Line 3: Atallig: A well known place name. Atallig is a port city about 22 km south of Ugarit. See KTU 2.26:16 among other alphabetic texts and RS 17.150:15 (URUa-tal-tigx) among syllabic examples. Distances are approximate and based on the map published be Astour, 11.
Line 4: Mulukku / Ari: mlk occurs as a place name in the Akkadian text RS 17.150:8 as URUmu-[l]u(?)-ki. In alphabetic texts the gentilic form, mlky, is known (KTU 4.625:21 for example). Ari is an otherwise known place name. See KTU 4.68:48 and several other places. It also occurs in RS 20.425:3 as URUa-ri. Like Atallig, Mulukku and Ari are in the South West district of the kingdom of Ugarit (Astour, 5). Ari is on the Mediterranean coast about 15 km south of Atallig and Mulukku is about 10 km northeast of Ari. I think the only word divider on the tablet argues against taking this line to mean "the king of Ari." Compare the compound place names in lines 5 and 6.
Line5: Halbirapshu: This place is known from KTU 4.100:8 and several other alphabetic texts. See also URUhal-pi-rapši(?)ši (URU.HAL.PI.DAGAL.ŠI) in RS 17.299:2. The location of Halbirapshu is unknown. As can be seen from the RS 17.299, this name was seen as a single compound. Several place names beginning hlb are known. Perhaps the most famous is hlb şpn (KTU 4.68:50, etc.) which is also known as URUhal-bi HUR.SAGha-zi in Akkadian texts (e.g. RS 11:830:18'). On the basis of a possible parallel with ġr in KTU 1.4 VIII 5-6; KTU 1.5:13-14 and KTU 1.82:4, hlb may mean something in the vicinity of "hill" or "forest" but this is not at all certain.
Line 6: Halbikarbu(?): hlb krd is known from KTU 4.48:2 and several other texts. The location of hlb krd is unknown.
With the three towns that can be located within a few kilometers of each other in the southwest district of the kingdom of Ugarit, it is tempting to think that our student scribe was from that area, perhaps even from Atallig, if for no other reason than it is listed before the others. To me it is less likely that this tablet indicates that his teacher was from this area.
If I were grading the student who wrote RS 94.2440, I'd give him no better grade than a C-. The student does know his alphabet, at least he knows the correct order. But he must have thought that if a letter with three wedges was good, the same letter with four wedges would be better. One finds extra wedges in his h, his y, his n and his r, at least most of the time. I agree with Bordreuil and Pardee, 132, that everything of this tablet is by the same somewhat careless hand. I'm not so sure that Tropper is correct in seeing the ś as more like the linear Phoenician s than is normal. In fact, it looks to me like the ś in line 1 has a strange looking first horizontal wedge that is atypical of the letter. If all Tropper means is that, the central vertical wedge extends well below the lowest horizontal wedge then that is true enough but I'm not sure one can conclude much beyond that. I think it goes well beyond the evidence to consider this sign "typologically young." Perhaps it is better to see the sign as malformed. Or as Bordreuil and Pardee, 132, say of many of the other letters, "n'est pas de forme canonique." However, "n'est pas de forme canonique" in a somewhat different sense than some of the letters in short cuneiform alphabet texts. Those few short cuneiform alphabet texts are more consistent in morphology and their scribes more self-conscious in usage. RS 94.2440 simply has malformed letters.
References:
Bordreuil, Pierre and Dennis Pardee, Manuel d'Ougaritique Volume I, Grammaire, Fac Similés, Paris: Geuthner, 2004
Bordreuil, Pierre and Dennis Pardee, Manuel d'Ougaritique Volume II, Choix de textes, Glossaire, Paris: Geuthner, 2004
Nougayrol, Jean, "Textes Accadiens des Archives Sud," Le Palaus Royal d'Ugarit IV, Mission de Ras Shamra, IX, Paris: P. Geuthner, 1956 (RS 17.299 can be found here, p. 182)
Nougayrol, Jean, "Textes Suméro-Accadiens des Archives et Bibliothèques Privées d'Ugarit," Ugaritica V, Mission de Ras Shamra, XVI, Paris: P. Geuthner, 1968, 1-446 (this is where the referenced Akkadian texts, excepting RS 17:299, can be found.)
Tropper, Josef, "Zehn neue Texte aus Ugarit," Ugarit Forschungen 36, Münster: Verlag Butzon and Bercher Keverlaer, 2004, 1-9
Posted by Duane Smith at March 18, 2006 9:24 AM | Read more on Ugarit |
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