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March 27, 2006
The Cuneiform Short Alphabet: Part 8.
This is the eighth in my series of studies of the texts possibly written in the short cuneiform alphabet. You can find the first study, "Amurriyu's Sacrifice to Baal: KTU 1.77" and a table of contents directing you to the other studies at The Cuneiform Short Alphabet: Part 1. Along with Part 1 is a brief discussion of the short cuneiform alphabet, a discussion of methodology and a disclaimer in which I advise the reader on my qualifications or lack of same to study these texts. Please read this material. I have updated the Bibliography to include works cited for the first time in this study. It's been a while since I posted in this series but this is the most difficult of the texts studied so far and it took quite a while to round up all the related secondary literature.
KTU 4.767: A Medical Text from Tell Taanach
This tablet was discovered during the final days of the 1963 season of excavation Paul Lapp's excavation at Tell Taanach (Taanak, Ta'annek). It was "found in a layer of ash and mud brick detritus in the remains of a large building (Hillers [1964] 45)." It is 48 x 22 x 12.5 mm in size. Based on the pottery finds, the matrix in which the tablet was found is dated to the 12th century BCE. The tablet itself is very likely older than its surrounding matrix.
Translation:
When in pain a wrapping of henna cures, (while) sickness consumes.
To understand why I think this is a good translation of the text please read the PDF file.
Transcription and Transliteration:
Below is a nearly actual size tracing of the obverse based on a photograph of the tablet published by Rainey (1969), 90 and my transliteration of the complete text.
Again, if you want to know why I think this is a correct transliteration, consult the PDF file. I have also commented on the last letter in the first line on a previous post.
Other proposed translations:
This tablet, while short, has proven extremely difficult to interpret. Here is how several previous students of this tablet have translated it.
"Kkb hat eingesammelt Stengel von Zypernsträuchern. Es wir (davon) Gebrauch machen der Kranke." (Dietrich and Loretz [1988], 250-251)
"If a cow suffers from boils(?) press out henna-grapes. Let the medicine be applied on each (boil)." (Dijkstra [1986], 122 n. 7)
Line 1 ("plus difficilement") Line 2, "Les raçons seront fixées par lui." (Puech [1986], 206)
"Kbb 1000 Hölzer. Körbe sind bestimmt für Dht." (Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin [1974b], 469-470)
"Kökaba’ to Pu‛m - The fee fixed (has been) remitted to him." (Cross [1968], 41-46) Note: Zadok (1982), 161, follows Cross in reading two personal names in the first line.
"From Kökaba’. Belonging to P‛- 8 kprt-measures, sifted flour." (Hillers [1964], 46-47)
Interpretation and a Comment on Methodology:
The text on the tablet appears to be a medical text or perhaps better a medical proverb. It is possible that the tablet and the text are part of a school tradition. The age of the tablet itself is controversial. However, despite the age of the material in which it was found, I believe the tablet is in same age range as the other cuneiform alphabetic tablets (i.e. 14th to 13th century BCE). If it is indeed a school text, then the content of the tablet could well be still older. On morphological grounds, one might consider it to be written in the short cuneiform alphabet. However, none of the more secure signs of this possibility are present on the tablet. As has been necessary with a few of the other texts considered in this series, I will postpone definitive judgment on this issue until latter.
I started with a simple idea, "the meaning of the text on this tablet is coherent." Very early in the study of this tablet I formed a working hypothesis that it was a short medical text. I saw the word kprt, which I translate "henna," as the key to interpreting the text. In addition to "henna," the word might simply mean "Cyprus" or possibly "Cypriote." However, the possibility of it meaning Cyprus or Cypriote did not prove fruitful. "Henna" could be a cash crop, a cosmetic or a medication. I quickly adopted the concept that henna in this text was medicinal and developed my interpretation around that idea. In some ways, this is a very dangerous procedure. Having an idea of what a text is about before one can read it in detail can easily lead to serious misinterpretation. On the other hand, it is helpful to have a place to start with a text of this difficulty. If you read the accompanying PDF file, you will see that several linguistic issues are not fully resolved and this may be an indication that my working hypothesis is incorrect. However, I could not find any other interpretation of the text that resolved all of the issues better than the one offered here.
Posted by Duane Smith at March 27, 2006 3:19 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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