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April 14, 2006
Who Are These People? And Why Are They On This List?
[Update April 23, 2006: I have changed my assessment of this text. While most of the discussion below still stands, I now think it is a list of merchants. To find out why, please go to my new post Ashdod, Ugarit and Monkey Suits]
Working on the various texts that may (or may not) be written in the short cuneiform alphabet has led me to some truly strange things from Ugarit and elsewhere. Among the strangest is KTU 4.635. KTU 4.635 appears to be a list of some 75 personal names often (always?) with some kind of attribute after them. Lines 15, 16, 17 and 18 are good examples.
15) bn . ymlk [. b]d . skn
16) bn . yħnn . adddy (remember, I use ħ for het)
17) bn . pdġy . mhdy
18) bn . yyn . mdrġl
One way to understand line 15 is "Bn Ymlk is in the hands of the governor." But Bn Yħnn is from Ashdod or his full name is Bn Yħnn Ashdodyi. And Bn Pdġy is from Mhd or his name is Bn Pdġy Mhdyi. But where is Mhd? And then we have Bn Ynn. The meaning of mdrġl is, as far as I can tell, unknown. It is possibly a Hurrian word with the ġl suffix that often designates a profession or the like (nomen agentis).
So what do we have here: a guy who is in the custody of the governor, a guy from Ashdod, a guy from mhdy, wherever that is, and a guy that works with or makes mdr, whatever that is. My real concern is that three different types of designations may well be represented in just these four lines. One person is designated by his relationship to a government official, two are represented by their "nationality" or ethnicity and one by his profession or something like a profession.
I am struggling with this text because of a potsherd from Tell Nebī Mend, ancient Qedesh, inscribed with alphabetic cuneiforms signs (KTU 6.71). This potsherd has the letters skn on it. They can be understood either as a title or as part of the compound name b‛lskn. How I decide between those two options is critical in determining whether or not this text is written in the short cuneiform alphabet. Why? Well, that will be the subject of a future post.
If you are wondering, most scholars think addd in KTU 4.635 is Ashdod. You know the one mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. But this is not a certainty. About half of the names in KTU 4.635 have adddy after them. Line 29 reads šmrm a[dd]dy . tb‛. Does this mean that Šmrm was formally of Ashdod? Or does it mean that he was deported or deposed? Or ran out of town?
It is also interesting that about a fourth of the names in KTU 4.635 have bd . skn after them. Are all of these people prisoners or are they simply in the care of the governor? Is everyone listed a prisoner? Are they all foreigners? Both prisoners and foreigners? Or is this a list of people that have or need special protection? Refugees? Perhaps in this case "in the hands" means something like "sponsored by." Or are they on this list for some other reason? Just to peak your curiosity the first and third person named is in the hands of the king. And the second and sixth person named is in the hands of the queen. Could they be slaves? "In the hands of" can mean "owned by." If I had to guess, I'd guess that they are slaves. Why are so many Ashdodites?
Update April 16, 2006
Loren Fisher emailed me the following comment concerning the use of "bd" in Ugaritic, which I quote with his permission.
However, today you wrote about the meaning of "bd." In my essay in the Segert festschrift (MAARAV, Spring 1990, "From Ugarit to Gades") I am dealing with veterinary medicine. I suggest that that btr bd mlkt UT 2015 means "a veterinarian under the supervision of the queen." The vet is not really a slave but he is in the service of the queen. Perhaps it's about the same thing, but some very important people do describe themselves as servants of the great king. Just a thought.
While I agree with Loren that I should have at least indicated that "bd" could indicate a servant relationship that was somewhat less than slavery, I think the context of KTU 4.635, such as it is, may imply something more like slavery but one can never be sure.
Notice that Loren uses Gordon's numbering scheme (UT 2015) rather than Dietrich, Lorenz, and Sanmartin's scheme that I have been using. In Dietrich, Lorenz, and Sanmartin's system, this text would be KTU 4.383. Perhaps I should do a post on the various numbering systems for Ugaritic texts and why I use Dietrich, Lorenz, and Sanmartin's system even though my heart and my training favor the Gordon system.
Update: April 17, 2006
I found some interesting secondary literature that pertains to this text. The three most important articles are,
Astour, Michael C., "Ma'hadu, the Harbor of Ugarit," The Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, XIII, 1970, 113-117
Na'aman, Nadav, "The Network of Canaanite Late Bronze Kingdoms and the City of Ashdod," Ugarit Forschungen 29, Münster: Verlag Butzon and Bercher Keverlaer, 1997
The Astour article particularly may make me rethink the idea that the people listed in KTU 4.635 were slaves. He thinks they lived in Ma'hadu. If Astour is correct, and I'm not sure he is, then so is Loren and I need to consider bd to mean :in the service of." I'll discuss this in a later post specifically on Ashdod.
Posted by DuaneSmith at April 14, 2006 08:52 AM | Read more on Ugarit |
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Comments
I went to school with a Bn Ymlk!
I am assuming these names are missing the vowels. Otherwise, how would you even pronounce something like that?
Posted by: Aydin at April 17, 2006 07:37 AM
With the strange exception of the aleph, Ugaritic, when written with the Ugaritic alphabet, gives no direct indication of how the vowels of the language were pronounced. But, we do have a fair number of Ugaritic words written in the Akkadian syllabaries, that give us some idea how it was pronounced. We also have been able to develop some grammatical rules based on the use of the three alephs ('a, 'i, 'u) and comparative Semitics that help us understand a bit more about how they were pronounced. In addition, we have many of the same names written in Akkadian. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, Bn Ymlk is not one of them. We can make an educated guess. There is reason to believe that bn was pronounced būn in Ugaritic. Notice that this differs from the bên we would expect in Hebrew for example. I plan to explain why this is in a future post. One might guess that ymlk was pronounced something like Yamulluku or in this grammatical construction Yamulluki. So his whole name would be Būn Yamullúki or the like. My guess is that if you called out "Yo, Būn Yamullúki" to him you would get his attention but he would think you had a terrible and unrecognizable accent.
Posted by: Duane at April 17, 2006 08:34 AM
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