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April 21, 2007

Taanach 1: A letter from Ehli-Tešub to Talwashur

Several months ago, I worked my way through the Taanach letters. The four, more or less, complete letters and several fragments of letters were written in the fifteenth century BCE. I've decided to post my translations and comments as a series. Later in the series, I will provide a link to a PDF file that contains Akkadian transliterations and my translation notes. I also plan to post a few comments on the significance of these texts. If you check my references below and compare my translations with them, you will find that, where we differ, I sometimes follow Rainey and sometimes follow Horowitz and Oshima. This is not by design. But, in most cases there are only a few options and I have tried to use my best judgment.

As I post them, I will provide links to the other post in the series here.
Post 2: Taanach 2: A letter from Ahiami to Talwashur
Post 3: Taanach 5: A letter from Amanhatpa to Talwashur
Post 4: Taanach 6: Another Letter from Amanhatpa to Talwashur

I do want to say something about the language of these texts. The letters show elements of the "Canaano-Akkadian" that is so prevalent in the Amarna letters from Canaan. I'll point out several examples in a later post. For now, I will only say that this indicates a continuity of scribal practice that had its origins before the Amarna Age and likely before these Taanach letters. As is the case in the Amarna letters, the "Canaano-Akkadian" language is most apparent in these letters in the use of "Canaaite" grammatical forms and syntax imposed on a Akkadian vocabulary.

I present the letters from Taanach in the common numerical order as used by Horowitz and Oshima without regard to the order in which they may have been written. I will address the order of writing, which is controversial, in the last post in this series. Just for the record, against Rainey, I think all the letters were written from Megiddo. I'll explain why when I post my notes.

Taanach 1: A letter from Ehli-Tešub to Talwashur

(obverse)
1) To Talwashur
2) say;
3) Thus says Ehli-Tešub:
4) Live well.
5) May the gods have concern for
6) your wellbeing (and) the wellbeing
7) of your house (and) your children (lit. "sons").
8) You wrote
9) to me concerning the 50 (shekels) of silver.
10) now I am giving (you) the
11) 50 (shekels) of silver. How could I not do so?
12) Furthermore, wh[y]
13) don't you send me (something about)
(reverse)
14) your wellbeing?
15) And anything (lit. what[ever] word)
16) that you hear
17) from there,
18) write to me (about it).
19) Furthermore, and if
20) there is (only) a small amount (lit. "a finger")
21) of ??? wood
22) or myrrh
23) then give (it) to me.
24) Also, send me word (lit. "return word to me")
25) about the young woman, Ka???
26) who is in Rubbuti
27) regarding her wellbeing.
(left edge)
28) And when she grows up,
29) let him giv[e] her in exchange for ransom payment
30) and even (by so doing, give her) to a husband.

Yes, yes, I know I should be working my on much belated next post on scribal schools. But I thought some might find these letters interesting and I still have some additional work to do on the next scribal school post. I hope I will be ready to post it sometime in the coming week. You may have noticed that I've added a new category: Akkadian. I don't do that very often. I'm not sure which if any of my old post I'll move into it.

References:

Posted by Duane Smith at April 21, 2007 4:01 PM | Read more on Akkadian |

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