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April 23, 2008
Did The King of Ugarit Write?
What follows is more or less wild speculation. Handle with care.
Over the last few months, I've been worrying about the possibility that there were literate professionals and semiliterate persons at Ugarit. One motivation for this is the work, recent and otherwise, of Rochelle Altman. Another motivation has been my attempt to establish criteria for identifying student exercises, other than the obvious ones. How about the king? Could he write? There is one Ugaritic text that may indicate that he could. But then again, it may not.
The root ktb (write) may occur twice in the known Ugaritic texts: KTU 2.19:9 and KTU 1:92:23. But the latter is in badly broken context and the reading or at least its word division is disputed. For this post, I focus on the use of the root in KTU 2:19. The text is broken at the beginning and the reverse is blank. How much is missing is not clear, but likely not much. Out of laziness, I've mostly followed Hellers', 176, translation. He didn't read and therefore didn't translate line 1' (l . yiḫd ṣtqšlm) so I had to do it. The words in italics are mine.
Sitqushalim will not be subject to feudal dues. As the sun is bright/free, so is bright/free Sitqushalim of the feudal dues forever. Seal of Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit. Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit, wrote this document of emancipation (clearing/brightness) for Sitqishalim, this servant of his, and let no one take this royal document from the hand of Sitqishalim forever.
Exactly what does nqmd mlk ugrt ktb spr hnd, "Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit, wrote this document . . ." mean? On the one hand, it is hard to believe that one should take it literally. We have a number of occasions where this root means something more like "dictate" in Biblical Hebrew. See my old post, "Is a na‛ar Ever a Scribe? Could One Really Write?" and Young's paper cited there and referenced below.
But on the other hand, does Niqmaddu's "clearing" Sitqushalim of certain obligations constitute a vow of some kind, a covenant to follow Altman's taxonomy of vows? And does the likely, later, requirement that the person making the vow write it in his or her own hand extend all the way back to Bronze Age Ugarit and the king at that? There is no invocation of a deity in the extant part of this document. But might one assume that that such is implied? I don't know the answers to these questions but I sure wish I did. It seems fairly clear to me that international treaties were exempt from the requirement that they be in the hand of the one entering the covenant (then and there) but what about a personal covenant?
By the way, I think this tablet is a "file copy" of the document because it says "Seal of Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit" but doesn't have the actual seal. So an analysis of the execution of the text would be of no help in determining the skill of the hand that wrote it. Also, and on an unrelated matter, Hellers' paper is extremely interesting because of light is throws on a rather problematic expression in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8.
References:
Hillers, Delbert R., "Běrît 'ām: 'Emancipation of the People'," Journal of Biblical Literature, 97: 2, (Jun., 1978), 175-182
Young, Ian M. "Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence: Part I," Vetus Testamentum, 48: 2, (April, 1998), 239-243
Posted by Duane Smith at April 23, 2008 7:52 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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Comments
We are talking about a very wide-spread cross-cultural practice.
In other areas, a contract involving the transfer of property (and release from feudal dues is a property transfer) would have been in the hand of the person giving the release.
The missing portion may have carried the name of the god who was invoked as both witness to, and recipient of, the vow to fulfill this contract.
Sitqishalim is supposed to hang on to the original release/manumission with the seal and the text written by the king. A file copy is a logical administrative necessity. The words "Seal of Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit" in place of the actual seal pretty much confirms your conjecture on this point. Where was it found? Among the palace records?
BTW, it is not just "my taxonomy." We certainly have enough publications on Greek, Roman, and Etruscan vows, let alone Israelite and Biblical ones.
The vow was taken very seriously from as far back as we have written records. The modern oath of office by swearing in on a bible is still in use today. (Or in the case of the one Muslim congressman in the US who took his oath on the Quran -- which means he intends to keep his vow -- and if the ninnies who complain that it wasn't on a bible knew anything about vows they would shut up.) True, many moderns are skeptical and break vows all the time, but the practice is still in force. Hmm, what about marriage vows? There are reasons a divorce was so difficult to obtain.
As far as treaties go, we only have the copies, which would have been written by professional scribes. We do not have the originals. The entitlement formulae and the invocations, at least, were probably written by the "kings" in the original documents.
We have so few examples of originals of these type of documents; still, I don't know why we are so skeptical about a king having written an original. There is evidence that the ruling classes were supposed to be literate.
Then, what about the 18th BCE early-alphabetic writing at the second cataract? How limited could literacy be if soldiers could write things along the line of "Tell Joe I went on ahead? Of course, to become an officer required literacy.
Just some thoughts...
Posted by: rachel at April 24, 2008 4:46 AM
Rachel,
Thanks for the thoughts. I didn't mean to imply that you pulled the taxonomy out of your ear. A taxonomy that isn't supported by evidence isn't a taxonomy. I know two people who have the solutions to mathematical problems named after them. As far as I know, neither one of them has ever complained about it. :-)
Posted by: Duane at April 24, 2008 8:01 AM
Hi, Duane,
In math and the sciences, yes; in the humanities, no... at least not since the 19th century.
BTW, have you ever carefully read the text above where you are to sign on the 1040? Or on a passport form? By signing you are vowing, taking oath, that everything stated in the forms is true.
Plus ca change.... across more than 5,000 years.
Posted by: rachel at April 24, 2008 9:03 AM
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