Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume 2This important scholarly work is volume two in a series of four volumes that will publish all the more than six hundred cuneiform tablets in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Included are 106 religious, scientific, scholastic, and literary texts, written in Sumerian and Akkadian and primarily dated to the latter part of the first millenium b.c. They shed new light on the civilization of the ancient Near East - on its complex beliefs and customs and surprisingly vast knowledge of mathematics and astronomy - for both the contemporary scholar and interested reader. The texts are organized in five sections: Documents of the Temple Cult include hymns and prayers, rituals and petitions; Documents of the Incantation Priest, Diviner, Physician, and Magician reveal various categories of omens; Literary Texts present myths and legends; The Scholastic Tradition contains a variety of texts and lists, including mathematical and astronomical texts; and the final section covers Unidentified Fragments. Among the most important texts are No. 42, a fragment of the Babylonian version of the ancient Flood story, and No. 81, which attests to the intellectual achievement of Babylonian astronomers. Eighteen distinguished international scholars in the field have contributed transliterations and translations of each tablet, and these are accompanied by commentaries and by insightful introductory essays on each genre. The volume was assembled and edited by Ira Spar, Professor of Ancient Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and W. G. Lambert, Professor Emeritus of the University of Birmingham, England. Lambert also contributed several entries and a general introduction that provides contextual information about the transmission of the literary and scholastic tradition in pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia. The precise facsimile drawings of every tablet hand-made by Ira Spar are a valuable visual accompaniment to the text. This publication reaffirms the Museum's ongoing commitment to promote wider knowledge of Ancient Near Eastern civilization. And significantly, it appears at a time when better understanding of the history and culture of that region of the world holds particular relevance. Volume one of this series (1988) documents 120 tablets, cones, and bricks from the third and second millenia b.c. Volume three (2000) covers private archive texts from the first millenium B.C. Volume four, in preparation, will include an edition of cuneiform tablets written in the first millenium b.c. and inscriptions on bricks, cylinders, and prisms of royal records of the kings of Babylon and Assyria. |
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Common terms and phrases
abzu Akkadian Akkadian version ammat an-na apsû Assyrian Astronomical Atra-hasis Babylon Babylonian mathematical balag composition Berlin CLAM colophon commentary copy cubits Cuneiform dingir DIŠ ditto dumu duplicate E-sagil edition égi Emesal Enlil Eridu eršemma Exercise Tablet fragment MMA goddess gods Herzberuhigungsklagen idem incantation Jupiter king lament Langdon Late Babylonian Later 1st millennium litany lord LUGAL many-place Marduk Maul meš Metropolitan Museum millennium B.C. MÚL Nabopolassar Nabû Neugebauer Ninurta nir-gál lú è-NE nishu Obverse obverse broken Obverse Column Old Babylonian omens pairs Plate prayer present text preserved Purchase regular sexagesimal numbers rest of obverse restored Reverse ritual šá Šamaš scribal scribe Seleucid Seleucid Era signs Sîn-šarra-iškun Sippar ŠÚ šuilla Sumerian table of reciprocals temple total twelve-place Translation Obverse transliteration umun ur-sag Urra úru Uruk Utukku W. G. Lambert written