Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology (CUSAS) (3 vols.)

by A. R. George; Gabriella Spada; Christopher Metcalf; Marcel Sigrist

and

1 more

Publisher:

Eisenbrauns

, 2019

Overview

Since 2007, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology (CUSAS) has brought to print an impressive library of cuneiform tablets, many of which are not available anywhere else. These texts provide primary sources for those looking to gain insight into Ancient Near Eastern civilization and history. Complete with transliterations and translations from some of the field’s top scholars, these titles illuminate various facets of ancient Mesopotamia’s religious, literary, political, and cultural traditions.

Key Features

• Provides unparalleled insight into the civilization of the Ancient Near East
• Showcases previously unknown cuneiform tablets and ancient texts, including photographs of the tablets themselves
• Offers expert translation, transliteration, and annotation on these valuable ancient works

Old Babylonian Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Part Two: School Letters, Model Contracts, and Related Texts

• Authors: A. R. George and Gabriella Spada
• Series: Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology (CUSAS)
• Publisher: Eisenbrauns
• Publication Date: 2019
• Pages: 248

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

In ancient Mesopotamia, men training to be scribes copied model letters in order to practice writing and familiarize themselves with epistolary forms and expressions. Similarly, model contracts were used to teach them how to draw up agreements for the transactions typical of everyday economic life. This volume makes available a trove of previously unknown tablets and fragments, now housed in the Shøyen Collection, that were produced in the training of scribes in Old Babylonian schools.

Following on Old Babylonian Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Part One: Selected Letters, this volume publishes the contents of sixty-five tablets bearing Akkadian letters used to train scribes and twenty-six prisms and tablets carrying Sumerian legal texts copied in the same context. Each text is presented in transliterated form and in translation, with appropriate commentary and annotations and, at the end of the book, photographs of the cuneiform. The material is made easily navigable by a catalogue, bibliography, and indexes.

This collection of previously unknown documents expands the extant corpus of educational texts, making an essential contribution to the study of the ancient world.

Andrew R. George is Professor of Babylonian at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London.

Gabriella Spada is Instructor of Assyriology in the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Rome.

Sumerian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection: Volume 1: Literary Sources on Old Babylonian Religion

• Author: Christopher Metcalf
• Series: Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology (CUSAS)
• Publisher: Eisenbrauns
• Publication Date: 2019
• Pages: 168

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

The first in a series of volumes publishing the Sumerian literary texts in the Schøyen Collection, this book makes available, for the first time, editions of seventeen cuneiform tablets, dating to ca. 2000 BCE and containing works of Sumerian religious poetry. Edited, translated, and annotated by Christopher Metcalf, these poems shed light on the interaction between cult, scholarship, and scribal culture in Mesopotamia in the early second millennium BCE.

The present volume contains fourteen songs composed in praise of the various gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon; it is believed that these songs were typically performed in temple cults. Among them are a song in praise of Sud, goddess of the ancient Mesopotamian city Shuruppak; a song describing the statue of the protective goddess Lamma-saga in the “Sacred City” temple complex at Girsu; and a previously unknown hymn dedicated to the creator god Enki. Each text is provided in transliteration and translation and accompanied by hand-copies and images of the tablets themselves.

Expertly contextualizing each song in Babylonian religious and literary history, this thoroughly competent editio princeps will prove a valuable tool for scholars interested in the literary and religious traditions of ancient Mesopotamia.

Christopher Metcalf is Associate Professor and Tutorial Fellow in Classical Languages and Literature and Associate Researcher in the Center for Ancient Languages at Queen’s College, Oxford. He is the author of The Gods Rich in Praise: Early Greek and Mesopotamian Religious Poetry.

Tablets from the Irisagrig Archive

• Authors: Marcel Sigrist and Tohru Ozaki
• Series: Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology (CUSAS)
• Publisher: Eisenbrauns
• Publication Date: 2019
• Pages: 744

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

While each of the previously known archives from the Third Dynasty of Ur has provided distinct views of Sumerian society, those from Iri-Sagrig present an extraordinary range of new sources, depicting a cosmopolitan Sumerian/Akkadian city unlike any other from this period. In this publication, Marcel Sigrist and Tohru Ozaki present more than two thousand newly identified tablets, mostly from Iri-Sagrig. This unique and extensive corpus elucidates the importance that Iri-Sagrig represented politically, militarily, and culturally in Sumer.

Although these tablets were not able to be cleaned, baked, or photographed, the authors’ transliterations are based on the original tablets, often after repeated collations. Moreover, access to so many well-preserved tablets made it possible to improve upon the readings and interpretations offered in previous publications. Volume 1 contains a catalog and classification of the texts by provenance, a list of month names and year formulas, another of inscriptions, a chronological listing of the texts, and extensive indexes of personal names, deities, toponyms, and selected words and phrases. Volume 2 presents the texts in transliteration with substantial commentary.

This two-volume publication preserves and makes available to the scholarly community a significant segment of Iraq’s cultural legacy that otherwise might have been ignored or even lost. It will augment and enhance our understanding of the unique civilization of Mesopotamia in the late third millennium BCE.

Marcel Sigrist is Professor Emeritus of the École Biblique et Archéologique in Jerusalem.

Tohru Ozaki is a leading Japanese Sumerologist and Assyriologist, retired from the University of Shizuoka.