assyrian dictionary

428 Pages·2008·40.46 MB·English

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THE
ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY
OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
EDITORIAL BOARD
IGNACEJ. GELB, BENNO LANDSBERGER, A. LEO OPPENHEIM, ERICA REINER
------
1964
PUBLISHED BY THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A.
AND J.J. AUGUSTIN VERLAGSBUCHHANDLUNG, GLOCKSTADT, GERMANY
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INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NUMBER: 0-918986-06-0
(SET: 0-918986-05-2)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 56-58292
COPYRIGHT UNDER THE INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT UNION, 1964
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED by
THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Fourth Printing 1998
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COMPOSITION BY J. J. AUGUSTIN, GLUCKSTADT
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THE ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY
VOLUME 1
A
PART I
A. LEO OPPENHEIM, EDITOR-IN-CHARGE
ERICA REINER, EDITOR
WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF
A. KIRK GRAYSON, HANS E. HIRSCH, AND ERLE V. LEICHTY
ASSISTANT TO THE EDITORS
JANE M. ROSENTHAL
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Foreword
The basic manuscript of this volume was prepared by A. Kirk Grayson, Hans E. Hirsch,
and Erle V. Leichty. Thanks are again due to Professor W. G. Lambert, Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore, for his reading of the manuscript and for his suggestions and correc-
tions and to Professor Ake Sjoberg for his contribution of Sumerian material. Professor
Hans E. Hirsch, University of Vienna, has again read the proofs in galleys and suggested a
number of improvements.
Publication of the CAD having begun with Volume 6 (H), the reader is referred to the
Foreword of that volume for information concerning the structure of the individual articles,
the principles for the sequence of entries, etc. As promised there, the present volume contains
a presentation of the history of the Assyrian Dictionary Project with proper credit given to
the scholars who participated in and contributed in various ways to the undertaking. This
preface, written by Professor I. J. Gelb, follows the Foreword.
Since this is the first volume of the CAD to appear after publication of the same letter in
W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handworterbuch, additional cross references are provided when
the key word in the CAD differs from that in the AHw., except that grammatical elements and
divine names are not listed in the CAD. Wherever the writing makes alternate readings pos-
sible, those of the AHw. have normally been adopted for the convenience of users of both
dictionaries. In those instances where references belonging to a word in the AHw. are
treated elsewhere in the CAD, new sections have been added at the end of such entries with
the necessary cross references. I should like to acknowledge our indebtedness to Professor
von Soden; we have benefited greatly from his work.
A. LEO OPPENHEIM
Chicago, Illinois
June 7, 1963
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Introduction
BY
I. J. GELB
Forty-three years after the inauguration of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary project and
eight years after the publication of the first volume, H, the Dictionary has been brought to the
stage of preparing the A volume for publication, with the ensuing necessity for a general
introduction to the whole project.
The first purpose of this introduction is to acquaint scholars with the past history of the
Chicago project, its conception and its progress, its present state and plans for the future. The
second purpose, equally important, is to acknowledge the help of and to give credit to all
the scholars, both resident and non-resident, who have worked on the Assyrian Dictionary
in these years, thus making possible the realization of the project in the form of publication.
A few words are necessary to justify the use of the term "Assyrian" in the title of the project
and of the published Dictionary. In the early years of Assyriology the term "Assyrian" was
commonly used for the main Semitic language of Mesopotamia, for the well-known reason
that most of the cuneiform documents then available had been recovered from sites situated
in what was once ancient Assyria. With the recovery of Babylonian sites in the following years,
many more tablets came to light, showing not only that the two dialects used in Assyria and
Babylonia, respectively, were closely related, but also that their users called their language
neither "Assyrian" nor "Babylonian," but "Akkadian," after the Akkadians who had
established the first great Semitic empire in the middle of the third millennium B.C. under
their renowned leader, Sargon of Akkad. As some of these facts became known, the term
"Akkadian" ("Accadian") began to crowd out the term "Assyrian" in good Assyriological
usage. However, the term "Assyrian" for the Assyro-Babylonian language continues to
be used-though on a much more limited and mainly popular basis-in parallel to such firmly
established terms as "Assyriology" and "Assyriologist." The aversion toward the term
"Akkadian" ("Accadian") in the popular American circles may be partially conditioned by the
existence of the name "Acadian" ("Cajun") for the French Canadians of Nova Scotia (and
later, Louisiana).
The term "Assyrian" has been used in the official designation of the Chicago Assyrian
Dictionary project since its inception in 1921. While I used the term "Akkadian" in discussing
the Chicago project in the two reports on the Dictionary published in Orientalian .s. XVIII
and XXI, respectively, the Chicago group, in general, preferred to continue with the term
"Assyrian" and this is the term which appears in the title of the published Chicago dictionary.
In this Introduction I use the symbol CAD for the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, but the
term "Akkadian" when it denotes the language often called "Assyrian" or "Assyro-Baby-
lonian" by others.
The CAD is the fulfillment of the dream of James H. Breasted, Egyptologist and ancient
historian, the first Director of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and the man
who initiated the CAD project in 1921 and was its guiding spirit until his death in 1935.
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The extent to which Breasted was responsible for the organization of the CAD project can
be seen from the two preliminary reports on the CAD which he wrote as part of the over-all
program of the Oriental Institute, namely, "The Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago-a Beginning and a Program," chapter III, "The Assyrian-Babylonian Dictionary,"
American Journal of Semitic Languages XXXVIII (1921-1922) 288-305 (= Oriental Institute
Communications No. 1 [1922] pp. 56-73) and The Oriental Institute (Chicago, 1933), chapter
XVII, "The Assyrian Dictionary," pp. 378-400.
The extent to which Breasted was responsible for the supervision of the CAD, both in his
capacity as the Director of the Oriental Institute and as its guide and counselor, can now be
gathered only from reading the letters and the memoranda in the archives of the Oriental
Institute. Time and again it was he who pointed out to the successive editors of the CAD the
central aims of the Dictionary and the dangers of being distracted from them. When Lucken-
bill was proposing grandiose plans for publishing cuneiform sources, when Chiera was anxious
to lead archeological expeditions to Iraq, and when Poebel was involving himself and his
assistants in extensive grammatical investigations, it was Breasted who never wavered and
who induced the editors to pursue the central goal, namely the work on the Dictionary.
As sources of information for the history of the CAD I have used the two Breasted reports,
just mentioned, as well as the correspondence files of the Director of the Oriental Institute and
my own files. It should be noted that while I have good first-hand knowledge of the history of
the CAD for the years since 1929, when I joined the staff of the Oriental Institute, my infor-
mation for the years 1921-1929 is second-hand and rather fragmentary.
The CAD project is in every sense a joint undertaking of all the scholars who contributed
their time and labor to the collection of the materials and to the publication of the Dictionary
over a period of more than forty years. It is also a truly international undertaking, in-
volving, as it does, the cooperation of scholars of many different national backgrounds.
The CAD undertaking from the beginning to the present has been financed almost exclu-
sively by the University of Chicago. It is a pleasure, however, to record here that as a result
of the internationalization of the CAD in 1951 (see p. xvii) certain institutions under the
sponsorship of the Union Academique Internationale provided funds in support of the Dic-
tionary, namely Academie Royale de Belgique, American Council of Learned Societies, The
British Academy, Humanities Research Council of Canada, Koninklijke Nederlandse Aka-
demie, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie, and Sociedt Suisse des Sciences Morales. The sums
provided may have been small in terms of money, but they were large in terms of spirit and
international cooperation
1. HISTORY OF AKKADIAN LEXICOGRAPHY
The first report of a new, hitherto unknown, writing found in the ruins of Persepolis, was
brought to Europe in 1621 by the renowned Italian explorer Pietro della Valle. A sample of
this writing published in della Valle's travel accounts evoked no interest in the scholarly
world until 1674, when Jean Chardin of France made public another, and better preserved,
inscription from Persepolis. Now it was possible to recognize clearly that the Persepolis
writing consisted of signs made up of strokes in the form of wedges. As a consequence, the new
writing began to be called "cuneiform." More and better-copied inscriptions from Persepolis
were published in 1788 by Carsten Niebuhr, a Danish explorer.
The study of the published Persepolis incriptions soon led to the discovery that they were
written in three different varieties of cuneiform script, of which the first one was called
"Persian." At that time nothing certain was known about the identity and character of the
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second and third varieties. It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the
rediscovery of the ancient sites of Nineveh in Assyria and of Babylon in Babylonia by the
English travelers C. J. Rich (1811), J. S. Buckingham (1816), and R. Ker Porter (1818)
brought to light a number of Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, that it became apparent
that the third variety of the cuneiform script at Persepolis closely resembled the writing of
the Mesopotamian inscriptions.
Of the three varieties of the Persepolis writings, the first one, namely the Persian, was the
simplest, as it consisted of only forty-two signs. It was on the decipherment of this Persian
writing that the efforts of scholars were first concentrated. The basic decipherment of the
Persian writing was achieved independently by a German, Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1802),
and an Englishman, Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1835).
The decipherment of the second cuneiform variety, spurred greatly by the work of Edwin
Norris in 1853, led gradually to the discovery that it was used for writing the Elamite language,
spoken mainly in the area of Susa. The decipherment of the third cuneiform variety, the most
complicated of the three, is due mainly to the work of Edward Hincks, who in 1846 proved
conclusively the syllabic and logographic character of the writing. This is the writing in which
the great literature of the Assyrians and Babylonians was produced.
With the successful decipherment of cuneiform writing and the subsequent recovery of the
many languages written in cuneiform, such as Old Persian, Elamite, Akkadian (Assyro-
Babylonian), Sumerian, and others, the need arose for a comprehensive dictionary for each
of these languages. The need was felt most in the case of Akkadian, the richest and by far the
best represented language in the cuneiform script.
The earliest attempts in Akkadian lexicography were rather limited in scope. F. de Saulcy,
"Lexique de l'inscription assyrienne de Behistoun," Journal asiatique 1855 pp. 109-197, was
concerned only with the lexicon of the Behistfun inscription, while Edwin Norris, "Specimen
of an Assyrian Dictionary," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1868 pp. 1-64 and 1870
pp. 1-80, and H. F. Talbot, "Contributions Towards a Glossary of the Assyrian Language,"
op. cit. 1868 pp. 1-64 and 1870 pp. 1-80, dealt with words selected from a small number of
inscriptions then available. The greatest achievement in Akkadian lexicography of the early
period from the point of view of size is Norris, Assyrian Dictionary, published in three parts
(1068 pages; London, 1868-1872), which reached the root NST and remained unfinished. The
lexicographical production of the early period can be rounded out with E. de Chossat,
Repertoire assyrien (traduction et lecture) (184 pages; Lyon, 1879) and the much bulkier
J. N. Strassmaier, Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der assyrischen und akkadischen Worter der
Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia Vol. II, sowie anderer meist unverofentlichter In-
schriften (1184+ 66 pages; Leipzig, 1882-1886).
Several characteristics of the early Akkadian dictionaries, or rather glossaries, can be
pointed out. They were usually based on cuneiform writing; either the order of the main
entries followed the form of the signs, or the main entries were transliterated in Latin charac-
ters but the occurrences were cited in cuneiform. The glossaries were limited largely to late
Assyrian sources, and within them mainly to the class of royal inscriptions. The works repre-
sented not real dictionaries but glossaries of occurrences, and they included not only words
of the language but also different classes of proper names.
Soon after the publication of Strassmaier's Verzeichnis, a much more ambitious work began
to appear in Germany. This is Friedrich Delitzsch, Assyrisches W6rterbuch zur gesamten bisher
ver6ffentlichten Keilschriftliteratur, unter Beriucksichtigung zahlreicher unver6ffentlichter Texte
(488 pages; Leipzig, 1887-1890). As originally planned, the work was to be issued piecemeal
in autographed form in about ten fascicles of 160 pages each, altogether about 1600 pages. As
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actually published, the three fascicles which appeared in three years contained 488 pages and
exhausted not much more than one half of aleph, the first letter of the Semitic alphabet. When
the impractical and costly nature of the publication was pointed out by numerous Assyrio-
logists in their reviews, Delitzsch gave up his unrealistic undertaking and decided instead to
publish a smaller and much more useful dictionary, namely Assyrisches Handw6rterbuch
(728 pages; Leipzig, 1896). The new work by Delitzsch was a masterpiece of its kind and
remained a basic tool of Assyriology for over half a century.
Based largely on collections of Paul Haupt, then professor at the Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore, a pupil of his, W. Muss-Arnolt, brought out over several years A Concise
Dictionary of the Assyrian Language (1202 pages; Berlin, 1894-1905), with many additions
from sources overlooked by or not available to Delitzsch. The forte of Muss-Arnolt's dic-
tionary, compared with Delitzsch's, lies in copious bibliographical references to word dis-
cussions in Assyriological literature. Additions to both Delitzsch and the earlier fascicles of
Muss-Arnolt were provided by Bruno Meissner, Supplement zu den assyrischen W6rter-
bitchern (106 +32 pages; Leiden, 1898).
The sources utilized in both Delitzsch's and Muss-Arnolt's dictionaries were still largely
restricted to late materials from Assyria and, to a much lesser degree, from Babylonia. In the
meantime, the recovery and publication of a tremendous body of new materials from the
middle and older periods of Mesopotamian history greatly limited the usefulness of the older
dictionaries. To satisfy the arising needs, Carl Bezold initiated a new dictionary project in 1912
under the sponsorship of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. The new project differed in
two main respects from its predecessors. First, the collection of materials was done mechanic-
ally, imitating the process employed by the Egyptian dictionary undertaking in Berlin. This
process involved the typing on a card of a section of an inscription containing about thirty
words, reproducing the card in about thirty copies, and writing each of the thirty words on
a separate copy. The second characteristic of the project was its planned total coverage of
sources, approximating in scope a full thesaurus rather than a selective dictionary. An idea
of both the process of collecting materials and the extent of its coverage can be obtained
from two preliminary articles published by Bezold in Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Aka-
demie der Wissenschaften, Philos.-hist. Klasse 1915, 8 Abh., and 1920, 16. Abh. In the second
article the entry alaku and its derivatives cover 54 pages of text plus 14 pages of indices.
The size of the undertaking and Bezold's advanced age forced him to give up the thesaurus
idea altogether and to prepare instead a brief glossary based on his copious collections. The
manuscript of the glossary, completed by Bezold just before his death in 1922, was edited
by a student of his, Albrecht Gotze (Goetze), and published as Babylonisch-assyrischesG lossar
(343 pages; Heidelberg, 1926). Though without references and bibliographical discussions,
the Glossar has served for many years as a useful tool for students.
Based on second-hand materials is Lexique assyrien-frangais (361 pages; Paris, 1928)
written by a certain A. Saubin, an unknown in Assyriology. A. Deimel, Akkadisch-gumeri-
sches Glossar (= Sumerisches Lexikon III/2; 480 pages; Rom, 1937) contains a cross index
to the Akkadian words occuring in his Sumerisches Lexikon II plus supplementary entries
excerpted from Bezold's Glossar.
About thirty years after the appearance of Delitzsch's Handworterbuch, Bruno Meissner
began to collect lexicographical materials for a new Handworterbuch, under the sponsorship
of the Prussian Academy of Sciences; cf. the initial report in Sitzungsberichte der Preus-
sischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philos.-hist. Klasse 1933 pp. lxxxiif., and several
reports in the subsequent years of the Sitzungsberichte. By the time Meissner died in 1947, the
work of preparing the materials for publication was progressing satisfactorily with the assi-