Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions (Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East)

384 Pages·1996·18.79 MB·English

by  William W. Hallo

ORIGINS
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
AND CULTURE OF
THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
EDITED BY
B. H A L P E RN AND M . H . E. W E I P P E RT
VOLUME VI
/6 8^'
ORIGINS
The Ancient Near Eastern Background of
Some Modern Western Institutions
BY
W I L L I AM W. H A L LO
E.J. BRILL
LEIDEN · NEW YORK · KÖLN
1996
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hallo, William W.
Origins : the ancient Near Eastern background of some modern
western institutions / by William W. Hallo.
p. cm.—(Studies in the history and culture of the ancient Near East,
ISSN 0169-9024; v. 6)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 9004103287 (cloth)
1. Civilization, Western—Middle Eastern influences. 2. Middle
East—Civilization—To 622. I. Tide. II. Series.
CB245.H25 1996
909'.09182—dc20 96-1921
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Hallo, William W.:
Origins : the ancient Near Eastern background of some modern
Western institutions / by William W. Hallo. - Leiden ; New
York ; Köln : Brill, 1996
(Studies in the history and culture of the ancient Near East ; Vol. 6)
ISBN 90-04-10328-7
NE: GT
ISSN 0169-9024
ISBN 90 04 10328 7
© Copyright 1996 by E.J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
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Fees are subject to change.
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
Dedicated to the Memory of
EDITH SYLVIA HALLO
née PINTO
1928-1994
"For everything there is an equivalent,
save only the wife of one's youth."
Babylonian Talmud
Sanhédrin 22a

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Permissions xi
Introduction xiii
I. The Essentials of Civilization 1
1. Urban Origins 1
2. Capital Formation 18
3. Writing 26
II. The Secondary Aspects of Civilization 44
1. Manufacturing 44
2. Agriculture and Animal Husbandry 53
3. Trade 68
III. The Refinements of Civilization 78
1. Travel and Geographical Knowledge 78
2. Culinary Arts 98
3. Games 110
IV. The Calendar 120
1. The Hour 121
2. The Week 127
3. The Era 136
V. Literature 144
1. Creativity, Genre and Canon 144
2. Bilingualism and the Beginnings of Translation 154
3. The Birth of Rhetoric 169
VI. Kingship 188
1. Royal Titles, Inscriptions, Hymns 188
2. The Royal Lifetime 197
3. The Royal Afterlife 207
VII. Religion 212
1. The Sacrificial Cult 212
2. Public Prayer 222
3. Individual Prayer 234
VIII. Women 243
1. In Law 245
2. In Public Life 252
3. As Authors 262
IX. Appendix: The First Half of History 271
1. The Land Between the Rivers 274
2. The Gift of the Nile 290
3. The Land of Milk and Honey 314
X. Conclusion: The Legacy of the Ancient Near East 324
Abbreviations 334
General Index 345
Index of Biblical Passages Cited 361
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The present work took shape over a number of triennial leaves gen-
erously granted by Yale University. The first two, in 1987-88, were
spent as a Fellow of the National Humanities Center in Research
Triangle Park, North Carolina, where I profited from the stimulating
contact with other Fellows and the helpful ministrations of the de-
voted staff, beginning with then Director Charles Blitzer and the As-
sociate Director Kent Mullikin. The third, in the Spring semester of
1990, was spent at the Netherlands Institute for the Near East in
Leiden, whose outstanding facilities were put at my disposal by its
Director, Professor J. de Roos and by the head of its Assyriological
Section, Professor Klaas Veenhof. During the Summer Semester of
1990, I was invited to serve as the Franz Rosenzweig Guest Professor
at the University of Kassel (Germany) by Professor Wolfdietrich
Schmied-Kowarzik and the Fachbereich "Gesellschaftswissenschaf-
ten." Sabine Effenberger and Sabine Stange helped turn my manu-
script into intelligible German so that I could test much of it on
sizeable audiences of students and the general public. Other chapters
were prepared for lecture trips during the Fall Semester of 1993. I am
grateful to my various hosts on these and other occasions, and wish
to mention here in particular Professor Yehoshua Gitay of the Uni-
versity of Cape Town (ch. V 3). Some of the individual chapters have
recently appeared in print in other contexts, usually of Anniversary
Volumes or Memorial Volumes not widely available; they are repro-
duced here with major or minor changes and with the kind permis-
sion of the respective publishers. The tide of this book is chosen with
apologies to Eric Partridge, whose Origins: a Short Etymological Dictionary
of Modem English (New York, Macmillan, 1958) is always at my finger-
tips (cf. ch. Χ, η. 3). The translation of a passage from the Danish in
ch. III 1 was provided by my associate, Ulla Kasten, and assistance
in reading the proofs by my student, Madeleine Fitzgerald. At Brill,
the project enjoyed the editorial ministrations and encouragement of
Dr. F. Th. Dijkema, Senior Editor, and of Patricia Radder, Editorial
Assistant. I cannot list all the students, colleagues, friends and rela-
tives who have encouraged my efforts and stimulated my thinking on