Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism

377 Pages·2012·2.43 MB·English

by  Martin Worthington

Martin Worthington
Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism
Studies in Ancient
Near Eastern Records
General Editor:
Gonzalo Rubio
Editors:
Petra Goedegebuure . Amélie Kuhrt
Markus Hilgert . Peter Machinist
Piotr Michalowski . Cécile Michel
Beate Pongratz-Leisten . D.T. Potts
Kim Ryholt
Volume 1
De Gruyter
Martin Worthington
Principles of Akkadian
Textual Criticism
De Gruyter
ISBN 978-1-61451-051-2
e-ISBN 978-1-61451-056-7
ISSN 2161-4155
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detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
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AGiulianaParodieBernardWorthington
mieigenitori
nonch(cid:2)Assiriologionorari
Larga(cid:2)lafoglia,stretta(cid:2)lavia,
Ditelavostra,chehodettolamia.

Preface
Nos m(cid:2)thodes de recherche, d(cid:2)sormais d(cid:3)ment (cid:2)labor(cid:2)es, gagneraient (cid:4)
Þtreappliqu(cid:2)esaudomainedel(cid:5)Orient.Aussibienl(cid:5)examend(cid:5)unmanuscrit
syriaque,arm(cid:2)nien,copteouarabenediff(cid:6)re-t-ilaucunementdeceluid(cid:5)un
manuscritgrecoulatin.Les r(cid:6)gles(cid:2)labor(cid:2)es parlesphilologuesclassiques
valentpourl(cid:5)(cid:2)tudedesMaximesdePhtahhotepetdesPr(cid:3)ceptesdeKagemeni.
Alphonse Dain1
This book(cid:5)s remotest origins lie in my PhD Thesis Linguistic and Other
Philological Studies in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, c. 1114 – c. 630
BC, submitted to the University of Cambridge in April 2006. It was in
the course of my doctoral studies that I acquired many of the analytical
habitswhichunderpinthepresentwork,andfirstbegantothinkseriously
about many of the questions which drive it. In both respects I owe much
tomyPhDsupervisor,NicholasPostgate.MostoftheideasaboutAssyr-
ian royal inscriptions which appear here go back to the Thesis.
My intention after submitting the Thesis was to revise it with a view
to publication, but in the course of a Junior Research Fellowship at St
John(cid:5)s College, Cambridge, between 2006 and 2010, I slowly became
aware thatitwouldmakebetter sensetodosomethingdifferent:tocon-
centrate on a small cluster of issues which the Thesis addressed briefly,
namely those devoted to textual change and the kindred subject of or-
thography, and – with due revision, expansion and systematisation –
make them the subject of a book. Other projects prevented work on
this front from being more than intermittent during my time at St
John(cid:5)s, but the long gestation period in idyllic surroundings was fertile.
It resulted in the abandonment of many ideas which at first sight looked
attractive, and in the accumulation of copious notes on orthographic
anomalies now discussed in these pages. What is more, in the process
of working on discrete problems in Akkadian orthography, my findings
onwhichwerepublishedseparately,Icametoseemoreandmorepoten-
tial in spellings as sources of information about all sorts of things.
In Autumn 2010 I embarked on a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. My research
1 Dain,LesManuscrits(1949)8.
VIII Preface
planfortheFellowshipwastoexaminetheindividualstyleofBabylonian
poems,butasIbegantolookintothisintriguingtopicIfoundIwasrun-
ningintomethodologicalquagmiresconnectedtosomeoftheissuesIhad
beenthinkingaboutforseveralyears,inparticularthereliability(oroth-
erwise)ofourextantmanuscripts.Methodologically,thesituationofsaid
issuesrecalledthatwhich,in1923,PaulMaassketchedforAncientGreek
poetic metre:
Atpresentlittleproductiveresearchinthisfieldisbeingdone,andthefew
scholarswhoareactiveinitdisagreeevenoverbasicprinciples.Onecansel-
dom be sure whether the silence of other scholars indicates agreement or
disagreement, indifference or incomprehension.2
I therefore decided to take the al(cid:4) by the horns, and to make a book on
Akkadiantextualcriticismmysoleoccupationuntilitshouldbecomplet-
ed. Nurtured with generous doses of midnight oil, and battening on the
various privations which it inflicted on its author, the present work at
last came into being over the course of the calendar year 2011.
The longer and harder I have worked on it, the more forcefully the
realisation has struck me that this is a decidedly preliminary study. The
issues addressed are so vast, and the process of documenting them so la-
borious, that I could do little more than scratch the surface. Future re-
search will very likely unearth all sorts of complexities currently unsus-
pected, and solutions to problems which at present seem intractable.
Nonetheless, one has to start somewhere.
Theword(cid:7)principles(cid:5)inthisbook(cid:5)stitlethusembodiestwomeanings:
I shall indeed attempt to lay out some theoretical foundations for Akka-
dian textual criticism, which I hope will be useful to future researchers;
but at the same time, (cid:7)principles(cid:5) hearkens back to its Latin sense of (cid:7)be-
ginnings(cid:5).
* * *
It is a very pleasant duty to thank the institutions which supported me
while I thought about the issues tackled in this book, and eventually
wrote it: the Master and Fellows of St John(cid:5)s College, Cambridge, first
for a Benefactor(cid:5)s Scholarship, then for a Junior Research Fellowship;
the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and the Altorientali-
sche(s) Institut of the Universit(cid:8)t Leipzig for three very stimulating
monthsspentinLeipzigduring2006;theBritishAcademyandtheSchool
2 CitedinthetranslationofHughLloyd-Jones:Maas,GreekMetre(1966)6.
Preface IX
ofOrientalandAfricanStudies,London,formycurrentPostdoctoralRe-
search Fellowship.
The project took a step towards fruition at the Rencontre Assyriolo-
giqueInternationaleinBarcelona(2010),whereMichielKlein-Swormink
of De Gruyter expressed an interest in seeing my work on textual criti-
cism. When I eventually had a draft fit for sending to him, in June
2011, he responded with invigorating enthusiasm. The manuscript then
passed into the expert hands of Gonzalo Rubio, the series editor, who
saw it through the refereeing process and tendered wise advice. Florian
RuppensteinofDeGruyteroversawthebook(cid:5)sproduction,andIames-
pecially grateful to him for being so tolerant and accommodating in re-
spectofmyexcessesatproofstage.IthankMichiel,GonzaloandFlorian
for their openness, patience and professionalism.
I am indebted to various scholars for agreeing to share writings with
meinadvanceofpublication:FredrikHagensentmetheintroductionto
his book The Instruction of Ptahhotep; Jim Adams sent me two drafts of
chapter 12 from his Social Variation and the Latin Language; Philippe
Talon allowed me to use his Partitur transliteration of Enu¯ma elisˇ,
which greatly expedited work on that composition; Paul Delnero sent
me two drafts of his JNES article on memorization, and indulged me in
correspondence about it; Martin West sent me the proofs of his paper
on critical editing; Rim Nurullin sent me his two Gilgamesˇ papers now
published in Babel und Bibel; Kirk Grayson and Jamie Novotny allowed
me to quote from their forthcoming Sennacherib volume (RINAP 3/1).
To all of them I extend my grateful thanks.
Iamgratefulfortheopportunityofsolicitingfeedbackonmyideasin
seminarsattheUniversitiesofLeipzig,Venice,Udine,GçttingenandOx-
ford,atthekindinvitationofMichaelStreck,LucioMilano,MarioFales,
AnnetteZgollandFranReynolds;andatthe2011RencontreAssyriolo-
gique Internationale, in Rome.
I was also immensely fortunate in having a large number of friends
and colleagues who with great generosity gave of their time, learning,
andcriticalacumentomywritingsatseveralstagesoftheirdevelopment:
Mikko Luukko, Werner Mayer and Viv Prescott commented on early
drafts of what I did not yet know would end up being this book. During
2011, as the manuscript limped towards respectability, it benefited enor-
mously from the warm encouragement and good-humoured criticism of
readersofsuccessivedrafts–inorderofreading:DanielaBedin,Nathan
Wasserman, Yoram Cohen, Aage Westenholz, Kai L(cid:8)mmerhirt, Mark
Weeden, Gonzalo Rubio, Nicholas Postgate, and Martin West. They