Collecting Knowledge in the Ancient World: Assurbanipal s Library in Context

Transcription

1 Collecting Knowledge in the Ancient World: Assurbanipal s Library in Context Instructor: Prof. Matthew Rutz Department of Egyptology and Assyriology matthew_rutz@brown.edu Tel Office hours: Tu 2 3 p.m., Th 1 2 p.m. (or by appointment), Wilbour Hall room 204 Meeting Time and Place: Monday 3 5:30 p.m., Wilbour Hall room 301 Course Description: Nineveh (now in present-day Mosul, Iraq) was the Assyrian empire s last capital and home to one of the earliest large-scale collections of ancient literature: Assurbanipal s library. Remembered in Greek tradition as Sardanapalus, this 7th-century king is credited with amassing thousands of clay tablets and wooden writing boards in a state-sponsored institution that included myths, hymns, rituals, medical and divinatory lore, and ancient dictionaries. This course will explore the contents and significance of Assurbanipal s library, looking in a comparative way at its antecedents and heirs across the ancient world. Additional topics include: colophons; royal literacy; court scribes; libraries, museums, and heritage. Enrollment limited to 10 students for Spring 2016.* *NOTE: For Spring 2016 a reading knowledge of Akkadian cuneiform is a prerequisite (minimum one year of study; students who have passed ASYR 1000 Introduction to Akkadian may take ASYR1850 and ASYR 1010 Intermediate Akkadian concurrently); a reading of knowledge of German and/or French will be useful but is not a prerequisite. Course Aims: The course has the following principal aims: To introduce students to the topic of ancient archives and libraries in general and Assurbanipal s library in particular. To situate Assurbanipal s library in its archaeological, historical, and cultural contexts. To introduce practical tools and resources for the study and reconstruction of Assurbanipal s library and its contents. To engage students directly with current research using primary sources. To explore and critique the project of state-sponsored programs to acquire and store knowledge in the ancient world. 1

2 Course Objectives: By the end of the course students should have: Gained general knowledge of how ancient libraries were constructed and used. Achieved an understanding of how Assurbanipal s library fits into our picture of libraries from the ancient world. Learned how to read and translate colophons appended to Akkadian texts. Used photos and drawings to analyze a tablet or small group of tablets from the library. Demonstrated the ability to identify an unfamiliar cuneiform tablet and discuss the significance of its presence in the library. Weekly Routine: Class will typically consist of three components: (1) a seminar discussion of weekly readings, supplemented with brief background or exposition from me, especially early on; (2) short in-class presentations that complement, augment, and/or catalyze our discussion; and (3) in-class reading and translation of prepared selections of cuneiform text. Weekly reading assignments will consist of seminal books/book sections/journal articles in English that contribute to a given week s topic; depending on the composition of the class, readings in German and/or French may be assigned to students able to read those languages. Text preparation will require students to use drawings or photographs of cuneiform inscriptions, which we then read, translate, analyze, and discuss as a group. Assessment: Assessment for this course will be based on weekly assignments, both oral and written, and a final project. The breakdown of the final grade will be as follows: Preparation / participation 15% Weekly Presentations 15% Weekly Assessment: text preparation 20% Week 5 (submitted after class) Proposal 10% Week 6 (end of the week) Project 40% Reading Period Adequate preparation of a given week s texts and regular in-class participation in discussion will be vital. Each week certain students will be assigned topics for short presentations for the following meeting; the responsibility for these presentations will be rotating, and in them students will be asked to summarize, critique, and stimulate discussion of the assigned topic in question. In a short assessment I will check each student s written text preparation (checking transliteration, translation, notes on the text). Students will want to meet with me early on the semester to discuss a possible project topic, for which a proposal is required. The project will consist of a critical text edition of either a specific tablet in Assurbanipal s library or an edition of the colophons from a group of tablets. The proposal should consist a description of the topic with essential bibliography and an explanation of how the student will address the topic. 2

3 Written Work: All written work must be: submitted electronically and in print; in a common format (PDF preferred); in pt. type, double spaced, with in. margins; checked for spelling, grammar, and sense; properly referenced (either footnote or author-date style) with an indication in the first and maybe only footnote precisely which style you are using (Chicago Manual of Style and Society for American Archaeology are good choices, but there are others). Please see me about Unicode fonts suitable for rendering the diacritics needed to properly edit cuneiform texts. Readings must be done before class the day they are assigned. There is no course textbook. Instead, readings will be available on the Canvas course website ( on OCRA ( OCRA password: gerginakku), and/or distributed in class. Text preparation will require using the standard tools: R. Borger s Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon (MZL), R. Labat s Manuel d épigraphie akkadienne (Manuel; poor Labat never got a respectable acronym for his sign list!), and the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (CAD), which is not to be confused with the useful but severely, debilitatingly limited Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (CDA). ***NOTE*** that readings are subject to change, so please be sure to check the announcements on the Canvas website regularly. 3

4 WEEKLY SCHEDULE Week 1 2/1 Introduction; overview of Neo-Assyrian history; a first text ~ n/a Reports: ~ What brings you to this class? ~ None (guided reading of unprepared text in class) Week 2 2/8 Nineveh and its remains ~ Layard , 1853: ; Reade and Parpola in Veenhof 1986 Reports: ~ Archaeology of Nineveh: Reade 2000; a short bio of Assurbanipal ~ Library colophons: the basics (selected texts) Week 3 2/15 Reconstructing Assurbanipal s library: Colophons, scripts, and attribution ~ Leichty 1964; Hunger 1968 (selections) ~ Tools 1: print catalogues and bibliographies ~ Library colophons Week 4 2/22 NO CLASS (Long weekend) Week 5 2/29 Reading in the library ~ Fincke 2004; Frahm 2011 (selections) ~ Tools 2: digital resources ~ Library colophons (cont.) 4

5 Week 6 3/7 Whose library? Kings, scribes, and scholars ~ Lieberman 1990; Livingstone 2007 ~ Radner and Robson 2011 (selections); Talon 2003 ~ Royal inscriptions of Assurbanipal (L 4 ) in Novotny 2014 ~ Proposals due: 3/11 via Week 7 3/14 Collecting for the library ~ Frame and George 2005; Garrison 2012 ~ Reade 2004; Goldstein 2010 ~ Parpola 1983; Frame and George 2005 Week 8 3/21 Cataloguing the library ~ Krecher 1979 ~ Geller 2000; Delnero 2010 ~ Literary catalogues from Nineveh (selections) Spring Break 3/28 NO CLASS Week 9 4/4 Babylonian tablets in the Assyrian library? ~ Fincke 2003/2004; Fincke 2014a ~ Diagnostic features of Babylonian and Assyrian scripts ~ Colophons in Babylonian script (selections) 5

6 Week 10 4/11 Tablets from Kalḫu in Nineveh? Nabû-zuqup-kēnu & sons ~ Frahm 2011 (selections) ~ Dossier of Nabû-zuqup-kēnu and his family ~ Colophons of Nabû-zuqup-kēnu (selections) Week 11 4/18 Assur and Nineveh: Two Assyrian cities and their libraries ~ Assur catalogues and recensions (selections distributed before class) ~ Maul 2010 ~ Assur colophons (selections) Week 12 4/25 Cuneiform libraries redux: Assurbanipal s library in context ~ Robson 2013; Beaulieu 2010 ~ Pedersén 1998 (selections) ~ Colophons from other cuneiform libraries (selections) Reading/Exam Periods *Project due 6

7 Reference Works and Digital Tools Catalogues Bezold, Carl Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Volume 1 (1889) Volume 2 (1891) Volume 3 (1893) Volume 4 (1896) Volume 5 (1899) King, L. W Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, Supplement. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Lambert, W. G., and A. R. Millard Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, Second Supplement. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Lambert, W. G Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, Third Supplement. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Bibliographies and updates to the catalogue Bateman, Cyril A., and John W. Parsely A List of Fragments Rejoined in the Kuyunjik Collection of the British Museum. Revised and enlarged edition. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Leichty, Erle A Bibliography of The Cuneiform Tablets of the Kuyunjik Collection in the British Museum. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Borger, Rykle Anhang: Nachträge zu Leichty Bibliography. Pp in vol. 1 of Handbuch der Keilschriftliteratur. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Borger, Rykle Anhang: zur Kuyunjik-Sammlung. Pp in vol. 2 of Handbuch der Keilschriftliteratur. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Borger, Rykle Zur Kuyunjik-Sammlung. Nachträge zu HKL II, S Archiv für Orientforschung 25: Borger, Rykle Die Kuyunjik-Sammlung von Ende 1973 bis Anfang 1982: Nachträge zu Leichty s Bibliography und zu HKL II Archiv für Orientforschung 28: Borger, Rykle Die Kuyunjik-Sammlung : Nachträge zu Leichty s Bibliography, HKL II und AfO 28, Archiv für Orientforschung 31: Taylor, Jonathan Cataloguing the Library, Ashurbanipal Library Project, The Ashurbanipal Library Project, Department of the Middle East, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG, 2015, 7

8 Digital Tools Ashurbanipal Library Project (ASBP) pal_library_phase_1.aspx The British Museum Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) On searching BM/CDLI databases: _formats_for_british_musem_and_cdli_databases Nineveh Tablet Collection The Notebooks of F. W. Geers ( ) The Notebooks of W. G. Lambert ( ) Oracc: The Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus State Archives of Assyria 19 volumes printed to date, most texts available online at: 8

9 General Bibliography Beaulieu, Paul-Alain The Afterlife of Assyrian Scholarship in Hellenistic Babylonia. Pp in Gazing on the Deep: Ancient Near Eastern and Other Studies in Honor of Tzvi Abusch, ed. J. Stackert et al., Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press. Black, Jeremy. A., and W. J. Tait Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East. In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, edited by J. M. Sasson, 4, pp volumes. New York: Charles Scribner s Sons. Bretelle-Establet, Florence, editor Looking at it from Asia: The Processes that Shaped the Sources of History of Science. Dordrecht; New York: Springer. Charpin, Dominique Reading and Writing in Babylon. Trans. J. M. Todd. Cambridge, Mass. Clancier, Philippe Les Bibliothèques en Babylonie dans la deuxième moitié du I er millénaire av. J.-C. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 363. Münster: Ugarit- Verlag. Delnero, Paul Sumerian Literary Catalogues and the Scribal Curriculum. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 100: Fales, Frederick Mario The Use and Function of Aramaic Tablets. In Essays on Syria in the Iron Age, edited by G. Bunnens, pp Leuven: Peeters Multilingualism on Multiple Media in the Neo-Assyrian Period: a Review of the Evidence. State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 16: Fales, Frederick Mario, and Postgate, J. Nicholas Imperial Administrative Records, Part I: Palace and Temple Administration. State Archives of Assyria 7. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Fincke, Jeanette C Der Assur-Katalog der Serie enu ma anu enlil (EAE). Orientalia 70: /2004. The Babylonian Texts of Nineveh. Archiv für Orientforschung 50: The British Museum s Ashurbanipal Library Project. Iraq 66: a. Babylonische Gelehrte am neuassyrischen Hof: zwischen Anpassung und Individualität. Pp in Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien. 52 e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Münster). Alter Orient und Altes Testament 401. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag b. The Seventh Tablet of the rikis gerri Series of enūma anu enlil. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 66: Frahm, Eckart M Babylonian and Assyrian Text Commentaries: Origins of Interpretation. Guides to the Mesopotamian Textual Record 5. Münster: Ugarit- Verlag. Frame, Grant, and Andrew R. George The Royal Libraries of Nineveh: New Evidence for King Ashurbanipal s Tablet Collecting. Iraq 67: Gabbay, Uri Pacifying the Hearts of the Gods: Sumerian Emesal Prayers of the First Millennium BC. Heidelberger Emesal-Studien 1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Garrison, Mark B Antiquarianism, Copying, Collecting. Pp in A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, edited by D. T. Potts. London: Wiley-Blackwell. 9

10 Geller, Markham J Incipits and Rubrics. Pp in Wisdom, Gods and Literature: Studies in Assyriology in Honour of W. G. Lambert, edited by Irving L. Finkel and Markham J. Geller. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Goldstein, Ronnie Late Babylonian Letters on Collecting Tablets and their Hellenistic Background. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 69: van den Hout, Theo P. J On the Nature of the Tablet Collections of Ḫattuša. Studi miceni ed egeo-anatolici 47: Hunger, Herrmann Assyrische und Babylonische Kolophone. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 2. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Kertai, David The Architecture of Late Assyrian Royal Palaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krecher, Joachim Kataloge, literarische. Reallexikon der Assyriologie 5: Lanfranchi, Giovanni The Library at Nineveh. Pp in Capital Cities: Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions, edited by Joan Goodnick Westenholz. Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem Publications 2. Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum. Larsen, Mogens Trolle The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land, New York: Routledge. Layard, Austen Henry The Monuments of Nineveh, from Drawings Made on the Spot. 2 vols. London: J. Murray. Layard, Austin Henry Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. 2 vols. London: Johan Murray, Albemarle Street. Leichty, Erle The Colophon. Pp in Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim, June 7, 1964, edited by Robert D. Biggs and John A. Brinkman. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Lieberman, Stephen J Canonical and Official Cuneiform Texts: Towards an Understanding of Ashurbanipal s Personal Tablet Collection. Pp in Lingering Over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, edited by??. Atlanta:??. Livingstone, Alasdair Ashurbanipal: Literate or not? Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 97: Lomas, Kathryn, Ruth Whitehouse, and John Wilkins, editors Literacy and the State in the Ancient Mediterranean. Accordia Specialist Studies on the Mediterranean 7. London: Accordia Research Institute, University of London. Maul, Stefan M Zukunftsbewältigung: Eine Untersuchung altorientalischen Denkens anhand der babylonisch-assyrischen Löserituale (Namburbi). Baghdader Forschungen 18. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. Maul, Stefan M Die Tontafelbibliothek aus dem sogenannten Haus des Beschwörungspriesters. Pp in Assur-Forschungen, edited by Stefan M. Maul and Nils P. Heeßel. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Michalowski, Piotr The Libraries of Babel: Text, Authority, and Tradition in Ancient Mesopotamia. Pp in Cultural Repertoires: Structure, Functions and Dynamics, edited by G. J. Dorleijn and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. Groningen Studies in Cultural Change Vol. 3. Leuven: Peeters. 10

11 Novotny, Jamie Selected Royal Inscriptions of Assurbanipal: L 3, L 4, Prism I, Prism T, and Related Texts. State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts 10. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Parpola, Simo Assyrian Library Records. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42: The Imperial Archives of Nineveh. Pp in Nineveh 612 BC: The Glory and Gall of the Assyrian Empire, edited by R. Mattila. Helsinki. Payton, R The Ulu Burun Writing Board Set. Anatolian Studies 41: Pedersén, Olof Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East, BCE. Bethesda: CDL Press. Pongratz-Leisten, Beate Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien: Formen der Kommunikation zwischen Gott und König in 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. State Archives of Assyria Studies 10. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project Religion and Ideology in Assyria. Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records 6. Berlin: De Gruyter. Potts, D. T Before Alexandria: Libraries in the Ancient Near East. Pp in The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, edited by Roy MacLeod. London: I. B. Tauris. Radner, Karen Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radner, Karen, and Eleanor Robson, editors The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reade, Julian E Ninive (Nineveh). Reallexikon der Assyriologie 9: The Assyrians as Collectors: From Accumulation to Synthesis. Pp in From the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea: Studies on the History of Assyria and Babylonia in Honour of A. K. Grayson, edited by Grant Frame. PIHANS 101. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten. Robson, Eleanor Reading the Libraries of Assyria and Babylonia. Pp in Ancient Libraries, edited by Jason König, Katerina Oikonomopoulos, and Greg Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Russell, John Malcolm The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Rutz, Matthew T Bodies of Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Diviners of Late Bronze Age Emar and Their Tablet Collection. Ancient Magic and Divination 9. Leiden: Brill. Schousboe, Karen, and Mogens Trolle Larsen, editors Literacy and Society. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. Talon, Philippe The Use of Glosses in Neo-Assyrian Letters and Astrological Reports. Pp in Semitic and Assyriological Studies presented to Pelio Fronzaroli by Pupils and Colleagues, edited by P. Marrassini et al. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Taylor, Jon, and Caroline Cartwright The Making and Re-making of Clay Tablets. Scienze dell antichità 17:

12 Veenhof, Klaas R., editor Cuneiform Archives and Libraries: Papers Read at the 30e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch- Archaeologisch Instituut and Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabje Oosten. Veldhuis, Niek History of the Cuneiform Lexical Tradition. Guides to the Mesopotamian Textual Record 6. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Villard, P L éducation d Assurbanipal. Ktema 22: