The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures最新文献

{"title":"Two Inscriptions of Ashurnasirpal","authors":"T. Jones","doi":"10.1086/370614","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370614","url":null,"abstract":"It is not generally known that, in the possession of the Walker Art Gallery at Minneapolis, there are two inscriptions of Ashurnasirpal. These texts are inscribed on two limestone blocks or tablets; the first (No. 375) measures roughly 18 by 30 inches, and the second (Nos. 373+374) 18 by 36 inches. Both tablets are in an excellent state of preservation; the cuneiform characters are extremely clear, and it is only in the case of the second tablet that even a portion of the text has been obliterated (the right-hand edge of the stone is slightly worn). The two texts are very similar to those published by Budge and King.' That on the first tablet is 23 lines in length and follows the version there given without significant variation except for the latter portion (rev., 11. 9 ff.) which is identical with the text published by Le Gac in Les Inscriptions d'A'ur-nasir-aplu III, page 168, center. The inscription on the second tablet, 24 lines in length, is quite similar to the fragmentary versions published on pages 166-68 of Le Gac's volume. The missing parts of lines 8-9 of those inscriptions appear as follows (1. 24): i~ rube (pl) d da-ra-te epus(us) u-si-im-'i, with which the Walker text ends.","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133681211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Date of the Byblos Temples Buildings II, XVIII, and XL","authors":"R. J. Braidwood","doi":"10.1086/370609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370609","url":null,"abstract":"In his recent Fouilles de Byblos (Paris, 1939), Volume I, Maurice Dunand publishes three buildings of monumental character and the evidence for his interpretation of their dates. The buildings in question were set on sloping ground, and their excavation, in view of the differential levels involved, made for exceedingly complicated architectural digging. The success which M. Dunand achieved in the excavation and presentation of these buildings deserves only the highest praise. The matter in hand is merely concerned with his interpretation of the evidence for dating these buildings. Were it not for the specific invitation made to the reader of his volume to make original interpretations, I should hesitate to present mine publicly, for I am firmly convinced that no opinion can bear so much weight as that of the excavator himself. Fully realizing the huge responsibility with which the excavations of Byblos charged him, M. Dunand dug entirely by a system of 0.20 m. levies, each levee peeled off one after the other, and each kept \"rigoureusement horizontale.\" The system has both advantages and disadvantages. It is only pertinent here that objects are generally noted by levee rather than by relation to a specific occupational floor. The plan presented here (Fig. 1) was made by assembling on one sheet the tracings of the individual buildings published in the Fouilles de Byblos, Volume I. The section was constructed on the basis of the assembled plan and with the aid of various statements in the text (pp. 290-308). The buildings and their dates as published by M. Dunand are: la. Building II (dernier etat du corps principal)--Middle Kingdom, on the basis of the Twelfth Dynasty materials found in the jars of foundation offerings, underneath pavements of the building. lb. Building II (premier etat)-Old Kingdom to as early as the offerings of Khasekhemui (pp. 298, 304).2 1 I am obliged to George R. Hughes and Richard A. Parker for checking the pertinent Egyptian inscriptions, and to Harold D. Hill for the finished drawing. 2 Since the Khasekhemui inscription was found on the surface, the dating is by implication only and need not apply specifically to Building II.","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115875266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Egyptian Middle Kingdom at Megiddo","authors":"J. Wilson","doi":"10.1086/370607","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370607","url":null,"abstract":"An extreme simplification of the history of ancient Egypt might confine itself to action and counteraction in the play of forces between Egypt and its neighbors. Thus the late predynastic age showed strong Asiatic influences coming into the land of the Nile. Then the Old Kingdom exploited Sinai, Phoenicia, and perhaps Palestine economically. In the First Intermediate Period Asiatics \"invaded\" the Egyptian Delta. The Middle Kingdom moved again into Asia in some measure and with some authority. The Second Intermediate Period saw the Hyksos invasion of Egypt. The New Kingdom set up an Egyptian empire in Asia. The balance swung again with attempted invasions of Egypt in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C., etc. The scheme of things becomes clearer in these later phases; the nature of the empire under the New Kingdom is fairly well known. We know less about the outreaching of the Old and Middle kingdoms into the areas beyond their normal frontiers. What was the nature of Egyptian \"imperialism\" under the Middle Kingdom? The Middle Kingdom did not spring into being fully armored. It took time for the pharaohs of the Eleventh and Twelfth dynasties to establish their authority within Egypt. When that was accomplished they were ready to reach out toward regions beyond the frontiers. Sesostris III established his authority solidly at the Second Cataract, and trading-posts reached as far south as Kerma near the Third Cataract. Was there a similar situation in Syria-Palestine?","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116456135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Women and the State on the Eve of Islam","authors":"N. Abbott","doi":"10.1086/370610","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370610","url":null,"abstract":"ing careers of the Emesan Julias and the Palmyrene Zenobia, Arab queens receded more or less into the background. Thus, for the last few centuries of the pre-Islamic period, characterized by the pious and proud Moslems as al-Jdhiliyah, or the \"Age of Ignorance,\" we can point at best to a shadowy HJimydrite Balqis, a half-forgotten Ghassanid(?) Mawia, and a humiliated and bereaved Lakhmid Hind. The great majority of the royal women of these dynasties and of that of Kindah figure little or not at all in the available records. This may be due partly, as already pointed out, to the paucity and poverty of these records, if not indeed to the prejudice of the secondand thirdcentury Moslem recorders. On the other hand, the situation may be reflecting some loss in public position suffered by the women in the centuries immediately preceding Islam. Changing social conditions, due in part to contacts with neighboring peoples and kingdoms, may have deprived the Arab woman of this period of some of the public prestige and privileges enjoyed by her earlier sisters. However, it must not be inferred that the influence of the Arab woman had become negligible in the various phases of both private and public life. In her home the free Arab woman of all classes in her time-honored role of legal wife and mother expressed herself freely and forcefully. In poetry, the major literary passion of pre-Islamic Arabia, the Arab woman figured large. Not only did the romantic poets sing her praises in passionate verse but the chivalrous Arab, as yet not too civilized, coveted and prized her opinion as literary critic. The story is told of how the Kindite \"vagabond prince\" and greatest of Arab poets, Imrfi al-Qais, during his wanderings settled for a while * See \"Pre-Islamic Arab-Queens,\" AJSL, LVIII (1941), 1-22.","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122870800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Darius and Xerxes in Babylonia","authors":"G. G. Cameron","doi":"10.1086/370613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370613","url":null,"abstract":"The available evidence from Babylonia, supplemented by that from Egypt (see R. A. Parker's article in this issue), definitely confirm the traditional date of 522/21 for the accession year of Darius. Once this is recognized, it is obvious that all the material from Babylonia must fit in one way or another into the general picture. That it does so is clear from the following summary. Herodotus, in Book iii, chapters 66-67, informs us that Cambyses reigned for seven years and five months. As others have shown, this figure is absolutely correct. The earliest document recording the sole rule of Cambyses1 is dated on the twelfth day of the sixth month, 530 B.C.; from the Behistun inscription, ? 11, we know that Bardiya revolted on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month (523/22); Cambyses reigned, therefore, six full months of 530/29 plus six full years plus eleven months of 523/22-a total of seven years and five months. A few scribes in Babylonia, as is to be expected, were unaware of Bardiya's revolt; others, of Cambyses' death. The last tablet dated to Cambyses, signed on the twenty-third day of the first month of the eighth year,2 was written by such a scribe. But the scribe who wrote the first extant published tablet of Bardiya knew that the last month of the Babylonian year 523/22 was in itself Bardiya's \"accession year\"; therefore, he correctly dated a document written in the","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"134 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133819786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Persian and Egyptian Chronology","authors":"R. A. Parker","doi":"10.1086/370611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370611","url":null,"abstract":"Recent articles in this Journal by Professors Olmstead and Poebel have once again directed attention to the question of the accession date of Darius I.1 The problem arises from the fact that two interpretations of the length of the reigns of Bardiya and Nebuchadnezzar III have been drawn from the dates by which Babylonian tablets are dated. Thus, if Bardiya ruled not seven months but a year and seven months, Darius' accession must be placed not late in 522 B.c., the usually accepted date, but in 521; and if Nebuchadnezzar III ruled not three months but nearly a year, it must be further dropped to 520, his first year, then, being 519/18.2 Consideration of the Egyptian data which bear on the problem has led me to the conclusion that the traditional date of 522 for Darius'","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121452078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Reading of Hebrew","authors":"W. E. Staples","doi":"10.1086/370600","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370600","url":null,"abstract":"Since Syria-Palestine formed the bridgeway between the Nile and the Mesopotamian world, it is natural that this strip of territory should form the meeting place for the cultural influences of these two centers. Here the alphabetic system of writing which probably developed ultimately from Egyptian hieroglyphs clashed with the syllabic system developed in Mesopotamia. Each type had its advantages. Impressed with the value of the alphabetic system, on the one hand, and the clay tablet as a medium for writing, on the other, the scribes of Ugarit created an alphabet in imitation of the cuneiform manner of writing which could be impressed on clay with the help of a stylus. The so-called Phoenician alphabet, the father of modern scripts, flourished further south and was better adapted for papyrus and stone. Since the Nile and the Euphrates valleys were sources from which the system of writing used in Syria-Palestine sprang, it seems more than possible that the aids developed for reading in Egypt and Mesopotamia came into use in this region. In both Mesopotamia and Egypt writing was originally pictographic. In time these pictographs became stylized pictures of objects, and, since the objects for which they stood could be recognized easily, the reading of the script was comparatively a simple matter. While Mesopotamian pictographs retained ideographic values, they also took on a multiple of syllabic values. When this happened, certain aids became necessary for the reader to give the correct value to the sign or signs. These aids took the form of determinatives which were added at the beginning or end of a group of signs to denote the class to which the objects belonged. Since the cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia remained chiefly syllabic, the reader had a certain advantage in that the vowel sounds were included in the syllabic values. At what period these determinatives came into general use in Mesopotamia is uncertain, but it was well after the language had been reduced to writing. The Ugaritic scribes retained the syllabic system 139","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116349650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pahlavi Notes","authors":"M. Sprengli̇ng","doi":"10.1086/370602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370602","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124400803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Forged Phoenician Royal Inscription in the Louvre","authors":"C. Torrey","doi":"10.1086/370599","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370599","url":null,"abstract":"The Museum of the Louvre possesses several inscribed stones from the temple of the god Eshmun in Sidon, which was built by the king Bod-Ashtart of the Eshmunazar dynasty at some time in the third century B.C. One of these inscriptions is a forgery. The present writer, who has known or suspected the fact ever since the year when the temple ruin was discovered, has always had the intention of publishing the story of the forgery, but for one reason or another has continued to postpone the matter. Since the text of the inscription occurs in nearly identical form on ten or more of the building stones of the temple, the forgery could do but slight harm; it presents some mystifying readings, however, as will appear. The story of this temple ruin is well known.' The native workmen who found the inscribed stones generally gave them into the hands of the proper authorities; but there were some exceptions. One of the stones, a slab sawed off and broken in two, came temporarily into my own possession, and the inscription was eventually published by me in JAOS, as noted above. The stone is now in the Phoenician collection in the Louvre, bearing the number A.O. 4078. During my stay in Sidon, in November, 1900, and January-February, 1901, I came frequently in contact with a native of one of the suburban villages, named Beshara Gubrin. He was a man of considerable ability, a purveyor of small antiques, and an accomplished manufacturer of Phoenician inscriptions. He knew the letters of the Phoenician alphabet and some frequently occurring combinations of them; and he had served a' term in prison in punishment for a forgery which happened to be found out. Knowing my interest in the archeology of the land and especially in the newly discovered temple ruin, he made himself helpful. (I had visited the ruin in company with a brother of his","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"486 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116539717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Old Hittite Kingdom: A Political History","authors":"R. S. Hardy","doi":"10.1086/370603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/370603","url":null,"abstract":"The work of writing a political history of the Old Hittite Kingdom is complicated by the nature of the available sources, and the resultant story is dependent upon the way those sources are employed or evaluated.' Fortunately, the task is somewhat simplified, because most of the documents have been collected and published in transliteration in one volume.2 This, however, does not exhaust the ma-","PeriodicalId":252942,"journal":{"name":"The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1941-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134515712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}