Introduction To Akkadian

This book initiates the reader into the study of Akkadian literature from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. With this one relatively short volume, the novice reader will develop the literary competence necessary to read and interpret Akkadian texts in translation and will gain a broad familiarity with the major genres and compositions in the language. The first part of the book presents introductory discussions of major critical issues, organized under four key rubrics: tablets, scribes, compositions, and audiences. Here, the reader will find descriptions of the tablets used as writing material; the training scribes received and the institutional contexts in which they worked; the general characteristics of Akkadian compositions, with an emphasis on poetic and literary features; and the various audiences or users of Akkadian texts. The second part surveys the corpus of Akkadian literature defined inclusively, canvasing a wide spectrum of compositions. Legal codes, historical inscriptions, divinatory compendia, and religious texts have a place in the survey alongside narrative poems, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma elish, and Babylonian Theodicy. Extensive footnotes and a generous bibliography guide readers who wish to continue their study. Essential for students of Assyriology, An Introduction to Akkadian Literature will also prove useful to biblical scholars, classicists, Egyptologists, ancient historians, and literary comparativists.

This book initiates the reader into the study of Akkadian literature from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. With this one relatively short volume, the novice reader will develop the literary competence necessary to read and interpret Akkadian texts in translation and will gain a broad familiarity with the major genres and compositions in the language. The first part of the book presents introductory discussions of major critical issues, organized under four key rubrics: tablets, scribes, compositions, and audiences. Here, the reader will find descriptions of the tablets used as writing material; the training scribes received and the institutional contexts in which they worked; the general characteristics of Akkadian compositions, with an emphasis on poetic and literary features; and the various audiences or users of Akkadian texts. The second part surveys the corpus of Akkadian literature defined inclusively, canvasing a wide spectrum of compositions. Legal codes, historical inscriptions, divinatory compendia, and religious texts have a place in the survey alongside narrative poems, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma elish, and Babylonian Theodicy. Extensive footnotes and a generous bibliography guide readers who wish to continue their study. Essential for students of Assyriology, An Introduction to Akkadian Literature will also prove useful to biblical scholars, classicists, Egyptologists, ancient historians, and literary comparativists.

History of the Akkadian Language offers a detailed chronological survey of the oldest known Semitic language and one of history’s longest written records. The outcome is presented in 26 chapters written by 25 leading authors.

In the third edition of A Grammar of Akkadian, changes have been made in the section on the nom i n al morpheme -ån (§20.2) and the sections on the meaning of the D stem (§24.3) and the Gt stem (§33.1(b)); these revisions reflect recent scholarship in Akkadian grammar. Other changes include minor revisions in wording in the presentation of the grammar in a few other sections; a number of new notes to some of the readings; additions to the glosses of a small number of words in the lesson vocabularies (and the Glossary and English-Akkadian word list); and updates of the resources available for the study of Akkadian, and of the bibliography. A new appendix (F) has been added, giving Hebrew and other Semitic cognates of the Akkadian words in the lesson vocabularies. The pagination of the first and second editions has for the most part been retained, apart from the insertion of the new appendix and a few minor deviations elsewhere.

Comprehensive collection of ancient Akkadian literature spanning three millennia. This larger, completely new, 3rd edition contains many compositions not in the previous editions; new translations of previously included compositions; incorporation of new text fragments identified or excavated since the last publication; all new footnotes; references and commentary brought up to date to reflect scholarly work of the last 10 years; and 100 more pages than the old two-volume edition.

Errors of many kinds abound in Akkadian writings, but this fact’s far-reaching implications have never been unraveled and systematized. To attempt this is the aim of this book. Drawing on scholarship from other fields, it outlines a framework for the critical evaluation of extant text and the formulation of conjectural emendations. Along the way, it explores issues at the interface of orthography, textual transmission, scribal education, grammar, literacy, and literary interpretation.

Since the second edition of I.J. Gelb's Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar in 1961, which is still the standard grammar of Old Akkadian to this day, a significant number of new texts from the Old Akkadian period has been discovered and important improvements have been made regarding the analysis of Old Akkadian and Early Semitic grammar - particularly phonology - and writing. The present volume seeks to update our understanding of the syllabically written textual material from the Sargonic period (2350-2100 BCE), which contains most of our evidence for the Akkadian used at this period. It consists of a detailed investigation of the Sargonic Akkadian syllabary, phonology and morphology, with specific focus on geographical and dialectal variations that are noticeable in this text corpus, but which have not yet been examined thoroughly. The grammatical investigation further compares specific linguistic features of this period with the two later Akkadian dialects, Babylonian and Assyrian, in order to establish the position of the individual sub-groups of Sargonic Akkadian within the dialect geography of Akkadian.