The Emar Lexical Texts

Gantzert, M.

This four-part work provides a philological analysis and a theoretical interpretation of the cuneiform lexical texts found in the Late Bronze Age city of Emar, in present-day Syria. These word and sign lists, commonly dated to around 1100 BC, were almost all found in the archive of a single school. They served to educate apprentice scribes in the Ancient Mesopotamian ‘science of writing’, the basics skills of which included the learning of Sumerian logograms and acquisition of vocabulary in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the Near East. Part 1 provides a new edition of the individual texts. Part 2 gives a composite edition of the specific lexical compositions to which these texts belong, including English translations and systematic references to parallel material. Part 3 gives a synchronic analysis of the formal and organizational structure of the lexical series - in addition it contains a new analysis of the scribal redaction notes and an excursus on the diachronic position of...Show moreThis four-part work provides a philological analysis and a theoretical interpretation of the cuneiform lexical texts found in the Late Bronze Age city of Emar, in present-day Syria. These word and sign lists, commonly dated to around 1100 BC, were almost all found in the archive of a single school. They served to educate apprentice scribes in the Ancient Mesopotamian ‘science of writing’, the basics skills of which included the learning of Sumerian logograms and acquisition of vocabulary in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the Near East. Part 1 provides a new edition of the individual texts. Part 2 gives a composite edition of the specific lexical compositions to which these texts belong, including English translations and systematic references to parallel material. Part 3 gives a synchronic analysis of the formal and organizational structure of the lexical series - in addition it contains a new analysis of the scribal redaction notes and an excursus on the diachronic position of the Emar corpus within the overall lexical tradition. Part 4 provides a theoretical interpretation of the Emar lexical texts based on three models developed in the social sciences: Foucault’s epistemological model, Goody’s ‘technological’ model and Lévi-Strauss’ structuralist model.Show less

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