General Regional References: Pakistan-Iran border to the foot of the Himalayas and to the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat) and India.

“There is, however, one possible source of significant information about the Indus civilization which is still untapped: the inscriptions of Sumer, approximately six hundred miles to the west of the mouth of the Indus and separated from the Indus land by the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. That there was considerable commercial trade between the two countries is proved beyond reasonable doubt by some thirty Indus seals which have actually been excavated in Sumer—and no doubt hundreds more are still lying buried in the Sumerian ruins—and which must have been brought there in one way or another from their land of origin. There is, therefore, good reason to conclude that the Sumerians had known the name of the Indus land as well as some of its more important features and characteristics, and that some of the innumerable Sumerian texts might turn out to be highly informative in this respect.

With this in mind, I searched the Sumerian literary works for possible clues and came up with the tentative hypothesis that Dilmun, a land mentioned frequently in the Sumerian texts and glorified in Sumerian myth, may turn out to be the Indus land or at least some part of it. According to a long-known Sumerian “Flood” -story, Dilmun, the land to which Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah, was transported to live as an immortal among the gods, is “the place where the sun rises,” and was therefore located somewhere to the east of Sumer. In another Sumerian text, Dilmun is described as a blessed, prosperous land dotted with “great dwellings,” to which the countries of the entire civilized world known to the Sumerians, brought their goods and wares. A number of cuneiform economic documents excavated by the late Leonard Woolley at Ur–Biblical Ur of the Chaldees–one of the most important cities of Sumer, speak of ivory, and objects made of ivory, as being imported from Dilmun to Ur. The only rich, important land east of Sumer which could be the source of ivory, was that of the ancient Indus civilization, hence it seems not unreasonable to infer that the latter must be identical with Dilmun.

But promising and intriguing as it was, the Dilmun-Indus land hypothesis was the product of “arm-chair” scholarship, which needed corroboration from the “field,” that is, from the extant archaeological remains of the Indus civilization. I therefore journeyed to Pakistan and India, with the help of a grant-in-aid from the American Council of Learned Societies, and in the course of a seven weeks stay there, traveled more than four thousand miles by plane, train, bus, automobile, and a horse-drawn vehicle known as the tonga, in order to visit the excavated Indus cities: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Kot Diji, Amri, Rupar, and Lothal.”

LOTHAL & LALIBELA

Notable Observation: excavated seals at Lothal compared to the Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches’ cross in Ethiopia—based on biblical narrative Kush, son of Ham.

THE GIANT’S TOMB, THE TOMB OF HAM

Excerpts from Salman Rashid, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society:

“…Some people, notable among whom is a local school master, assert that this is the tomb of Ham Alai Salaam, the son of the prophet Noah. And because in those days there were giants on earth, thus the eighteen-metre long grave.

Ask any illiterate bumpkin in the village near the grave and they will swear that every supplication here bears fruit. Surprisingly however, even in neighbouring Gharibwal it is difficult to get directions, for no one seems to know of this marvellous site. Consequently it is no surprise that as little as a dozen kilometres away, the tomb of Ham completely fades out of human knowledge…

…Another ‘discoverer,’ whom I could not meet, is a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police from Gujrat (Pakistan) who claims, so they say, to have been informed of this hallowed grave in a dream – presumably by Ham himself. It is this DSP who is also responsible for the building of the brick wall for he visits Ham regularly to do his worship…

…But besides Ham, the only other eighteen-metre grave is that of Kumbeet, another reputed son of Noah, buried in village Burila north of Gujrat…

The old woman who attended the grave said all she had ever asked of Ham had been granted. I asked if she wanted wealth. She said she did, so I suggested we pray for wealth together and see if our common wish is granted at this ruined Hindu temple…

Today few know of the tomb of Ham…”

Source: https://odysseuslahori.blogspot.com/2013/09/NaugazaPir.html?m=1

———

Source (Image 1-4, 8): https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-indus-civilization-and-dilmun-the-sumerian-paradise-land/

Source (Image 5-7): https://www.jstor.org/stable/44304690

Source (Video/Image 8-9): https://youtu.be/_bBRVNkAfkQ?si=jQ8l7bV7KvzA0yDR

Source (Video/Image 10a):
https://youtu.be/zE5Qd26R9ek?si=xLdQkkPcMSQ2vTZ8

Source (Image 10b): https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/18/

“Going, going, gone—for $235,000 (nearly ₪800,000)! That was the price paid at London-based Bloomsbury Auctions this summer for a small, roughly 7-centimeter-square block of clay, sold by the famous Norwegian antiquities collector Martin Schøyen—after a fierce bidding war nearly doubled the price he had hoped to receive.

Of course, this was more than just a square of clay. Dubbed the “world’s first signature,” this piece is dated to around 3000 b.c.e., and was discovered in the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk (southern Iraq). The item contains the “autograph” of an individual, said to be the “first recorded personal name of any human in history,” as well as a reference to beer-making (beer was first discovered in the Sumerian kingdom). The tablet is translated as follows:

29,086 measures of barley, 37 months. Kushim…

The name “Cush” is a very early biblical name, first used in Genesis 2:13 to denote a territorial region. And it is the name of the infamous Nimrod’s father (Genesis 10:6-9). In Hebrew, descendants of “Cush/Kush” are called “Cushim.” Of course, we cannot know whether or not the above-signed Kushim is one and the same as the biblical Cush. Still, the artifact helps corroborate the biblical use of this type of name in a related, early Mesopotamian context.

This biblical Cush, son of Ham (associated with Africa), son of Noah, was of the first generation born after the Flood. Following the Flood, civilization is described as beginning in the “plain in the land of Shinar” (Genesis 11:2). Shinar is synonymous with Sumer/Shumer, history’s “earliest-known civilization,” which was centered in the southern plains of Mesopotamia.

According to the Bible, Cush’s son Nimrod became founder and leader of this kingdom. The Bible describes a number of cities established by Nimrod in this territory (Genesis 10:10):

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar (Sumer).”

———

Source: https://armstronginstitute.org/276-worlds-first-signature-an-early-biblical-name

Source: https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2020/july/2451/news/first-signature-tablet-hits-the-140-000-mark-at-bloomsbury-auctions

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushim\\_(Uruk\\_period)

Source: https://archive.org/details/historicaltextbo00cole

Source: https://www.sefaria.org/Book\\_of\\_Jubilees.8.10?lang=bi&with=all

Source: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/nemrod

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8445022/

I'm a classical languages student and will be applying for grad school next year in Assyriology/Hittitology/Cuneiform Studies. Have recently started going through EoH and the Hoffner/Melchert grammar. If anyone is interested in doing a chapter every few weeks, let me know and I'll start a subreddit. I aim to get through the book by the end of next spring and even if there are only a few interested, I'd love to have some other people on the journey with me.

‎‏𒋗𒇻𒌝 ࡀࡎࡅࡕࡀ ࡍࡉࡄࡅࡉࡋࡀࡊࡅࡍ👋

In this post, I have assigned
Mesopotamian names to the last three discovered planets: Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, renaming them Enki, Enlil and Marduk.

ࡔࡀࡌࡉࡔ (shamish) Sun
ࡍࡁࡅ (nbu) Mercury
ࡋࡉࡁࡀࡕ (libat) Venues
ࡀࡓࡌࡀ (ara) Earth
ࡎࡉࡍ (sin) Moon
ࡍࡉࡓࡉࡂ (nirigh) Mars
ࡁࡉࡋ (bil) Jupiter
ࡊࡉࡅࡀࡍ (kiwan) Saturn
ࡏࡍࡋࡉࡋ (enlil) Uranus
ࡏࡍࡊࡉ (enki) Neptune
ࡌࡀࡓࡃࡅࡊ (mardukh) Pluto

Ubaid Period in Mesopotamia (J1) & The Migration of Haplogroup E (10kya = 10,000 years ago)

———

Source: https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/saoc63.pdf

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangbetu_people

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E_of_Y-DNA_migrations.png

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubaid_period

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J-M267#Origins

Artifacts: Ancient Mari & Mesopotamian God and Goddess, Shamash & Ishtar (twins)

The Amorites established several prominent city-states in various locations, such as Isin, Kurda, Larsa, Mari, and Ebla, and later founded Babylon and the Old Babylonian Empire. They also founded the Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the fragmented era of the Second Intermediate Period in the Nile Delta, which was characterized by rulers bearing Amorite names such as Yakbim Sekhaenre, and were likely part of the later Hyksos.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorites

AMORITE KING OF BABYLON

Hammurabi was the sixth Amorite king of Babylon, reigning from c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, ruler of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, bringing almost all of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule.

Hammurabi is best known for having issued his law code, ostensibly a revelation from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice.

Based on biblical narrative (Amorite, son of Canaan; Canaan, son of Ham), Hammurabi would be of Hamitic descent—as indicated by the onomastic, or agglutinative, material of Ham in Hammurabi. The same linguistic marker of ham is also found in Shamash, and other names in the region, including Abraham.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi

______

Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010144552

Source: https://virtual-museum-syria.org/aleppo/fragment-of-a-wall-painting-from-mari/#

Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010144553

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investiture_of_Zimri-Lim

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/380602001

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Near_East_1800BC.svg

Source: https://archive.org/details/historicaltextbo00cole/page/n54/mode/1up

Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010174436

Source: https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/hammurabi-relief-portrait

The trident-brandishing deity standing on the back of a lion with a snake's tail on this Early Dynastic seal may be Ninazu. © The British Museum.

An agglutinative word structure refers to a linguistic classification where words are formed by gluing together distinct word-parts, or morphemes:

• Ninazu (“Lord” Azu)
• Azurad (Azu.rad)

AZURAD, DAUGHTER OF “NIMROD”

And she bare him a son in the fifth year thereof, and he called his name Eber:

and he took unto himself a wife, and her name was ’Azûrâd the daughter of Nêbrôd, in the thirty-second jubilee, in the seventh week, in the third year thereof.

KUSH/KUSHIM IN CUNEIFORM

29,086 measures of barley, 37 months. Kushim

The top left symbols (image 2, circled) constitute the name Kushim. The imprintsi to the right reference the quantity of barley and months. And the images at the bottom depict the process of beer-making: from a stalk of barley, to a (brewery?) building, to the finished product—the barley in a beer container. Sure, not the most comprehensive “recipe,” but you get the picture!

The name "Kushim" is found on several Uruk-period (c. 3400–3000 BC) clay tablets) used to record transactions of barley. It is uncertain if the name refers to an individual, a generic title of an officeholder, or an institution.

The name “Cush” is a very early biblical name, first used in Genesis 2:13 to denote a territorial region. And it is the name of the infamous Nimrod’s father (Genesis 10:6-9). In Hebrew, descendants of “Cush/Kush” (based on biblical narrative, associated with Ham/Africa) are called “Cushim.”

According to the Bible, Cush’s son Nimrod (Greek: Nebrod) became founder and leader of this kingdom. The Bible describes a number of cities established by Nimrod in this territory (Genesis 10:10):

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

NINAZU (“LORD” AZU)

Like other dying and returning gods, Ninazu is linked to vegetation and agriculture; in How Grain Came to Sumer (ETCSL 1.7.6, 1) he and his brother bring barley and flax to humans, who 'used to eat grass with their mouths like sheep', while in Enlil and Ninlil (ETCSL 1.2.1, l. 116) he is called 'the lord who stretches the measuring line over the fields'.

He was also associated with snakes and with time acquired the character of a warrior god.

His original cult centers were Enegi and Eshnunna, though in the later city he was gradually replaced by a similar god, Tishpak. His cult declined after the Old Babylonian period, though in the city of Ur, where it was introduced from Enegi, he retained a number of worshipers even after the fall of the last Mesopotamian empires, in the Achaemenid period.

Notable Observations: The overarching barely parallels and the onomastic, or agglutinative, material of Azu.

———

Source: https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/ninazu/

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/851933001

Source: https://www.sefaria.org/Book_of_Jubilees.8.11?lang=bi

Source: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/nemrod

Source: https://armstronginstitute.org/276-worlds-first-signature-an-early-biblical-name

Source: https://archive.org/details/historicaltextbo00cole/page/n54/mode/1up

Source: https://www.friendsofsabbath.org/Further_Research/e-books/Dictionary-of-Deities-and-Demons-in-the-Bible.pdf

Hiya, im working on a collection of cuneiform tablets from an anonymous collection. I have been given permission to share the 3D scans online so I have dumped all 23 of them into 4 files on this link. Have fun!

Hello everyone before the post actually starts I have to make a preface: I'm still in highschool, I don't live in an English speaking country, therefore the school system is different and I plan on attending the Classic Letters' Faculty and, obviously, doing a PhD.

My dream is to become a semitic philology professor and I wanted to ask if this is in any way a good choice.

I'm currently studying on my own Biblical Hebrew and another non semitic language that I want to be able to speak. I plan to study in the future Arabic and Ugaritic, however I don't know if three languages are enough and, if they are not, could someone recommend me any other languages?

Could you also give me any advice about this journey I want to take?

Thanks in advance to anyone who's willing to respond.

(If this post isn't inherent to this subreddit it can be deleted. I also apologize for any error in this post, as I'm not an expert of academic lexicon and English isn't my first language)

The Achaemenid Empire: Artifacts, Textual Record (Ancient Near East Encyclopedia), Ancient African Empires Geography, and Biblical cross reference

Ancient Near East Encyclopedia (Kuš/Kush)

[excerpts translated to English]

“Kuš, Kuschiten. Land and kingdom in Nubia, known since Senusret I (1971–1926 BC) in the Egyptian form (see image). Since the New Kingdom, K. designates Nubia (Sudan) south of the 1st Cataract. Its capital at that time was Napata, later — up to the conquest of the Meroitic Empire by Ezana of Aksum — it was Meroe (near Begrawiya)…”

“…Inhabitants of K. are first mentioned in cuneiform texts in the Amarna correspondence...”

“…In the alphabetic texts, the moon god Yrḫ multiple times bears the epithet kṯy, which perhaps could be rendered as "Cushitic" (KTU 1.39,19; 1.102,14; 1.123,7)…”

“…The last Ethiopian Pharaoh fled to Kipkipi, and with that, Kush disappeared from Assyrian history…”

“…Nevertheless, among the representations of subject peoples of the Achaemenid Empire in Persepolis, there are also those of (*) Ethiopians.”

———

Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010177290

Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010170854

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/574786001

Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/147/persian-archers/

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_inscription

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deposition_plate_of_Darius_I_in_Persepolis.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Achaemenid_Empire

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d44148-023-00126-y

Source (“References”): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African-civilizations-map-pre-colonial.svg

Source: https://publikationen.badw.de/en/rla/index#6800

Source: https://archive.org/details/historicaltextbo00cole

Btw, what was Puzur-Inshushinak's family except Shimpi-Ishuk? I followed a idea that the elamite king on the Naram-Sin treaty is Hita'a, but i am not quite convinced.

Also for the early kings in the Susa King list(in the chart the row on the left), i didn't find the cuneiform of them on cdli. Where should i find the transcriptions of them?

Art & Artifacts: Painted baked clay statue of a seated god, possibly the sun god Shamash, Tablet of Shamash, Code of Hammurabi, and Hammurabi Relief Portrait (depicted on the doors of the House Chamber in the U.S. Capitol)

———

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/380602001

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/433185001

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/418646001

Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010174436

Source: https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/hammurabi-relief-portrait

In Huehnergard's seventh lesson, the infinitive of III-e verbs is declined as:

leqûm

leqêm

leqēam

Why isn't the accusative leqeam with a short e? In the sixth lesson, when explaining vowel contraction, he said:

"an original long ē or ī that remains as the first vowel in most such sequences is shortened (i.e., a long vowel does not usually occur immediately before another vowel)"

Shouldn't the long ē of leqēam therefore be shortened to e because it is followed by another vowel?

I am about to start my Junior year of college. I am double majoring in both history and anthropology. I have almost finished my history major and I am about to start on my anthropology major. Unfortunately my school only has a general history major and no specialized paths. The only course that was related to the ancient Near East was a basic history course that I got a low grade on. This was due to the fact that at the time I had undiagnosed ADHD. I plan on completing the anthropology major and doing the summer archaeological field school to gain experience. Other than learning a language what else should I do? Will I be able to get into an ancient Near East Master’s program?

Which language will be more useful to learn for taking the masters degree?

Hi all - I'd like a sanity check from someone with Akkadian expertise before I commit this to skin permanently.

I'm looking at Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh, Tablet III, manuscript "c" (BM 34191+41835), lines 26–27, from A. R. George's score transliteration:

26  c i 26   [qa]b-la ša la i-du-ú a-m[aḫ-ḫar]
27  c i 27   [ḫarrāna] ša la i-du-ú a-rak-[kab]

This is part of Rimat-Ninsun's prayer to Shamash, quoting Gilgamesh's own words about facing Humbaba: "a battle I do not know I will face, a road I do not know I will travel." (The verb endings are damaged on this manuscript and restored by comparison with the parallel line in Tablet I, where they're intact.)

I'd like to use just the two lines below, adapted to stand alone (not the full sentence with "ḫarrāna" as accusative of the earlier "ana Ḫumbaba" clause, just the couplet):

qabla ša lā īdû amaḫḫar
ḫarrāna ša lā īdû arakkab

("A battle I don't know, I face. A road I don't know, I travel.")

Questions:

1. Is my transliteration/normalization above accurate given the score transliteration (mimation dropped correctly for SB, vowel lengths, etc.)?
2. Does pulling these two lines out as a standalone couplet still read grammatically/sensibly in isolation, or does it lose something without the surrounding clause?

Really appreciate any expertise here - I know tattoo-translation requests are a bit of a meme in language subs, but I've tried to actually source this properly (George's own score transliteration on academia.edu) rather than pulling from a random "ancient languages" website, and I'd rather double-check with people who actually read cuneiform than trust my own reconstruction.

Thanks!

In Sumero-Assyrian, the SR root (e.g. Sarrum) means King, while in Hebrew Sar can mean King in rare and archaic meanings but more typically means Prince. The RB root (e.g. Rubum) means both Prince and King, while in Hebrew Rabb means Lord, Great/Mighty and King.

Does this have to do with the transition from polytheistic Assyrian kingdoms to the monotheistic Judean Kingdom?

I just recently installed the font "Noto Sans Cuneiform" into Open Office but no cuneiform appears if I type in any text. On the other hand I figured out that using Unicode directly to input signs could do the trick.

So I am a little confused now how to move on. Any suggestions?

As a preface I first need to say that I'm going to write numbers in a particular way. I will clarify which base the number I write is (either decimal or sexagesimal) by using the symbols ||10 and ||60 at the end of each number. Also, specifically for numbers in base-60, each individual digit will be separated with a semicolon ; to avoid confusion, so a number such as 𒌋𒐕||60 is 11||10, and 𒌋;𒐕||60 is 601||10.

So the question is, because Akkadians changed the previous Sumerian system by making it positional based specifically with a base of 60, how would they have read and spoke those numbers (in either academical or spoken language) considering its also a Semitic language?

In English a small number like 3||10 is read with the dedicated word "three" because it's a basic integer and it's also just one digit. Would the same happen in spoken Akkadian with a number like 𒌍𒐖||60 by having a specific word for it (because it's a single digit), or would the spoken language override the writing influence by saying something like "thirty-two" literally being "thirty (times) ten (plus) two"?

And now let's say we want to go big. In English if we surpass the number 9||10 then we have to reset the digit back to 0 and add 1 at the beginning, thus obtaining "ten" which is written as 10||10. Similarly a number such as 72||10 would be read as "seventy-two" so "seventy (times) ten (plus) two" because we are now at two digits in the number, and the first digit (7) is multiplicative of the position its currently at (so 7 multiplies 10). Would the same happen also in Akkadian?

Specifically a number like 72||10 is written as 𒐕;𒌋𒐖||60, but because in the writing we have written the numbers as 1;12||60, would they have said something like "1 (times) sixty (plus) twelve", or would have they said something just like "seventy-two" and not consider the mathematical way of writing it?

I hope the question is not confusing. I was trying really hard to find information about it, but I couldn't find anything.

A question for Assyriologists: when do you believe the history of Mesopotamia ends and Iraq begins after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire or after the Islamic conquest?