Materials for the Study of First Millennium B.C. Babylonian Texts ...

Matrials for the Study of the First Millennium B.C. Babylonian Texts vol. 1. Chronological List
1. Introduction
Since the publication of the Chronological List of the Ur III texts 1 the attention of
several scholars were drawn to the lack of information in the same field concerning the
First Millennium B.C. The first attempt to complete our knowledge concerning this period
were realized by M. Dandamayev 2 . Next year R. Zadok published a comprehensive study
on the geographical repartition of the material 3 . Several studies were elaborated for the
reconstruction of the first millennium B.C. Babylonian chronology 4 . The first volume of the
“Materials for the Study of the First Millennium B.C. Babylonian Texts” is intended to
present the material in chronological order. It was completed in September 2000.
The “Materials for the Study of the First Millennium B.C. Babylonian Texts” is a series of
volumes whose logical structure can be described as follows:
1. Chronological List of Babylonian Texts from the First Millennium B.C. Babylonia,
2. Geographical List of Babylonian Texts from the First Millennium B.C. Babylonia,
3. Personal Names of Babylonian Texts from the First Millennium B.C. Babylonia,
4. Thematic Selections from the Babylonian Texts from the First Millennium B.C.
Babylonia,
5. Publication of Text Editions of Babylonian Texts from the First Millennium B.C.
Babylonia.
The final goal of all these volumes is to define a concrete position in the space-time
continuum for the documents at our disposal. Electronic version of the “Materials for the
Study of the First Millennium B.C. Babylonian Texts” is available on the Internet since
1997 5 .
All cuneiform texts written between 979 B.C and A.D. 38 are considered Babylonian
documents of the first millennium B.C. These documents came from Babylonia itself and
from the neighbouring geographical areas. From the period 979 B.C. – A.D. 38 we are
aware of 55204 such published texts. Of these 27203 can be dated. Republished texts were
excluded from the current volume. This makes us a total of 18350 different texts. With the
help of the geographical and personal names dates of several hundred documents were
reconstructed.
The first three letters of the ruler names of given period were used for their
abbreviation. For easy use the conventional Assyriological abbreviations 6 and
1 Sigrist, M. - Gomi T., The Comprehensive Catalogue of Published Ur III Tablets, Bethesda 1991.
2 Dandamayev, M.A., Slavery in Babylonia, De-Kalb, Illinois 1984, pp. 7-18.
3 Zadok, R., Geographical Names According to New- and Late-Babylonian Texts, (Répertoire
Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes VIII), Wiesbaden 1985.
4 Brinkman, J.A., A Preliminary Catalogue of Written Sources for a Political History of Babylonia: 1160-722 B.C.,
JCS 16 (1962) 83-109, Oelsner, J., Materialen zur babylonischen Gesellschaft und Kultur in hellenistischer Zeit,
Budapest 1986, Brinkman, J.A. - Kennedy, D.A., Documentary Evidence for the Economic Base of Early
Neo-Babylonian Society: A Survey of Dated Babylonian Economic Texts, 721-626 B.C. JCS 35 (1983) 1-90
and JCS 38 (1986) 99-106.
5 1997-200: http://www.nexus.hu/enkidu/enkidu.html and 2000-2013: http://web.t-online.hu/enkidu/.
6 Borger, R., Handbuch der Keilschrifttexte, I-III, Berlin 1967-1975, and Gasche, H. - Degrave, A. - Jannsen,
C., Outils Bibliographiques, Mesopotamian History and Evironement Series I, Northern Akkad Project
Version of September 2000, 2