A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture, and Literature - enenuru

Administrative Texts 93
activities. In short, there are administrative and economic texts
dealing with practically every conceivable activity and reflecting
complex government bureaucracy and economic activity.
The small vertical wedge (.), which is normally a word divider
in Ugaritic, is employed in a strikingly different manner in some
administrative texts. Many texts do not use the vertical wedge as a
word divider. Other texts use the vertical divider as a syntactical
marker, setting off columns as in a ledger. 2
The student can consult UBD for a complete bibliography,
although each individual text is supplied with a current
bibliography.
4.1 AN AGRICULTURAL RECORD (KTU 4.143)
4.1.1 Text (KTU 4.143)
4.143:1 b.gt.mlkt.b.r bn
4.143:2 m m.l.metm.zt
4.143:3 w.bd.krd
4.143:4 m m.l.met
4.143:5 arbo.kbd
4.1.2 Transcription (KTU 4.143)
4.143:1 b . gt . mlkt . b . rhbn
4.143:2 h˙msûm . l . m}itm . zt
4.143:3 w . bd . krd
4.143:4 h˙msûm . l . m}it
4.143:5 }arb{ . kbd
4.1.3 Notes on KTU 4.143
1 gt, “agricultural/royal estate,” etymologically related to the
2 See W. Horwitz, “Graphemic Representation of Word Boundary: The Small
Vertical Wedge in Ugaritic” (Ph.D. dissertation; Yale University, 1971),
105–21; “The Ugaritic Scribe,” UF 11 (1979), 389–94; also see F. Mabie,
Scribal Syntactical Markings in Texts from El-Amarna and Ugarit (Ph.D.
dissertation, UCLA; Ann Arbor, UMI, 2004).