303 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — SYRIË 304 Scholars, but Also for the Place
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303 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — SYRIË 304 scholars, but also for the place it held in its own day. Though by no means closing down the possibility of comparison, recognition of this latter form of uniqueness renders ques- tionable older lines of research that treated Ugaritic evidence as representative of broader cultural phenomena. With vast and varied resources at hand, cultural forms once treated in isolation can now be studied within their local contexts— political, social, economic, and intellectual. Thanks to researches ranging from the analysis of animal bones to the contemplation of cult, Ugarit has begun to emerge—perhaps more than any other Bronze Age site—as a cultural whole. At the same time, advances in the study of sites contempo- rary with Ugarit—themselves often quite rich in textual and archaeological data—has made it possible to root Ugarit’s experience firmly within the broader history of the Late Bronze Age. The contributions that most succeed at vitaliz- ing the volume’s stated purpose of laying out new directions for research are those that build creatively from this richness of primary evidence, drawing connections between its differ- ent parts in order to elucidate an ancient culture in all its particularity. SYRIË Part One comprises five articles. J. A. ZAMORA LÓPEZ’s essay raises thought-provoking questions about the relation- MICHAUD, J.-M. (ed.) — Le royaume d’Ougarit de la Crète ship between script and its material support as a culturally à l’Euphrate. Nouveaux axes de recherche. Actes du significant choice, rendering epigraphy not simply a prepara- congrès international de Sherbrooke 2005. (Collection tory science but one with deep political and cultural implica- Proche-Orient et Littérature Ougaritique, II). G.G.C. tions of its own. Other articles in the section reinforce and Éditions, Sherbrooke, 2007. (23 cm, XV, 654). ISBN expand upon the notion of epigraphy’s cultural significance. 978-2-89444-226-5. $ 60.00. D. PARDEE’s contribution—an epigraphic study of the first tablet of the Ba‘lu poem (RS 3.361 = 1)—is valuable This collection of essays is the product of a conference CTA not only for its insights into an important literary fragment held at the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada) in July 2005. (Pardee addresses matters pertaining to the scribal hand and The gathering was the first major convention of scholars of the proper recto-verso orientation of the tablet), but also as a Ugarit in North America since the February 1979 symposium lucid presentation of his methodology for undertaking on Ugarit at the University of Wisconsin, and the first ever Ugaritic epigraphy more generally. Pardee’s treatment of in Canada. The volume commemorates this event by present- alphabetic cuneiform is complemented by the contribution of ing in print the opening remarks of J.-M. MICHAUD, the con- F. ERNST-PRADAL, which lays out the organizing principles ference organizer, and M. YON, the director of the Mission and preliminary results of a project to identify scribal hands de Ras Shamra from 1978-1998, followed by twenty-five in the logo-syllabic documents from Ugarit. Such study of articles organized according to four rubrics: (I) Un héritage scribal practices takes on broader cultural significance when , (II) , (III) , culturel Au coeur du Levant Un royaume singulier considered in light of what scholars can now begin to say and (IV) . The volume con- L’univers religieux d’Ougarit about the careers of individual scribes and their participation cludes with helpful subject, author, and text indices. in the intellectual, political, and economic life of Ugarit. The As indicated in the collection’s subtitle, a central ambition prosopographical study “Urtenu Ur-Tesub” by F. MALBRAN- of the volume is to identify and explore new directions for LABAT and C. ROCHE is a model for such research. The two research on ancient Ugarit. The collection’s title implies that French scholars mine the recent finds from the “House of these new directions are most profitably to be developed by Urtenu” to reveal an interlocking world of scribal families, studying the kingdom of Ugarit within its cultural universe, business partners, and political functionaries that held influ- one that extended from Crete to the Euphrates. There is much ence at the royal court and maintained contacts from Emar to be said for such an approach. The extensive participation to points along the Mediterranean coast. Taken as a whole, of members of the Ras Shamra team in the volume—epigra- this section opens up valuable new avenues for epigraphical phists and archaeologists, scholars of literature and historians research and its cultural implications. (An exception is F. of administration—points to the rich primary data from ISRAEL’s essay, which explores Amorite heritage at Ugarit Ugarit as the natural starting-point for such investigations. In through onomastic studies of three literary/mythological fig- her introductory statement, Yon comments upon the excep- ures and so does not bear directly upon questions of scribal tional quantity and variety of documentation that has emerged activity.) from Ugarit since the first excavations in 1929: “on peut The title of Part Two promises a shift of focus to Ugarit’s constater que peu de sites ont l’avantage d’avoir à la fois de place within the broader Bronze Age world. M.-G. MASETTI- si considérables restes archéologiques…et une telle diversité ROUAULT’s essay “La Route du Moyen-Euphrate à la fin de épigraphique, aussi bien par le nombre de langues représen- l’Âge du Bronze” and G. BECKMAN’s “Ugarit and Inner tées que par la nature des texts” (3). As research on Ras Syria during the Late Bronze Age” deliver upon this promise Shamra has advanced, it has become clearer that Ugarit is not by comparing Ugarit to cities of the Syrian interior—princi- only unique for the sources it has made available to modern pally Terqa in the former case and Emar in the latter. Through 995569_Bior_2012_3-4_03_Boekbesp.indd5569_Bior_2012_3-4_03_Boekbesp.indd 281281 117/09/127/09/12 113:543:54 305 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXIX N° 3-4, mei-augustus 2012 306 comparing the stratigraphy of Ugarit and sites along the Mid- often little methodological reflection in studies of Ugaritic dle Euphrates, Masetti-Rouault is able to show that the Hit- religion, the correctives Xella offers are inadequate in that tite expansion in the fifteenth century held radically different they tend to rest on outdated categories from the History of consequences for the coastal city than it did for areas inland. Religions (Pettazzoni, Eliade). D. T. TSUMURA’s topic, the Beckman, focusing on the Hittite imperial period from the Chaoskampf motif in Ugaritic and Hebrew literature, is at mid-fourteenth to twelfth centuries, sets the groundwork for least as old as W. F. Albright’s essay “Zabûl Yam and Thâpi† viewing Ugarit as having participated in a single political, Nahar in the Combat between Baal and the Sea” (JPOS 16 economic, and cultural system. H. NIEHR’s essay touches [1936]: 17-20), and this latest contribution only serves to upon connections between Ugaritic and Hittite (and Hurrian) manifest how tired the discussion has become. B. MULLER’s culture from a different angle, namely, the “topography of contribution conveniently groups the iconographic attesta- death” as revealed through an integrated study of texts and tions of deities at Ugarit; the modest piece will prove useful archaeological remains. Other articles in this section reveal for future interpretive work on divine images, even if it itself Ugarit’s place in the broader Late Bronze Age world through is limited in this regard. By contrast, N. WYATT’s essay on the study of trade and the production of goods. C. MANI and the Rephaim is characteristically wide-ranging, drawing con- J.-Y. MONCHAMBERT provide a synopsis of new research on nections between Ugaritic, biblical, and classical sources, ceramics at Ugarit, weighing the evidence for imports against and even one Talmudic text. In its eagerness to identify par- that of local production. V. MATOÏAN offers a study of faience allels at all costs, however, the piece ultimately reveals the as a window onto relations between Ugarit and other regions poverty of its approach—once the dizziness settles, one is in the eastern Mediterranean. A. CAUBET’s contribution left no better informed of how any of the cultures at play focuses on luxury-goods, treating such issues as the importa- may themselves have understood the material under discus- tion of raw materials, local workmanship, and the distribu- sion and what role each item may have played in its respec- tion of wealth beyond the palace. As a complement to such tive local context. A far more sober venture into the history papers that look at the production and circulation of goods of traditions is the contribution of P. BORDREUIL. Investigat- from the perspective of archaeology, Juan-Pablo VITA pro- ing the background to Ezekiel’s famous references to Noah, vides a discussion of texts discovered in the palace archives Daniel, and Job (Ezek 14:20 and 28:3), Bordreuil convinc- relating to textiles, by means of which he is able to deduce ingly argues that the prophet must have had access to tradi- aspects of Ugaritic administrative procedure. The article is tions about these three figures (especially Daniel and Noah) particularly valuable for the refined categories that Vita significantly different from the ones that have been canon- introduces in order to move beyond the imprecise catch-all ized in the biblical text. Though perhaps not representative term “administrative text,” and for the focus he places on of a particularly new research direction, the essay stands tes- trying to determine the function of each text-type within the tament to what traditional philology can still accomplish palace system.