. If a Man Builds a Joyful House: Assyriological Studies in Honor of Erle Verdun Leichty . Cuneiform Monographs Editors t. abusch – m.j. geller – m.p. maidman s.m. maul – f.a.m. wiggerman VOLUME 31 . If a Man Builds a Joyful House: Assyriological Studies in Honor of Erle Verdun Leichty Edited by Ann K. Guinan, Maria deJ. Ellis, A.J. Ferrara, Sally M. Freedman, Matthew T. Rutz, Leonhard Sassmannshausen, Steve Tinney, and M.W. Waters BRILL LEIDEN · BOSTON 2006 . This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on http://catalog.loc.gov ISSN 0929-0052 ISBN-10 90 04 14632 6 ISBN-13 978 90 04 14632 7 © Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands If a man builds a joyful house … … that man will be joyful! Erle Verdun Leichty’s enthusiasm is boundless. Whether he is talking to colleagues, students, or lay people, he communicates an insatiable curiosity and excitement about the field of Assyriology and the fun- damental humanity of its long-forgotten subjects. … the bounty of that house will increase! In applying his considerable energy and talents to his research projects, Erle is indefatigable. He spends long, often frustrating hours con- tending with the formidable challenges of reading, interpreting, and cataloguing cuneiform tablets. … the gods will accept his gifts! variant: the attainment of wishes! Erle has touched many facets of the field with his generosity. Through his tacit inclusiveness, he has made each of his students immediately feel like part of the “in group.” Because of his wide ranging interests, education, and on-going research, he has become a channel of that more recent “stream of tradition,” the oral history (and mythology) of the field. His editorial work is a model of service to the scholarly community. His philanthropy and dedication have touched many projects in the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, where he continues to augment the research library. … that house will endure! Erle’smost enduring contribution is his body of published work, which continues to grow. Any research in cuneiform philology will eventu- ally consult one of the results of his labors, be it his standard edition of Summaˇ izbu, the Akkadian and Sumerian dictionary projects to which he has contributed, his on-going efforts to help catalogue tablets in the British Museum, or his forthcoming edition of Neo-Assyrian his- torical texts from the reign of Esarhaddon. … all who enter that house will be joyful! The editors and contributors of this volume count themselves fortunate to have entered Erle’s house and it is with joyful hearts that we honor him with this token of our esteem, affection, and gratitude. … the builder of that house will be praised! Erle Verdun Leichty CONTENTS Foreword xi Abbreviations xiii Bibliography of Erle Verdun Leichty xxiii Tzvi Abusch Lists of Therapeutic Plants: An Observation 1 Paul-Alain Beaulieu The Astronomers of the Esagil Temple in the Fourth Century BC 5 J.A. Brinkman The Use of Occupation Names as Patronyms in the Kassite Period: A Forerunner of Neo-Babylonian Ancestral Names? 23 Jeanny V.Canby Early Dynastic Plaque Fragments 45 Miguel Civil be5/pe-en-zé-er = bis.s.uru¯ 55 Mark E. Cohen A Small Old Babylonian Army of A-pí-ru-ú 63 Barry L. Eichler Cuneiform Studies at Penn: From Hilprecht to Leichty 87 Richard S. Ellis Well, Dog My Cats! A Note on the uridimmu 111 A.J. Ferrara The Size and Versions of Inanna’s Descent 127 I.L. Finkel On an Izbu VII Commentary 139 Sally Freedman BM 129092: A Commentary on Snake Omens 149 M.J. Geller Practice or Praxis 167 A.R. George Babylonian Texts from the Folios of Sidney Smith, Part Three 173 vii Contents William W. Hallo Another Ancient Antiquary 187 Atsuko Hattori The Return of the Governor 197 Anne Draffkorn Kilmer Visualizing Text: Schematic Patterns in Akkadian Poetry 209 Jacob Klein An “Old Akkadian” Sale Document of Unknown Provenance 223 W.G. Lambert Enbilulu and the Calendar 237 M.P.Maidman A Stray Nuzi Text from Belgium 243 Piotr Michalowski How to Read the Liver—In Sumerian 247 D.I. Owen and E. Wasilewska Cuneiform Texts in Utah Collections 259 J. Polonsky The Mesopotamian Conceptualization of Birth and the Determi- nation of Destiny at Sunrise 297 Erica Reiner † If Mars Comes Close to Pegasus … 313 John F.Robertson Nomads, Barbarians, and Societal Collapse in the Historiography of Ancient Southwest Asia 325 F.Rochberg Old Babylonian Celestial Divination 337 Martha T. Roth Elder Abuse: LH §195 349 JoAnn Scurlock and Farouk Al-Rawi A Weakness for Hellenism 357 T.M. Sharlach The Case of the Family that Fled 383 Marcel Sigrist Droit de pêche: Tablette St. Étienne 26 391 viii Contents Åke W. Sjöberg Some Emar Lexical Entries 401 Clyde Curry Smith Some Footnotes to the History of Assyriology: Leonard William King of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania 431 Ira Spar, Thomas J. Logan, James P.Allen Two Neo-Babylonian Texts of Foreign Workmen 443 Matthew W. Stolper Parysatis in Babylon 463 Claudia E. Suter F for Fake? Two Early Mesopotamian-Looking Objects in a Swiss Collection 473 Niek Veldhuis Divination: Theory and Use 487 M.W. Waters Four Brothers and a Throne 499 Richard L. Zettler Tisatalˇ and Nineveh at the End of the 3rd Millennium BCE 503 Indexes 515 ix FOREWORD It is a distinct pleasure for those who know Erle Verdun Leichty as a teacher, colleague, and friend to present this volume in honor of his substantial and wide-ranging contributions to Assyriology. Erle’s publications (pages xxiii– xxvii below) are a witness to his interest in a variety of topics and his facility for dealing with a broad spectrum of texts—always with an eye on the panoramic sweep of Mesopotamian history. The editors and contributors alike have benefited from Erle’s willingness to share not only his extensive knowledge, but also the fruits of his hard work and long hours cataloguing tablets in the British Museum. Barry Eichler’s contribution to the present volume (pages 87–109) details the scope of Erle’s contributions and the many ways in which he has worked to support Assyriological research. The title of this volume is an adaptation of an omen from Summaˇ Alu¯ that was selected by the editors as a fitting homage to the breadth of Erle’s scholarship, his contributions to the infrastructure of the field, and his singular generosity of spirit. The editors would like to thank Geerd Haayer for his advice and help. As with every other Styx publication, his craftmanship can be found on every page of this volume. We are also happy to thank the following individuals for generously offering their invaluable assistance in seeing this project to completion: Kevin Danti, Richard Ellis, Charles Kline, John Kessler, Nicholas Picardo, Christopher B.F. Walker, and Richard Zettler. Matthew Rutz, one of the editors of this volume, was also the technical editor in charge of all the final details involved in preparing the manuscript for submission. He carried out these tasks with diligence, common sense, and good humor. We are all in his debt. xi ABBREVIATIONS The abbreviations employed in this volume follow Akkadisches Handwörter- buch (AHw I, 1965; II, 1972; III, 1981), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Uni- versity of Chicago (CAD R, 1999), The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (PSD A/3, 1998), and The Comprehensive Catalogue of Published Ur III Tablets (ed. Marcel Sigrist and Tohru Gomi; Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1991). The two principal exceptions are published proceedings of the Ren- contre Assyriologique Internationale (here CRRAI) and Festschriften (here Studies). Others are listed below. Additional abbreviations adopted by the contributors are defined at the beginning of their contribution. AAICAB Grégoire, Jean-Pierre. Archives Administratives et In- scriptions Cunéiformes de l’Ashmolean Museum et de la Bodleian Collection d’Oxford. Vol. I: Les Sources. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1996– ABCD Rochberg, F. Aspects of Babylonian Celestial Divination: The Lunar Eclipse Tablets of Enuma¯ Anu Enlil.Archiv für Orientforschung, Beiheft 22. Horn: Verlag Ferdinand Berger & Söhne, 1988 ABD The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 volumes. New York: Doubleday, 1992 AION Annali dell’Istituto universitario orientale Napoli (Naples) AMD Ancient Magic and Divination (Groningen / Leiden) ANB American National Biography (Oxford) As Field numbers for objects from Tell Asmar (Iraq) AuOr Aula Orientalis. Revista de estudios del Próximo Oriente Antiguo (Barcelona) AuOrS Aula Orientalis Supplementa (Barcelona) BA Beiträge zur Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwis- senschaft (Leipzig / Baltimore) BA Biblical Archaeologist (Cambridge, Mass.) BaF Baghdader Forschungen (Mainz) BaM Baghdader Mitteilungen (Berlin) BR = Kohler u. Peiser, Rechtsleben CANE Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack Sasson. 4 volumes.New York: Scribner and Sons, 1995 CBCY Catalogue of the Babylonian Collections at Yale (Bethesda, Md.) CDA A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian.2nd edition. Edited by Jeremy W. Black, Andrew R. George, and J. Nicholas Postgate. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000 CJ Classical Journal (Pittsburgh) xiii Abbreviations CM Cuneiform Monographs (Groningen / Leiden) CRRAI 2 (1951) Compte rendu de la seconde rencontre assyriologique internationale.