The Lexical Texts from Old Babylonian Ṭabatum
Weidner God List from Ṭabatum Tab T07-01. Photograph © Hirotoshi Numoto (2009), Plate 47.
Tell Taban, in northern Syria on the Habur, was excavated by an expedition of Kokushikan University under the direction of Hirotoshi Numoto from 1997 to 2007. The expedition recovered remains from the Middle Uruk period to the Hellenistic period. Among the approximately 25 Old Babylonian tablets, dated to the second half of the eighteenth century, were three school texts including a copy of the so-called Weidner God List, a sign list, combining TuTaTi and Syllabary A, and a metrological list. The Weidner God List, TuTaTi, and Syllabary A belong to the very elementary phase of scribal education. The exemplar of the Weidner God List (Tab T07-01) was published by Shibata (2009).
In the Old Babylonian period the city was called Ṭābatum; it is mentioned in documents from Mari and Chagar Bazar. Letters by Iddin-Dagan, governor of Ṭābatum, to king Zimri-Lim demonstrate that the city was part of the Mari kingdom in the first half of the eighteenth century. The documents excavated at Ṭābatum date to the period after Hammurabi had defeated and destroyed Mari. Several of the Ṭābatum documents mention Iṣi-Sumuabi, king of Terqa and contemporary of Samsuiluna of Babylon.
Ṭābatum is one of the most northern findspots of traditional scribal exercises in the Old Babylonian period. Finds at Hammam at-Turkman, Mari and Terqa confirm that this scribal tradition had travelled far outside of the Babylonian heartland.
27 Dec 2019
Further reading
- Numoto, Hirotoshi 2009 Excavations at Tell Taban, Hassake, Syria: Preliminary Report on the 2007 Season of Excavations. Pp. 1-85 in Excavations at Tell Taban, Hassake, Syria. Preliminary Report on the 2007 Season of Excavations, and the Study of Cuneiform Texts, ed. Hirotoshi Numoto. Tokyo: Kokushikan University.
- Numoto, Hirotoshi, Daisuke Shibata, and Shigeo Yamada 2013 Excavations at Tell Taban: Continuity and Transition in Local Traditions at Ṭābatum/Ṭābetu during the second Millennium BC. Pp. 167-180 in 100 Jahre archäologische Feldforschung in Nordost Syrien - eine Bilanz. Internationales Symposium des Instituts für Vorderasiatische Archäologie der Freien Universität Berlin und des Vorderasiatischen Museums der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin vom 21. Juli bis 23. Juli 2011 im Pergamonmuseum., eds. Dominik Bonatz und Lutz Martin. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
- Shibata, Daisuke 2009 An Old Babylonian manuscript of the Weidner god-list from Tell Taban. Iraq 71: 43-52.
- Shibata, Daisuke, and Shigeo Yamada 2009 The Cuneiform Texts from the 2007 Excavations at Tell Taban: A Preliminary Report. Pp. 87-109 in Excavations at Tell Taban, Hassake, Syria. Preliminary Report on the 2007 Season of Excavations, and the Study of Cuneiform Texts, ed. Hirotoshi Numoto. Tokyo: Kokushikan University.
- Yamada, Shigeo 2008 A Preliminary Report on the Old Babylonian Texts from the Excavation of Tell Taban in the 2005 and 2006 Seasons: The Middle Euphrates and Habur Areas in the Post-Hammurabi Period. Al-Rafidan. Journal of Western Asiatic Studies 29.
- Yamada, Shigeo 2011 A pudûm rotation list from Tell Taban and the Cultural Milieu of Ṭabatum in the Post-Hammurabi Period. Revue d'Assyriologie 105: 137-156. Online (subscription needed).
- Yamada, Shigeo 2011 An Adoption Contract from Tell Taban, the Kings of the Land of Hana, and the Hana-Style Scribal Tradition. Revue d'Assyriologie 105: 61-84. Online (subscription needed).
- Ziegler, Nele 2011 Iddin-Dagan, un gestionnaire à Ṭâbatum. Revue d'Assyriologie 105: 17-34. Online (subscription needed).
Niek Veldhuis
Niek Veldhuis, 'The Lexical Texts from Old Babylonian Ṭabatum', Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts, The DCCLT Project, 2019 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/lexicallistsperiods/oldbabylonian/batum/]