The Lexical Texts from Old Babylonian Ešnunna

TA 1931-579; exercise text from Ešnunna. Drawing © Miguel Civil (1975).

The city of Ešnunna (Tell Asmar) was an important political center in the early second millennium and played a major role in the power balance of Babylonia. Ultimately the city was defeated by Hammurabi of Babylon, who united the entire region under his rule.

Tell Asmar was excavated by the Oriental Institute, Chicago in the 1930s. The excavations yielded many important cuneiform tablets (including the so-called Laws of Ešnunna), but only one small exercise text.

The exercise from Ešnunna has the same text three times: in Sumerian on the obverse and in syllabic Sumerian and Akkadian on the reverse. This format is well-attested in Susa, but is otherwise unknown in Babylonia proper.

Further reading

• Civil, Miguel 1975 A School Exercise from Tell Asmar. Studia Orientalia 46: 39-41.

Niek Veldhuis

Niek Veldhuis, 'The Lexical Texts from Old Babylonian Ešnunna', Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts, The DCCLT Project, 2019 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/lexicallistsperiods/oldbabylonian/enunna/]