Early Dynastic Lexical Texts

The third millennium lexical tradition consists of three different 'layers.' A very conservative group of lexical compositions (the all-Babylonian tradition) may be encountered everywhere and was transmitted word for word from the archaic period in the late fourth millennium all the way to the Old Babylonian period (ca. 1800 BCE). In addition, we find regional as well as local lexical traditions.

The all-Babylonian Tradition

ED Lu A	Professions
ED Vessels and Garments	Vessels, foodstuffs, garments
ED Word List C	Agricultural terms; numbers
ED Metals	Metal objects
ED Trees and Wooden Objects	Trees and wooden objects
ED Cattle	Domestic animals
ED Officials	Official titles; wind directions; unclear terms
ED Fish	Fish and fish products
ED Cities	City names
ED Word List F	Mixed vocabulary
ED Food	Numbers; grain products; meat.
ED Birds	Bird names
ED Plants	Mixed vocabulary with names of vegetables

The Lexical Lists of the all-Babylonian Tradition

The third millennium all-Babylonian tradition consists of a group of thirteen compositions that all derive from the archaic period. These compositions were faithfully copied, word for word, for about one and a half millennium. In most cases the lists were adapted to reflect the changes in orthography that were introduced over the centuries. However, the most frequently attested compostion, the list of professions ED Lu A preserves very archaic words and spellings, and individual exemplars that were written hundreds of years apart hardly differ from each other.

The all-Babylonian tradition is not only found in Babylonia proper (Ur, Šuruppak, Nippur, Abu-Salabikh, and other places), but also in other areas were cuneiform was used, such as Ebla in the West, Nagar (Tell Brak) in the North, and Susa in the East. In all these place the lists provided the scribes with a body of ancient knowledge that connected them to learned scribes of all ages.

VAT 9130; copy of ED Lu A from Šuruppak with line drawing on the back. Photograph © Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.

By far the most frequently copied composition is the list of professions ED Lu A which contains many titles and professions that were in use in the archaic period, but in the mean time had fallen out of use. Occasionally, beautifully written copies of such texts are decorated with line drawings on the back, as in the example here.

Several of the all-Babylonian lexical compositions are thematic listings of words, including ED Fish and ED Birds. Other compositions, such as ED Word List C, and ED Officials are much harder to understand. The list known as ED Plants includes many names of vegetables, but also wind directions and proverb-like entries, such as:

The ZI/ZI.A-li-bird is sitting on the ledge of the sheepfold.
The TAR-bird pays a fee to the plow ox.

Another enigmatic composition is ED Word List C, which includes a long list of commodities with indication of quantities, such as:

five measures of salt
five measures of cuscuta
five measures of halub berries
five ducks
five red goats
ten TU-sheep
ten fat-tailed sheep
one milk cow
etc.

The entire section of commodities of more than 25 lines is repeated - for unknown purposes (see Civil 2013).

As the above examples show, the corpus of all-Babylonian lexical texts is a rather mixed bag and there is much in there that is not fully understood. The ancient scribes studied these texts intensively and valued them as knowledge from the past.

Regional: The Northern Tradition

ED Lu E	Professions
ED Animals B	Domestic animals; wild animals
ED Practical Vocabulary A	Mixed vocabulary
ED Names and Professions	Inventory of people
ED Geography A	Northern place names

The Lexical Lists of the Northern Tradition

The most important third millennium regional tradition is the Northern group, which may have originated in the city of Kiš, which was the seat of an important kingdom. In comparison to the all-Babylonian tradition, the Northern tradition is less tied to a heritage of hoary antiquity and is more relevant for actual scribal practice. The five compositions that belong to this group were introduced in the mid-third millennium and are primarily known from Ebla in the West and from Abu-Salabikh at the southern-most edge of Northern Babylonia. The dominant language of Northern Babylonia was an early form of Akkadian. In the textual record, this language is usually hidden behind the surface of the writing system, which is heavily logographic (using Sumerian words to write Akkadian). It is likely that the lexical lists of the Northern tradition were also read in Akkadian, not in Sumerian.

One of the Northern texts, ED Lu E, is a list of professions, much like the ubiquitous ED Lu A of the all-Babylonian tradition. Whereas ED Lu A is ancient composition with entries that were already outdated early in the third millennium, ED Lu E lists professions that were current in the mid-third millennium.

Local: Ebla

The city of Ebla, far West of the Sumerian heartland, yielded an impressive number of lexical texts, including compositions that are not known from elsewhere and may have a local origin. The lexical texts of Ebla belong to the palace archives of a powerful kingdom that interacted with Nagar (Tell Brak) in Northern Syria, with Kiš in Babylonia and with Mari on the Euphrates.

Among the Ebla lexical texts we find examples of the all-Babylonian tradition, the regional Northern tradition, as well as compositions that are entirely unprecedented and belong to a local tradition. This local tradition includes the Ebla Sign List, extant in two exemplars and a number of acrographic lists (the so-called Eš₂-bar-kin₅ lists), ordered by first sign. One version of the Eš₂-bar kin₅ list is known in a bilingual format (extant in several copies). One exemplar of the Ebla Sign List adds pronunciation glosses to the signs.

The local scribes at Ebla thus introduced a number of important lexicographical novelties: a sign list with explanatory glosses; bilingual lists; and lists ordered by first signs (comparable to alphabetical listing in our times). Such texts and formats were unknown in Babylonian proper and would only be re-invented in the Old Babylonian period, several centuries later.

27 Dec 2019

Early Dynastic Lexical Texts

The all-Babylonian Tradition

Regional: The Northern Tradition

Local: Ebla

Further reading