Texts and impressions : a holistic approach to Ur III cuneiform tablets from the University of Pennsylvania expeditions to Nippur / Atsuko Hattori.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Hattori, Atsuko.

Contributor:

Zettler, Richard L., 1949- advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Ancient history.

Ancient history--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Ancient history.

Ancient history--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

xix, 414 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Production:

2002.

Summary:

Nippur, the center of Sumerian culture, located about 120 miles south of modern day Baghdad, Iraq, produced important cuneiform documents for 2000 years, from the middle of the third millennium B.C. The University of Pennsylvania launched the first U.S. archaeological expeditions to the Middle East, called the Babylonian Expeditions to this huge 150 ha. site in the late nineteenth century.

Although the early Nippur collection at Penn became the most well-published cuneiform collection in the world, philologists published only texts while archaeologists were preoccupied with architecture and objects. Thus the two disciplines were hardly integrated although the Nippur excavation results from the twentieth century have been the subject of an integrated archaeo-philological approach.

This thesis studies the Nippur administrative documents from the Ur III period (2112--2008 BC) utilizing both archaeological and philological information, namely, the cuneiform texts and excavation records in the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Half of the excavated material is in Istanbul, Turkey and Jena, Germany. Their evidence is also used whenever possible.

The study of excavation records suggests that most of the texts were found in Mound X and that some texts recorded from Umma were in fact found in Nippur. Also the study provides additional evidence for mobility of people and tablets at the period.

Careful examination of clay tablets and their cases has resulted in about two dozen new joins and the identification of 488 seals, from which more prosopographical and iconographical information of Ur III Nippur have been extracted.

The classification of tablet size, shape and sealing method, identification of seals and textual study provides additional evidence of the resilient power of the local elite family, the house of Ur-me-me, against the Ur III dynasty which tried to break down the local family.

Notes:

Supervisor: Richard L. Zettler.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Ancient History) -- University of Pennsylvania, 2002.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 3054948.

OCLC:

244972066