The scribes and scholars of the city of Emar in the Late Bronze Age / by Yoram Cohen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Yoram, 1968-

Series:

Harvard Semitic Studies 59.

Harvard semitic studies ; 59

Harvard semitic museum publications

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Scribes--Syria--Emar (Extinct city).

Scribes.

Scholars--Syria--Emar (Extinct city).

Scholars.

Cuneiform writing--History.

Cuneiform writing.

Bronze age--Syria--Emar (Extinct city).

Bronze age.

Intellectual life.

Emar (Extinct city)--Intellectual life.

Emar (Extinct city).

Syria--Emar (Extinct city).

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvi, 287 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Winona Lake, Ind. : Eisenbrauns, 2009.

Summary:

The city of Emar, modern Tell Meskene in Syria, is one of the most important sites of the western ancient Near East during the Late Bronze Age that have yielded cuneiform tablets. The discovery of more than one thousand tablets and tablet fragments assures Emar's position, along with Bogazkoy-Hattusa and Ras-Shamra-Ugarit, as a major scribal center. Ephemeral documents such as wills or sale contracts, texts about rituals and cultic festivals, school texts and student exercises, and inscribed seals and their impressions enable reconstruction of the Emar scribal school institution and provide materials for investigation into the lives of more than fifty scribes whose works were found in the city. The aim of this book is to place Emar's scribal school institution within its social and historical context, to observe the participation of its teachers and students in the study of the school curriculum, to investigate the role of the scribes in the daily life of the city (in particular within the administration), and to evaluate the school's and its members' position within the network of similar institutions throughout the ancient Near East.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Introduction

Schools, Scribes, and Scholars

The Syrian Scribes

Excursus: The Munbāqa-Ekalte Scribes

The Syro-Hittite Scribes and Officials, Hittite Officials, and Foreign Scribes

The Syrian Scholarly Scribes and the Syrian Tradition Scholarly Compositions

The Syro-Hittite Scholarly Scribes and the Syro-Hittite Tradition Scholarly Compositions

Concluding Remarks

Bibliography

Index of Personal Names

Index of Place Names

Index Locorum.

Notes:

Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Harvard University, 2003) presented under the title: The transmission and reception of Mesopotamian scholarly texts at the city of Emar.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-266) and indexes.

ISBN:

90-04-37004-8

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004370043 DOI