Books by Gebhard J . Selz
2022. Sumerer und Akkader. Geschichte – Gesellschaft – Kultur. München: C.H. Beck
4. durchgesehene Auflage
1989. Altsumerische Verwaltungstexte aus Lagaš Teil 1. Die altsumerischen Wirtschaftsurkunden der Eremitage zu Leningrad. Freiburger Altorientalische Studien 15.1, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
Edition of the texts published by M.V. Nikol'sij 1908: Dokumenty chozjajstvennoj otcetnostj drevn... more Edition of the texts published by M.V. Nikol'sij 1908: Dokumenty chozjajstvennoj otcetnostj drevnejsej epochi Caldi iz sobranija N.P. Lichceva san A.P. Riftin 1929, Die altsumerischen Wirtchaftstexte.
Addenda and corrigentda in G.J. Selz, 1994, Verwaltungsurkunden in der Eremitage in St. Petersburg, Acta Sumerologica (Japan), 1994, 207-229.
One of the most fundamental tasks of an Assyriologist is the reconstruction of the daily life of... more One of the most fundamental tasks of an Assyriologist is the reconstruction of the daily life of ancient Mesopotamian society from everyday documents, economic archives, and legal texts. Religious and literary texts comprise a smaller part of the ancient textual evidence, and these latter genres have gained disproportionately large attention in research. Referring to dubious endeavours aiming to reveal the Mesopotamian’s belief and intellectual achievements from sporadic and scanty sources, Ignaz Gelb dubbed this ‘the struggle between Tammuz and onions’, and the term ‘onionology’ has since become an umbrella term for ‘the study of material culture’, based on everyday economic archives. Gelb’s choice of the god Tammuz as a metaphoric expression for abstruse studies in Assyriology is justified, given that the character of Tammuz was the object of certain religious studies which have been subject to devastating reviews and re-evaluations since their publication.
Commencing as a stylistic analysis of the mythic narrative Dumuzi’s Dream, the material of the present study primarily encompasses the compositions surrounding Tammuz, the Sumerian god Dumuzi, a Near Eastern dying god. His character has fuelled previous ‘esoteric’ works more than any other god. The aim of the thesis of which this book is the publication was to contribute to studies on Sumerian literature by analysing narrative patterns in Sumerian mythic compositions, albeit narratology is itself perhaps a nebulous field in literary criticism, which can come across as ‘esoteric’. I do hope, however, that Sumerian literature gives me an excuse for this undertaking, as one of the recurring fixed formulas of the Dumuzi-corpus is the description of the galla-demons who carry off their victim, Dumuzi. According to these lines, the galla-demons ‘don’t chew garlic, they don’t eat fish, and they never eat onions.’
The present work is the revised edition of my dissertation (defended in 2021). I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. Gábor Zólyomi, Prof. Gebhard Selz, Prof. Attila Ferenczi, and Prof. József Krupp for all their help and encouragement. I would also like to thank Alexander Edmonds for proofreading my dissertation.
Wiener Offene Orientalistik 16, 2025
The central theme of the 21 essays collected here, written between 1989 and 2019, is Ancient Meso... more The central theme of the 21 essays collected here, written between 1989 and 2019, is Ancient Mesopotamian Mathematics - its techniques and concepts, but also its historical dynamics and its influence on later Greek and Arabic (and through these on European) mathematics. In addition, the first essay deals with historical dynamics in the field of language and argues that the Sumerian as a language originated from a creole language of the slaves of the late fourth millennium and only thereafter developed into the elaborate Sumerian language attested in the late 3rd Millennium BCE.
ISBN 9783769352115, Hamburg 2025
Journal of Chinese Writing System, 2024
Altsumerische Verwaltungstexte aus Lagas Teil 1, Die altsumerischen Wirtschaftsurkunden der Eremitage zu Leningrad
Journal of The Economic and Social History of The Orient, 1991
Altsumerische Verwaltungstexte aus Lagaš, Teil I: Die altsumerischen Wirtschaftsurkunden der Eremitage zu Leningrad
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1991
1993. Altsumerische Verwaltungstexte aus Lagaš Teil 2: Die altsumerischen Wirtschaftsurkunden aus amerikanischen Sammlungen. Freiburger Altorientalische Studien 15.2/1-2 (2 Bd.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
Altsumerische Wirtschaftsurkunden aus amerikanischen Sammlungen
Franz Steiner eBooks, 1993
1993. Altsumerische Verwaltungstexte aus Lagaš Teil 2: Die altsumerischen Wirtschaftsurkunden aus amerikanischen Sammlungen. Freiburger Altorientalische Studien 15.2/1-2 (2 Bd.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
Die altsumerischen Wirtschaftsurkunden aus amerikanischen Sammlungen. Franz Steiner Verlag: Stuttgart, 1993
2005. Sumerer und Akkader. Geschichte – Gesellschaft – Kultur. München: C.H. Beck.
2023_ H. Hristov: Thrakische Hügel-Architektur. Wiener Offene Orientalistik 14
Thrakische Hügel-Architektur zwischen Balkangebirge und Ägäis. — Von der Klassischen bis zur Hellenistischen Zeit - Klassifikation, Chronologie und Entwicklung Volume: xvii + 411 pp., 2023
Thracian mound architecture of the Classical and Hellenistic periods represents a remarkable phen... more Thracian mound architecture of the Classical and Hellenistic periods represents a remarkable phenomenon that has its roots already in the indigenous culture of the Early Iron Age. The present monograph offers not only an up-to-date classification of all monuments in southern Thrace, where the genre is clearly concentrated, but also their chronological classification on the basis of a purely archaeological factual situation, as well as the reconstruction of their architectural development. It should be emphasized that the monuments in southern Thrace developed from the interaction of indigenous Thracian and foreign traditions of predominantly Greek, Macedonian and Persian origin. Thus, between the beginning of the 5th century BC and the middle of the 1st century AD, the almost 100 southern Thracian complexes were built under mound fills – with their diverse forms of architecture and decoration, also with the numerous magnificent small finds discovered in them, they testify to the high level of development of Thracian culture and art in the Late Iron Age.
Sümerler ve Akadlar Tarih, Toplum, Kültür, 2020
Gebhard J. Selz bu kitapta Sümerlerin ve Akadların tarihine, toplumuna ve kültürüne genel bir bak... more Gebhard J. Selz bu kitapta Sümerlerin ve Akadların tarihine, toplumuna ve kültürüne genel bir bakış sağlıyor. Fırat ve Dicle nehirleri arasında kalan Mezopotamya’daki uygarlığın ilk parlak devrine bu iki kavim biçim vermiştir.
Selz, Sümerler ve Akadlardan kalan binlerce kil tabletten öğrendiğimiz bilgileri bu kitapta bir araya getiriyor ve Sümerler ile Akadların tarihine kısa bir giriş sunuyor. Sümerlerin erken gelişmiş uygarlıkların ortaya çıkışını ve Mezopotamya’yı anlatırken Sümer ve Akad ülkelerinin toplumsal, ekonomik, siyasi ve kültürel hayatını da temel özellikleriyle ele alıyor.
Alfa Yayınları: Istanbul.
Turkish edition of Selz, Sumerer und Akkader (C.H. Beck) 200.
Seen Not Heard: Composition, Iconicity, and the Classifier Systems of Logosyllabic Scripts, 2022
Edited by
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTI... more Edited by
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTIAL WRITING
CHAPTER ONE. TEXT IN CONTEXT: RELIEF AND HIERARCHY ON PIEDRAS NEGRAS PANEL 3
CLAUDIA BRITTENHAM, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHAPTER TWO. THE ICONICITY OF THE VERTICAL: HIEROGLYPHIC ENCODING
AND THE AKHET IN ROYAL BURIAL CHAMBERS OF EGYPT’S NEW KINGDOM
JOSHUA ROBERSON, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
CHAPTER THREE. FOR THE EYE ONLY: ASPECTS OF THE VISUAL TEXT IN ANCIENT EGYPT
ANDRÉAS STAUDER, ÉCOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS SCIENCES ET LETTRES (UMR 8167 AOROC)
SECTION TWO: CLASSIFIERS
CHAPTER FOUR. ANIMAL CATEGORIZATION IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
GEBHARD SELZ, VIENNA UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER FIVE. WAS THERE AN “ANIMAL” IN ANCIENT EGYPT? STUDIES IN LEXICA AND CLASSIFIER SYSTEMS, WITH A GLIMPSE TOWARDS SUMER
ORLY GOLDWASSER, HEBREW UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER SIX. THE COGNITIVE ROLE OF SEMANTIC CLASSIFIERS IN MODERN CHINESE WRITING
AS REFLECTED IN NEOGRAM CREATION
ZEV HANDEL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
CHAPTER SEVEN. ICONIC AND GRAMMATICAL DIMENSIONS OF SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSIFIERS
DIANE BRENTARI, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
SECTION THREE: SCRIPT EVOLUTIONS
CHAPTER EIGHT. ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN SCRIPTS IN BRONZE AGE ASIA MINOR
ELISABETH RIEKEN AND ILYA YAKUBOVICH, UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG
CHAPTER NINE. ICONICITY, COMPOSITION AND SEMANTICS:
A STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF PICTURES IN AN EARLY WRITING ENVIRONMENT
HOLLY PITTMAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER TEN. ABa AND ABb, A MEMOIR, OR THE CURIOUS CASE OF NIĜIN/NANŠE SIGNIFICATION
ILONA ZSOLNAY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE
HAICHENG WANG, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
2016_Yehudit Dror: The Linguistic Features of the Qur'anic Narratives, Winer Offene Orientalistik 12
Yehudi Dror: This monograph attempts to identify the linguistic characteristics of the Qur'anic n... more Yehudi Dror: This monograph attempts to identify the linguistic characteristics of the Qur'anic narratives and to indicate what distinguishes them from other Qur'anic thematic passages. Initially, it is noted that there are four models of Qur'anic narratives. In spite of the distinction between the models, much of the narrative has the structure suggested by Labov (1974) - namely, they include six elements: abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda. This work shows that each component is associated with specific linguistic features.
Wiener Offene Orientalisitk Vol. 12.
Dieser erste von zwei Bänden bietet 22 Beiträge renommierte Wissenschaftler zu verschiedenen Aspe... more Dieser erste von zwei Bänden bietet 22 Beiträge renommierte Wissenschaftler zu verschiedenen Aspekten süd-arabischer Kulturen. Die Beiträge zeigen, dass Süd-Arabien einer der wesentlichen kulturellen Korridore war, der nicht nur die altorientalischen Kulturen miteinander verband, sondern auch als Sprungbrett nach Afrika und Indien diente. Süd-Arabien erweist sich als einer der Schnittpunkte des frühesten Globalisierungsprozesses.
Inhalt:
Vorwort / Preface
Welcome by Prof. Heinz W. Engl, Rector of the University of Vienna
Welcome by Prof. Franz Römer, Dean of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies
Programm Symposion 2008
Zum Geleit / Statements, Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien
Prof. Claudia Römer
Prof. Gebhard J. Selz
Prof. Stephan Procházka
Prof. Rüdiger Lohlker
Worte des Dankes / Acknowledgements
Hinweise zu Transliteration und Abkürzungen / Informations to transliteration and abbreviations
Roswitha G. Stiegner (Graz/Wien) : Motivation, Motive, Ziele, Literatur / Motive-force, Motives, Aims, Literature
Impulse zur Einstimmung / Impulses to Join in
Roswitha G. Stiegner (Graz/Wien) : 1. Gastvorträge / Guest Lectures, Excursions, Workshops, Institut für Orientalistik 2008–2013 - 2. ‚Mittelmeer-Alphabete‘ / ‚Mediterranean Alphabets‘
I Einführungen / Introductions
Werner Arnold (Heidelberg) : Keynote 1 - Alexander Sima in Heidelberg. Vom Altsüdarabischen zum Mehri
Gebhard J. Selz (Wien) : Keynote 2 - Das Verändern der Erzählungen. Zur Bedeutung der Altsüdarabienforschungen aus altorientalistischer Perspektive
II Prähistorik, Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte / Prehistory, Archaeology and Culture
Jeffrey I. Rose (Oxford) : Ice Age Arabia: Archaeology, Genetics, and Palaeoenvironments Along the Highway of Human Evolution
Holger Hitgen (DAI Ṣanʿāʾ) : Archäologische Geländebegehungen im Khawlān. Eine Einführung in das neueste Forschungsprojekt des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts im Jemen
Ueli Brunner (Zürich) : The Gardens of the Queen of Sabaʾ
Paul Yule (Heidelberg) : Ẓafār / Yemen – a Brief Summary
Elisabeth Monamy (Wien) : Die Steinzeichen von Ẓafār (Jemen)
Yuri A. Vinogradov (St.Petersburg) : The Main Results of the Archaeological Investigations at the Area of the Building 6: The Raybūn I Settlement in Western Ḥaḍramawt
Ricardo Eichmann (Berlin) : Die Oasensiedlung von Taymāʾ(NW-Arabien) im Kontext überregionaler Netzwerke
Walter Raunig (München) : Die Länder des Südmeeres um Christi Geburt – Ein Streiflicht
Marta Luciani (Vienna) : Training Saudi Women in Archaeological Restoration: A Report from the Field
III Afr(o)-Asiatica / Äthio-Semitistik, Neusüdarabisches, Semitistik / Altorientalische Philologie, Arabistik, Osmanisches
Afr(o)-Asiatica / Ethio-Semitica, Modern South Arabian, Semitistica / Ancient Oriental Philology, Arabistica, Osmanica
Andrzej Zaborski (Krakau) : South Arabian Languages in a Semitic Perspective Hermann Hunger (Wien) : Begegnungen der Assyrer mit Arabern
Rainer Voigt (Berlin) : Sprache, Schrift und Gesellschaft im axumitischen Reich
Orhan Elmaz (Vienna/St. Andrews) : ʿarim – A Sabaic Word in the Qurʾān
Herbert Eisenstein (Wien) : Spezielle Themen der klassisch-arabischen Literatur aus dem Jemen
Janet C. E. Watson (Salford) : Translation, Mistranslation and the Seasons in Mahrah Acoustic
Sam Liebhaber (Middlebury) : Spectrum Analysis of Mahri Oral Poetry: An Empirical Approach to Bedouin Vernacular Prosody
Peter Behnstedt (Chipiona) : Jemenitische Dialekte
Clive Holes (Oxford) : The Omani Arabic Dialects in their Regional Context
Gisela Procházka-Eisl & Stephan Procházka (Vienna) : Notes on the Cultural and Linguistic Legacy of the Ottomans in Yemen.
Anhänge / Attachments
Autoren / Authors
Tafeln / Figures
Indices
The Empirical Dimension of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Die empirische Dimension altorientalischer Forschungen - Wiener Offene Orientalistik 6, 2011
PREFACE
We present here as the sixth volume of the series “Wiener Offene Orientalistik” a ... more PREFACE
We present here as the sixth volume of the series “Wiener Offene Orientalistik” a collection of 23 essays entitled “The Empirical Dimension of Ancient Near Eastern Studies – Die empirische Dimension altorientalischer Forschungen.” The contributions address the relationship between Assyriological research and science from different perspectives. This volume was conceptualized after a symposium organized with the university’s Oriental Institute between 18th and 21st of July 2007, in order to honour Hermann Hunger on the occasion of his retirement. The programme of the symposium listed the following contributions:
1. Lis Brack-Bernsen: „Worte und Zahlen: Entzifferung von babylonischen astronomischen Vorhersageregeln / Words and Numbers: unravelling Babylonian Astronomical Predicting Rules“ 2. John Steele: „Goal Year Periods and Their Use in Predicting Planetary Phenomena“ 3. Salvo de Meis: „Some hints from the Astronomical diaries and other works by Hermann Hunger“ 4. Hans J. Nissen: „Vor der Schrift“ 5. Martha Roth: „Philological basic research: On the history of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary“ 6. Karen Radner: „The king and his scholars: How representative are the letters to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal?“ 7. Dominique Charpin: „Zur Funktion mesopotamischer Tempel“ 8. Tzvi Abusch: „Omens and Voodoo-Death in Ancient Mesopotamia“
We wish to express our gratitude to those colleagues who asked for an eventual publication of their—revised—contributions. We are indebted even more to the other authors who agreed to contribute to this volume, which is far from being normal in the present difficult situation of the universities. An increasing teaching load on a college level at one side and the quest for excellence financed from the outside and within the framework of elaborated but not always feasible and sensible projects consume much time, leaving little time for actual research. The contributions and discussions of Hermann Hunger’s important works on the history of astronomy formed the point of departure for this volume. In the last decades his work became known far beyond the field of cuneiform specialists. An attempt to pay homage to Hermann Hunger was made with the publication of numerous essays in his Festschrift, which appeared 2007 as volume 97 of the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (M. Köhbach, R. Lohlker, S. Procházka and G.J. Selz, eds.). Despite the fact that Hermann Hunger was very supportive of the present volume’s concept, he insisted, in his well-known modesty, that it must not become a second “Festschrift.” Accordingly, whereas a number of contributions are related to Hunger’s research programme, others originate from quite different fields of Assyriology. The title we chose for this volume and to which contributions were asked, is not very specific. In fact, it encapsulates two possible ways of understanding. In one interpretation the theme asks after the relevance of empiricism for the field of Near Eastern Studies, but on the other hand, it does also refer to possible contributions of Ancient Near Eastern studies to the history of sciences. As we see it, this opaqueness turned into an advantage. The authors approached the topic from very different angles. Given this freedom it is of course unavoidable that the thematic relevance of the contributions to the theme is also varying. The conceptualization of this volume and the ongoing discussions in Assyriology prevented us from choosing a more programmatic heading as we find it, for example, in the famous works of G.E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience (1979) or of S.J. Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality (1990). It is well known that divination was the most prominent field for the Mesopotamian scholars, but as there were a number of excellent editions and studies published in the last decades, magic
became not a salient topic. Nevertheless magical concepts cannot be overlooked when one discusses epistemic concepts, related to definitions of “science,” as some contributions do. But, even when we insist on the hypothesis that Mesopotamian knowledge acquisition was primarily empirically based, we are well aware of the fact that all empiricism is based on an epistemic framework. Hence, perception, observation or empiricism deal just with one side of Mesopotamian culture. Epistemic concepts – both ancient and modern – as important as they are, are not in the centre of this volume. Nevertheless, some contributions do address these forms of Mesopotamian knowledge, a topic for which, we feel much further research is wanted. The two major questions of this collection, namely how much Assyriological research can contribute to the different fields in the history of science, and which role empiricism played in the implicit and explicit construction of Mesopotamian scholarship are certainly not fully answered. Such a collection of essays, as offered here to the reader, neither would nor could do so. Our aim was to draw attention to and eventually shed some light on the relevance of empirical approaches in Ancient Near Eastern studies. If we could demonstrate this, eventually beyond the circle of specialists, this undertaking was not in vain. Finally it has to be mentioned that the sometimes difficult task of layouting was entirely done by Klaus Wagensonner in his spare time. The indices were prepared with the help of Nadia Linder (University of Vienna). The printing of this book was supported by grants from the Austrian Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung and the Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät der Universität Wien.
Vienna, November 2010
Das Buch enthält 11 Artikel, die in Verbdiung mit einer wissenschaftlichen Exkursion des Institut... more Das Buch enthält 11 Artikel, die in Verbdiung mit einer wissenschaftlichen Exkursion des Instituts für Orientalistik der Universität Wien entstanden sind.
Sie beleuchten verschiedene geschichtliche, linguistische und zeitgeschichtliche Aspekte jener Region im Länderdreieck Iraq, Türkei (und Syrien), in der die kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen mit sogenannten "Islamischen Staat" den Menschen gegenwärtig soviel Leid beschert.
2005_2021_Sumerer und Akkader. Gesellschaft - Geschichte - Kultur
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Books by Gebhard J . Selz
Addenda and corrigentda in G.J. Selz, 1994, Verwaltungsurkunden in der Eremitage in St. Petersburg, Acta Sumerologica (Japan), 1994, 207-229.
Commencing as a stylistic analysis of the mythic narrative Dumuzi’s Dream, the material of the present study primarily encompasses the compositions surrounding Tammuz, the Sumerian god Dumuzi, a Near Eastern dying god. His character has fuelled previous ‘esoteric’ works more than any other god. The aim of the thesis of which this book is the publication was to contribute to studies on Sumerian literature by analysing narrative patterns in Sumerian mythic compositions, albeit narratology is itself perhaps a nebulous field in literary criticism, which can come across as ‘esoteric’. I do hope, however, that Sumerian literature gives me an excuse for this undertaking, as one of the recurring fixed formulas of the Dumuzi-corpus is the description of the galla-demons who carry off their victim, Dumuzi. According to these lines, the galla-demons ‘don’t chew garlic, they don’t eat fish, and they never eat onions.’
The present work is the revised edition of my dissertation (defended in 2021). I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. Gábor Zólyomi, Prof. Gebhard Selz, Prof. Attila Ferenczi, and Prof. József Krupp for all their help and encouragement. I would also like to thank Alexander Edmonds for proofreading my dissertation.
ISBN 9783769352115, Hamburg 2025
Selz, Sümerler ve Akadlardan kalan binlerce kil tabletten öğrendiğimiz bilgileri bu kitapta bir araya getiriyor ve Sümerler ile Akadların tarihine kısa bir giriş sunuyor. Sümerlerin erken gelişmiş uygarlıkların ortaya çıkışını ve Mezopotamya’yı anlatırken Sümer ve Akad ülkelerinin toplumsal, ekonomik, siyasi ve kültürel hayatını da temel özellikleriyle ele alıyor.
Alfa Yayınları: Istanbul.
Turkish edition of Selz, Sumerer und Akkader (C.H. Beck) 200.
ILONA ZSOLNAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. ILONA ZSOLNAY
SECTION ONE: EXPERIENTIAL WRITING
CHAPTER ONE. TEXT IN CONTEXT: RELIEF AND HIERARCHY ON PIEDRAS NEGRAS PANEL 3
CLAUDIA BRITTENHAM, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHAPTER TWO. THE ICONICITY OF THE VERTICAL: HIEROGLYPHIC ENCODING
AND THE AKHET IN ROYAL BURIAL CHAMBERS OF EGYPT’S NEW KINGDOM
JOSHUA ROBERSON, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS
CHAPTER THREE. FOR THE EYE ONLY: ASPECTS OF THE VISUAL TEXT IN ANCIENT EGYPT
ANDRÉAS STAUDER, ÉCOLE PRATIQUE DES HAUTES ÉTUDES, UNIVERSITÉ PARIS SCIENCES ET LETTRES (UMR 8167 AOROC)
SECTION TWO: CLASSIFIERS
CHAPTER FOUR. ANIMAL CATEGORIZATION IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THE ORIGINS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
GEBHARD SELZ, VIENNA UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER FIVE. WAS THERE AN “ANIMAL” IN ANCIENT EGYPT? STUDIES IN LEXICA AND CLASSIFIER SYSTEMS, WITH A GLIMPSE TOWARDS SUMER
ORLY GOLDWASSER, HEBREW UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER SIX. THE COGNITIVE ROLE OF SEMANTIC CLASSIFIERS IN MODERN CHINESE WRITING
AS REFLECTED IN NEOGRAM CREATION
ZEV HANDEL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
CHAPTER SEVEN. ICONIC AND GRAMMATICAL DIMENSIONS OF SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSIFIERS
DIANE BRENTARI, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
SECTION THREE: SCRIPT EVOLUTIONS
CHAPTER EIGHT. ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN SCRIPTS IN BRONZE AGE ASIA MINOR
ELISABETH RIEKEN AND ILYA YAKUBOVICH, UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG
CHAPTER NINE. ICONICITY, COMPOSITION AND SEMANTICS:
A STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF PICTURES IN AN EARLY WRITING ENVIRONMENT
HOLLY PITTMAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
CHAPTER TEN. ABa AND ABb, A MEMOIR, OR THE CURIOUS CASE OF NIĜIN/NANŠE SIGNIFICATION
ILONA ZSOLNAY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE
HAICHENG WANG, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE
Wiener Offene Orientalisitk Vol. 12.
Inhalt:
Vorwort / Preface
Welcome by Prof. Heinz W. Engl, Rector of the University of Vienna
Welcome by Prof. Franz Römer, Dean of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies
Programm Symposion 2008
Zum Geleit / Statements, Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien
Prof. Claudia Römer
Prof. Gebhard J. Selz
Prof. Stephan Procházka
Prof. Rüdiger Lohlker
Worte des Dankes / Acknowledgements
Hinweise zu Transliteration und Abkürzungen / Informations to transliteration and abbreviations
Roswitha G. Stiegner (Graz/Wien) : Motivation, Motive, Ziele, Literatur / Motive-force, Motives, Aims, Literature
Impulse zur Einstimmung / Impulses to Join in
Roswitha G. Stiegner (Graz/Wien) : 1. Gastvorträge / Guest Lectures, Excursions, Workshops, Institut für Orientalistik 2008–2013 - 2. ‚Mittelmeer-Alphabete‘ / ‚Mediterranean Alphabets‘
I Einführungen / Introductions
Werner Arnold (Heidelberg) : Keynote 1 - Alexander Sima in Heidelberg. Vom Altsüdarabischen zum Mehri
Gebhard J. Selz (Wien) : Keynote 2 - Das Verändern der Erzählungen. Zur Bedeutung der Altsüdarabienforschungen aus altorientalistischer Perspektive
II Prähistorik, Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte / Prehistory, Archaeology and Culture
Jeffrey I. Rose (Oxford) : Ice Age Arabia: Archaeology, Genetics, and Palaeoenvironments Along the Highway of Human Evolution
Holger Hitgen (DAI Ṣanʿāʾ) : Archäologische Geländebegehungen im Khawlān. Eine Einführung in das neueste Forschungsprojekt des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts im Jemen
Ueli Brunner (Zürich) : The Gardens of the Queen of Sabaʾ
Paul Yule (Heidelberg) : Ẓafār / Yemen – a Brief Summary
Elisabeth Monamy (Wien) : Die Steinzeichen von Ẓafār (Jemen)
Yuri A. Vinogradov (St.Petersburg) : The Main Results of the Archaeological Investigations at the Area of the Building 6: The Raybūn I Settlement in Western Ḥaḍramawt
Ricardo Eichmann (Berlin) : Die Oasensiedlung von Taymāʾ(NW-Arabien) im Kontext überregionaler Netzwerke
Walter Raunig (München) : Die Länder des Südmeeres um Christi Geburt – Ein Streiflicht
Marta Luciani (Vienna) : Training Saudi Women in Archaeological Restoration: A Report from the Field
III Afr(o)-Asiatica / Äthio-Semitistik, Neusüdarabisches, Semitistik / Altorientalische Philologie, Arabistik, Osmanisches
Afr(o)-Asiatica / Ethio-Semitica, Modern South Arabian, Semitistica / Ancient Oriental Philology, Arabistica, Osmanica
Andrzej Zaborski (Krakau) : South Arabian Languages in a Semitic Perspective Hermann Hunger (Wien) : Begegnungen der Assyrer mit Arabern
Rainer Voigt (Berlin) : Sprache, Schrift und Gesellschaft im axumitischen Reich
Orhan Elmaz (Vienna/St. Andrews) : ʿarim – A Sabaic Word in the Qurʾān
Herbert Eisenstein (Wien) : Spezielle Themen der klassisch-arabischen Literatur aus dem Jemen
Janet C. E. Watson (Salford) : Translation, Mistranslation and the Seasons in Mahrah Acoustic
Sam Liebhaber (Middlebury) : Spectrum Analysis of Mahri Oral Poetry: An Empirical Approach to Bedouin Vernacular Prosody
Peter Behnstedt (Chipiona) : Jemenitische Dialekte
Clive Holes (Oxford) : The Omani Arabic Dialects in their Regional Context
Gisela Procházka-Eisl & Stephan Procházka (Vienna) : Notes on the Cultural and Linguistic Legacy of the Ottomans in Yemen.
Anhänge / Attachments
Autoren / Authors
Tafeln / Figures
Indices
We present here as the sixth volume of the series “Wiener Offene Orientalistik” a collection of 23 essays entitled “The Empirical Dimension of Ancient Near Eastern Studies – Die empirische Dimension altorientalischer Forschungen.” The contributions address the relationship between Assyriological research and science from different perspectives. This volume was conceptualized after a symposium organized with the university’s Oriental Institute between 18th and 21st of July 2007, in order to honour Hermann Hunger on the occasion of his retirement. The programme of the symposium listed the following contributions:
1. Lis Brack-Bernsen: „Worte und Zahlen: Entzifferung von babylonischen astronomischen Vorhersageregeln / Words and Numbers: unravelling Babylonian Astronomical Predicting Rules“ 2. John Steele: „Goal Year Periods and Their Use in Predicting Planetary Phenomena“ 3. Salvo de Meis: „Some hints from the Astronomical diaries and other works by Hermann Hunger“ 4. Hans J. Nissen: „Vor der Schrift“ 5. Martha Roth: „Philological basic research: On the history of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary“ 6. Karen Radner: „The king and his scholars: How representative are the letters to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal?“ 7. Dominique Charpin: „Zur Funktion mesopotamischer Tempel“ 8. Tzvi Abusch: „Omens and Voodoo-Death in Ancient Mesopotamia“
We wish to express our gratitude to those colleagues who asked for an eventual publication of their—revised—contributions. We are indebted even more to the other authors who agreed to contribute to this volume, which is far from being normal in the present difficult situation of the universities. An increasing teaching load on a college level at one side and the quest for excellence financed from the outside and within the framework of elaborated but not always feasible and sensible projects consume much time, leaving little time for actual research. The contributions and discussions of Hermann Hunger’s important works on the history of astronomy formed the point of departure for this volume. In the last decades his work became known far beyond the field of cuneiform specialists. An attempt to pay homage to Hermann Hunger was made with the publication of numerous essays in his Festschrift, which appeared 2007 as volume 97 of the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (M. Köhbach, R. Lohlker, S. Procházka and G.J. Selz, eds.). Despite the fact that Hermann Hunger was very supportive of the present volume’s concept, he insisted, in his well-known modesty, that it must not become a second “Festschrift.” Accordingly, whereas a number of contributions are related to Hunger’s research programme, others originate from quite different fields of Assyriology. The title we chose for this volume and to which contributions were asked, is not very specific. In fact, it encapsulates two possible ways of understanding. In one interpretation the theme asks after the relevance of empiricism for the field of Near Eastern Studies, but on the other hand, it does also refer to possible contributions of Ancient Near Eastern studies to the history of sciences. As we see it, this opaqueness turned into an advantage. The authors approached the topic from very different angles. Given this freedom it is of course unavoidable that the thematic relevance of the contributions to the theme is also varying. The conceptualization of this volume and the ongoing discussions in Assyriology prevented us from choosing a more programmatic heading as we find it, for example, in the famous works of G.E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience (1979) or of S.J. Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality (1990). It is well known that divination was the most prominent field for the Mesopotamian scholars, but as there were a number of excellent editions and studies published in the last decades, magic
became not a salient topic. Nevertheless magical concepts cannot be overlooked when one discusses epistemic concepts, related to definitions of “science,” as some contributions do. But, even when we insist on the hypothesis that Mesopotamian knowledge acquisition was primarily empirically based, we are well aware of the fact that all empiricism is based on an epistemic framework. Hence, perception, observation or empiricism deal just with one side of Mesopotamian culture. Epistemic concepts – both ancient and modern – as important as they are, are not in the centre of this volume. Nevertheless, some contributions do address these forms of Mesopotamian knowledge, a topic for which, we feel much further research is wanted. The two major questions of this collection, namely how much Assyriological research can contribute to the different fields in the history of science, and which role empiricism played in the implicit and explicit construction of Mesopotamian scholarship are certainly not fully answered. Such a collection of essays, as offered here to the reader, neither would nor could do so. Our aim was to draw attention to and eventually shed some light on the relevance of empirical approaches in Ancient Near Eastern studies. If we could demonstrate this, eventually beyond the circle of specialists, this undertaking was not in vain. Finally it has to be mentioned that the sometimes difficult task of layouting was entirely done by Klaus Wagensonner in his spare time. The indices were prepared with the help of Nadia Linder (University of Vienna). The printing of this book was supported by grants from the Austrian Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung and the Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät der Universität Wien.
Vienna, November 2010
Sie beleuchten verschiedene geschichtliche, linguistische und zeitgeschichtliche Aspekte jener Region im Länderdreieck Iraq, Türkei (und Syrien), in der die kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen mit sogenannten "Islamischen Staat" den Menschen gegenwärtig soviel Leid beschert.