Papers by Nathan Wasserman
This paper examines an unpublished Akkadian dedicatory inscription by Iddin-Sîn, king of Simurrum... more This paper examines an unpublished Akkadian dedicatory inscription by Iddin-Sîn, king of Simurrum, found on a metal bowl. The inscription reveals the name of Kubbutum, another son of Iddin-Sîn, who did not ascend to the throne after his father. The shape of the bowl-a shallow, round-sided metal bowl with a short, outward-turned rim and ring base-is similar to a bowl dedicated by the Elamite king Idattu i of Simaški, whose reign was probably close to that of Iddin-Sîn.
This paper discusses a hitherto unnoticed asterism embedded as a historiola in a group of Old Bab... more This paper discusses a hitherto unnoticed asterism embedded as a historiola in a group of Old Babylonian incantations against scorpions (dated ca. 1900–1500 BCE). This group of Akkadian magical texts contains references to a unique astral configuration, that of the crescent Moon in the tail of Scorpius in the autumn sky. Our discussion suggests that this rare asterism was used to determine the autumn equinox, and as such was crucial to the ancient Mesopotamian calendar and intercalation system.
More than other genres in ancient Mesopotamian literature, incantations reflect real-life experie... more More than other genres in ancient Mesopotamian literature, incantations reflect real-life experiences unfiltered by ideology (contrary to, e.g., wisdom literature or royal inscriptions). Incantations are filled with detailed observations of the natural world: animal behavior, astronomical and meteorological phenomena, disease symptomology.
Paying attention to these non-magical aspects of magical texts can be rewarding. This paper demonstrates the fruitfulness of this type of inquiry by investigating an important group of Old Babylonian incantations against an animal which intrigued (and still intrigues) magicians from all places and
civilizations 3 the scorpion. When viewed through a modern zoological lens, this corpus of ancient magical texts yields fascinating insight.
The divine act of changing the names of Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob in the book of Genesis is paral... more The divine act of changing the names of Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob in the book of Genesis is paralleled by hitherto unnoticed similar cases of renaming specific protagonists in the Babylonian epic of Atra-hasīs: the goddess Mami/Bēlet-ilī and the Flood hero Ziusudra/Ūta-napištim. A careful comparison of these instances of name changing reveals striking thematic parallels and important ideological differences.
Animal metaphors are common in all languages and cultures, since human beings and groups are ofte... more Animal metaphors are common in all languages and cultures, since human beings and groups are often understood in the terms of assumed properties of animals-dominance, fierceness, cunning, and so on. In the Pentateuch, two sections with a high concentration of animal metaphors are Gen 49,1-27 and Deuteronomy 33-the blessings of Jacob and Moses, respectively, to the tribes of Israel. In the former, Judah is likened to a young lion and mentioned tying his donkey foal to a vine (Gen 49,9-10), Issachar is mentioned as a strong donkey (v. 14), Dan as a snake (v. 17), Naphthali as a doe (v. 21), the blessing to Joseph refers to the God of Jacob as a bull (᾿ăbîr, v. 23), and Benjamin is presented as a wolf (v. 27). In the latter, Joseph is compared to a bull and a wild ox (Deut 33,17), while both Gad and Dan are compared to a lion (vv. 20, 22). Where and how did these comparisons originate?
Two inscribed clay cones are the focus of this short paper. The cones, dedicated to King Abī -sa... more Two inscribed clay cones are the focus of this short paper. The cones, dedicated to King Abī -sare of Larsa (1897–1887 BCE), were commissioned by a man named Bingattum for the king’s life.Interestingly, the cones mention a temple (e ) for Gilgameš , previously unknown. This, along with some sporadic prosopographical evidence, sheds more light on the cult of Gilgameš in southern Mesopotamia during the Isin-Larsa period.
This paper suggests that the fanciful description of the cheery, raucous monkeys of the Cedar For... more This paper suggests that the fanciful description of the cheery, raucous monkeys of the Cedar Forest that amaze Gilgameš and Enkidu (SB Gilg. V: 24–25 = Al-Rawi/George 2014) is a literary projection of a very real native of the mountains of Lebanon: the Caucasian squirrel (Sciurus anomalus). This animal would have been unfamiliar to Mesopotamians and its appearance and behavior would have reminded them of small monkeys. Support for artistic representation of the Caucasian squirrel can be found on some Syro-Levantine seals that feature a monkey-like figure, which is most plausibly identified with the squirrel.
In this study, we present newly discovered duplicates of three significant Old Babylonian literar... more In this study, we present newly discovered duplicates of three significant Old Babylonian literary texts. 1) An unpublished Louvre duplicate (AO 6161) of the Papulegara hymns collection, which is currently housed at the British Museum. 2) A recently published Geneva duplicate (MAH 16069 = Cavigneaux and Clevenstine 2020) of the large hymnic ritual commonly referred to as Ištar-Louvre. 3) The Yale prism (YBC 2394 = Foster and George 2020), which contains an almost complete version of the Dialogue Between Father and Son. Previously, only a small fragment of this text was known. The paper provides a philological commentary and a thorough discussion of these duplicates, considering the relatively uncommon phenomenon of duplicate literary texts during the Old Babylonian period.
Close interpretative reading in the last part of Gilg. XI, after Ūtanapišti tells the story of ... more Close interpretative reading in the last part of Gilg. XI, after Ūtanapišti tells the story of the Flood. Feelings of hospitality and hostility, challenging tests and farewell gifts, and the meaning of eating and sleeping are discussed. An intriguing parallel with the biblical story of Abraham and Sarah is revealed. A suggestion that the text mentions ambergris -- the waxy aromatic substance produced naturally by sperm whales -- ends this paper.
In this paper we point to a strong thematic affinity between a passage from the Epic of Zimrī-līm... more In this paper we point to a strong thematic affinity between a passage from the Epic of Zimrī-līm describing the land of Subartu and the Biblical story of the spies entering the land of Canaan. We further develop this comparison by adducing parallels from Islamic literature.
Some twenty years ago, an inscribed macehead of hard stone appeared in Christie’s 2001 auction ca... more Some twenty years ago, an inscribed macehead of hard stone appeared in Christie’s 2001 auction catalogue. In March 2022, the macehead re-surfaced in another auction, that of Arte Primitivo New York. In full awareness of the risks of studying such an unprovenanced artifact, especially when it is no longer possible to examine it directly (the present proprietorship of the object is unknown), I had to lean on high resolution photos of the object. Although some doubts as to its authenticity remain (see below), I believe that the macehead is genuine and deserves its own study, for it is interesting and, in some ways, even unique.
EMNLP, 2021
We present models which complete missing text given transliterations of ancient Mesopotamian docu... more We present models which complete missing text given transliterations of ancient Mesopotamian documents, originally written on cuneiform clay tablets (2500 BCE-100 CE). Due to the tablets' deterioration, scholars often rely on contextual cues to manually fill in missing parts in the text in a subjective and time-consuming process. We identify that this challenge can be formulated as a masked language modelling task, used mostly as a pretraining objective for contextualized language models. Following, we develop several architectures focusing on the Akkadian language, the lingua franca of the time. We find that despite data scarcity (1M tokens) we can achieve state of the art performance on missing tokens prediction (89% hit@5) using a greedy decoding scheme and pretraining on data from other languages and different time periods. Finally, we conduct human evaluations showing the applicability of our models in assisting experts to transcribe texts in extinct languages.
BM 120015 is an unpublished interlinear Sumero-Akkadian personal prayer, an Old Babylonian versio... more BM 120015 is an unpublished interlinear Sumero-Akkadian personal prayer, an Old Babylonian version of the first-millennium prayer known as gi-izi-lá gùr-ru “(I am) carrying a torch”. In what follows, we refer to BM 120015 as the OB version of the prayer, while the first-millennium manuscripts (all from Nineveh) constitute the FM version. In the Introduction (I), we discuss the orthography and grammar of the Akkadian and the Sumerian text of the prayer and analyze its content. The edition and translation of the OB version, accompanied by a philological commentary, come next (II). In the Discussion (III), we outline the multifarious changes that occurred in the transmission of the prayer from the second millennium to the first millennium – both in the Sumerian and in the Akkadian versions. The function of the imprints of fingernails found on the OB tablet is also examined
Corrections, additions and new readings in Wasserman, the Flood 2020.
In this paper we present for the first time an intriguing Akkadian lament of the mother goddess o... more In this paper we present for the first time an intriguing Akkadian lament of the mother goddess over her destroyed temples. Remarkably, the lament, almost complete, is known from two exemplars: BM 29624 (ms. A) and BM 109164 (ms. B). Judging by their grammar, orthography, and sign-forms, both tablets date to the early Old Babylonian period. Ms. A preserves a colophon, which identifies the lament as amerakūtum. We propose the historical framework for this unique literary piece, discuss it against the background of other Old Babylonian laments and analyze the musical and architectural components of the temple that are described in the lament.
LB 1002, an Old Babylonian text housed at the Böhl Collection, Leiden, is comprised of an Akkadia... more LB 1002, an Old Babylonian text housed at the Böhl Collection, Leiden, is comprised of an Akkadian magical procedure and a non-Akkadian – most probably Elamite – incantation. The text the talismans and materia magica to be used while walking through dangerous and distressing situations.
In an appendix, I offer hand-copies of LB 1001, LB 2001, LB 1003 and LB 1004, a group of Akkadian and Elamite incantations from the Böhl Collection, which have been known for a long time, but never presented in hand-copy
In this article, we discuss a question bearing on the fundamental principles of criminal law in t... more In this article, we discuss a question bearing on the fundamental principles of criminal law in the Hebrew Bible: are they self-standing postulates on which the biblical laws are based (as suggested by Moshe Greenberg), or late generalizations made from specific legal norms and statements which predate them? We address this question by considering Mesopotamian documents about a millennium older than biblical legal corpora – two 18th-century BCE letters found in Mari on the Middle Euphrates, and a 19th-century BCE treaty between two towns in the Diyala basin. Despite the spatial and temporal distance between these sources and the biblical legal corpora, the social and cultural similarities between the Amorite populations of northern Mesopotamia and Ancient Israel as reflected in the Hebrew Bible justify a comparison between the legal norms and practices in these two societies. Our discussion shows that at least one of the postulates of biblical law formulated by Greenberg – the absolute value of human life, which rules out monetary compensation in capital cases – finds expression in the legal practices of the Amorite tribes. Accordingly, we conclude that those legal practices, as well as the norm of blood revenge which is clearly connected to them, were inherited by Ancient Israel from its Northwest Semitic background, and their crystallization into a fundamental legal principle was a result of a later historical process.
This chapter provides an overview of Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature. The introduction discusses t... more This chapter provides an overview of Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature. The introduction discusses the origins and distribution of Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature. It moves on to demonstrate how Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature can be approached. The chapter treats four subcategories of Wisdom Literature: proverbs and instructions, Vanity Theme works, existential works, and satire and parody. The conclusion offers an assessment of the nature of Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature and refers to its transmission and diffusion to other kinds of literature of the East Mediterranean basin, the ancient Near East, the biblical Wisdom books, and beyond.
In this paper, we present an unpublished tablet kept in a private collection, a hybrid text compo... more In this paper, we present an unpublished tablet kept in a private collection, a hybrid text composed of Elamite conjurations followed by short Akkadian magical procedures.
As its rubrics describe, the text is intended to heal a person stung by a scorpion. The tablet measures 9.4 x 6.1 cm and is about two- thirds preserved. Its surface is fragile, as salts have penetrated some areas. The text is 51 lines long, and although only half of these are complete or readable this tablet is an important addition to the growing corpus of 2nd millennium alloglot incantations, as it is the longest specimen known thus far.
A banal scene in countless movies and TV series: a man or a woman standing in front of a house, a... more A banal scene in countless movies and TV series: a man or a woman standing in front of a house, arriving at the entrance, talking through the intercom and asking to be let in. A prime example in world literature of a hero facing a locked door, through which he is trying to pass, is Ali-Baba in One Thousand and One Nights. Ali-Baba is concise: Sésame, ouvre-toi. This is the password that opens the thieves’ cave while Sésame, ferme-toi closes it.
In ancient Mesopotamia, gates and doors—besides being physical objects with the actual role of controlling human flow and monitoring the circulation of goods into and out of the domestic and urban orbit—were imaginary loci loaded with political, legal, mystical and religious significance. Entrances to monumental buildings—temples, palaces, even cities—had declarative and evocative names aimed at warding off evil or conferring prosperity on those quartered behind them. The architectural, physical, and economic aspects of gates and doors in ancient Mesopotamia will not be treated here, and consequently lexical, historical, and administrative texts are not discussed. The goal of this paper—dedicated to Jack with appreciation, esteem, and friendship— is to present a scant-noted literary motif in Akkadian literature, that of Talking to Doors, and analyzing it in its different literary contexts.
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Papers by Nathan Wasserman
Paying attention to these non-magical aspects of magical texts can be rewarding. This paper demonstrates the fruitfulness of this type of inquiry by investigating an important group of Old Babylonian incantations against an animal which intrigued (and still intrigues) magicians from all places and
civilizations 3 the scorpion. When viewed through a modern zoological lens, this corpus of ancient magical texts yields fascinating insight.
In an appendix, I offer hand-copies of LB 1001, LB 2001, LB 1003 and LB 1004, a group of Akkadian and Elamite incantations from the Böhl Collection, which have been known for a long time, but never presented in hand-copy
As its rubrics describe, the text is intended to heal a person stung by a scorpion. The tablet measures 9.4 x 6.1 cm and is about two- thirds preserved. Its surface is fragile, as salts have penetrated some areas. The text is 51 lines long, and although only half of these are complete or readable this tablet is an important addition to the growing corpus of 2nd millennium alloglot incantations, as it is the longest specimen known thus far.
In ancient Mesopotamia, gates and doors—besides being physical objects with the actual role of controlling human flow and monitoring the circulation of goods into and out of the domestic and urban orbit—were imaginary loci loaded with political, legal, mystical and religious significance. Entrances to monumental buildings—temples, palaces, even cities—had declarative and evocative names aimed at warding off evil or conferring prosperity on those quartered behind them. The architectural, physical, and economic aspects of gates and doors in ancient Mesopotamia will not be treated here, and consequently lexical, historical, and administrative texts are not discussed. The goal of this paper—dedicated to Jack with appreciation, esteem, and friendship— is to present a scant-noted literary motif in Akkadian literature, that of Talking to Doors, and analyzing it in its different literary contexts.