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Correlation of Archaeological and Written Evidence for the Study of MesopotamianInstitutions and ChronologyAuthor(s): Maria deJong EllisReviewed work(s):Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 87, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 497-507Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504108 .

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Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, 1981-1982

Fourreportswere givenin the Seminaron the Ar-

chaeologyof EasternEurope,the EasternMediterra-nean and the Near Eastat ColumbiaUniversitydur-

ing the academicyear:

PyramidBuildingand the

Chronologyof the Fourth

Dynasty, by DieterArnold;Correlationof Archaeologicaland Written Evidence

for the Study of MesopotamianInstitutionsand

Chronology,by Maria deJ. Ellis;

Early Minoan and Middle Minoan Chronology,byGeraldCadogan;

Excavationsat Shortughai n NortheastAfghanistan,

by Henri-PaulFrancfort.

Dieter Arnold has publishedthe material on chro-

nology in "Uberlegungen um Problem des Pyrami-denbaues,"MittKairo37 (1981) 15-28. The results

of Arnold'sexcavationsat Dahshurappearin DieterArnold and Rainer Stadelmann, "Dahschurerster

Grabungsbericht,"MittKairo31 (1975) 169-74; Die-ter Arnoldand RainerStadelmann,"Dahschurzwei-ter

Grabungsbericht,"3

(1977) 15-20; Dieter Ar-nold, "DahschurdritterGrabungsbericht,"6 (1980)15-21; the fourthpreliminaryreport s in press.

Summariesof the other threecommunications ol-low below.

EDITHPORADA

DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY

AND ARCHAEOLOGY

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

NEWYORK,NEWYORKo0027

Correlationof Archaeologicaland Written Evidence

for the Study of Mesopotamian Institutions and

Chronology'MARIA DEJONGELLIS

For ThorkildJacobsen

Researchersfocusingon ancientMesopotamiaare

in a specialsituation,in that botharchaeologicaland

writtenevidencecan be broughtto bearon questionsof interpretation.Unfortunately,each of these typesofevidencehasa discrete ield of scholarship,andtheydo not oftenoverlap.Yet it is the possibilityof bring-

ingtheavailableevidenceof all typesto bearon what-

ever problem is under investigation-and the verymuchlargerspectrumof inquiriesthat the availabil-

ity of all thesetypesof evidencemakespossible-that

gives the study of ancient Mesopotamiaits uniquecharacter.

In recent decadesthe amount of informationon

problemsof Mesopotamiancivilizationhas been in-creasedenormously,by the publicationof texts andothertypesof data. In addition,muchworkhas beendone on text typesand problemsof language.All thisnow makes t easiertoundertakeinterpretativetudiesof groupsof textswhichbelongtogetherbecausetheywereproducedby singlerecord-creating gencies.Oc-

casionallysuchtextgroupsor "archives"2are foundby

IThis article s a revisedversionof mytalk of 21 January 1982,originallygivenas "Interaction etweenArchaeologicaland Writ-ten Evidence orthe Studyof the EarlySecondMillennium B.C." Idedicate it to Thorkild Jacobsen, whose work is integral to thisdiscussion.

2 Two divergentdefinitionsof archives are now in use; see E.Posner,Archives n theAncientWorld(Cambridge,Mass. 1972)4.In one view, in use in the German tradition,archivesconsist of"non-current ecords hat, because of their long-rangevalue, havebeentransferredo an ad hocagency,called an archives."Examplesof this kind of archivesarevariousnationalarchiveswhich arede-

positories.In orderto be considered s "archives" nderthis defini-tion, recordsmay still be in the hands of their record-creators, slong as theyare considered o be of lastingvalue.Americanarchival

terminologyhas adopted his usage.We do not knowwith certaintyof any archives romthe ancientNear Eastwhich comeunderthisdefinition.The seconddefinitionof archives ncludestherecordsof

any agencyor institution,whetherthey are still in currentuse andof currentvalue or not, and whether they are still in the record-creator'shandsor not. In thisview "records"equals"archives," ndin this categoryour Mesopotamianarchivescertainlyfall.

497



498 MARIADEJONG LLIS [AJA87

modern excavators n the physical context in which

theywereproducedor stored3 orevendiscarded4);n

such instanceswe havean opportunity o studytheto-

talityof the institution n question: ts materialcontextas reflectedby architectureand artifactualremains,

includingof course the cuneiform documentsthem-selves,and its intellectualremains as representedbythe contentof thesedocuments-and by thatof others

whichhave a bearingon thatcontent.Often,however,

documentary emains havecometo us throughexca-

vations in which the findspotsof objects-especiallytablets-were not noted or specified,or the tablets

have come from illegal excavations,and therefore

have no certain provenience.Unfortunately, docu-

mentswhichhavederived rom the lattersource com-

prisethegreatmajorityof those known to us andhave

providedus with the dataon which muchof the mod-

ern framework orhistoricalreconstructions based.5It is thereforecrucialthatwe subject hosedocuments

to the maximumfeasibledegreeof analysisand inter-

pretation,6by usingall available ypesof data.

This discussionconcentrates n researchstrategiesto be employed n connectionwith existingsourcesof

information,and doesnotgo intothe separate,but re-

lated, problemsposedby the possibilityof enlargingour corpusof materialsand knowledgethroughnew

scientificexcavations.Excavationswhichyieldtablets

do still take place,and methodological onsiderations

for the most effectivecooperationon the site of ar-

chaeologistand text interpreter(if these are not thesame person) could be discussed.Here, however, I

preferto focuson the possibilitiesopento us in study-ing the materialalreadyavailablein existing collec-

tions, through the combineduse of textual and ar-

chaeological/artifactualevidence,using the textual

evidenceas a point of departure.In particular,myconcern n this essayis with documentswhichcan be

said to belong to discretetext groups or "archives,"and with theirrelationship o archaeological emains.

My examplesare drawnprimarily rom the latethird

and early second millenniaB.C. as discussedby oth-

ers,and frommyown researchon the latterperiod.

The documentsfrom ancient Mesopotamiathatwere generatedby the "greatorganizations," s Op-

penheimcalledthetempleand the palace,7werenever

intended o be eitherwidelydisseminated r long pre-served.Yet,sincetabletsarevirtually ndestructiblen

the ground,theyform thegreatmajorityof extantan-

cient Mesopotamiantexts.8 The texts come from a

surprisingly limited number of "archives," ach of

whichconsistsof interrelated eriesof documents. t is

3In the last fifty years a number of excavationshave yieldedgroupsof tablets or archives n stratigraphic ontext. In many in-stances heeditorof thedocumentshad striven o

retain,at least to a

degree,the original organizationof the tabletsby presenting hem

by roomor by correspondents, riorto separating hem for discus-sions and furthertopicalor genrestudies. Forexample,forthe Old

Babylonianarchivesat Mari, see the extensive series of publica-tionsentitledArchivesroyalesde Mari (ARM, autographcopiesof

texts) and the parallel series Archives royales de Mari: Textes

(ARMT, transliterations ndtranslations),andsee also the discus-sion below.The publicationof the textsrecentlydiscovered t Ebla

(Tell Mardikh)also is to retain some degreeof archaeological o-

herence; ee the plans for publicationannounced n various schol-

arly journals such as "Note on the Ebla Texts," JCS 30 (1978)125-26, announcing he seriesArchivirealidi Ebla, Testi/Studi. In

fact, the Ebla texts are comingout in severalseries, amongthemStudi Eblaiti (Rome), Annali di Ebla (1980-), and Materialiepi-graficidi Ebla (Naples); forpublications ee the relevantsectionof

the "Keilschriftbibliographie"n Orientalia N.S., section 382.Pendingfinal publicationof the royalarchivesof thirdmillennium

Ebla,an extensivediscussionof thecontentsandimplicationsof thetexts can be found in G. Pettinato,TheArchivesof Ebla:An Em-

pire Inscribedon Clay (New York 1981). That discussion s basedon Pettinato'swork as the epigrapher or the excavation.Mesopo-tamianarchivesandlibrariesconstituted he subjectof the 30eRen-contreassyriologique nternationale,Leiden 4-8 July 1983. Ex-haustivecoveragewas given to archivesof all periodsexceptthoseof Ur III. Botharchaeological nd textual aspectsof archiveswerediscussed.Whenthe papersarepublished,our knowledgeof cunei-formarchiveswill be considerably nlarged.

4For discardedor reusedancienttablets, see T. Jacobsen'sre-

view of L. Legrain,Ur ExcavationsTexts 3:BusinessDocumentsofthe Third Dynasty of Ur, in AJA 57 (1953) 125-28, especially

125-26,on the

use of discardedUr III tablets as fill in a buildingofthe Kassiteperiod.Jacobsenalsomentions imilarpracticesat Nip-pur (p. 126).

5One reasonfor this situationis that so much of what we nowconsider well established knowledge concerning Mesopotamianhistory and social and economic nstitutions and their sequentialdevelopment s a patchworkof interpretationsbased on studies

using only part of the material that was availableat the time of

writing,certainlyonly a smallpartof what is availablenow.6 It may also be pointedout that historicalinterpretation f the

political and chronologicalkind tends to be updatedperiodically.We all have probablyhad to spend some time explaining to stu-dentswhy theycannotuse dates found n old (andsomenot-so-old)books.Questionsof social and economicorganization,and of cul-turalinterpretation,however, endnot to be subject o quite as con-tinuous a study; and we still base much of our view on studies

which, howevervaluablethey were in theirtime,are now outdatedbecauseof the increasedamountof new material and our growingsophistication n the methodologyo be used in the exploitationand

interpretation f thosematerials.

7 See, forexample,the sectionof thattitle in A. Leo Oppenheim,AncientMesopotamia: ortraitofa DeadCivilization,rev.ed. com-

pletedby E. Reiner (Chicago1977) 95-109.

8Oppenheim, (supra n. 7), discusses the written remains from

Mesopotamia now extant in the section entitled "Assyriology-Why and How" (first published in CurrentAnthropology1.5-6

[1960]),with specialreference o the textsrecordingday-to-dayac-tivities of the ancient Mesopotamianson pp. 23-27; see also thesection"Patterns n Non-LiteraryTexts,"pp. 276-87.



1983] CHRONOLOGIESN OLD WORLDARCHAEOLOGY 499

thereforenecessary o studythem in contextin order

to arriveat a correctunderstandingof the activities,

situations,and institutionsthey represent-in other

words,in order to find outwhy theywerewritten.

Texts of the type that concernus here arevery la-

conic in nature, and,takenindividually,yieldlittle in-formation: he ancient scribeswere recording he op-erationof systemsfamiliarto them,whichtheyfeltno

needto explain.Modernscholars,who arenot famil-

iar with the institutionalbackgroundsof the texts,musttry to reconstruct hemby analyzing largenum-

bers of related texts. Severalapproaches, akensinglyor in concert,are useful in this effort. One is to try to

establish the meaningsof varioustechnicaltermsby

examiningall the contextsin which they occur;the

results are usually interpretationsof classes of texts

and technicalterminologyfor both limited and veryextendedperiods.This fundamentalkind of work is

necessary o establish he meaningof terms,especiallyin cases of rareuse. The danger s that the inevitable

differenceswhich occur overtime tend,at best,not tobe emphasized,even though the researcherand his

audience are aware of them, and, at worst, to be

glossedover, producinga homogeneous,undifferen-

tiated,andmisleadingpicture.A second,morehistoricallyoriented,approachfo-

cuses on individualgroups of tablets, from limited

areas and periodsof time, which representa singleadministrative ituation. The results of such studies

can then be comparedwith those of other,similaror-

ganizations.Two assumptionsare impliedin the lat-ter approach: hat the texts are available,identified,and can be understood; ndthat the specifictext con-

glomeratescan be reconstitutedbeforestudy-in oth-er words, that the ancientarchivescan be re-estab-

lished, so that we can learn more about the institu-tions and individualsthat produced he records.It is

also necessarythat a sufficientnumber of texts be

availableso that the studyhas a validbasis.9In this articlethe terms "archives" and "records"

are used ratherloosely to indicatea group of tablets

that belong togetherfor reasons which appeareither

fromthetextsthemselvesorfromthe circumstances ftheirdiscovery.This looseuse of terminologydoesnotseek to avoiddefining heterm "archive"n a technical

sense1oas it applies to most ancient Mesopotamiandocuments; nstead,it reflectsthe natureof the textsthemselves. Ancient Mesopotamian records, as weknow them, do not, exceptfor a veryfew cases,come

under the definitionof archivesas being recordsof

lastingvalue. In a technicalsense, in fact, it may ac-

tually be betterto speakof the recordsof a Mesopo-tamianinstitution,ratherthanof its archives.

The distinctionbetweendocumentshatarerecordsof currentinterest only and those that have lastingvalue is difficult o makewhen thereis not muchevi-

dence for the details of ancient archival practices(such as archivalarrangementby indexingand stor-

age), althoughwe have quite a lot of informationonthe existence of ancient archival facilities." Let us

consider the case of the Mari palace archives, for

which we have both archaeologicaland textual data

for archivalarrangement.Evidencefor the existence

of internalarchivalarrangement nd archivalactivityon the part of the scribesis

given byarchival

labels,such as those made by Hammurapi'sscribesduringtheir inventory and reorganizationof some of the

Mari palace recordsafter his conquest of Mari.•2That evidence s complemented y the informationonarchivalarrangementpresentedby the distributionoftabletsof variouskindsthrough he rooms,andbytheinformationon their storage that may be deduced

fromtheirdispositionwhen theywere found.13Studyof the tabletsfromthe individualroomsof the palace

9On the importanceof this point, see T. Jones, "SumerianAd-ministrativeTexts: An Essay,"SumerologicalStudies n Honor ofThorkildJacobsenon his SeventiethBirthday,June 7, 1974(Assy-riologicalStudies20, Chicago1976)42.

1oSee supran. 2 fortwo definitionsof archives.

11For a descriptionof ancientMesopotamianarchivalfacilities,see mostrecentlyPosner(supran. 2) 12-70, who provides nforma-tion from several sites which producedclay tablet archives.Thatinformationmust now be supplementedby Pettinato'sdescriptionof the "archive cience"of Ebla (supran. 3) 48-51, which includesinformationon tablet storagein the various tabletstorerooms onshelves, on brickbenches,or in clayjars; tablets apparentlywerecarriedfromone room to anotheron woodenplanks), and on the

implicationof the formof storagechosenforthe order n whichthescribesused and arranged he tablets. Pettinatoalso commentson

the type of archaeologicalrecordswhich are necessaryfor maxi-mum use of the ancientdocumentation.

12 Posner (supra n. 2) 62, citing F. Thureau-Dangin, "Surdes

etiquettes de paniers a tablettesprovenantde Mari," in Symbo-lae ... Paulo Koschakerdedicatae,Studia et Documentaad iuraorientisantiqui pertinentia2 (Leiden 1939) 119-20. On the same

topic,see alsoA. Parrot,Missionarchdologique eMari (MAM) 2:Le palais, 1: ArchitectureParis 1958) 82, who pointsout that the

rearrangementmadeafterHammurapi'sfirstvictoryoverMari inthe 33rd year was completelydestroyedduringthe sackwhich ac-

companiedthe final destructionof Mari two years later, so that

nothingremainedof any order.13See, for example, Parrot'scomment,MAM 2/1, 71, concern-

ing the presumedoriginal placementof tablets,judged from theheightof the walls and thejumbleof the tablets.



500 MARIADEJONG LLIS [AJA87

shouldthereforeyieldinformationon archivalstorage

practice,and on the functionaluse of the variouspartsof the building.This is indeedso for certainquartersof the Mari palace,althoughit must be emphasizedthat the lootingwhichaccompaniedhe destructionof

the palacemay haveproducedsome randomdisloca-tion of archives.14For the Mari palacearchives,how-

ever,one can assumethat, althougharchivalcohesion

maybe lost and the tabletsdispersed rom theirplacesof storage,at least all the tabletsfound in the palace

belongto palace-relatedarchivalgroups,so that if notthe function of a palace architecturalunit, then at

least that of a given palace officialor bureaucan be

investigated hrougharchivalreconstruction.15We also have cases of excavated documents in

which archivalcohesion remains but the archaeolog-ical context,althoughrecorded,s not informative or

the study of the physical context of the original rec-

ord-producer,as when tablets thought no longer to

have currentor lastingvalue were discarded n anti-

quity.It is thenpossiblefortheobvious nterpretationof the (secondary) ontextof the tablets to be mislead-

ing.An illustrationof this situationat Ur was pointedout many years ago by Jacobsen.16Tablets datingtothetime of theThird Dynastywerefound n Ur in the

Edublalmahcomplex,amongwalls under room8 ofthe Kassiteperiod.The architecturalunit described

by these walls was thereforecalled the "Registrar's

Office"bythe excavator.17 he chronologyof the areais somewhatconfused,but the earliestcertainlydat-

able objectsassociatedwith the walls are bricksofrulers of the Isin-Larsaperiod,18 lthoughthosemay,of course,themselveshave been reused.Jacobsen,in

fact, suggested that the tablets were brought fromsome nearbytabletdumpto be used as fill underthe

new Kassite floor of the building;he cited parallelsfrom the excavationsat Nippur with which he was

familiar.19Since, however,the fill apparentlycamefrom a single source,whether trash heap or old ar-

chive,the tabletscouldbe analyzed n termsof defin-able dimensionsand criteria,so it was possibleto usethemas the basis forattributing urtherrandom indsof texts at Ur to the group. The resultinggroup ofrecords could then be studied,as was done in somedetailbyJacobsen,20who came to the conclusion hat

the documentsdescribedroyalinterests n the temple

economy, and may originally have come from the

"Storehouse f the King."21

Finally, disruptionof archivalcohesioncan be theresult of modern interference.Often this happenswith newly found sites which are exploitedby local

entrepreneurs;heUr III sitesof DjokhaandDrehemcome to mind.22In other instances disruption oc-curredbecauseof badlycontrolledexcavationsor the

private activity of workmen connectedwith them;well known examples are Lagash, excavatedby de

Sarzec,23and the sites of Sippar and Tell ed-Der,whentheywerein the concession f the BritishMuse-

um.24 It is well knownthat the Old BabylonianSip-par texts are the basis for much of our knowledge

14 See, for example, the commentby J. Bott&ro,n the introduc-tion to his edition of the economic and administrative exts fromroom110 (ARMT 7 [1957]v);Botterohadhopedto use thetexts toestablishthe use of the room,but-perhaps because of the sack ofthe palace-was unable to cometo any firm conclusionsbased onthe tablets he publishedin ARM 7. Conversely, he weight of thetextual evidence ndicatesthat room 5 of the palace housed docu-ments dealing with vegetables,and the editor, M. Birot, is of the

opinionthattabletsabout othersubjects suchas domesticanimals,textiles,metals,personnel)were brought n duringor afterthe sack

(ARMT 12 [1964] 1).

15See now, for example, O. Rouault, Mukannium, in ARMT

18(1977).16In his reviewof Legrain(supran. 4).

17C.L. Woolley,AntJ 5 (1925) 392.

1sJacobsen(supran. 4) 126.19

Jacobsen (supran. 4) 126.20

Jacobsen(supran. 4).21

Jacobsen(supran. 4) 128.22See mostconvenientlyand recentlyJones (supran. 9) 45-50,

for a descriptionof the status of records romthese sites.23E. de Sarzec and L. Heuzey, Decouvertesen Chald&eParis

1884-1912). For a reporton all the Frenchexcavationsat Lagash,see A. Parrot,Tello (Paris 1948), and the entries in R.S. Ellis, A

Bibliography of MesopotamianArchaeologicalSites (Wiesbaden

1972) 80-81. The situationin relation to the archives s described

by Jones (supran. 9) 42-45.24 For an overviewof the British Museumworkat Sipparandan

accountof all objectsfound there (excludingtablets,prisms, andcones),see C.B.F. Walker andD. Collon,"HormuzdRassam'sEx-cavations or the BritishMuseum at Sipparin 1881-82," in L. De

Meyer ed., Tell ed-Dir 3: Sounding at Abii Habbah (Sippar)(Leuven 1980) 93-114. For the work at Tell ed-Der, see E.A.W.

Budge,By Nile and Tigris(London1920) 1.319-22 and2.257-68,who theredescribes he trialsbesettingan object-oriented rchaeo-

logist in the late nineteenthcentury.For all workon bothsites, seethe entriesin Ellis, Bibliography supran. 23) 76 (Sippar)and 21

(Tell ed-Der), the lattersupplementedby the reportson the recentworkof the Belgianexpedition n De Meyer, Tell ed-Dar(Leuven1970-), and the notices n the series"Excavations n Iraq," n Iraq35 (1973) 197; 37 (1975) 63-64; 38 (1976) 74-75; 39 (1977)312-13; 41 (1979) 155-56. The activitiesof workmen,antiquitiesdealers, local officials,and representatives f the British Museumare graphicallydescribedby Rassam and Budge in their various

publications; he assortedproblemsfaced at that time and by themodern nterpreter reabundantly llustratedby Budge'snarrativein By Nile and Tigris2.257-68. It shouldbe noted hatWalkerand

Collon,discussing hepreviousdescriptions f workat Sippar(Telled-Dar .94), feel that"Budge's eports onSippar, n this case]are

thoroughlyconfusedand best ignored."



1983] CHRONOLOGIESN OLDWORLDARCHAEOLOGY 501

about varioustext genresand contractualactivities,25but until the comprehensiveworkby RivkahHarris26

they-and indeed also texts from other sites which

formedthe basis for the synthesizingpublicationsof

the early twentiethcentury-were not usually taken

as representinga single record-producer,r even theactivities at a single site.27 The situation for Sipparand environs s now beingameliorated,boththroughHarris'work on thepublished exts28 ndthrough he

activities connectedwith and stimulatedby the cur-

rentBelgianexcavationsat Tell ed-Der.29 n thecon-

textof these newexcavations,as well as in response o

the cataloguingof texts in the Sipparcollectionof the

British Museum, the British Museum recordshave

been searched30 and that evidence has been made

available for the study of the various archivesand

sites.31The discoveryat Tell ed-Der in 1975 of themorethan2000 tabletsof the archiveof the chief lam-

entation priest of the goddess Anunitum providesmuch informationon all levels of research ouchedon

here:the activitiesof ancientofficials;the natureof

ancientarchives; heir storage;and their modernex-cavationandutilization.32

The case of the Ur III periodtexts fromLagashis

somewhatdifferent.Jones has presentedan overview

of the archivesof the variousUr III periodsites:how

they cameto light, how and why partsof themwere

published-and why some were not.33He also dis-

cusses the bases and limits of historicalresearchas it

appliesto Sumeriandocuments.34De Sarzec'sdiscoveryof the Lagasharchivewasre-

ported n 1894;30,000 tabletswere said to havebeen

25See, for example, the text compilationsand discussion in P.

Kohler(laterreplacedby P. Koschaker)andA. Ungnad,Hammu-

rabi's Gesetz (6 vols.; Leipzig 1904-1926), and M. Schorr, Ur-kundendesaltbabylonischen ivil- undProzessrechts Vorderasia-tische Bibliothek5, Leipzig 1913).

26R. Harris, Ancient Sippar:A DemographicStudyof an Old-

BabylonianCity, 1894-1595 B.C. (Uitgaven van het Nederlands

Historisch-Archaeologischnstituutte Istanbul36, Istanbul1975).It should be noted that not all the texts discussedby Harris camefrom Sippar itself, but that many came fromnearbyTell ed-Der,where a large number of tablets were found. Rassam and Budgeboth excavatedtablets at the sites, and purchasedtablets foundthereby others,either beforeor duringtheirown excavations.See,for example, Budge (supra n. 24) 2.267, who describes here how

he induced his workmen to sell to him directly, rather than gothrough middlemen in Baghdad. For the quantities of texts in-

volved,see Budge'sstatement hat workmenpaidby Baghdadanti-

quitiesdealersapparentlyactingon behalfof the Vali of Baghdad,excavated"many housandsof case tablets from hree chambers"p.258);these tablets had beenstored njarsoron stone slabs(p. 268).Budge bought"thecreamof the collection"plus manythousandsofothertablets,fromvariousdealers(who had told the Vali no tabletshad been found) (pp. 261-63). For texts from the Iraqi excavationat Tell ed-Der in 1941, see D.O. Edzard,AltbabylonischeRechts-und Wirtschaftsurkundenus Tell ed-Dor m IrakMuseum,Bagh-dad (Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissen-

schaften, phil.-hist. Kl. NF 72, Munich 1970). Edzarddiscussesidentificationof Tell ed-Der texts in the BritishMuseum on p. 13n. 6 and pp. 16-17.

27Harrisattempteda descriptionofthe physicalcharacteristics f

Old BabylonianSipparas thesecould be culled from the texts:(su-pra n. 26) 10-14, "Sippar as a City Agglomeration,"and pp.15-37, "The PhysicalFeatures of Sippar."It shouldbe notedthatthis attemptis not totallyvalid since it is morethan likely that notall the texts she used came from the city of Sippar itself. Her de-

scriptionshould be supplementedwith those based on modernob-servations of the site and surrounding areas, especially L. De

Meyer and H. Gasche, "Contributions la topographiede AbaHabbah," n De Meyer, Tell ed-Dor 3 (supran. 24) 23-36 with pl.2 and plans 2-3 (showingRassam'sexcavations),and Gasche andDe Meyer, "Ebauchesd'une geographiehistorique de la regionAbn Habbah/Tell ed-Dir," pp. 2-13.

28Although she also used a number of unpublishedtexts. The

material availableto and used by her has since been supplementedby further text publications(CT 45 [1964];47 [1967];48 [1968];and 52 [1976]).See also the reviews of Harrisby M. Stol,BibO33

(1976) 146-54, and M. deJ. Ellis, JCS (in press).29For reports,see De Meyer, Tell ed-Dir (supran. 24) and the

supplementarymaterialcited in n. 24, above.30Such as packing inventories,accessionrecords,and trustees'

minutes and correspondence.31 Especially helpful were the comparisonsof inventoriesmade

when the tabletswerepackedandthosemade on theirarrivalat theBritish Museum;see Walker and Collon, in De Meyer, Tell ed-Dir 3 (supran. 24) 95. See alsoJ. Reade,in an introductory hap-ter to E. Leichty, Catalogueofthe Neo-BabylonianSippar Tabletsin the BritishMuseum 1 (in press),in which all the British Muse-

um acquisitions rom the late 19thcenturyare discussed.32Fora description f the archive'sdiscovery, ituation,andcon-

tents, see the provisionalnotices in Iraq 38 (1976) 75, where the

assumption is made that the building in Sounding E was the

priest'sprivateresidence,based on the fact that the contentsof thetexts are "essentially conomicandadministrative";he tablets hadbeen "grouped n basketsor woodenchests."The report n Iraq39

(1977) 313 describes he post-excavation reatmentof the tablets,andtheircataloguing orfindspot,content,anddate; hat in Iraq41

(1979) 155 describes urther work investigating he building, "atthe Temple of Anunitum," n which the archivewas found.Mate-rials fromthe archivehavebeen treated n dissertationsnow beingpreparedfor publication.In a recentlecture H. Gaschedescribedthat archive as being primarilythe personalarchive of the chieflamentationpriestof the AnunitumTemple, Ur-Utu, thoughtexts

belonging o the archivesof the templeitself werealso found(Uni-versityof Pennsylvania,13 April 1983).The questionof privateas

opposedto publicactivityon the partof an official is a vexing one,and not easily decided; ee forexampleB. Landsberger,"Remarkson the Archiveof the SoldierUbarrum," CS 9 (1955) 128 and n.162. The questioncomesup also in relationto the archive of the

sangu of the Kititum Temple of Ishchali, discussed below, pp.503-507. The question of combinationof public and privatear-chives is touchedon several imes forarchives n the Romanworld

by Posner(supran. 2) esp. 154-55.

33Jones (supran. 9).34Jones (supran. 9) 54-57, who there alsogivesa demonstration

of what maybe accomplished ven with limited nformation,usingthe archiveof an officialnamedBazi.



502 MARIA DEJONG ELLIS [AJA 87

foundin situ. Eitherbeforeor afterthe officialfind,35

however,workmen llegallyexcavatedand sold a siz-

ablepartof the archive.Yet evensuch an unfortunate

occurrencecan contribute nformationaboutancient

archivalarrangement,although not about the func-

tionof the archive-containing uildings.36onesdem-onstrated37hat a chronologicalabulationof all pub-lishedUr III texts fromLagashshows that the clan-

destinediggers"madea gaping hole in the Tello ar-chives"38oth in the groundand in the chronological

sequenceof tablets.

The lastgeneralareaI wish to touchon is thetreat-

mentaccorded inds of cuneiform abletsby archaeo-

logists.The generalresponse o a find of documentssto use them for immediatedating purposes (royalname, date,etc.),or for the identificationof buildingsor evensites.The result of the immediate

availabilityof dating evidence is that standard archaeologicalsourcesof informationsuch as pottery sequencesare

usually not worked out as carefullyor in as great adetail for the so-called historicalperiodsas they are

for earlierperiods.But ironicallytabletsthemselves,when found, are hardly ever treated as if they toowere archaeologicalartifacts, made by hand, and

available ortypological tudy.Certainly he relation-

shipof theirfindspot o theircontent-which is of ex-treme importance n typologicalstudies for both the

historian and the archaeologist-is very often over-

looked. And here the blamemust usually rest on thearchaeologist,who-even if he has the information--oftensees noreasonto include t in the officialreports.Instances n pointare,again,Mari andUr.39

The text publicationsfrom Mari do, occasionally,includethe numberof the roomin which texts were

found,eitherin the title of the volumeor in the intro-

ductorycomments,and, as indicatedabove, some ofthe scholarspublishingthe texts havetriedto discern

the archival unctionof the rooms n whichthe tabletswere found. In this aim they are hamperedby the

lootingthat preceded he final destructionof the pal-ace. In the final publication of the archaeologicalfinds,40 however,the discussionof the architecturalremains often does not include detailed statements

concerningwhat was found in the individualrooms,

includingtablets.41Moreover,the tabletsare not in-cludedin the final publicationof the objects oundinthe palace,42 o that nowherein the officialpublica-tions is there a total accountingof the documentary

finds in the contextof-or with easy accessto-a de-scriptionof their provenienceand related material,such as is given briefly in the preliminaryreports.Suchan accounting,as well as a concordance f roomsandthe tabletsfoundin them,43bothby record-num-bers and by text type, would be extremelyuseful toscholarspursuinglines of inquirybeyondthe imme-diate discussionof text and text type. We must hopethat this informationwill be publishedsometime,as

partof ongoingresearchon the site.

The documentationor tabletsfoundat Ur is ratherlesscomplete hanthat forthe Mari tablets.In gener-

al, neitherthe preliminaryreportsnorthe finalexca-vation volumes give any details concerningfinds of

tablets,44and apparentlyno very carefulrecordwas

keptof the exact locationof tablet finds-not only of

5 Sourcesvary as to the chronological equenceof events;for a

summaryseeJones (supran. 9) 41-43.

36That function, n anycase,cannotbe studiedon the basis of theresultsof the officialexcavation.

37Jones (supran. 9) 43 and 45 fig. 1.

38Jones (supran. 9) 34.

39I shouldemphasize hat thesesitesarenot singledout herebe-causethey,alone,presentproblemsandchallenges,but because hematerial s readilyaccessibleeven in non-specialized ibraries,andbecausebetween hem

theydemonstrate he

scopeof the

problemas

well as manyof the attemptswhich are being made to deal with it.40The excavationof thepalacewas published n a three-partvol-

ume:A. Parrot,MAM 2:Le Palais, 1:ArchitectureParis 1958);2:Peintures murales (1958); 3: Documents et monuments (1959).The Architecturevolume describes the palace by functional sec-tions,andwithinthat,by individualrooms,givingdetaileddescrip-tions of the architectural emains,and summarystatementsof thecontents of the rooms ("plusieurs centaines de tablettes";"ceramique").

41 Indeed,the preliminarypublicationsof the variouscampaignsoften include more detail on the tablets than does the final

publication.

42 The volume Documents et monuments is subdivided nto the

followingsections:1: Statuaireet reliefs;2: moulesen terrecuite;3:

figurines;4: objetsen pierre, en os et en metal; 5: amulettes,pa-rures;6: mosaiqueset 616ments 'incrustation; : coffreornement6;8: c&ramique; : glyptique; 10: legendes des empreintes;11: lafaune du palais.

43It should be noted that a fast tabulation of rooms and tabletfinds-and the size of the finds-comparing preliminaryarchaeo-

logical and philologicalreports, the final archaeologicalreports,and all the

introductoryand

descriptivematerial of the ARMTseries (admittedlycovering only a portion-although the majorone-of the text publications)leads to some interestingobserva-tions andquestionsconcerning hedistribution f tabletsfound,andthe proportionof the tablets now publishedand how these wereselected.

44Preliminaryreports:Syria 17 (1936) 23:2500+ tablets,mostlyin room5; 18 (1937) 74: some13,000texts, in rooms108and 115a;19 (1938) 15: 6 to 8000 tablets in 3 importantlots; 20 (1939)14-20: many hundreds in various rooms. Final reports:Parrot,MAM 2.1, pp. 26, 69, 72, 80, 81, 101, 163, 190,217, 246, 276, 289,and 292 describerooms n which tabletswere found.



1983] CHRONOLOGIESN OLD WORLDARCHAEOLOGY 503

mundanerecords,but also of important nscriptionalmaterial which might have provided specific datingevidence.45The obviousexample relatingto archival

use and interpretationnvolvesthe Ur III texts men-

tioned above.46 The publicationof the texts by Le-

grain, UET 3, includesno informationon the pro-venience of the tablets.47Jacobsen, in his review of

Legrain'spublication,publisheda list of numbersas-

signedto Ur III tablets, arrangedby seasons,which

was given him by Legrain,48but stated that "a de-

tailed correlationof the [Ur III period]texts and ar-chitecturalremainswill have to await the appearanceof the final archaeologicalreport."49 However, the

onlygeneralreference o theprovenienceof the tablet

finds of the Ur III periodis a statementnear the end

of the volumedealingwith the Isin-Larsaperiod,and

that noterefers the readerto theprovisional

istpub-lished by Jacobsen.50This information can to some

extent be supplementedfrom the published object

catalogues,but unfortunately t is not clear to what

extent this cataloguereflects the totalityof the infor-

mationavailable.51

The final example of archaeologicaland textual

correlationI wish to cite is one that resulted in the

formulationof my currentwork with the archiveof

the Old BabylonianKititumTemple at Ishchali.Cuneiformtablets and other objectsattributedto

the Mesopotamian site of Ishchali, located in the

drainageareaof the Diyala Rivereast of Baghdad,52

beganto appearon the Baghdadantiquitiesmarket nthe late 1920s,anddrewthe attentionof the Iraqian-

tiquitiesofficials o the importanceof the site. The sitewas subsequentlyexcavatedby Thorkild Jacobsen,who conductedtwo field seasons there, in 1934-35and 1935-36, as part of the OrientalInstituteof the

Universityof Chicago'sDiyala Project.53 he excava-tion yielded the remains of several building com-

plexes:a large temple dedicated o the goddessKiti-

tum (a form of Ishtar);a templeof the sun god Sha-

mash, with surroundingresidentialprecinct,locatedeast of the KititumTemple next to the city wall and

gate; and a complex of other rooms and buildingscalledon the excavationplan the "serai" that is, ad-ministrative building).54 All these areas yielded,

amongotherobjects, abletsdatingto the time of the

kingdomof Eshnunna, in the early Old Babylonian

period.55

45For examples of the informationon findspots available for

royal inscriptions, or instance,see the information rom the field

cataloguesquoted by E. Sollberger n the descriptivecatalogueofhis volumeUrExcavationTexts,8:Royal Inscriptionspart2 (Lon-

don 1965) 1-22, and his descriptionof the situation n his introduc-tion to the volume,p. ix.

46 Supra p. 500 and ns. 15-20.

47Indeed hevolumeby Sollberger supran. 45) is theonlyone inwhichtextsexcavatedat Ur werepublished hatcontainseven a ref-erence to the fact that the texts were excavated, et alone mentionstheirprovenience rthe possibilityofascertaining hatprovenience.

48Jacobsen(supran. 4) 125.49Jacobsen(supran. 4) 125.

soUE 7.214.

51 The situationwith Ur is complicatedby the factthat,althoughthe text of the finalreportswas preparedby Sir LeonardWoolley,manyof the volumeswerepublishedafterhis death n 1960,havingbeen prepared or publicationby various editorsand a publicationcommittee.These personsdid their best to incorporatedata on ob-

jects (including ablets)andtheirarchaeologicalprovenience

wher-everpossible,since they felt that "acompleterecordof the finds isessential for the constructionof the evidenceand for the conve-nienceof theresearcher"UE 6.83). The chiefresultof this effort sthat the cataloguesof volumes 6 (The Buildings of the ThirdDy-nasty [19741),7 (The Old BabylonianPeriod [1975]), and 8 (TheKassitePeriodand thePeriodoftheAssyrianKings [1965])includeall theobjectsdescribed n the text of eachvolume, ogetherwith theinformation rom the field notes that applies to them, ratherthan

only selectedobjects,as Woolley had intended. In addition,T.C.

Mitchell, the editor of the Old Babylonianvolume,UE 7, includedin thepreliminarymatter o thatvolume,p. xviii, a separatenotebyWoolley, written in reaction to reviews of several of the text vol-

umes,acknowledging he needforpublicationof the information nthe provenienceof excavated ablets,andexplainingthe procedureby which tabletswere treated, hus making ts shortcomings ll tooobvious.

52The site is indicatedon the map fig. 3 in R. McC. Adams,Land BehindBaghdad Chicago1965),as site no. 442; see also the

descriptionof the site, Appendix p. 153. The ancient name of thesite has generallybeen assumed o be Neribtum,aftera suggestionby T. Jacobsen in "The Historical Data,"in H. Frankfort,Seton

Lloyd and T. Jacobsen, The Gimil-Sin Templeand the Palaceofthe Rulersat Tell Asmar OrientalInstitutePublications43, 1940)123 n. 26. That suggestion,which was at the time quite tentative,was followed,forexample,by R. Harris, "TheArchiveof the Sin-

Temple at Khafajah" CS 9 (1955) 33 and n. 15;forall references,see the recently publishedentry in B. Groneberg,Die Orts-und

Gewiissernamender altbabylonischenZeit (Repertoire G6ogra-phique 3, Wiesbaden 1980) 176-77 under Nerebtum,where thecitations orNeribtum arelisted,followedbythesuggested dentifi-cationwith ?agali (i.e., Ishchali) and the map coordinates or themodern site.

However,as S.

Greengus,Old

BabylonianTablets

from Ishchali and Vicinity (Leiden 1979; henceforth cited as

Greengus,Ishchali)p. 1, n. 1, pointsout, the evidence or the iden-tification s by no meansconclusive,althoughhe himselfassumes tto be in his discussion; ee, forexample, p. 21 n. 106.

53H. Frankfort,Field Director.

54For a composite(and idealized) site plan, see H. Frankfort,StratifiedCylinderSeals romtheDiyala Region(OrientalInstitutePublications72, Chicago1955) pl. 96.

55According o Greengus,Ishchali2, 280 tabletswere excavatedat the site, of which 138 wereallottedto Chicagoand 142 stayed n

Iraq.




Only the resultsof the firstseasonat Ishchalihavebeen discussed n briefpreliminary ashion'6; he sec-ondseasonwas notreportedon. Becauseof the format

plannedforthe publicationof the Diyala Projectas a

whole," only selectedcategoriesof finds made at the

site have as yet beentreated n the relevantfinalpub-lications;amongthem is the excavation's hareof thecuneiform tablets.5"The buildings at the site arescheduled or publication n the volumeOldBabylo-nian Public Buildings, not yet completed, and the

original plan was that the site as an entity would bediscussedin the synthesizingvolume Four Ancient

Towns,which would concludethe publicationof the

Diyala Project.The fact that thetextual materialcanbe associated

with coherentarchitecturalremains, and the find-

spots of the tablets documented,opens up another

phase of studyfor both the archaeologistand the as-

syriologist.59However, of all the texts which com-

prisethe archives oundat or attributed o the site,byfar the greatestnumberknown came from clandes-tine excavationsand thus have no knownarchaeolog-ical context,even thoughtheir probablecontextmaybe surmised.60

Fromthe pointof view of the assyriologist, he Ish-chali texts, consistingas they do of a combinationof

officiallyand clandestinelyexcavatedtablets,presenta challenge orrefining hemethodology f archivere-construction.The tabletsthat belongto the archiveofthe Kititum Temple, known from the reporton thefirst seasonand fromthe compositeplan published n

severalof the Diyala Projectvolumes,61are particu-

larlyinteresting n this respect.Duringthe formalex-cavationof the temple, 119 tablets were found.62 nthe publishedcorpusof texts the KititumTemple ar-chiveis representedby the 55 excavated exts now in

Chicago,and by 21 purchased exts in Baghdadand

Chicago.63This material has recently been aug-

56The resultsof the first seasonofexcavationsweredescribed n a

preliminary orm by H. Frankfort,"Progressof the Work of theOriental Institute in Iraq, 1934-35: II: Excavationsat Ishchali,"Oriental nstituteCommunications0 (1936) 74-100, withplanson

pp. 76 and 77. No such reportfor the secondseason was everpub-lished,but the architectural emainsuncovered n bothseasonsareshown on theplan in Frankfort,StratifiedCylinderSeals (supran.

54) pl. 96, reproduced y Greengus,Ishchali10. The finalpublica-tion of the architectural emains s beingpreparedby T. Jacobsen,who directed hefieldoperationsat Ishchali,as partof a publicationdealingwith the Old Babylonianpublicbuildingsexcavated n the

Diyala Region. Certainclasses of objects ound at or attributed o

Ishchalihavealreadybeenpublished n the relevantvolumesdeal-

ingwith theresultsof theDiyala Projectasa whole.Forthecylinderseals, see Frankfort,StratifiedCylinderSeals (supran. 54) 60-61and pls. 86-87, cataloguenumbers900-58 (900-37 were foundinthe KititumTemple);andthe seal inscriptions n pp. 51-52; sculp-ture:H. Frankfort,More Sculpture rom the Diyala Region (OIP60, 1943) pls. 73-74 and 77-81, of which cataloguenumbers 333and 335 were found in the KititumTemple;pottery:P. Delougaz,Potteryrom theDiyalaRegion(OIP 63, 1952) 173-74 andthe de-

scriptionoftheIsin-LarsaandOldBabylonianperiodpotteryonpp.114-24, passim.The evidencefrom Ishchali is also utilized in the

chapterdiscussing he historicaldata in OIP 43 (1940), especiallypp. 116-17. Of the remainingunpublishedobjects, he stonevesselswill be presentedby H.J. Kantor,and the small objects(weights,models, ewelry,plaques,etc.),manyof whichwerefound n the Ki-

titumTemple,will be publishedby R.S. Ellis.57See, for example, the frontmatterin OIP 43 (1940) vii, fora

list of projectedpublications,and supran. 56 for thosealready ap-pearedwhich includematerialfromIshchali.

58The excavation's hareof thesetablets,as well as tabletsattrib-uted to Ishchaliboughtfromantiquitiesdealers in Baghdad,havenow beenpublished n Greengus,Ishchali,as nos. 1-304 and 326.The clandestinelyexcavatedtabletsthat led to the Oriental Insti-tute excavationare now in a numberof differentmoderncollec-tions. The presentdistributionof the tablets,andtheircurrentsta-tus in relationto publication as well as the validityof the dealers'attributionsof Diyala texts to specific sites) were discussed byGreengus,Ishchali2-3 and n. 9, andp. 6. Approximately180 Ish-

chali tablets are in the Lowie Museum of Anthropology n Berke-ley; of these 110 were publishedby H.F. Lutz in Legal and Eco-nomic Documentsrom Ashjaly(Universityof CaliforniaPublica-tions in SemiticPhilology10, 1931);these texts were subsequentlytreated by Mirjam Seif, Uber die altbabylonischeRechts- und

WirtschaftsurkundenusIRali (Berlin 1938).One text in the Mu-s&ed'Artet d'Histoirein Geneva, MAH 16163A+B, belongsar-chivally with the tabletsnow in Berkeley; t was publishedby E.Szlechter, in Tablettesjuridiques de la 1re Dynastiede Babylone(Publicationsde l'Institutde Droit Romainde l'Universit6de Paris16, Paris 1958).A numberof textsfrom Ishchalionce n theposses-sion of

antiquitiesdealerswere

givento, or

confiscatedby,the

IraqMuseum; someof these were publishedby J.J.A. van Dijk in theseries Texts from the Iraq Museum (Baghdad and Wiesbaden1964-) 2.4, 5, 7, 8, 31, 43, 46, 47, 56, and 122;3.126-27; and 5.21.The Iraq Museum also holds the Ishchalitabletswhich were the

Iraqi government'sshare of the excavatedobjects; hey have notbeen published, but the field recordsnow in Chicagocontainde-scriptionsof them.

59We mustbegrateful oJacobsen-who in onepersoncombinesboth excavatorand assyriologist-for seeingthe importanceof this

type of documentation,and to Greengus, one of Jacobsen's stu-dents,who publishedthe volumeof excavated exts, forincludingalist of tabletnumbersandfindspots: shchali54-57, "SupplementalData on ExcavatedTablets,"giving publication ext number,fieldnumber, findspot,and date excavated.One would have liked anindex by room, as well. It is unfortunatethat Greengus did not

implementfully the approach ndicatedby the type of informationhe provided n his criticalapparatus o his volume in his own pre-sentationand publicationof the texts;for a detailedcritiqueof hiswork, see M. deJ. Ellis. "TheArchiveof the Old BabylonianKiti-tum Temple and Other Tablets from Ishchali,"JAOS (forthcom-ing), which includesa review of Greengus'volume.

60 The exception s the archiveknown as that of Ilshu-nasirandhis father Bur-Sin, of which no identifiable components were

amongthe excavated ablets;see Greengus,Ishchali3.61 See supra n. 56.62 Information romfield records n Chicago.63 Greengus,Ishchali4-5, identifiesas purchased abletsthatcan

be attributed o theKititumTemple archiveon the basis of internal



1983] CHRONOLOGIESN OLDWORLDARCHAEOLOGY 505

mentedby a large group of tablets belongingto thearchivesof the KititumTemple which I identified nthe collectionof the Free Libraryof Philadelphiainthe courseof cataloguing hatcollection,64husbring-

ing the size of the archiveas it is currentlyavailable

for study to about 340 texts. The discoveryof theseadditionaltexts has led me to undertake he project,now in an intermediate tage,of studyingthe temple,

using all available textual and archaeological

sources.65 t may ultimately prove possible to asso-ciateeventhe purchased abletswith specificpointsof

origin within the temple, however tenuously;if so,that shouldin turnhelpto shedlight on the use madeof the building.66

The temple-complexdedicated o the goddessKiti-

tum,67 who is otherwiseknown from texts found in

Tell Asmaras Inannaof Kittu,68s the largestbuild-ing complexexcavatedat Ishchali.The buildingwithits platformmeasuresroughly75 x 110 m., is one ofthe largest Old Babyloniantemples yet excavated,69

and is commonlydescribedas being a three-shrinetemple,70 having one primarycella and two subsid-iary ones.7"However,the two smaller"cellas"n thenorthern part of the temple were used in differentways duringthe variousphasesof occupationof thetemple,72and there is considerablequestion as towhetherthese two areaswere everused as shrines.73In any case,texts excavated n all areasof the templebelong to officials of the Kititum hierarchy.74Thetemplehadfourmajorbuildingperiods,duringwhich

evidence:nos. 2, 90-92, 114-17, 131 and231. A thoroughprosopo-

graphic studyof the texts may indicatefurthercorrelations.Thereare no purchasedKititumTemple texts at Chicagowhich are un-

published,and therenever were any KititumTemple texts amongthe Ishchalitablets now in Berkeley.

64That projectwas supportedby a grantfromthe National En-dowment for the Humanities to the Library, which is acknow-

ledged here with gratitude.I am in the processof preparingthe

manuscriptof the catalogue.To Mr. Howell J. Heaney, the re-

cently retired Rare Book Librarian of the Free Library, I owethanksforsupportand the permission o publishthe tablets.

65A preliminary tageofthis projectwas reportedon in 1980,M.

deJ. Ellis, "TheArchiveof the Old BabylonianKititumTempleat

Ishchali,"Annual Meeting of the AmericanOrientalSociety,San

Francisco, 17 April 1980. Current status of the project: he Free

Librarytexts have all been prepared or publication n autograph

copy,andthe studyof themandthe othertexts in thearchive s wellunderway. ProfessorThorkildJacobsenhas kindlymadecopiesofhis notes on the excavationof the temple available to me, and Ithankhim forhis generosity n doingso. Otherhelp has comefromProfessorAnne D. Kilmer,Curatorof the Tablet Collectionof theLowie Museum of Anthropology n Berkeley,who allowed me toconsult the tablets in the Museum;and ProfessorJ.A. Brinkman,Curatorof the Tablet Collectionof the OrientalInstitute,who per-mittedmeto work with the tablets,and,as Directorof the Instituteat the time, allowed me accessto the excavationmaterialsnow in

Chicago.The AmericanPhilosophicalSocietyhasgenerouslymadeit possiblefor me to consultthe unpublished exts at Berkeley,andthe texts and excavationmaterialsat Chicago,and I acknowledgethe Society'ssupportwith gratitude.

66Greengusbrieflydiscussedsome of the texts foundtogether nvarious rooms of the

temple during the excavation(Ishchali 4-6and 12-13, especially 13 ns. 47-48). For commentson thatdiscus-sion see my reviewof his volume(supran. 59).

67The original dentificationwas basedon the discoveryof a cyl-inder seal dedicated o the goddessKititum;cf. OIC 20 (1936) 83,discussing he seal of Mattatum.For thesealandits inscription, eenow OIP 72, 52 no. 917, whereJacobsensays (n. 29) thatthe dedi-

catory nscriptionrepresenteda seconduse of the seal, andthat thelegend originally also included a title, which was erased;it is ofcourse possible that the eliminated line containeda "servantofDN/RN" clause.The inscriptionas now preservedreads:Ma-at-ta-tum / DUMU.SAL U-bar-rum /(erased)/ a-na ba-la-ti--a / a-na dKi-ti-tum i-qi-il. The seal is shown on OIP 72, pl. 87.

68See the statementby Jacobsen quoted by Frankfort, OIC 20

(1936) 83-84, andalsoJacobsen'snote in his discussionof the his-toricalproblemsof the Eshnunnadynasty,OIP 43 (1940) 116-17.

69 See Frankfort,OIC 20 (1936) 89, and, for a convenientcom-parisonof templesizes from bothOld Babylonianand earlierperi-ods, see H.J. Lenzen, "MesopotamischeTempelanlagenvon der

Frtihzeitbis zum zweitenJahrtausend,"ZA 51 (1955) 1-36. Len-zen shows the KititumTemple (redrawnfromthe plan publishedin OIC 20, 76) as fig. 38 on pl. 4 (between pp. 32 and 33), anddiscusses he templein the contextof thedevelopment f Old Baby-loniantempleplans on p. 31.

70 See Frankfort,OIC 20 (1936) 78; it is so shown on the planpublishedthere as fig. 60 on p. 77, reproducedby Greengus,Ish-chali 11as fig.3. It shouldbe notedthatthepublishedplansarenotidentical(althoughthe plans publishedas OIP 72, pl. 96 and OIP63, pl. 203 are in fact the same:the discrepancy s due to a blot in

the sectionabove he main shrinein the latterpublication).Nor arethe published plans identifiedby level and periodrepresented.Areconstructionof the Kititum Temple appears in H. Frankfort,The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (Baltimore 1954)pl. 55.

71 Lenzen, ZA 51 (1955) 31. It is to be noted that seen in thatlight thewesternmostof thetwo small"shrines"s atypical:boththemainshrineandthe easternmost mall"shrine"n planaccordwiththe so-called "Hofhaustempel"of the Old Babylonian period,whichtypicallyhas a shortwidecella ("Breitraumcella"), hile thethird "shrine" f the KititumTemple is laidoutas a "Langraum,"floor plan which remindedLenzen of the "Osttigris" emples ofTepe Gawra IX-VIII (earlythirdmillenniumB.C.; see Lenzen'sdiscussionon p. 13 and fig. 15 on pl. 1), althoughin the KititumTemple the cult nichecouldbe seenthroughthe door.

72 Forexample,thewesternmostof the two smaller"shrines"wasapparentlyat one time used as a kitchen complex or for similardomesticfunctions.See the plan in Greengus, Ishchali 10, whichshows subdividingminor walls in the "courtyard"o that "cella"(locus1R29).

73The matterwas discussedat some engthin apreliminarydraftof the manuscripton the temple'sexcavationwrittenby H.D. Hillin 1937,whichwas made available o meby ProfessorJacobsen.Asfar as I amaware,the possibleattributionof a deityto each of these"cellas"has not been discussed n the literature.

74Greengusdiscussed he texts attributed o the maincella of thebuilding (Ishchali 12-13), stating that the tablet finds bear outFrankfort's onclusion OIC20 [1936]83) thatthe largestcellawas




a few changesin layout were made. These changescan be observedprimarilyin the areas north of the

largecourtand behind the maincella,andin the rela-

tive heightsof the platformon which the main cella

blockstoodand of the rest of the temple.The dateof

the foundingof the temple and the name of its firstroyal patron are unknown;the earliest datedtablet

belongsto the reignof Ipiq-Adadof Eshnunna,while

the lastdated tablet falls in thereignof IbalpielII, an

earlier contemporaryof Hammurapiof Babylon,as

indeeddoes the bulk of the dated tablets. The templewas destroyedby fire, possibly during Hammurapi'swars with Eshnunna,which ended the rule of that

kingdomsome years after Ibalpiel II. No post-Esh-nunna remainswere foundanywhereon the site dur-

ing the excavation.

The excavated exts of thetemple

archivecomepri-marilyfromthe finaloccupationphaseof the temple;

the dated tabletscarry yearnamesfromthe reignsof

kings Dadusha and his son Ibalpiel II of Eshnunna.

The purchasedtexts, which can be attributed o the

templearchiveon internalevidence(suchas mention

of the goddess,the temple,or of particularofficials),extendthis rangebackin time to include also Dadu-

sha'spredecessorNaram-Sin. The briefdescriptionof

the archive which follows is based primarilyon the

Free Library exts, as yet unpublished.75The archiveillustratesthe activitiesand responsi-

bilities of the sangu^f the goddessKititum,that is, of

the chief administratorof her temple.76Three per-

sons, a fatherand his two sons, succeededeachotherin officeas sangzu.77The father,Igmil-Sin,is attested

during the reign of king Naram-Sin. The first son,

Inbusha,is mentioned n texts dated fromDadusha's

firstyearthroughthe fifthyearof IbalpielII, includ-

ing also all known years of Dannum-tahaz.78The

secondson,Abizum,appearsas sangu r̂omIbalpiel'sfifthyearonward.Because he dated abletsshowthat

these threepersonssucceededeach otherin the order

given,and becauseon theirseals,whichareimpressedon a large numberof tablets, they are describedas"servantof

(king) RN,"79the Kititum

Templetexts

will be of some help in untanglingthe chronological

problemsof the period."0The KititumTempletexts,whicharedistinctiven

appearanceand to the touch, includea rangeof text

types,"' ncluding he usualreceipts ortools,buildingmaterials,andso on;recordsof loans (including oans

made ointlybythegodSinof the-nearby ?-town of

Agagaand thesangu^f Kititum); istsof gifts (of pre-

that of Kititum;buthe didnot refer to the factthat Kititum-archivetexts also come from elsewhere in the temple-complex.One of his

problems s that he separated he archiveof the sangz of Kititum

(discussedon 4-5) fromthatof the rest of the temple(12-13), eventhough it is clear from the wording of the texts, and from the in-

scriptionsof seals used on them, that they all belongto one singlearchive,that of the KititumTemple, of which the sangu was the

responsibleofficial.See the discussionbelow." All the publishedtexts exemplify categoriesknown from the

Free Library exts,but the latter show morevariety.Notes on phi-lological and detailed assyriological problemshave been omittedfrom the discussionwhich follows.

76 Greengus, shchali 4-6, discusses he texts attributed o the ar-chive of the sangz of Kititum,but he separatesthat archive fromwhat he calls the administrative rchive of the temple (8-13). It isclearfrom the texts, however,that they all belongto the same rec-

ord-producingauthority. Whether we describethat authority as

beingthe templeitself in its guise as an administrative ntity,or as

beingthe officeof the

'angzas the chiefadministrator f that

entity,ultimatelymakes little differenceas long as we realizethe internalcohesionof the differentkindsof documents. preferto referto thearchiveas being that of the sangi since the title indicatesimme-

diatelythe responsibleofficial,andtakes accountalsoof the sealingpracticesand of the administrativehierarchy which are evidentfrom the documents hemselves.

" For what is knownto date of the Old Babylonian angz and his

duties, see J. Renger, "Untersuchungen um Priestertumder alt-

babylonischenZeit, II," ZA 59 (1969) 104-21: angzim. For the

sangzi as chiefadministrator f a templealso in the Ur III period,see the recentdiscussionof the templehouseholdat Lagash by I.J.Gelb, "Householdand Family in Early Mesopotamia," n E. Li-

pinski ed., State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Near East 1

(Leuven 1979) 12-24, especiallyp. 16 underla.

78 This must indicate that we must place the reign of Dannum-

tahaz eitherimmediatelybeforeor immediatelyafter that of Dadu-sha, ratherthan near the end of the dynasty.Fordetaileddocumen-

tation,see my article n JAOS(supran. 59).

79Greengus(Ishchali5 n. 17,citinga similarsuggestionmadebyRenger,ZA 59 [1969] 119-20 on the basis of ratherdifferentevi-dence forSipparandWarka)suggested hatthis mayindicate hatthesanguiwas a royal appointeeandthat in facthe mayhave func-tionedas the civil ruler of Ishchali.Whether it will be possibletoestablish any relationshipbetween the temple and the palace inEshnunna mustawait studyof the entire archive,especiallyof the

largegroupof letters.

80oThere is, for example,the problemof the orderof the rulers,specifically he placementof king Dannum-tahaz.Within the reignof theotherrulers,there s alsothequestionoftheexact orderof the

yearnameswhich arenotattestedbythe partialdate istsHarmal 1and 2: Sumer5

(1949) 83-84, and the problemof the as yet unset-tled orderof the monthnames in use at Ishchali. The fact that theKititumTemplearchive s a closed set of datacomingfroma singleinstitution-even if some of the documents,especially the letters,may have originatedoutside-and that it spans the time periodit

does,giveshopethat some of thesequestionsmaybe broughtcloserto solution.

81Certaincharacteristics uchas the qualityof theclay,andgen-eralaspectsof formsuch as the shapeof tabletcorners,arecommonto mosttexts of the archive;others,suchas overallsize, or the rela-tiveproportionofthe dimensions,varywithin thearchiveaccordingto text type.



1983] CHRONOLOGIES IN OLD WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 507

cious metals, stones, and textiles) made to the god-dess,82and other administrativememoranda.Therearealso numerous etters, ncluding wo fromthe god-dess Kititumto king Ibalpiel,83 nda numberof legalrecordsandschooltexts.

The Kititum Temple archive, when studied to-getherwith its archaeological ontext,should addsig-nificantly to our understandingof the operationofthe officeof the sanguiand its subordinates, n rela-tion to secular84 dministrativeas well as moreculticconcerns.

The precedingpresentationhas, I hope,illustratedboth the exciting possibilitiesand the irritatingfrus-

trationswhich confront he studentof ancientMeso-

potamiansocietyand institutions.I cannotarguetoostronglyforthe needto makeavailable n printall thevarious levels of informationwhich bear on the pri-maryancientdata, whethertheybe drawnfromexca-

vationrecordsor museumarchives.This informationis neededto restoreor elucidateas muchas is possiblethe ancientcontextof the tablets;only after thatis es-tablishedcan the ancientinstitutionsrepresentedbythe documentsbe studiedto besteffect.

THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19104

82 M. deJ. Ellis, "TheDeliveryTexts of the KititumTempleAr-chive,"paper read at the 30e RencontreAssyriologiqueInterna-

tionale,Leiden,5

July1983.

83 M. deJ. Ellis, "The Old Babylonian Kititum Letters:TheGoddessKititumSpeaks to King Ibalpiel,"paper read at the 27eRencontreAssyriologique nternationale,Paris,3 July 1980,to bepublished hortly.

84 It has been interesting,for example, to observesealing prac-ticesand studywhich tabletsare sealed,by whom,andwith whoseseal. For details,see provisionallymy articleon the KititumTem-ple archive(supran. 59).

Early Minoan and Middle Minoan ChronologyGERALD CADOGAN

The subjectof EarlyandMiddle Minoan(EM and

MM) chronology s a difficultone. That there hasbeenso muchdiscussionabout it shows how little weknow.'

Whatwe doknowarethe problems.What is soundevidence?That is, which are the soundcorrelations?If we donothavesoundcorrelations,what measureof

probabilitymay we findin allegedcorrelations, o asto makea circumstantial ase?How maywe connecta

chronologybased on correlationsfrom excavationswith one basedon carbon-14dates?

Here I shall be pragmaticand try to make a casethatwill allow forthe plausibilitiesandthe improba-bilities of the evidence.I lackthe certitudeof Warrenand the austerity of Astr6m.2 1am skeptical of chrono-

logies or, rather,chronologistswho venture beyondhalf-centuries to suggesting decades-although theoccasionalquarter-centuryhouldnotbeexcluded.Tosuggest anythingelse for these early times implies aprecisionwe do not have. I am also skepticalof au-thorswho refertoo muchto theirearlierwork ("As I

said in 19. .

. "). It is doubtless comforting to thinkthat one continuesto be right, but it is often not thecase. Such attitudescan produceperverse reactions,amongthemthe realworrythatno archaeologistmayexpectto have said the last wordon any of the prob-lems; t couldbemisleading o use language hatmightsuggestonehas. This will notbe the lastwordeither.

Warren'scontributionn 19793givesa full biblio-graphy,which shouldbe consulted.All that needsto

' I shouldlike to thank Edith Poradaforthe invitation o speakon this topic at the ColumbiaSeminarin February1982, and forher effortsto insure that my commentsbe published;andStylianos

Andreou,SinclairHood, and Carol Zernerfor much help and in-structionovermanyyears.

The text is publishedvery muchas it was given. With the sub-ject of chronologyhaving so many variables, t is more importantthan ever to say that the responsibility or shortcomings s the au-thor'salone.

2 P. Warren,"Problems f Chronology n Creteand theAegeanin the Third and Earlier SecondMillennium B.C.,"publishedinAJA84 (1980) 487-99 (hereafterWarren),with references 488 n.15) to earlierarticles;P. Xstr6m,articlescited n Warren488 n. 23,to which add "The Find Contextsof some Minoan Objects n Cy-prus," n ActsoftheInternationalArchaeological ymposium:"TheRelationsbetweenCyprusand Crete,ca. 2000-500 B.C."(Nicosia1979) (hereafterCyprusand Crete)56-62.

3Warren.