Bodies of Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia Ancient Magic and Divination Editors tzvi abusch – ann k. guinan – nils p. heesel francesca rochberg – frans a. m. wiggermann VoluMe 9 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/amd Ancient Magic Bodies of Knowledge in and Divination Ancient Mesopotamia The Diviners of late Bronze Age emar Editors and Their Tablet Collection tzvi abusch – ann k. guinan – nils p. heesel francesca rochberg – frans a. m. wiggermann By VoluMe 9 Matthew Rutz leIDeN • BoSToN The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/amd 2013 library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rutz, Matthew.  Bodies of knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia : the diviners of late Bronze Age emar and their table collection / by Matthew Rutz.   pages cm. — (Ancient magic and divination ; v. 9)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-90-04-24567-9 (hardback : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-90-04-24568-6 (e-book) 1. Divination— History—To 1500. 2. omens—History—To 1500 3. Assyro-Babylonian religion. 4. Assyro-Babylonian literature. 5. Cuneiform tablets—Syria—emar (extinct city) I. Title.  BF1762.R88 2013  133.309394’33—dc23 2012046969 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1566-7952 ISBN 978-90-04-24567-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24568-6 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, uSA. Fees are subject to change. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper. For Emily CoNTeNTS list of Illustrations  .......................................................................................... xi list of Tables  ..................................................................................................... xiii Preface  ................................................................................................................ xv Acknowledgments  .......................................................................................... xvii list of Abbreviations  ...................................................................................... xix Introduction  ..................................................................................................... 1 Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia: Bodies of Knowledge  .......... 2 Communities of language, Text, and Script in late Bronze  Age Syria  .................................................................................................. 5 Goals, Scope, and Structure of this Book  ............................................. 10 Chapter one. Text and Archaeology: Practitioners and Practice,  Diviners and Divination  ........................................................................... 15 Diviners and Divination: Sources and Method  .................................. 15 Identifying Diviners: Names and Titles  ........................................... 16 The Genres of Divination  .................................................................... 22 Colophons, education, and Scholarship  ......................................... 23 Material Culture of Divination: objects and Representations  25 Text and Archaeology: Context, Artifacts, Archives, and libraries  27 Corpus and Method  ................................................................................... 29 General Considerations: Terminology and Methodology  .......... 29 Case Study: ‘Temple’ M1 in emar  ...................................................... 33 Approaching the Tablet Collection from emar’s ‘Temple’ M1  .... 38 Chapter Two. emar on the euphrates: Archaeology, History, and  Society  ........................................................................................................... 45 Historical Sketch of emar in Ancient Sources  .................................... 45 Archaeology of late Bronze Age emar and its Archives  ................. 52 Geography and environment of the Middle euphrates  ............. 52 late Bronze Age Syria: An Archaeological overview  .................. 53 early exploration of eski Meskene (1907–1931)  ............................ 56 French excavations at emar (1970–1976)  ....................................... 56 Syrian excavations at emar (1992–1995)  ......................................... 80 German-Syrian excavations at emar (1996–2002)  ....................... 81 Summary: Architecture, Artifacts, and Chronology  .................... 84 Perspectives on late Bronze Age emar and its Archives  ................ 90 viii contents Chapter Three. ‘Temple’ M1: Morphology of a Tablet Collection  ..... 93 Discovery and Stratigraphy  ..................................................................... 93 Stratum 5  ................................................................................................. 94 Stratum 4  ................................................................................................. 96 Stratum 3bis  ............................................................................................ 96 Stratum 3 .................................................................................................. 96 Stratum 2  ................................................................................................. 96 Stratum 1  .................................................................................................. 97 Collapse  .................................................................................................... 97 Architecture  ................................................................................................. 98 Artifacts  ......................................................................................................... 105 epigraphic Finds  ......................................................................................... 107 Archaeological Provenience of the Tablet Collection:  excavation units  ............................................................................... 108 Summary: excavation units and Architecture .............................. 121 Chapter Four. Interpreting the ‘Temple’ M1 Tablet Collection  ......... 127 Genres Found in the Tablet Collection  ................................................ 127 Administrative Records (Appendix B.1)  .......................................... 129 legal Documents (Appendix B.2)  ..................................................... 138 letters (Appendix B.3)  ......................................................................... 143 Public Rituals (Appendix B.4) ............................................................ 144 lexical Texts (Appendix B.5)  ............................................................. 158 Divinatory Texts (Appendix B.6)  ...................................................... 219 Incantations and Rituals (Appendix B.7)  ....................................... 263 literary Texts (Appendix B.8)  ............................................................ 267 uncertain Texts and Fragments (Appendix B.9)  .......................... 275 Archive or Archives?: Dossiers Present in the Tablet Collection  ... 276 Diviners’ Archive and library  ............................................................ 278 Titles, Names, and the Archaeological Provenience of each  Dossier  ................................................................................................. 280 Royal Archive?  ....................................................................................... 291 Temple Archive?  .................................................................................... 292 Isolated Dossiers  .................................................................................... 293 elements of the Diviners’ Tablet Collection  .................................. 299 Chapter Five. Conclusion  ............................................................................ 301 Architecture and Assemblage of ‘Temple’ M1  .................................... 303 Temple, Scriptorium, Public Storage, or House? ........................... 303 contents ix The ‘Temple M1’ Tablet Collection: Formation, Size, Composition,  and Distribution  .................................................................................... 308 Perspectives on the Formation and Deposition of Cuneiform  Tablet Collections  ............................................................................. 308 ‘Temple’ M1 Archive: Size, Composition, Distribution  ................ 311 Perspectives on Archaelogical Provenience and the ‘Temple’ M1  Tablet Collection  ................................................................................... 317 Divination in emar: Theory and Practice, Tradition and  Transmission  .......................................................................................... 319 Practice and Theory of Divination in emar  ................................... 319 Tradition and Transmission ................................................................ 321 The Diviners of emar and their Script Community  .......................... 323 Appendices: Catalogue raisonné of the excavated Tablets from emar  329 Key to the Appendices  .............................................................................. 331 Appendix A. excavated Tablets and Fragments by Find-spot  ....... 333 Area A  ....................................................................................................... 335 Area C  ....................................................................................................... 337 Area e  ....................................................................................................... 338 German-Syrian excavations  ............................................................... 340 Area M  ...................................................................................................... 341 M1 R  ...................................................................................................... 341 M1 (former R)  ..................................................................................... 341 M1 M I NW  .......................................................................................... 349 M1 M I Ne  ............................................................................................ 352 M1 M I Se  ............................................................................................. 353 M1 M I SW  ........................................................................................... 354 M1 M I SW-Se  ..................................................................................... 359 M1 M I SW-II NW  .............................................................................. 360 M1 M II Ne?  ........................................................................................ 362 M1 M III Ne  ......................................................................................... 362 M1 M III Se  .......................................................................................... 407 M1 M III Ne-III Se  ............................................................................. 417 M1 M IV SW (surface clearing)  ...................................................... 417 M1 M IV NW  ....................................................................................... 418 M1 (clearing)  ...................................................................................... 419 M1—Ne  ............................................................................................... 419 M1—surface  ....................................................................................... 419 M1—unclear  ...................................................................................... 420 ‘Temple’ M2  ........................................................................................ 422