Kidin-Gula-The foreign teacher at the Emar scribal school

KIDIN-GULA—THE FOREIGN TEACHER AT THE EMAR SCRIBAL SCHOOL

Yoram Cohen

Presses Universitaires de France | « Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale »

2004/1 Vol. 98 | pages 81 à 100 ISSN 0373-6032ISBN 2130553359DOI 10.3917/assy.098.0081

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[RA 98-2004] 1

Revue d'Assyirologie, volume XCVIII (2004), p. 81-100

KIDIN-GULA—THE FOREIGN TEACHER AT THE EMAR SCRIBAL SCHOOL*

BY Yoram COHEN

I. FOREIGN TEACHERS IN THE WESTERN PERIPHERY SCRIBAL CENTERS

The extent to which foreigners were responsible for the education of the Western scribes in Sumerian and Akkadian during the Late Bronze Age has been reaffirmed in recent years.1 As Beckman 1983 has shown, Babylonians and Assyrians were active in the Hittite chancellery at ·attußa and even perhaps at the Hittite provincial city at Mas;¸ at.2 Apart from being employed as scribes in the Hittite administration, it is clear that they contributed to the transmission of the learning materials, although their modus operandi in the scribal school is practically unknown. Foreigners were active also in the emporium of Ugarit where van Soldt 2001 traced the activities of a certain Assyrian scribe named Na⁄iß-ßalmu. It is of course most likely that such a man would have educated the Ugarit scribes in Mesopotamian lore, in spite of the fact that direct evidence for his involvement in any scribal school is lacking.3 Apart from these two major scribal centers, other Western peripheral scribal centers convey rather circumstantial details about the activities of foreign teachers. For example, at El Amarna, there is good reason to suspect that part of the curriculum was the result of a direct interaction with Mesopotamian and even Hittite teachers, although there is not any hard evidence to allow a clear definition of such an encounter.4

*A preliminary version of this article was read at the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique, London, July 10th 200

3. This article is based on some of the finds of my Harvard Dissertation The Transmission and Reception of Mesopotamian Scholarly Texts at the City of Emar (2003), written under the supervision of Piotr Steinkeller, Paul-Alain Beaulieu, John Huehnergard, and Peter Machinist. They deserve my utmost gratitude. Further thanks are extended to Jeremy Black, Stephanie Dalley, Irving Finkel, Daniel Fleming, David Hawkins, Regine Pruzsinszky, Eleanor Robson, Itamar Singer, Jon Taylor, and Ran Zadok. Abbreviations follow CAD/R: ix-xxvii. In addition, notice these abbreviations: AulaSupp = Arnaud 1991, AuOr 5 = Arnaud 1987, CM = Westenholz 2000, Emar = Arnaud 1985-1987, RE = Beckman 1996. N.B. This article was submitted before the publication of the study of J.-M. Durand & L. Marti, «Relecture de documents d'Ekalte, Émar et Tuttul∞, RA 97, 2003, p. 141-180; it has been left unchanged. While agreeing with most of the philological analysis offered by Durand and Marti, I do not concur with their view concerning the origin of the documents from House 5. My own view is presented in detail throughout this article.

1. The role of Hurrians as intermediaries of Mesopotamian schooling materials and other learned texts will not be discussed here directly, although it obviously should not be ignored. The locus classicus is Kammenhuber 1976; see also Mascheroni 1984 regarding Hurrian scribes in Bog;˘ azköy and Dietrich and Mayer 1999 for Hurrian texts in Ugarit.

2. See also Alp 1998. 3. See van Soldt 1995 for an overview of the scribal education at Ugarit. 4. See Izre'el 1997 and Goren et al. 2004:76-

87 who established on the basis of a petrographic analysis that some of the Mesopotamian school texts found in El A

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2 YORAM COHEN [RA 98

To these Western periphery scribal centers where instruction was conducted by foreigners, one can now add the city of Emar on the Euphrates. It is the intention of this article to demonstrate that a person named Kidin-Gula was a foreign teacher residing at the city of Emar and active in the tutoring of local students. Though his city of origin is not known, it will be shown that this person was not native to the city of Emar and, in all probability, was a foreigner who came from North Babylonia or the Mid-Euphrates region. It will also be shown that the identification of this person has important repercussions on our understanding of the duration of the Emar archives and the city's chronology. The primary source for the reconstruction of this person's origin, profession, and activities, is a new reading of a scholarly colophon from Emar. As will be seen, additional data will be harnessed to buttress the proposed reconstruction.

II. THE TEACHER KIDIN-GULA: THE EVIDENCE OF THE SCHOLARLY COLOPHONS

The name of Kidin-Gula and his identification as a teacher at the Emar scribal school is, primarily, the result of a new reading of a colophon of an izi=ißåtu lexical list manuscript. Below is Arnaud's reading and translation of the colophon:5 du]mu ∂Iß[kur-ur.]sag lú.⁄al ]x u ∂IßÒ-t[ár ∂E-r]u^-a u dGu-la

fi]ls de Ba'al-qarråd, devin, de..]. et d'Ißt[ar, d'Er]ua et de Gula.6 Arnaud's reading is not wholly correct; this colophon can be interpreted newly with some help of the joins proposed by Civil 1989:7 and 20.7

1. izi=ißåtu (= Emar 567+ = Msk 74248b (+) 74232j (+) 74122i + 74105b): 8

[… BE] MAN [BE…] ====================================== √ßu m∂∫[o-o-o… dumu??] √m∫∂IM-[ma-lik lú.⁄al dum]u? dI[M-ur].sag lú.⁄al […arad ∂ut]u u dEfia) gá[b.z]u.zub) _ßác) mfi∏-∂Gu-la Translation: ‘Cryptic Colophon' d)

marna are of Babylonian origin; the conjecture that Hittite teachers came to Egypt goes back to an idea of Riemschneider cited by Beckman 1983:112. See van der Toorn 2000 for the scribal schools of Syria-Palestine.

5. See Emar 604, no. 15. 6. The reading [∂E-r]u^-

a, which must be dismissed, is unfortunate because this alleged deity was included in some studies of Emar's pantheon and its religious realm (e.g., recently in Beckman 2002). The goddess Gula mentioned in this colophon (and in Colophon no. 3; see below) is just the theophoric element in a personal name, as shown throughout this article, and not a patron goddess of the Emar scribes. And the goddess Ißtar, although known in Emar, does not appear in this scholarly colophon: the writing of the divine name stands here rather for Sîn; see below.

7. Civil 1989:7 in his review of Arnaud's editio princeps remarked that “…the sequence of fragments from left to right, looking at the colophon, is 74232j (sic!) + 74122i + 74105b. As a consequence, colophons 15 and 16 (in Emar 604 of Arnaud's edition) are the same and the restoration is different from the one proposed by the author. The reviewer is not sure of the result without checking the originals." (Parentheses are of the present author). Note that Civil did not present a new reading of the colophon. And, it is only fair to note that Arnaud already recognized that Msk 74122i joins Emar 567 (= Msk 74105b (+) Msk 7494b), although he did not mention this fragment in his reconstruction.

8. The colophon is found on the edge of the tablet. See fig. 1. The spacing between one fragment to the next is of course approximate, as neither photos nor originals are available to the present author.

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2004 KIDIN-GULA—THE FOREIGN TEACHER AT THE EMAR SCHOOL 3

====================================== √The hand of∫ [so and so, son of ] Ba'al-[målik, the diviner, so]n of B[a'al-qar]råd, the diviner, [… servant of fiama]ß and Sîn, st[ud]ent of Kidin-Gula.

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a) Instead of the usual writing of d30 with three winkelhackens ( ), one finds it written with four (; here, for the sake of convenience, the sign will be designated as Efi). The writing of Sîn's name this way is documented in the ‘Götterlisten' tradition. Notice the city's God-list, Emar 539 (= Msk 74165i; see the copy, not Arnaud's edition), 9': [dNan]na = dEfi; 10': [dEN].ZU = d30. This writing tradition is found also in the AN=Anum list (see Litke 1998, YBC 2401, pl. xvii, 167). Litke 1998:117 observes that probably “…a distinction was made between Efi as an ideogram for dSin/EN.ZU and d30 as a numerical ideogram for dSin/EN.ZU." This writing is utilised in the AN=Anum colophon where the scribe's name is written Ki-din-dEfi = Kidin-Sîn (CT 24, 46a, 9 = Hunger 1968:31-2). The mention of fiamaß and Sîn as a pair in the Emar colophons can be seen in Emar 545 V (= Msk 74143a). b) Compare the incompletely preserved sign gáb with colophons Emar 604 AD (= Msk 7495a) and Msk 74102g in fig. 3 and note 11. c) The signs zu and ßa were not segmented correctly by the student, a common enough phenomenon in the copies of the Emar novice scribes. It is worth comparing these and other signs of Colophon no. 1 with the signs of the Emar Sa Paleographic Syllabary (Emar 538 J = Msk 74193a). See fig. 2 and section IV. d) See Hunger 1968:5.

This colophon is restored on the basis of the more fully preserved Emar colophons that provide diverse details, such as, the type of work copied, the name of the copyist, his lineage, title, status, and patron gods (not necessarily in this order).9 Admittedly, due to the fragmentary conservation of the colophon, some details are still missing. However, with this new reading two things become apparent. Firstly, a person called Kidin-Gula is encountered, and secondly, it is obvious that his professional status is that of a teacher, because the copyist of the tablet is identified as his student. The copyist, whose name is not preserved, terms himself a gá[b.z]u.zu (or in Akkadian, a talmºdu),10 the common designation of the scribal school students.11

9. Compare the following colophon of the scribe fiaggar-abu, the elder brother of Ba'al-

målik. (For the reading of fiaggar-abu's name here, see Fleming 2000:31, n. 61); see also the colophons given in note 11. lú=ßa (= Emar 602 A = Msk 74121) [ßu m∂·A]R-ad [The hand of fiag]gar-abu, d[umu ∂IM-ur].sag s[on of Ba'al-qar]råd, l[ú.⁄al l]ú.azu the div[iner, the exo]rcist du[mu mZ]u-Ba-la so[n of Z]ª-Ba'la, l[ú.⁄al ßa] dingir.meß the divi[ner of] the gods ßa [uruE-m]ar of [the city of Em]ar, dum[u o-o]-x-x so[n of ?]-?, lú.[⁄al] lú.azu the divi[ner], the exorcist.

10. The Emar lú=ßa lexical list (Emar 602) provides evidence that the reading zu.zu = talmºdu was known at the Emar school: 139' ßu-i-zu-zu ta-lam-[di/-id gallåbi] ‘appr[entice barber]'

(The lemma talmºdu is spelt in the list with an anaptyctic vowel: talam[di/id]; the restoration is the present author's). See Huehnergard 1989:13, n. 19, for gáb.zu.zu in the Ugarit colophons and CAD/K: 29 and AHw: 1311 for further lexical evidence.

11. Compare the following colophons, in which, once again, the students' names are unfortunately broken (see fig. 3); note that the designation of the copyists as students comes at the very end of the colophons, like in Colophon no. 1, the izi=ißåtu colophon. lú=ßa (= Emar 602 AD = Msk 7495a) x[o-o-o-o-o]x ?[ ]? x[o-o-o ∂IM-ur]sag¡¿ ?[ son of Ba'al-qarr]åd¿, du[mu¿ o-o-o-o] s[on of¿ …], gáb.[zu.z]u stud[en]t ßa m∂IM-ma-lik of Ba'al-målik Msk 74102g [arad ∂o-o] [servant of so and so deity] ù [∂o-o] and [so and so deity], arad [∂o-o] servant of [so and so deity], ù [∂o-o] and [so and so deity], gáb.z[u.z]u stu[den]t ßa [o-o-o] of [so and so].

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It is on account of this izi=ißåtu colophon that the two following Emar colophons can be restored, mentioning, no doubt, the same individual, Kidin-Gula. In these, his name is spelt syllabically.

2. Hh XVIII = Emar 555 E (= Msk 74208c):12

[… ]mKi-din-∂Gu-la

3. Hh VIII-IX = Emar 546 A (= Msk 74191b):13 […] md[o-o-o-o lú.dub.ß]ar lú.⁄al arad d[o-o] arad d[o-o] arad d[o-o] u d[o-o-o] [gáb.zu.zu ßá mKi-din- / mfi∏-∂G]u-la

In Colophon no. 3, Arnaud's restoration (arad…[…dG]ula) should now be abandoned in favour of […Kidin-dG]ula. One should note that, unlike Nabû or Nisaba who figure prominently in the Emar colophons, for example, the goddess Gula is not one of the deities evoked in them.14 In fact, Gula does not appear in any of the Emar texts, with two exceptions,15 nor is she incorporated in personal names from Emar (apart from the single personal name which is discussed here). As will be seen, additional documents supply further information about Kidin-Gula and his activities in the city. But first a careful analysis of his name is required.

III. THE MEANING, DISTRIBUTION, AND ORTHOGRAPHY OF THE NAME KIDIN-GULA

Names such as Kidin-Gula are formed by the coupling of kidin-, the bound form of kidinnu, a word of Elamite origin,16 meaning ‘divine protection', with a god or goddess name. The meaning of the name Kidin-Gula is simply then “The divine protection of Gula". This kidin- type name is the only one found in the Emar onomastics.17 In Mesopotamia, however, such kidin- type names are widespread and exhibit an extensive chronological range. These names are known from as early as the Old Babylonian period18 and then found in the Nuzi archives.19 They become common throughout the second half of the second millennium. They are found in Middle Babylonian20 and Middle Assyrian documentation.21 In the first millennium, one finds a mixt

12. See fig. 2. Thus read by Arnaud, Emar 604, no. 18. 13. See fig. 2. Cf. Arnaud, Emar 604, no. 14. 14. Gula's role in exorcist literature is evident, however, on the whole, she does not seem to be associated wi

th the scribal world in a direct fashion. See Frankena 1957-1971. 15. Gula is found in the Emar ‘Silbenvokabular A' (= Emar 603:7) and God-list (= Emar 539:88'). 16. See Zadok 1984:21 and earlier, Leemans 1946. 17. See Pruzsinszky 2003:104. 18. For example, Bowes 1997:682 (= TCL 1, 163:3; Sippar, Ammi-Ωaduqa): Ki-din-

∂MAR.TU (di.kud). See also CAD/K: 343. 19. Cassin and Glassner 1977:84 (= HSS XV, 150:4): Ki-din-∂IM (lú.a.zu). 20. All the names in Middle Babylonian sources are written syllabically (ki-

din), as far as could be seen. See Clay 1912:97-9, Hölscher 1996:120-3, Sassmannshausen 2001:481-2, and also Oppenheim 1936. From the Amarna archive comes mKi-din-∂IM (EA 12:23), possibly the very scribe of the letter; see Moran 1992:24 and Hess 1993:100 [99].

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ure of Assyrians and Babylonians bearing kidin- names.22 The name Kidin-Gula in itself is not a rare one and it is found in contemporary Babylonian and Assyrian sources alike.23 As for the orthography of the name, it was seen that the teacher's name is written syllabically (Ki-din-∂Gu-la) in Colophons nos. 2 and 3. It is also written in this manner in two ephemeral documents, Emar 25 and 26, about which more will be said in section IV. Only once is the logographic writing of the name found (fi∏-dGu-la), as now read in Colophon no. 1. It is necessary, therefore, to provide some explanation regarding this logographic writing. The value fi∏ as Akkadian kidinnu in personal names was established by Ebeling 1939:52-4 and followed by scholars ever since, including the two dictionaries and the sign lists.24 A tangible proof for this equation is found in Saporetti's Onomastica Medio-Assira (1970), vol. I, pp. 279-90, where it can be seen how the orthography of the name of several individuals alternates between logographic and syllabic writing. For example, we find mKi-din-dGu-la and mfi∏-dGu-la (an Assyrian official who, incidentally, has the same name as the teacher from Emar), mKi-din-∂30 and mfi∏-∂30 (Kidin-Sîn), or mKi-din-dingir.meß-ni and mfi∏-dingir.meß-ni (Kidin-ilåni). Clearly then, the reading of fi∏ = kidinnu in personal names is secure. As already had been discussed by Brinkman 1973, it is difficult to know whether the sign fi∏ is not actually to be understood as the sign BAR. Indeed, it is not clear whether the scribes themselves took care to distinguish between the two signs and, as Brinkman himself notes, they were probably used alternately. For example, the same letter from Rimah once exhibits mfi∏-dingir.meß-ni and once mBAR-dingir.[me]ß-ni (Kidin-ilåni). 25 Apart from appearing in personal names, the value of fi∏ as kidinnu is found in the Mesopotamian scholarly tradition. It is used as a logogram for kidinnu in a ßa maldi erßºa incantation from the first millennium, which obviously preserves older traditions.26 In the lexical tradition, however, the lemma kidinnu is equated neither with fi∏ nor with BAR, although both signs are equated with semantically close Akkadian lemmata.27 One finds katåmu (‘to cover'), sa⁄åpu (‘to cover'), and tabåku (‘to pour over') equaling fi∏; and qilpu (‘husk') or qul™ptu (‘skin') equaling BAR. It is possible to assume that kidinnu was equated by force of association with fi∏ and/or BAR, and understood, like the Akkadian lemmata above, as ‘(divine) cover', hence, ‘(divine) protection'.28

21. Saporetti 1970. See further below. And also Hunger 1968:31-2 (giving the Middle Assyrian colophon of Kidin-Sîn, responsible for the AN=Anum lists; see above).

22. Baker 2000:614-5. 23. Hölscher 1996:121 lists seven individuals by this name and Saporetti 1970:I:282-3 gives two. 24. See CAD/K: 342 and AHw: 472-

3. The reading of the sign fi∏ (no. 545) as kidinnu is found in Labat, Manuel and in Borger, ABZ (where the equation with the sign BAR is also given; see further below), and MesZL (pp. 274 and 448).

25. Tell Rimah, Iraq, 30, 2 (= TR 2018:2, 6). See also Saporetti 1970:II:130-31. Zarins 1978:12-3 shows that the signs BAR and fi∏ were confused already in the OB period. Note, however, that the signs were kept distinct in the lexical lists (e.g., Sb B [MSL 3:133, 37-8], and Proto-Ea [MSL 14:36, 120-121]). The sign fi∏ was given a distinct sign name (ßú-u = bar te-nu-u ‘the sign BAR with a slope'); see Gong 2000:32-5, 182 and, e.g., MSL 14:240, 40.

26. See Hee•el 2002a referring to Hee•el 2002b:97, 2': ana fi∏ 2 en.me an-da-qut in comparison with Wilhelm 1979:39, A 8-9 (and dupls.): a-na ki-din ßá dingir.meß en!.meß an-dà-qut ‘I threw myself down at the protection of the two lords / the gods, the lords'.

27. The Sumerian equivalents of Akkadian kidinnu in the lexical tradition are (according to CAD/K: 342): ùr, be, and ubara.

28. Compare the semantics of Ωillu ‘shade', ‘covering' –> ‘protection' (see CAD/Á: 189ff.).

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Finally, it should be noted that this particular logographic writing is characteristic of names found in Middle Assyrian, but not in Middle Babylonian sources, where kidin- is always written syllabically. This might imply that the Akkadian value of fi∏ made its way to Emar via Assyrian intermediaries. Connections between Emar and Assur and its satellite cities on the eastern side of the Euphrates are known to have existed and are by no means negligible.29 Hence, it might be suggested that Kidin-Gula himself was an Assyrian, although there are strong grounds, as will be seen below, for assuming that he arrived either from North Babylonia or the Mid-Euphrates region. To conclude, whatever the route by which the Akkadian value of fi∏ reached Emar—whether via Assyrian intermediaries or through the intermediacy of Kidin-Gula himself, the name Kidin-Gula and both its logographic and syllabic writing are conventional and conform with the onomastics of the period. The orthography and reading of the teacher's name having been discussed, his dwelling and activities—the topics of the next two sections—are now to be examined.

IV. THE EVIDENCE OF HOUSE 5, CHANTIER A

It has already been mentioned that the name Kidin-Gula is found in two other documents from the city—Emar 25 and 26.30 It is the intention of this section to demonstrate that Kidin-Gula mentioned in these documents is almost certainly the same person who is found in the colophons. Whence come Emar 25 and 26? They belong to a small archive or, preferably, a cache31 which was found in House 5 in Chantier A near the so-called ‘Palace', or ‘Bºt-Hilani', at the north-west tip of the city.32 The cache contains altogether seven tablets, which were originally stored in a jar, prior to their dispersal on the floor with the destruction of the city. Some of the tablets are distinguished markedly from the rest of the Emar ephemeral documents in their shape and size,33 the script in which they are written, the many non-local names they contain, and, unequivocally, their dating by Babylonian month names. One document among them, Emar 26, is instrumental for establishing the chronology of Emar, since it provides, apart from a Babylonian month name, the second regal year of the Kassite king Meli-fiipak/⁄u.34 (The chronological implications of this document will be discussed in section VI).

29. Emarite-

Assyrian commercial relations, which are dealt with extensively by Faist 2001, can be glimpsed in Emar and Assyrian sources alike (e.g., Emar 127 and BATSH 4, 13 = Cancik-Kirschbaum 1996:163).

30. Emar 25:6: m√Ki∫-[din]-∂Gu-la and Emar 26:2: mKi-din-√∂∫[Gu-la]. The restoration [Gu-la], following Bassetti 1996, is secure in my opinion, and otherwise would necessitate positing another kidin- name at Emar in a rather self-contained and well defined small cache; see further below.

31. The cache was described in the preliminary excavation reports by Arnaud 1975a:88-9 and 1975b:90-91 and Margueron 1982:234. Any suggestion that its documents were written after the demise of the city or that the cache can not be linked to other Emar archives is to be discarded, as will be argued in detail here and section VI. See the pertinent philological comments of Durand 1989-1990:177-80 concerning the documents of this cache.

32. The area was destroyed in a fire, along with the rest of the site, as explained by Margueron 1975:69. See more recently Beyer 2001:6-7, which includes a map of the quarter, and Adamthwaite 2001:79-80 for a summation of the archaeological context. Finkbeiner and Leisten 1999-2000:6 inform that as of the 1996 and 1998 excavation seasons, the northwestern corner of the site is an island and the ‘Palace' area is “hardly discernible any more".

33. See Adamthwaite 2001:77, 81-2 (including inferior quality photographs of Emar 24 and 26). 34. The vocalization of the last sign of the royal name (·U) is either /pak/, according to Brinkman 1976:258

-9, or rather /⁄u/, according to Zadok 1976:65, n. 38.

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The clay of all the cache tablets is gray coloured, apart from Emar 25, which is rose; this is no surprise because Emar 25 is a letter which was sent to Emar, hence not manufactured of the local clay.35 It is necessary to inquire about these special documents somewhat further. As Arnaud had already remarked in his edition, the script of several of the cache's documents does not conform to the regular script of the city. Emar 24, 25, 26, and 27 have a similar idiosyncratic script: it is slanted and inclines to the right.36 A closer look reveals that some of the signs are simplified and even written à la babylonienne.37 Other non-standard writing features, for example, in the year name of the Kassite king (in Emar 26:11-12). The signs in the year name, as copied by Arnaud, are in the style of what one might call ‘OB monumental' or ‘lapidary' script,38 and can be seen also in the Emar votive documents,39 and schooling materials, noticeably the colophons, among them, Colophon no. 1.40 There are also several indications that show that the sign usage, orthography, phonology and grammar of these documents are different than what is usually found in the Emar so-called ‘Syro-Hittite' economic documents. Some of the signs used are otherwise not regularly found in Emar documents. Notice: ⁄é (Emar 24:11, 25), pi (Emar 24:11, 16), tám (= dam) (Emar 25:4, 24), bu[r], and iá (Emar 26:5; in a PN). A distinct orthographic feature is the spelling um-ma-a (Emar 25:3, 4, 8), which is a MB spelling; at Emar it is almost always spelt um-ma (see, e.g., Emar 258-269).41 Nasalization, typical of the Middle and Neo-Babylonian dialects, is seen in Emar 24:10, 14: i-nam-din, a sole occurrence in the entire Emar corpus.42 The syntax of Emar 25:5-7 is standard of the MB dialect but not typical of the Akkadian of Emar,43 while the entire formulation of Emar 26 is characteristic of Kassite, but not of Emar, debt-notes.44

35. Arnaud 1975b:90-1. 36. Arnaud 1985-

87, vol.3, p. 35, says that “(l)'écriture de cette pièce (Emar 24), filée et fortement inclinée vers la droite, se distingue au premier coup d'oeil, de l'écriture locale. On retrouve ces mêmes graphies sur les trois numéros suivants (Emar 25, 26, and 27)." (Parentheses are the present author's).

37. See Arnaud's remarks throughout his edition of this cache (Emar 23-27). The signs are reminiscent of those found in Gurney 1983, e.g., nos. 75 and 77. It is worthwhile to compare the sign lugal in Emar 26:12 with a MB writing of the same sign in Gurney 1983, 77:9' (incidentally, the king mentioned in the document is [Me-li-ß]i-pak/⁄u). In addition, compare, for example, the non-standard writing style of gín or na4 (Emar 24:1) to that which appears elsewhere in Emar. Particularly revealing is the writing of su (sic!) in Emar 24:13 and in Emar 27:2. As Arnaud says “SU écrit à la babylonnienne et se distinguant de ZU par le nombre d'horizintaux (et non de verticaux comme dans l'écriture indigène); cf. the local su in Emar 3:3 (= Msk 7224) and Emar 158:24 (= Msk 731007).

38. Notice the writing of li, ⁄u, (l. 11), and e (l. 12). 39. See, e.g., the votive text Emar 42 and two inscribed objects (Emar 38—

a hematite weight, and Emar 68—an agate gemstone), although it is difficult to know whether the latter two were manufactured on the site or imported items.

40. See also the lú=ßa lexical list colophon of fiaggar-abu (note 9). The standard scholarly text which instructed the students to execute such signs is the Sa Paleographic Syllabary (Emar 538), found in several copies at the city. See Cavigneaux 1983:622-3 and Gesche 2000:72-4 for the pedagogical purpose of this list.

41. See AHw: 1413. 42. See Seminara 1998:226 and also Woodington 1982:24. 43. Emar 25:5: a-di a-na!-ku a-ka-ßa-da ‘until I arrive…'. Thus noticed by Seminara 1998:571-

2, referring to Aro 1955:149-50. 44. Compare with the Emar loan documents cited in Skaist 2001 and Hoftijzer and van Soldt 1991:199-

202. See below and note 55.

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Apart from these several features, a particular characteristic that distinguishes these documents, as has been said, is their dating according to Babylonian month names:45 Emar 26: 9-12: kin-2-kám (= Elªlu, intercalated or vi) mu-2-kám Mi-li-ßi-pak/⁄u lugal-e. Emar 28: 23: iti-kám ßa Ta-aß-ri-ti (= Taßrºtu or vii) [u]d.16.kám46 Emar 24:6: gan.gan.è (= Kislimu or ix).47

As Fleming 2000 demonstrated in detail, Emar documents are seldom dated, but whenever they are, an entirely different dating system is put into use—either according to local eponyms or local month names. Another prominent feature of this cache is the abundance of foreign looking names. A certain Alazaia and his wife, Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße,48 Ali-nani, who comes from the city of Sal⁄u,49 and A⁄lamû, the “Aramean", are probably foreigners in the city.50 Nabunni, a person who has an Akkadian name and is further identified by his patronym, Ulam-[Bur]iaß, obviously a Kassite name, was not a resident of the city, but rather came from the city of Anat.51 Îåbia, the scribe, and A⁄º-mukºn-apli, who bear Akkadian names, are possibly also foreigners.52 From the contents of the documents in the cache it becomes apparent that it represents mainly the dealings and doings of a group of foreigners in Emar, perhaps all dwelling in a “foreigners' quarter" at the edge of the mound. House 5 itself was considered by Arnaud and Dietrich indeed to be the “office" of Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße and her husband, who had businesses outside of the city.53 Note that the weight standards according to which the business transactions were carried out and recorded in this cache, were either of the “city" (i.e., Emar) or those of “Subaria", another factor lending an “international" flavour to this collection of documents.54 It is in this cache then that one finds twice the mention of Kidin-Gula in two documents—Emar 25 and Emar 26. In Emar 25, a letter sent to Emar by Alazaia to his wife, Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße, Kidin-Gula is referred to as a owner of slave-girl, who is not to be released. The second document which mentions Kidin-

45. Assyrian month names and Assyrian eponyms are found in two documents of the Rosen collection (RE 1

9 and RE 92), allegedly from Emar. See Beckman 1996:32-3, 116-7. See further about RE 19 in section VI. 46. See Fleming 2000:100-1, n. 225 and Cohen, M. 1993:326-7. 47. See Sassmannshausen 2001:305: 127, 11. 48. Emar 23, 24, and 25. The woman Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße has an Akkadian and a Hurrian name (both meaning ‘

Beloved'). See Durand 1989:37, Pruzsinszky 2003:76, 94, n. 255 and 240, n. 154, and Arnaud 1977:256, who recognized the uniqueness of the accumulation of such foreign names in this cache. A detailed picture of the ethnic composition of Emar is provided by Zadok 1991:48-52 and 1989-90:61, and is well demonstrated by CM 20 and 21.

49. Emar 23:3. Arnaud in Beyer 2001:126 locates Sal⁄u east of Alalakh; see also Belmonte Marín 2001:347-8.

50. Emar 28:1: mA⁄-la-mu-[ú]; see Pruzsinszky 2003: 75 (‘Der Aramäer'). 51. Emar 26:4, 10, 13. The city Anat is very likely to be located in the country of Sª⁄u in the Mid-

Euphrates; see Bassetti 1996. Nabunni's seal is one of the few Kassite-style seals from the city; it is stamped multiple times on the edges of Emar 26. See Beyer 2001:280 [H 5] and pl. 3.

52. Emar 24:18-19: mdùg-ga-ia dub.ßar mA-⁄i-du-a ‘Îåbia, the scribe (of?) A⁄º-mukºn-apli'. 53. Arnaud 1977:256 suggests that House 5 belonged to Tattaßße and was a kind of a business bureau of a m

ajor office somewhere in Babylonia that traded Syrian cloth for Kassite gold. Dietrich 1990:31-2, likewise, considers this cache to be the archive of Tattaßße and her husband, a merchant couple.

54. Emar 24:1: na4 uru (the weight of, presumably, Emar; cf. Emar 75:3 and CM 4:8: na4.(meß) uruE-mar(ki)) and Emar 23:2: na4 gal kur Su-ba-ri-i (the ‘big' weight of Subaria). Note also Emar 87:8: i-na na4.meß ka-a-ri ‘according to the weight of the kårum'. Can it be assumed that this kårum refers to the foreigners' quarter or outpost represented by the cache of House 5?

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Gula, Emar 26, is a debt-note made to him by Nabunni, the debtor. The note was intended to be kept by Kidin-Gula, the creditor, until the payment of the debt. That, however, probably never happened, because, otherwise, the document would have been discarded from the archive and broken.55 The inevitable conclusion that can be drawn from these two documents is that Kidin-Gula resided in Emar. His mention along with other foreigners in the city, such as Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße and Alazaia, or Nabunni from Anat, makes it almost certain, that he, like they, was not native to the city. It can be added that Kidin-Gula's father, whose name is found in Emar 26:3, has what appears to be a Babylonian name; written logographically d30-ur[ù], it may be rendered Sîn-nåΩir or Sîn-uΩur. It certainly might give an additional support to the claim made here, namely, that Kidin-Gula was not native to Emar.56 After all this exposé, it must be asked whether the two Kidin-Gula-s of Emar—the one of this cache and the other mentioned in the colophons—are not one and the same person. The mention of Kidin-Gula in a unique set of foreign-looking documents of House 5 in Chantier A and the specific mention of another Kidin-Gula as a teacher of Mesopotamian scholarly texts in the Emar colophons of the Zª-Ba'la family leave us almost with no doubt that we are dealing with the same individual. As will be seen in detail in sections V and VI, the fact that the colophons and the documents of the cache of House 5 can be synchronized approximately to the same period, removes any suggestion that there could be a chronological gap between the colophons and the documents of the cache of House 5 which mention Kidin-Gula. Therefore, while to assume two different persons sharing at the same time a distinctively foreign and unique name in Emar is possible, the evidence seems to point to the fact that both Kidin-Gula-s are the same person. The most likely conclusion, then, is that Kidin-Gula was a foreign teacher living in Emar, perhaps in the foreigners' quarter, who instructed the city's students. It is not possible to pin-point Kidin-Gula's city of origin, but a general location can be thought of. It can be assumed that Kidin-Gula came from North Babylonia, or the Mid-Euphrates region, possibly, like Nabunni, from the land of Sª⁄u. As is generally recognized, to put it briefly, because this issue cannot be pursued here at length, the Mid-Euphrates region was under the influence of both Assyrian and core Babylonian writing traditions, hence it should come as no surprise to find a mixture of both Middle Assyrian and Middle B

55. The document Emar 26 follows the standard formula of contemporary Kassite loan notes: the amount lo

aned, the name of the creditor, the name of the debtor, a few ancillary details, the date, and witnesses; see Sassmannshausen 2001:195-8. Therefore, Arnaud's reading of Emar 26:2 can be amended. Instead of i-na √é∫ mKi-din-∂[Gu-la], one should read i-na √ßu!∫ mKi-din-∂[Gu-la] ‘from the √hand!∫ of Kidin-[Gula] (Nabunni, the debtor, received X as a loan)'. This reading conforms to the standard formula of Kassite loan notes: ina ßu PN1…PN2 im⁄ur ‘PNÏ received (so and so) from ‘the hand' of PN#'; see, e.g., BE 15:30, 45 and 163, Gurney 1983, no. 48, and Sassmannshausen 2001, nos. 5 and 6.

56. Who is the Na-din-dGu-la so transcribed by Arnaud in Emar 25:20? The MB onomastics (in Clay 1912, Hölscher 1996, and Sassmannshausen 2001) do not offer any Nådin-GN names, while AHw: 702 and CAD/N/I: 49 remind us that nådin- names are usually constructed with nådin as the second element, thus GN-nådin; on the whole, Nådin-GN names are quite unusual. Could this be then another mention of our Kidin-Gula, written with a simplified ki sign, confused with the na sign (Na-din –> Ki!-din)? As Arnaud himself says, many of the signs in this cache are ill-formed, so this indeed could be the case. This reading does not contradict the sense of the document in question; note that <dumu> in line 21 is restored.

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abylonian elements in documents produced by, or written under the guidance of scribes from this area.57 Hence, if this area was indeed Kidin-Gula's place of origin, it may explain why his name in Colophon No. 1 was written in a logographic manner typical of Middle Assyrian names. One final point is to be made. Can it be known who wrote the documents of the cache of House 5? Bearing in mind the contextual set-up of this cache and assuming that Kidin-Gula of the colophons and of the cache of House 5 are one and the same person, the following preposition is to be considered. Because the unique script is shared by several documents of the cache, there is a very good chance that at least some were written by the same scribe. Moreover, considering the non-local, Babylonian dating system, and the MB orthographic and phonologic features which are found in these very documents, it stands to reason that the scribe who wrote these documents was a foreigner, and, in all probability, a Babylonian, living in the city along with the other foreigners mentioned in this cache. Since it is known that Kidin-Gula was a teacher in the scribal school of the city and hence possessing certainly the faculties of reading and writing cuneiform, it is highly probable, although of course not certain, that it is he who wrote at least some of the documents of the cache of House 5.58 Section VI will show that the documents of the cache of House 5, in which Kidin-Gula is mentioned, are related to each other, and that they can neither be isolated from the rest of the Emar archives, nor be regarded as having been written outside of the city, as various scholars have maintained. The next section will deal first, however, with Kidin-Gula's teaching responsibilities.

V. KIDIN-GULA'S TEACHING RESPONSIBILITIES

After suggesting that Kidin-Gula named in the colophons and the one found in cache of House 5 were one and the same person, this section will establish whom and what he taught. The colophons mentioning Kidin-Gula provide substantial clues regarding his students and chief employers (see section II). Colophon no. 1 leaves no doubt of the teacher's involvement with the Zª-Ba'la family, the diviners of the gods of the city of Emar. Although the name of Kidin-Gula's student name has not been preserved in the colophon, just enough is left to restore the name of Ba'al-[målik] and that of his father, Ba'[al-qar]råd, members of the fourth and third generation of the Zª-Ba'la family respectively. It is likely, as the present author's restoration suggests, that Kidin-

57. See, for example, the Mid-Euphrates document edited by Kümmel 1989 which includes both Assyrian and Babylonian features. See also recently Rouault 2004.

58. Since the documents from the cache are ephemeral, the scribe's name is not given, unlike in documents such as testaments where the scribe functions as a witness. In such cases, the scribe always appears last in the witness list. In this respect, it is questionable whether the scribe Îåbia (lú.dub.ßar) mentioned as the fourth from last witness in Emar 24, actually wrote the said document, or was rather only mentioned as a witness to the loan transaction. (Compare the last two witness in Emar 127:19-20: igi dumu-fie-ru-ia lú.dub.ßar…igi Ip-qí-∂Kur lú.dub.ßar ßa †up-pa il-†u-ru! ‘witness: Mår-fierª'a, the scribe…witness: Ipqi-Dagan, the scribe who wrote the tablet'.) In addition, it is to be noted that scribes writing their own documents for their own purposes (like Kidin-Gula's debt note, Emar 26) do not add their name to them. One can be almost certain that members of the prominent Zª-Ba'la family wrote at least some of their own correspondence and business documents, but yet they do not identify themselves there as scribes. Only because of their mention in the scholarly colophons is it known that members of the Zª-Ba'la family were accomplished scribes, bearing the title lú.dub.ßar.

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Gula's student was a son of Ba'al-målik. Hence, it is clear that Kidin-Gula was a contemporary of Ba'al-målik. Colophon no. 3 does not provide us with any name apart from the partially preserved name of Kidin-Gula, but the professional titles [lú.dub.ß]ar and lú.⁄al, which are preserved, require that a name of a Zª-Ba'la family member be restored in the lacuna.59 Indeed, the Zª-Ba'la family members were those responsible for copying the majority of the Mesopotamian scholarly texts found in ‘Temple M1', the so-called diviners' archive, most probably their abode, or at least scriptorium.60 This important family in Emar was undoubtedly of sufficient means to employ the Babylonian teacher, although concrete details concerning his actual employment are missing.61 What did Kidin-Gula teach at the Emar school? It can be assumed that the students at Emar, after mastering the ‘Silbenvokabular A', the Sa Paleographic Syllabary, and the Sa Vocabulary, proceeded to study the more complex lexical lists such as ·AR-ra=⁄ubullu.62 It was seen that the colophons in which Kidin-Gula is named belong to the Hh lexical list (Colophons nos. 2 and 3) and the izi=ißåtu lexical list (Colophon no. 1). According to the curriculum at Emar established by Civil 1989, there is no doubt that between the Hh and the izi=ißåtu lists, the lú=ßa list should be placed.63 Therefore, this leads to the understanding that Kidin-Gula was probably instrumental in directing the Emar novice scribes the copying of the three series, i.e., Hh, izi=ißåtu, and lú=ßa, although the lú=ßa colophons that survived do not make mention of him. One is not in a position to know what role, if any, the teacher had in transmitting these lexical lists to Emar, but it is not to be ignored that if he came out of the city, he might have transmitted with him a store of knowledge acquired elsewhere than Emar. In this respect, it is important to note that not all of the teaching responsibilities fell on Kidin-Gula. His contemporary, Ba'al-målik of the Zª-Ba'la family, was also a teacher at the school, as one of the colophons of the lú=ßa list inform us.64 Finally, it is to be asked whether Kidin-Gula was the only foreign teacher from Mesopotamia at Emar. No other clear-cut candidate stands out. Most of the scribes have Emarite-

59. Other lú.⁄al-

s are known from Emar, but none bear both the title lú.⁄al and lú.dub.ßar, ascribed in the colophons solely to the Zª-Ba'la family members.

60. The following Mesopotamian scholarly texts were copied and produced by the Zª-Ba'la family members: the Sa Paleographic Syllabary (Emar 538): fiaggar-abu; the Sa Vocabulary (Emar 537): fiaggar-abu; the Hh lexical list (Emar 541-561): fiaggar-abu (Tablets Vb-VIII, XIII) and Ba'al-målik (Tablets I, III, Vb-VIII, and XVIII); and the lú=ßa lexical list (Emar 602): fiaggar-abu and Ba'al-målik (mentioned as a teacher). The family also produced copies of omen series, such as iqqur-ºpuß and ßumma immeru. See Fleming 2000:13-47 for a profuse discussion of the diviners' archive.

61. Notice, however, Emar 315, a distribution list found in ‘Temple M#', which reads (l. 3): […] ße.meß a-na ugula lú.du[b.ßar.meß] ‘[x quantity] of barley for the supervisor of the sc[ribes]'. (The reading of the line is not secure, as Arnaud says, but it seems to agree with the traces on the tablet). See more about the Zª-Ba'la family in Ikeda 1998 and 1999 and Yamada 1998.

62. Sjöberg 1975 and Civil 1992 and 1995. Whether or not Kidin-Gula instructed the novice scribes in their copying of the primary lexical lists is not known. One should note that the copyists who executed the Hh and the lú=ßa lists are the very same as those who copied the Sa Paleographic Syllabary and the Sa Vocabulary.

63. Civil 1989: 20, 22 has shown that the initial lines of the Emar izi=ißåtu list were written on the second and final tablet of the Emar lú=ßa list, thus indicating that it was the subsequent list to be studied.

64. See note 11.

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type names, as can be seen in the tables compiled by Pruzsinszky 2003:34-40. A few, however, do bear Mesopotamian names: Mår-fierª'a, an Assyrian (Emar 127), Marduk-muballi† (AuOr 5, 3), Sîn-a⁄am-iddinam (AulaSupp, 63), Îåbia (Emar 24), and perhaps dIM-gåmil (Emar 111, RE 77). However, there is no indication whatsoever that these scribes were involved in the instruction of the Mesopotamian curriculum or that, apart from Mår-fierª'a,65 they were foreigners in Emar. In addition to these scribes found in the Emar ephemeral documents, there are a number of scribes with Akkadian names who appear exclusively in the scholarly colophons. If one accepts Arnaud's reading, one such person is called Am™l-fiamaß.66 Another person mentioned in an omen colophon is called Imittº-Nergal/-Raßap.67 Two colophons of literary texts mention scribes whose names pose great difficulties in reading.68 It is not known whether or not these scribes were native to Emar and, if not, whence they originated. To conclude, for the time being, one is to be content with saying that Kidin-Gula was the only foreign teacher who has left any clear trace of his involvement with the scribal school at Emar.

VI. KIDIN-GULA, EMAR 26, AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF EMAR

This section will deal with the chronological implications of the data surveyed so far. As will be seen, Emar 26 and the entire cache of House 5 offer an understanding of the duration of the Emar archives in relation to the existence of the city itself and in relation to other Late Bronze Age urban centers. It will be shown that there is no doubt that the city of Emar was thriving at the year of 1185, while other urban centers might have already succumbed to their grim fate in the course of the wide-spread destruction at the end of the Late Bronze Age. As said, a numbered regal year of a well-known Kassite king is found in Emar 26:

mu-2-kám Mi-li-ßi-pak/⁄u lugal-e

The second year of king Meli-fiipak/⁄u.69

Following the ascension date given for Meli-fiipak/⁄u by Brinkman 1993, the king's second year should be equivalent to the absolute date of 1185. It was shown that this document, Emar 26, mentions Kidin-Gula and possibly even written by him. Indeed, it can not be divorced from the other dated texts and undated texts of the cache of House 5 on account of the similar script, and other traits, as was demonstrated above in great detail. In addition, it can no longer be claimed that this cache is isolated from the main archives of Emar. It should be noted that, apart from Kidin-Gula, who is found in the colophons of the Zª-Ba'la family archive and in Emar 25 and 26 of the cache of House 5, synchronism between the cache and the rest of the city archives can be provided by two additional persons—Dagan-[o-o], son of ·ema, and Abº-lalu. The name m∂Da-gan-[o-o], son of ·é-ma, which is found in Emar 24:24-25, is to be restored, no doubt, to either Dagan-[kabar] or Dagan-[tali'], two personal names belonging to either sons of a well-

65. See Faist 2001:169-70. 66. Emar 684 (= Msk 74165a + 74173d). 67. Emar 669:73; see Pruzsinszky 2003:40, CD Index, p. 482. Arnaud reads the colophon differently. 68. The texts in question are Emar 767, 768 and 775. See Fleming 2000:28 and Pruzsinszky 2003:117, n. 48

4. 69. The year name is written in a typical Babylonian style, as the abundance of cases in Sassmannshausen 20

01 shows. See Brinkman 1993:52 for the king Meli-fiipak/⁄u. The absolute date was already provided by Arnaud 1975a:90.

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known person called ·ima. Both ·ima's sons, Dagan-kabar and Dagan-tali', appear numerous times in their own archive (Chantier T), which finds synchronism with the Zª-Ba'la family.70 Note that the king Elli, the second to last king in Emar, is found in Emar 95, a document belonging to their archive.71 In spite of the fact that the document does not provide a name of any of the ·ima family because of its very partial preservation, it may be assigned to Dagan-kabar or Dagan-tali', or to Dagan-tali's son, Dagan-kabar. The king Elli was also a contemporary of Zuzu, the son of Ba'al-målik.72 The second person, Abº-lalu, son of Abbanu, is mentioned as a witness in Emar 23:11-12 (a document pertaining to Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße). He is the same person found in Emar 128:25 (part of the Chantier V archive) and the sender of the missive AulaSupp 94 (= ME 54). His personal seal is found impressed on all three documents.73 Prosopographic evidence shows that Abº-lalu was a contemporary of Ba'al-målik of the Zª-Ba'la family: fiaggar-abu, the (dumu/lú) tartånu, is mentioned both in 1.) Emar 128:25 with Abº-lalu and in 2.) Emar 221:12, a document pertaining to Ba'al-målik of the Zª-Ba'la family.74 This relative chronological anchor of the cache of House 5 to Ba'al-målik of the Zª-Ba'la family, to Abº-lalu son of Abannu, and to either son of ·ima, Dagan-kabar or Dagan-tali', secures the place of the cache of House 5 within the Emar archives (see Table 1). Therefore, the cache is not isolated chronologically from other Emar archives,75 nor do the majority of its documents originate from somewhere outside of the city.76 Where then should the cache be placed in regard to the rest of the Emar archives? As scholars have shown, starting from around the time of the Hittite conquest to the demise of the city, the Emar archives stretch over five generations.77 Since the people mentioned in the cache of House 5 find synchronism with Ba'al-målik of the fourth generation, the cache should generally be placed between the end of fourth generation and the fifth and last generation. However, considering the small number of documents in this cache leads one to assume that its duration as an active archive was, in fact, quite short.78 Hence, it probably stretches not more than a few years preceding 1185, if this year is taken a

70. Their archive consists of documents found in Chantier T (Emar 75-88); see Skaist 1998:51-

3 for this family and its synchronism with the Zª-Ba'la family: ·abu, son of Paba⁄u, is mentioned in Emar 82 (part of the ·ima archive) and in Emar 205 (a document belonging to the Zª-Ba'la archive).

71. As brought to notice by Dietrich 1992:36. 72. See Huehnergard 1983, no. 1, ll. 37-42. 73. Beyer 2001:128 [B20]. 74. In Emar 23:12, the father of Abº-lalu is Abbanu ([A]b-ba-

ni; thus with copy), and definitely not ·imanu, as per Arnaud's reading. This was put right in Beyer 2001:128 [B 20] and Pruzsinszky 2003, CD Index, p. 49.

75. Therefore, the following claim made by Skaist 1998:57, which was also adopted by Pruzsinszky 2003:33 can not be withheld further. Skaist ibid., claimed that the cache is isolated and that “there is no prosopographic or other link between the Alaziya-Tattaßße (i.e., the cache of House 5), particularly Emar VI 26…and the Emar texts treated above (i.e., the Syro-Hittite documents). It is highly likely that there was some interval between the other texts and the Alaziya-Tattaßße dossier." This suggestion was also speculated by Adamthwaite 2001:79-80. He understands, however, that the “the archaeology of the site will not permit an intrusive interpretation of the tablet corpus (i.e., the cache of House 5)". Consequently, he offers no solution and refrains from judgement; see the review of Sallaberger 2003:274.

76. Pruzsinszky's view (2003:24, n. 14) reiterating Dietrich 1990:32 that "(e)s ist ungewi•, ob diese Tafeln…nicht ursprünglich aus Babylon stammen" is to be modified. For all that is certain, only Emar 25, the letter sent to Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße, originated from out of the city.

77. See Yamada 1998, Skaist 1998, and d'Alfonso 2000. 78. This issue will be dealt with further in Cohen and Singer, Forthcoming.

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s the terminus post quem for the destruction of the city. Therefore, the cache is to be placed at the end of the fifth generation of Emar. House 5 Ch. T Ch. V ‘Temple M#'

Emar 23 24 25 26 75-83

128 221 Col. no.1

Ra'ºndu/Tattaßße + + + Kidin-Gula + + + Abº-lalu, s. Abbanu + + Dagan-[kabar/tali'], s. ·ima + + fiaggar-abu (dumu/lú) tartånu + + Ba'al-målik, s. Ba'al-qarråd + +

Table 1: The Synchronism between House 5 and the Emar Archives

How does all is affect our understanding of the chronology of the city? Because the fifth and last generation is hardly documented in the city, it is to be understood that its duration lasted probably not more than a few years—ten, in its maximum extent.79 Therefore, taking the Babylonian date provided by the cache of House 5 as a terminus post quem, the following chronological sequence can be considered: the fifth generation can be dated to c. 1195-1985 (in its maximum extent), while the fourth generation to c. 1220 to c. 1195. Following this chronological revision, it now can be stated that the range of the Syro-Hittite type tablets extends to 1185 and not to 1210, as Skaist 1998:67 maintains.80 In consideration of the wider scope, the synchronic tables offered in Adamthwaite 2001:37, 43 and 70, show that Ba'al-målik was a contemporary of the Hittite viceroy at Carchemish, Talmi-Teßßub. The Hittite viceroy was succeeded by his son, Kuzi-Teßßub, who, as Hawkins 1988 demonstrated, continued the Carchemish line even after the disintegration of the Hittite empire.81 Emar 26 and the cache of House 5 might fall then within the range of Talmi-Teßßub's reign and or that of his son, hence providing us an approximate dating for the activities of the Hittite royal house at Carchemish. To conclude, any suggestions that Emar 26 and the entire cache were written after the destruction of the city presumably by residents of a small and temporary colony can be entirely dismissed. The city was certainly thriving, although its days were numbered. The conclusion that Emar was still standing in 1185, as already argued by Arnaud 1975, indeed fits well with what is found in the Assyrian tablet of the Rosen collection—RE 19. The tablet mentions a man from Emar82 and also gives the eponym of B™r-

79. The documentation falls drastically in Emar's fifth generation. For example, although Ba'al-

målik's sons are known by name (Zuzu, a dumu ⁄al, and Ipqi-Dagan, a lú.⁄al, in Emar 225 and 226), their activities are barely documented. Likewise, Ba'al-kabar II, Emar's last king, is named in some thirteen documents in comparison to Elli, his father, who is named in some forty documents (not including the ones in which he is named together with Ba'al-kabar II).

80. The dates supplied here are higher than the ones found in d'Alfonso 2000:273 by some 25 years, or a generation. D'Alfonso dates the end of the fifth generation at 1195.

81. See Pruzsinszky 2003:229 and n. 62, and Skaist 1998:48-9 for the identification of Kuzi-Teßßub with Kunti-Teßßub who appears in the Emar documentation.

82. The man is named Madgal-Dagal (= Matkali-Dagan, a common name in the Emar onomastics), defined as an (ll. 5-7) I-ma-ra-ia ßa uruI-mar¡ ‘an Emarite from Emar'.

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nåΩir, who was the lºmu official in the reign of Ninurta-apil-Ekur, sometime during the years 1191-1179.83

___________________________

It has been the intention of this article to demonstrate that the Emar scribal school included in its ranks a foreign teacher. It was seen that his name was Kidin-Gula, as it is now read in the colophons of the Mesopotamian scholarly texts from the city. He was partly responsible for teaching the Emarite novice scribes the Hh, izi=ißåtu, and, most probably, lú=ßa lexical lists. The mention of the name Kidin-Gula in a distinct and foreign-looking small cache of House 5 led to the conclusion that its bearer is the same individual who is mentioned in the scholarly colophons. It was suggested that Kidin-Gula wrote at least some of the documents found in House 5. His debt note, Emar 26, provided the absolute date of 1185. It was because of the synchronism of Emar 26 and the cache of House 5 with other archives in the city that it was made clear that Emar still existed at this date. What happened to Kidin-Gula and his students after the fall of the city remains, of course, a mystery. Finding a foreign teacher who came from North Mesopotamia, or the Mid-Euphrates region, in the service of a scribal school run by a local family in a provincial city naturally strengthens the supposition that some foreigners mentioned in the archives of Western peripheral sites, as was discussed at the beginning of this article, were probably employed as teachers in the local scribal schools. Foreigners from Mesopotamia or its environs may have provided their services and taught the native scribes the use of cuneiform with the assistance of the contemporary Mesopotamian curriculum in ·attußa, Ugarit, El Amarna, and perhaps even in the cities of Canaan, as did Kidin-Gula, the teacher at Emar.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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83. See Beckman 1996:33-4 and Grayson 2001.

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ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates that a person named Kidin-Gula was a foreign teacher residing at the city of Emar and active in the tutoring of local students. Though his city of origin is not known, it is shown that this person was not native to the city of Emar and, in all probability, was a foreigner who came from North Babylonia or the Mid-Euphrates region. It is also shown that the identification of this person in the Emar sources has important repercussions on our understanding of the duration of the archives of the city and its chronology.

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article démontre qu'une personne nommée Kidin-Gula était un professeur étranger qui habitait à Emar où il s'occupait de l'enseignement des étudiants locaux. Quoi que sa ville d'origine soit inconnue, on met en évidence qu'il n'est pas né à Emar, mais que, selon toutes probabilités, il venait de Babylonie du nord ou de la ou de la région du Moyen-Euphrate. L'identification de Kidin-Gula dans les sources d'Emar a d'importantes répercussions dans notre compréhension de la durée des archives de la ville d'Emar et de sa chronologie.

Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures The Faculty of the Humanities The Gilman Building, Tel Aviv 69978 Israel email: [email protected]

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