Opening The Tablet Box: Near Eastern Studies In Honor Of Benjamin R. Foster

Opening the Tablet Box Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Founding Editor M. H. E. Weippert Editor-in-Chief Thomas Schneider Editors Eckart Frahm, W. Randall Garr, B. Halpern, Theo P. J. van den Hout, Irene J. Winter VOLUME 42 Benjamin R. Foster Opening the Tablet Box Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Benjamin R. Foster Edited by Sarah C. Melville and Alice L. Slotsky LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010 This book is printed on acid-free paper. ISSN 1566-2055 ISBN 978 90 04 18652 1 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. 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. Despite our efforts we have not been able to trace all rights holders to some copyrighted material. The publisher welcomes communications from copyrights holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. 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. CONTENTS Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix xi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Bibliography of the Works of Benjamin R. Foster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The God Hay(y)a (Ea/Enki) at Ebla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Archi 15 Or, Pierres Précieuses et Artifices. Réflexions sur les Productions en Matières Vitreuses à Tello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Caubet 37 Un Nouveau ‘Protocole de Serment’ de Mari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. Charpin 49 A Late Achaemenid Document from Tapsuhu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ˘ N. Czechowicz and M. Dandamayev 77 Old Babylonian Prophecies at Uruk and Kish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S. Dalley 85 A Midsummer Night’s Succubus—The Herdsman’s Encounters in P. Berlin , the Pleasures of Fishing and Fowling, the Songs of the Drinking Place, and the Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry . . J. Darnell Well-Tempered Words: Ceramic Metaphors in Mesopotamian Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K. Foster 99 141 The Latest Sumerian Proverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Frahm 155 Merchants and State Formation in Early Mesopotamia . . . . . . . . . . . . S. Garfinkle 185 vi contents The Assyrian Elegy: Form and Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.R. George 203 L’ ordre de Lecture des Présages sur le Foie de L’ animal Sacrifié . . . J.-J. Glassner 217 Dream On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Leichty