The Cuneiform Texts in the Babylon Collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums (Eski Şark Eserleri Müzesi)
Final Report Abstract
The B(abylon) Collection Museum of Ancient Near Eastern Artefacts (Eski Şark Eserleri Müzesi) of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums comprises more than 230 cuneiform documents dating to the Old, Middle, New and Late Babylonian periods. These include more than 40 cuneiform documents from Assyria, which were incorrectly assigned a B number. The aim of the project ‘The Cuneiform Texts in the Babylon Collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums (Eski Şark Eserleri Müzesi)’ was to edit these cuneiform documents, most of which have never been published, and to present them both as a printed book and as a digital edition online (open access). Based on an initial cataloguing and photographic recording of the cuneiform documents by Nils P. Heeßel and Daniel Schwemer in 2018, the editing was carried out in Würzburg from autumn 2020 and in Marburg from autumn 2022. Nils P. Heeßel and Daniel Schwemer copied the cuneiform documents from the originals and also from the excavation photos, as some of the tablets fell into the Euphrates during transport from Babylon to Istanbul and were often severely damaged by the water. Jan Jacob de Ridder worked on the texts of the 2nd millennium BC and Greta van Buylaere on those of the 1st millennium BC, in each case in transliteration, translation and commentary, in some cases with the reconstruction of entire archive units. The results – cuneiform copies and editions – will be published as volumes 1-3 of the new series The Babylon Collection in the Eski Şark Eserleri Müzesi, Istanbul (BEŞEM) within the series Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft (WVDOG) as WVDOG 166–168. The editorial work on the cuneiform documents from Babylon in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums is closely linked with other relevant projects and will incorporate its research data into these projects; this applies in particular to projects dedicated to the (much more extensive) Babylon collection at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. A digital version of the corpus supplements the printed edition. On CunIsto (Cuneiform Manuscripts in Istanbul online) the Babylon texts are presented in transliteration and translation, and, in the case of composite texts, with online scores. The Assyrian texts are presented on TCMA (Archival Texts of the Middle Assyrian Period) in transliteration and translation. The online corpus will not only make the texts accessible to scholars around the world, including the Middle East, but will also provide advanced search capabilities within both the transliterated texts and the translations. The editions of the royal inscriptions have been integrated into RIBo (Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online).
Publications
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Nabû, the Avenger. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, 112(1), 61-75.
Schwemer, Daniel
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Grain Deliveries to the Royal Palace in Babylon during the Reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 74(1), 139-184.
Buylaere, Greta Van
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Von Babylon nach Istanbul. Einblicke in die Babylon Sammlung des Istanbuler Archäologischen Museum, Alter Orient aktuell 19 10–18.
Andreas Schachner, Greta Van Buylaere & Nils P. Heeßel
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Crime and Punishment according to a Neo-Babylonian Document from Babylon, ZAR 29 (2023), 19–40. (ISSN 0948-0587)
Greta Van Buylaere
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The Cuneiform Documents in the Babylon Collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums (Eski Şark Eserleri Müzesi). Harrassowitz Verlag.
Van Buylaere, Greta
