The Hurrian Texts from Emar – an Example of Knowledge Transfer in a Multilingual Environment

• Applicant: Dr. Sebastian Fischer
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 448580781

The Late Bronze Age texts from Emar consist mainly of hepatoscopic and ornithoscopic omens. The proposed project will provide a complete philological edition as well as a comparative analysis with the known corpus of Hurrian omens from Hattusa/Boğazköy. In addition to an analysis of their language and content, the study will describe characteristics of the syllabary, palaeography, and layout conventions. A detailed examination of these aspects will also lead to a better understanding of scribal practices underlying the corpus. The Hurrian omen texts from Emar and Hattusa will also be compared to similar texts from the Akkadian and Hittite traditions. Finally, the project will examine the role of these Hurrian texts within the multilingual corpus from Emar. The results of the project will contribute to basic questions of paths of transmission, the transfer of knowledge, the textualisation, and the use of the Hurrian language as well as the epistemic dimensions of the selection and compilation of texts. The contents of the Hurrian texts from Emar are thus not only of interest to Hurrian studies but central to broader discussions on the history of knowledge and cultures in the Ancient Near East.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants