This is one of the most important books in ancient Near Eastern studies of the last twenty or more years. It is an extremely well executed grammar and offers everything the scholar could wish for. Any critical comments are marginal, so I restrict myself to some that might be of particular use to the reader.
On page 11 Kouwenberg (K.) states “… that Assyrian knew a period of independent development in isolation from all other known dialects of Akkadian. OA also shares features exclusively with the third millennium dialects of Sargonic Akkadian and Mari Old Akkadian (i.e. against Old Babylonian)”. The note on Sargonic Akkadian is of particular interest to the reviewer, since he holds the view that we have to expect a large group of immigrants to Aššur from a more western region they called Amurrum to the city, where they slowly mixed with an Akkadian-speaking group living in the city of old (see my contribution to Subartu 46, in press.)
On page 50 note 7 (and also p. 500), Kouwenberg takes the name spelled A-šur-ta-ku-lá-ku as a variant of A-šur-ta-ak-lá-ku with epenthesis and does not believe in a form of the D-stem Aššur-takkulāku. I do not believe in an epenthesis and would like to compare Iliš-tikal (Imp. G) and Iliš-takkil (Imp. D) as in KTS II 21, 2 and 15, which should be the same person. It seems rather that the difference between the G- and D-stems of this root (as for the meaning intended here) was only marginal. This would also help us understand why these rare phenomena are both to be observed with the same verb.
An important statement is made on p. 146 against a reading ili 5 for the sign el/il 5. Kouwenberg rejects (with Hecker GKT §61e) the possibility of a VCV-sign in OA, because it would be the only one. He takes e.g. the name Il-bāni as a compressed form of Ilī-bāni. I absolutely agree with him about not reading signs according to the structure VCV in OA, but I do not see the need to see these names as compressed forms. The understanding of these names as ilī “my god” go back to the many spellings with NI-NI, understood as ì-lí “my god”. I see NI-NI in most cases merely as a scribal convention for ilum “god”, because we have for many of these names a “normal” syllabic spelling, e.g. i-lu-(um), as in A-mur-i-lu-um in kt 87/k 307, 4. The word ilum stands here normally either for Aššur or indeed for the personal god. Kouwenberg has suggested a very similar solution on p. 241.
Aside from the explanations given by Kouwenberg (pp. 190–3) we could also simply assume that mer'um was the Assyrian form while mārum goes back to Old Akkadian. I do not see it as a coincidence that the in comparison quite rare form mārum is already found in the early inscriptions of Ilu-šuma. It seems much more likely to be a deliberate recourse to OAkk traditions.
As well as suggesting Sg. or Pl. (p. 191 note 61), we could even understand me-er-i-e-kà as a Dual “your two sons”, if it is not indeed a mistake.
I do not always agree with the handling of the numerals, as e.g. in TC 3, 273: 5 (p. 336), where the transcription has 2 né-pí-šu and the relating translation gives “two packages”. We should translate “two” when the cuneiform has a form of šena, while we should translate “2” when the cuneiform shows the corresponding numeral, i.e. here 2 verticals. The same goes for the following example Kt. 94/k 524: 17–19.
The name Al-ṭāb is does not mean “Where is the sweet one” (i.e. from ali- “where”) (p. 383). It is to be taken as Āl-ṭāb “The city is good”. It is always spelled A-al- and this is not the case with the spellings for ali “where”. The name is part of a group I call the “ālum-family” and is to be regarded as a parallel to Aššur-ṭāb “(god/city) Aššur is good”. Other members of this family are Il(ī)-ālum (“(My) god is the city”) and the reverse form of Aššur-ṭāb: Ṭāb-Aššur, with once Ṭāb-ilī (with ilī standing for Aššur). In this “family” it is the god in his connection and his identity with the city that is standing in the foreground. The people bearing these names are through their names the embodiment of the concept dA-šùr ki, meaning “Aššur (is) god and city”, as it is found in the inscription of Zarriqum and similar in the famous seal inscription of Ṣillulu. This view on Āl-ṭāb is corroborated by a comparison with the name Al-bēlī “Where is my lord?”, which never has a long initial vowel, but is always spelled Al-…. The strange name Ṭāb-palûka (p. 140 with note 55) understood by Kouwenberg as “your reign is pleasant” does in fact also belong into this family of names. The spellings are [DÙG-ba]-lu-kà in TPAK 1 101, 2; Ṭá-ba-lu-kà in ICK 2 14, 4. 7 and Ṭá-ba-DINGIR-kà on the seal of the same text. It is more consistent with the rest of the OA onomasticon to understand the name as Ṭāb-āl(u)ka “Good is your city”, closely related to the types Ṭāb-Aššur and Āl-ṭāb. The scribe of the seal legend has played with the fact that the city and the god Aššur are one and the same and cannot be taken apart. The word palûm “reign” does not occur in OA personal names.
The verb dabābum does not necessarily fluctuate “between u/u (as in Babylonian) and a/u” (p. 494). The one text offering both idabbab and idabbub is the famous letter of king Anum-hirbe of Māma to king Waršama of Kaneš. The use of Babylonian mār šiprim instead of Assyrian šiprum makes clear that the letter was not written by an Assyrian scribe, and the forms of dabābum lead me to think that it was not a native speaker of Babylonian either. The many erasures in the text corroborate this view further.
The form lá a-ša-ga-šu-ni (AKT VIa 233: 12) is, contrary to the translation by the editor of the text, seen as an N-form without vowel assimilation and translated as “that I may not be ruined”. However, we have to understand the form as in CAD Š I meaning 4, we are just missing the ramānum, which was left out. The translation completely in line with the tenor of the letter should be “(Since the day our father died) do I not exert (myself) to the utmost in this matter day and night?” Here the liṭṭulā-formula in l. 13–14 is exceptionally put behind the respective statement. This way the subject is also explained then as an oath-like statement.
Accepting a Sargonic OAkk substrate in OA would make forms like the Stative dì-i-ik (for dēk) alongside mārum and others much easier to understand (p. 563).
I do not think that the liṭṭulā-formula is used with the meaning “to witness” or similar (pp. 734–5). For this there are other formulas and words in OA. We have the verb naṭālum OA mostly in the formula ana iṭatlim nadānum “to sell while looking each other in to the eye = for cash”. In the oath-like formula this means that the speaker is ready and willing to give a real oath which is done by facing(!) the god and swearing by a symbol of the respective deity.
I do not see that KTS 2, 52: 13–5 should be problematic (p. 736, n. 36). The text says A-š[ùr] ù mar-tu il 5-kà il 5 kà-ki li-id-gu 5-lá-ni, which seems clear; the translation should be “Aššur and Amurrum, god of the weapons, shall look upon me scrutinizing (if I can speak the name of your servant without giving away your name)”. See now in more detail my above-mentioned contribution to Subartu 46, in press.
We should add another meaning for pani-(+suffix) and the opposite warki-(+suffix), as e.g. in Kt. m/k 27 wa-ar-ki-kà-ma “after your departure” and in BIN IV 2, 15. 22 pá-ni-a-ma ab-kam “carry off before my own departure”, and in ICK I 189: 1´´ ih-da-ma / i-pá-ni-ku-nu-ma ša-áš-qí-lá-ma “take care to let them pay before your own departure” (p. 807). For those who consent to Akkadian forerunners to Old Hittite literature the famous phrase from the Anitta Text “after my father” could in line with this meaning be understood as “after my father left” instead of “after my father died”.
We should not understand the phrase lá ša ḫa-bu-lá-ku 6-ni as “there is no question that I owe you (something)” (p. 809) but on the contrary as “It is not so that I owe you something”.
To the author I can only add: thank you very much indeed for this fantastic piece of work – now please proceed to the OA dictionary, we need it more than ever.
