Adapting to New Contexts. Cuneiform in Anatolia

This article focuses on cuneiform and scribal education in Anatolia. It attempts to trace some of the developments in the corpus of knowledge and training when it let the confines of its initial area of relevance and was received in Anatolia by the Hittites and to draw inferences about the semiotic and sociological context of the wholesale import of a large-scale technocratic apparatus from one culture into another. It discusses the institutional and social context of scribal education in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia and suggests that class composition among the Anatolian elite was not necessarily the same as that in Mesopotamia

After the Hittites: The Kingdoms of Karkamish and Palistin in Northern Syria

The disappearance and weakening of the Late Bronze Age territorial empires in the Eastern Mediterranean shortly after 1200 BC is traditionally held to be followed by a so-called Dark Age of around 300 years, characterized by a lack of written sources. However, new sources are appearing, mainly in the medium of Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions, which help us to understand events and, more importantly, political and geographical power constellations during the period. The new sources are briefly situated within the framework of the current debates, with special regard given to the territories of Karkamish and Palistin. Emphasis is laid on the apparent continuation of local idioms for the articulation of power, largely persisting from the Hittite Empire, in spite of any changes in population, social structure, or political institutions that may have occurred

Review of H. Marquardt, Hethitische Logogramme. Funktion und Verwendung. (DBH 34, Wiesbaden, 2011).

A review of H. Marquardt's book on the function and use of logograms in Hittite cuneiform, which isolates two main motivations for logogram-use: tachygraphy and the avoidance of varying syllabic writings. Broad agreement is found with these results. A slightly different statistical model for interpretation of results relating to the chronological aspects of logogram-use in Hittite texts is suggested

Hittite Scribal Schools Outside of Hattusa?

The article investigates the meagre textual evidence for Hittite scribal schools outside of Hattusa against the background of new excavations and the questions they raise about the social context of Hittite cuneiform writing. The use of the term é.dub.ba(.a) in Late Bronze Age Anatolia by contrast to Middle Bronze Age Babylonia is briefly touched on, and the institution of the é giš.kin.ti at Karahna is compared with that at Hattus