OB Nippur Lu=ša1
Jon Taylor
6 October 2005
Introduction
OB Nippur Lu is a list of words almost 1000 lines long.
Most of the items in the list belong to the semantic field
of "Man." This list is attested in more than 150 sources,
the majority of which come from Nippur although versions of
this composition are known from other major sites,
including Ur, Isin, Larsa, Uruk and Kish. The tablets
bear the hallmarks of use early in the curriculum. For
example, several sources are written from left to right on
the reverse (the opposite direction to normal), and one
tablet (CBS 15217
(MSL 12, 032 D3)) even turns along the vertical
axis, like the pages of a modern book, rather than along
the horizontal axis as was normal in ancient
Mesopotamia.
History of the composition
The general idea of compiling lists of professional
designations was not a new one in Mesopotamia. The list
known as Archaic
Lu A is found among the earliest examples of writing
there, and is the most commonly copied list in the archaic
lexical corpus;
other lists of professions were composed during the
course of the third millennium. OB Nippur Lu is not
directly related to any of these earlier compositions,
however. Very few terms are found in both this list and any
of the earlier lists. When terms are shared between OB
Nippur Lu and an earlier list, they typically appear in a
different order in one list when compared to the other.
OB Nippur Lu is directly related to most of the later
lists of professions, however. The list continued to be
written long after the OB period. Versions are known from
Nuzi, from Hattusa in Anatolia, and from Emar and Ugarit in
Syria. Of course, the famous
lu2
= sha list of professions as known from the
library of Assurbanipal in Nineveh ultimately derives from
OB Nippur Lu. It is on account of this relationship that OB
Nippur Lu received the 'proto' element of its traditional
name.
Title of the composition
OB Nippur Lu has commonly been referred to in
Assyriology as "Proto-Lu." The 'proto' element of this
label is misleading. It would make more sense to refer to
this list as OB Lu but that label has traditionally been
attached to another list; that list is referred to here as
OB Lu2-azlag2. It is important to distinguish between
OB Nippur Lu and the contemporary but entirely separate
list, OB Lu2-azlag2. The latter is a shorter list
containing exclusively terms related to "Man." While OB
Nippur Lu contains professions such as "baker" or "smith,"
OB Lu2-azlag2 contains terms for specific activities, or
referring to psychological states or medical
conditions.
OB Nippur Lu was known in antiquity as lu2 = shu (or lu2
= sha). We know this from references to it in contemporary
literary texts. On several occasions it is found in
descriptions of a pupil's progress through the curriculum;
for example:
mu didli {d}inanna-tesz2-ta en-na nij2-zi-jal2-edin-na
zag lu2-szu-ka-sze3 i3-sar
"I have written all the lines from (the list of personal
names) {d}inanna-tesh2 to the 'living things of the
steppe' up to lu2 = shu." Edubba D 13-142
Mastery of OB Nippur Lu was clearly a landmark in a
scribe's school career!
Monolingual and bilingual versions
Almost all sources of OB Nippur Lu are monolingual
(Sumerian) in written form. Only
one bilingual source
is known. However, there is evidence to indicate that the
unwritten Akkadian equivalents of the terms formed an
integral part of the composition. Note, for example, that
in antiquity this monolingual composition was referred to
as though it were bilingual. After the OB period, while
some monolingual versions are known, bilingual versions
were the norm.
Contents of the composition
OB Nippur Lu differs from the thematic lists comprising
OB Ur5-ra in that its contents are not restricted to
terms with reference to a single theme, in this case "Man."
For although OB Nippur Lu is commonly referred to as a
"professions" list, less than half the entries are
professions; and at least one third have no human reference
at all. In addition to long sequences of entries describing
family relationships (such as "mother" in lines 319ff,
"spouse" in lines 753ff) and those suffering from diseases
(lines 808ff), for example, there are lengthy sections of
text containing musical (lines 587ff) or agricultural
(lines 449ff) terms, among other things.
OB Nippur Lu makes significant use of the so-called
"acrographic" principle,
whereby entries are listed together when the written form
of each contains a particular sign in common with the
others, especially when this is the first sign in those
writings. For example, the word ugula "overseer" (line 145)
is written with the PA-sign . This sign is also used to write
words with other meanings, not referring to types of
person, such as jarza2 "royal prescriptions" (written
PA.LUGAL line 170) and jarza "divine
prescriptions" (written PA.AN line 171), and the verb szab
"to cut" (written PA.IB lines 179ff). And when the
sign(s) used to write a particular word could also be read
as another word, that ambiguity was seized upon. For
example, the word engar "cultivator" (line 445) is written
with the APIN-sign. That same sign can also be read as
absin3 "furrow." In OB Nippur Lu the section listing types
of "cultivator" is followed by one listing types of
"furrow" (lines 451ff). The image below (taken from
CBS 02241+ (MSL
12, 028 A)) illustrates these lines, from line 445
to line 454.
Another significant difference between OB Nippur Lu and
OB Ur5-ra is noticeable. While the latter typically
contains long sequences of entries including a particular
sign (often as a determinative, indicating what type of
animal a word represented or what material an object was
made from), such as MUŠEN ("bird") or GIŠ
("wood"), no one sign or set of signs runs through OB
Nippur Lu. The relevant sign, LU2 ("Man"), occurs only very
rarely in the list. In fact, less than one percent of OB
Nippur Lu's entries contain the sign LU2. Thus the other
common label for lists like this one — "Lu-list"
— is also somewhat misleading.
Structure of the composition
OB Nippur Lu is constructed using the same principles as
employed for the other OB lists: semantic, acrographic,
phonological and various combinations of these. There is no
apparent overall structure to the list, although many terms
which could be seen to have reference to the king and his
court occur near the start of the list, and another group
of terms referring to temple personnel is found around the
middle of the list.
Many groupings of entries are found in the list. For
example, the various scribes (dub-sar; lines 47ff) are
listed together, as are the shepherds (sipad; lines 463ff)
etc. Other types of groupings are found, such as terms for
friends and colleagues (lines 776ff) or those associated
with 'money' (lines 693ff).
Numerous specifically female terms are found. Sometimes
a profession is followed with the specifically female
equivalent, following the standard principal of listing the
simple entry before modifications of it (here the female
term is formed by prefixing the MUNUS-sign). For
example:
317 kisal-luh "courtyard cleaner"
318 MUNUS kisal-luh "female courtyard cleaner"
In addition, a group of female entries is found near the
end of the list (lines 704a ff; note that the content of
this group of terms varies widely between sources).
However, the female entries are not systematically treated
in this list. They are neither all entered individually
after the male equivalent nor gathered together into one
place. It is also not the case that the male equivalent
will always be listed before the female; the "old woman"
(um-ma; line 309) occurs before the "old man" (ab-ba; line
403).
The distribution of terms for "overseer" (ugula) follows
similar principles to that found with female entries.
Sometimes the overseer will be listed after those
subordinate to him — again following the principal of
listing the simple entry before modifications of it. For
example:
95 muhaldim "cook"
96 muhaldim-gal "head cook"
97 ugula-muhaldim "overseer of cooks"
In addition, a section listing terms for types of
overseer appears separately (lines 149ff). Again, there is
no overall systematic treatment.
One source bears witness to a division of the
composition into two more-or-less equal parts, referred to
as "tablets"; this arrangement is known also from the
Middle Babylonian peripheral versions. By the first
millennium, two different versions of the composition are
found: the Short recension and the Standard/Long recension.
The former retains the same division into two tablets. The
latter recension was divided into four (or possibly five)
tablets3.
Combinations with Izi
As noted above, OB Nippur Lu often
employed the acrographic principle, and partly on account
of this included many terms not related to the semantic
field of "Man." Catch-line (where the scribe notes which
composition comes next) and other evidence shows us that at
least sometimes OB Nippur Lu took its place in the scribal
curriculum next to another list, known as OB Izi. This list
was governed primarily by the acrographic principle,
although making extensive use of thematic considerations.
It is, then, perhaps little surprise that these two lists
were sometimes combined together into a single
composition.
Two sources represent combinations of OB Nippur Lu and
OB Izi. Each contains a sequence of entries from Lu
followed by another sequence of entries from Izi. Similar
combinations are known after the Old Babylonian period; a
version is known from Emar, and the Short recension of lu2
= sha constitutes another example. More complex types of
combination are also known, where the Lu entries may follow
or be integrated into the Izi entries. The later lists Lanu
and Igituh are further examples of such combinations.
footnotes
1 This list was first published in
MSL 12, pp. 25-73, as "Old Babylonian Proto-Lu." An
updated edition, including many sources not available to
MSL 12, will appear soon in a forthcoming book by
Jon Taylor. Extensive discussion of the list will also be
found there.
2 See Miguel Civil, "Sur les 'livres
d'écolier' à l'époque
paléo-babylonienne," in Miscellanea Babylonica.
Mélanges offerts à Maurice Birot, edited
by J-M. Durand and J-R. Kupper (Paris 1985) pp. 67-78.
3 See, for the moment, MSL
12, pp. 87-89. An updated discussion will be found in
the aforementioned book by Taylor.
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