Books by Jacob Jan de Ridder
Yale Oriental Series, 2025
The tablets published here were studied and collated in March 2018 during my visit to the Yale Ba... more The tablets published here were studied and collated in March 2018 during my visit to the Yale Babylonian Collection.
Texte und Materialien der Frau Prof. Hilprecht-Collection (TMH), 2023
This volume contains thirteen papers that were presented during the Jena Colloquium on the Frau P... more This volume contains thirteen papers that were presented during the Jena Colloquium on the Frau Professor Hilprecht collection held on March 17–18, 2022, at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. The collection contains ca. 3,300 objects from the ancient Near East, mostly from the Mesopotamian city of Nippur. The papers discuss the history of the collection and its founder, Hermann Volrath Hilprecht, and include a paper on the origin of the Old Assyrian tablets that also ended up in Jena. Other studies investigate the archaeology of Nippur and its ancient archives. New cuneiform material from Nippur, currently held in the Istanbul museums and relevant to the Hilprecht Collection, is presented. The volume additionally contains a number of miscellaneous articles on the Akkadian language. As the colloquium was held in honour of its curator, Manfred Krebernik, the volume begins with his bibliography and a short sketch of his personality.
Leipziger Altorientalistische Studien 8, 2018
The Middle Assyrian period (ca. 1500–1000 BCE) is characterized by the transformation of the form... more The Middle Assyrian period (ca. 1500–1000 BCE) is characterized by the transformation of the former city state of Ashur into an expansive empire. Over the last couple of decennia, the text corpus has grown considerably due to many archaeological excavations of archives in Syria.
This grammatical description of Middle Assyrian seeks to improve our knowledge of the language of these texts. It takes into account recently published texts, including the archives from Tell Aš-ŠēH Hamad, Tell Huwira, Tell Sabi Abyad and Tell Taban. The result serves as a long overdue supplementation to Mayer’s Untersuchungen zur Grammatik des Mittelassyrischen (1971). The monograph consists of an introduction to the corpus and its historical context, followed by discussions on orthography, phonology, morphology and syntax. Non-Assyrian influences on orthography and grammar are also subject of discussion. In addition, comparisons are made between the different stages of the Assyrian language in order to put Middle Assyrian into context of its intermediate stage between Old Assyrian (ca. 1900–1700) and Neo-Assyrian (ca. 1000–600). Thus, the monograph is aimed at Assyriologists as well as Semitists.
Dissertation, submitted in 2015. This study describes the grammatical features of the Middle Assy... more Dissertation, submitted in 2015. This study describes the grammatical features of the Middle Assyrian letters and other private documents.
Papers by Jacob Jan de Ridder
Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 2024
This paper presents revised editions of a group of four similar funerary inscription from Assyria... more This paper presents revised editions of a group of four similar funerary inscription from Assyria, dating to ca. the 13th century BCE. The paleography of these texts is unusual, characterized by similarities with the writing from Tell Taban and the kingdom of Ḫana. However, the invocation of the Hurrian deity Šuriḫa, the patron of the town of Šūru, suggests this ancient settlement as it provenance. These funerary inscriptions would be among the earliest texts from the Middle Assyrian settlement that existed at this location.
Subartu, 2024
The city-state of Aššur seems to have largely led a peaceful existence until it was conquered by ... more The city-state of Aššur seems to have largely led a peaceful existence until it was conquered by Šamšī-Adad I in 1808 bc. At least, this is the picture that emerges from the evidence largely excavated at Kaneš (modern Kültepe). There is one potential mention of warfare during the reign of Ilu-šūma; an otherwise unknown tradition preserved in a Late Babylonian chronicle connects this king with ‘warfare’. Otherwise, there are no references that lead us to assume that pre-Šamšī-Adad Aššur possessed any military capacity. Whereas other, more powerful states, relied on a combination of military power and diplomacy to achieve their political goals, Aššur did so by means of diplomacy and its economic potential. The mercantile capacities of the city-state, its skilled merchants, and in general the interdependency of the city-state and its merchants, provided it with
a strong position in negotiations with foreign kings, whose merchants did not travel to Anatolia or who depended on Assyrian import of tin.
Current Research in Semitic Studies Proceedings of the Semitic Studies Section at the 34th DOT at Freie Universität Berlin, 2024
Semitic languages have a large number of nominal patterns for adjectives, the most common of whic... more Semitic languages have a large number of nominal patterns for adjectives, the most common of which are *qatal, *qatil, *qatul and *qatāl, *qatīl, *qatūl. These can have a stative or patient character, if the adjective is associated with a transitive verb in similar fashion to the participle (*qātil), which functions as agent noun. With the exception of the participle, adjectives are usually independent of the verbal stem. However, East Semitic and Ethiosemitic languages show evidence for verbal adjectives derived from the secondary verbal stems. The present study will discuss the possible original adjectival patterns in Semitic languages based on the distribution and function of patterns in the various languages as well as adjectives that can potentially be reconstructed to the Proto-Semitic stage.
Phoenix, 2023
In de tweede helft van het tweede millennium voor Christus was het Assyrische rijk een opkomende ... more In de tweede helft van het tweede millennium voor Christus was het Assyrische rijk een opkomende macht in het Oude Nabije Oosten. Goede buitenlandse betrekkingen waren van groot belang voor de handel, maar ook ter voorkoming van een militair conflict. Dit is anders dan in latere tijden, toen meer nadruk op oorlogsvoering kwam te liggen. In dit artikel bekijken we de diplomatieke giften die de Assyriers ontvingen en weggaven en wanneer ze dit deden. We kijken hier vooral naar het Midden-Assyrische rijk en naar de Assyrische teksten die gevonden zijn in de Babylonische stad Nippur.
State Archives of Assyria Bulletin, 2023
The cuneiform collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum contains a small fragment of a tab... more The cuneiform collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum contains a small fragment of a tablet that allegedly contains a reference to the Hittite king. Early studies of the tablet have rendered some ambiguous readings for this historical reference. This short study seeks to provide some clarity on the contents and structure of the tablet.
Texte und Materialien der Frau Prof. Hilprecht-Collection, 2023
While it contains tablets of varying provenance, most notably the 155 Old Assyrian tablets from K... more While it contains tablets of varying provenance, most notably the 155 Old Assyrian tablets from Kiiltepe, the Hilprecht Sammlung is best characterized by its tablets from Nippur (mod. Nuffar). 2 The tablets, excavated during the late 19th century by the Pennsylvania University, have been divided over three main collections: The Penn Museum in Philadelphia, the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul and the Hilprecht Sammlung in Jena. A fourth group of tablets can be found in the National Museum of Baghdad which stores the Nippur tablets excavated during the Chicago excavations in the 20th century. 3 In this paper, I present some preliminary results on my study to the Middle Babylonian letters in the Istanbul museum and try to connect some of the information of these tables in Istanbul with the more well-known material from Jena and Philadelphia. The Middle Babylonian letters in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul are still fairly unknown; we have little information on them with regards to their numbers, content and state of preservation, except for a short description by the curator Kraus (1947: 111-12) who suggests that there are 286 recognizable letters. One of them was already published by Schei! in 1897, with a transliteration that is difficult to understand. This was solved by collations by Sommerfeld (1987: 217-27), although no copy or photo has been published. More famous are the two letters by III-ippasra, the governor of Dilmun, to his colleague Enlil-kidinnT of Nippur, which were published with copy by Goetze with copies by Kraus in JCS 6 (1952) and were first discussed in WO I (1950) by Schollmeyer. They received a lot of scholarly attention due to the identification of Dilmun as modern Bahrain. The publication of these two letters was possible solely due to Kraus having made line copies of them during his time as curator of the collection. Likewise, a copy by Schollmeyer of a letter from the Assyrian king Enlil-nTrarT to Enlil-AL.SA6 was given by Weidner to von Soden, who published it in 1958 with two similar letters from the Penn museum. This was the last time Philipps-Universitat Marburg, Centrum flir Nah-und Mittelost-Studien (CNMS). 2 Several people deserve thanks for making my visit to the Istanbul Museum possible. Foremost, Prof. John Brinkman communicated many tablet numbers from the museum to me, while Selim Adali helped me write an application to the Turkish ministerium of culture. I would also like to thank Milge Ozcan for welcoming me to the Istanbul Museum and John Brinkman and Bernhard Schneider for their various comments and remarks helping to establish the corpus of Kassite letters. 3 Among these are two Middle Babylonian letters, IM 57977 (2 NT 386) and 2NT 387, for which see Schneider (2020: 164 n. 57). Both tablets were studied by me in November 2022 in Baghdad, with kind permission of Prof. McGuire Gibson. IM 57977 is in reasonable state of preservation, though 2NT 387 is mostly broken.
Sabaica et Æthiopica 1, 2023
The first considerable amount of philological evidence regarding Assyrian culture
consists of la... more The first considerable amount of philological evidence regarding Assyrian culture
consists of large archives from Old Assyrian merchants who had set up enterprises
in Anatolia. The documentation stemming from their activities provides us much
information on this early period of international trade, which concerned tin, copper,
other rare metals, textiles and wool. This paper describes the social interaction and
cross-cultural influences shared between the two ethnic groups involved in this early
trade.
This article presents two Middle Assyrian lexical fragments now in the
Lviv Historical Museum (Ль... more This article presents two Middle Assyrian lexical fragments now in the
Lviv Historical Museum (Львівський історичний музей) in Ukraine. For a PDF of the article, please send an email to one of the authors.
Altorientalische Forschungen, 2023
This study presents an edition of a letter written by an Old Assyrian ruler (waklum) concerning t... more This study presents an edition of a letter written by an Old Assyrian ruler (waklum) concerning the murder of several Anatolian locals at the hands of Assyrian merchants. The issue of financial compensation is taken up by the king of Assur, who acts on behalf of the City Assembly in Assur in solving the issue between the unnamed state from which the victims came and the accused Assyrian merchants. A case can be made that this letter is considerably younger than most of the waklum-letters, though it cannot be ascribed to any ruler at present.
State Archives of Assyria Bulletin, 2022
The cuneiform collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin holds a small Middle Assyrian let... more The cuneiform collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin holds a small Middle Assyrian letter fragment which traditionally is ascribed historical value due to its alleged mentioning of the Kassite king Karaḫardaš. As some objections have been raised against this initial reading, the tablet is mostly omitted from studies to the Middle Assyrian period. This article provides a reassessment of the tablet while providing an outline of the structure of this fragmentary text.
The following article presents a small collection of five Ur III administrative tablets now house... more The following article presents a small collection of five Ur III administrative tablets now housed in the Institute of Manuscripts
in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in Kiev. Nos. 1–2 originate from the city of Ĝirsu and were documented by the
Russian scholar Turaev at the beginning of the 20th century, while nos. 3–5 were previously unknown and come from the
ancient site of Umma. All tablets are presented here together, with a short introduction, translation, edition, and copy.
L’article suivant présente une petite collection de cinq tablettes administratives d’Ur III qui sont maintenant conservées à
l’Institut des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale Vernadsky d’Ukraine à Kiev. Les numéros 1-2 proviennent de la ville
de Ĝirsu et ont été documentés par le savant russe Turaev au début du 20e siècle, tandis que les numéros 3-5 étaient auparavant
inconnus et proviennent du site antique d’Umma. Toutes les tablettes sont présentées ici ensemble, avec une courte
introduction, une traduction, une édition et une copie.
Aula Orientalis, 2021
The British Museum holds a fragment describing horse training, which can be related to similar ta... more The British Museum holds a fragment describing horse training, which can be related to similar tablets from the reconstructed Middle Assyrian library (M 2). As the presence of coughing can be demonstrated in one fragment in the Assyrian hippology corpus, it implies that this corpus deals to some extent with horse healthcare, contrary to the Hittite Instructions of Kikkuli (CTH 284).
Сходознавство, 2021
Музей історичних коштовностей України зберігає п’ять циліндрич-них печаток із халцедону, які були... more Музей історичних коштовностей України зберігає п’ять циліндрич-них печаток із халцедону, які були вилучені на митниці в кінці 1990-х –на початку 2000-х рр. Циліндричні печатки є важливим об’єктом давньо-месопотамської культури, оскільки їх намотували на глиняні таблички для ратифікації. Водночас на них були вирізані зображення з мотивами з релігії та повсякденного життя. Печатки з України дають цікавий огляд майже трьохтисячолітньої практики запечатування в Стародавній Месопотамії. Однією з найпоширеніших тем печаток є сцена посвячення, яка зображує людину, що стоїть на чолі з богинею перед сидячим божеством. На трьох печатках з Музею історичних коштовностей України зображено варіанти цієї сцени, хоча дві з них виконані грубо і мають сумнівну достовірність. Здається, вони імітують шумерський стиль Ура III. Приклади гліптичного мистецтва цього періоду можна знайти в колекції Інституту рукопису Національної бібліотеки імені В. І. Вернадського в Києві, де зберігаються три шумерські таблички Ура III з відбитками на циліндричних печатках. Третя печатка зі сценою посвячення з музею датується Старовавилонським періодом і примітна демоном Угаллу, який зображений перевернутим. Одна печатка з колекції зображує відрубані людські голови серед гілочок у квітковому мотиві. Остання печатка, яку слід обговорити, датується часом Новоассирійської імперії 1-го тисячоліття до н. е. і атрибутується за зображенням Ламассу – крилатого бика з людською головою. У цьому дослідженні представлений каталог печаток, що зберігаються в музеї, з коротким вступом до практики опечатування та її термінології автентичними мовами на Стародавньому Близькому Сході.
Orientalia, 2021
Since the publication of the main Akkadian dictionaries, the CAD and AHw, a large number of Middl... more Since the publication of the main Akkadian dictionaries, the CAD and AHw, a large number of Middle Assyrian texts have been published. Studies of the Middle Assyrian corpus in general have also contributed to the improvement of our knowledge of the lexicon in use during this period. The aim of this paper is to list nouns and verbs commonly seen in MA and to provide bibliographical references to their discussion. Words listed in the dictionaries as typical for Assyrian or MA are also repeated here; those for which no new attestations are available are further examined, as it frequently occurs that hapax nouns are found to actually be ghost nouns when new and better readings become available. In certain other cases, words from the literary corpus which have been incorrectly labelled as MA are here corrected. Due to the nature of this corpus, a complete list of attestations, or even a complete list of all MA lexemes cannot be guaranteed2. Translations of difficult and disputed terms are tentative, and, while this author attempts to add some observations and find a consensus in the discussion of particular lexemes, it is not the intention of this study to settle these debates finally. Rather, it may be hoped that this study is a step forward in obtaining a better understanding the MA lexicon as a whole. To this effect, selected secondary literary references are included, with emphasis given to studies that focus on Old and Middle Assyrian.
Explorations in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, 2021
In the following study I will discuss the roots and nominal patterns of numerals in Akkadian. The... more In the following study I will discuss the roots and nominal patterns of numerals in Akkadian. The base forms of cardinal numbers are well known in Akkadian, being etymologically closely related to their West Semitic cognates. This is despite the fact that Akkadian usually spells the numerals logographically, obscuring the morphological realization of many derived forms in various vernaculars in Akkadian. I will focus on the syllabic attestations and will ignore logographic forms and syntax to a large extent. Instead, I will discuss nominal patterns formed by cardinal numbers as they appear in Akkadian or might be reconstructed in Proto- Semitic. In order to do so, I will first list their forms as they appear for normal cardinal numbers. Many substantives and verbal roots are derived from the cardinal numbers, including the denominal ordinals. I will discuss the origins of this derivation together with the patterns used to build the denominal formations. Comparison will be drawn with similar formation of numbers in other Semitic languages.
Journal of Global Slavery, 2021
The Middle Assyrian period (1500–1000 bce) is used to describe the Northern Mesopotamian state, c... more The Middle Assyrian period (1500–1000 bce) is used to describe the Northern Mesopotamian state, centered around the capital city Aššur (mod. Qalʿat Aš-Širqāṭ, Iraq). In the early years, Aššur was a small urban center of little political importance. However, as the neighboring state of Mitanni/Hanigalbat weakened, the local rulers were able to politically and militarily dominate Northern Mesopotamia. Due to the expanse of this, originally, small state, a strong administration was required to make the governance of the newly conquered regions possible. Over 3,000 cuneiform texts from the Assyrian
administration were uncovered, of which 2,000 were from the two capital cities Aššur
and Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. Just as in any ancient state, slaves were a part of society. However, attestations of slaves are relatively uncommon, and most scholarly attention has gone to the related class of deportees and prisoners of war. Nonetheless, administrative documents such as loans provide us with sufficient information on debt and chattel slavery to make a number of observations on (semi) privately owned slaves.
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Books by Jacob Jan de Ridder
This grammatical description of Middle Assyrian seeks to improve our knowledge of the language of these texts. It takes into account recently published texts, including the archives from Tell Aš-ŠēH Hamad, Tell Huwira, Tell Sabi Abyad and Tell Taban. The result serves as a long overdue supplementation to Mayer’s Untersuchungen zur Grammatik des Mittelassyrischen (1971). The monograph consists of an introduction to the corpus and its historical context, followed by discussions on orthography, phonology, morphology and syntax. Non-Assyrian influences on orthography and grammar are also subject of discussion. In addition, comparisons are made between the different stages of the Assyrian language in order to put Middle Assyrian into context of its intermediate stage between Old Assyrian (ca. 1900–1700) and Neo-Assyrian (ca. 1000–600). Thus, the monograph is aimed at Assyriologists as well as Semitists.
Papers by Jacob Jan de Ridder
a strong position in negotiations with foreign kings, whose merchants did not travel to Anatolia or who depended on Assyrian import of tin.
consists of large archives from Old Assyrian merchants who had set up enterprises
in Anatolia. The documentation stemming from their activities provides us much
information on this early period of international trade, which concerned tin, copper,
other rare metals, textiles and wool. This paper describes the social interaction and
cross-cultural influences shared between the two ethnic groups involved in this early
trade.
Lviv Historical Museum (Львівський історичний музей) in Ukraine. For a PDF of the article, please send an email to one of the authors.
in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in Kiev. Nos. 1–2 originate from the city of Ĝirsu and were documented by the
Russian scholar Turaev at the beginning of the 20th century, while nos. 3–5 were previously unknown and come from the
ancient site of Umma. All tablets are presented here together, with a short introduction, translation, edition, and copy.
L’article suivant présente une petite collection de cinq tablettes administratives d’Ur III qui sont maintenant conservées à
l’Institut des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale Vernadsky d’Ukraine à Kiev. Les numéros 1-2 proviennent de la ville
de Ĝirsu et ont été documentés par le savant russe Turaev au début du 20e siècle, tandis que les numéros 3-5 étaient auparavant
inconnus et proviennent du site antique d’Umma. Toutes les tablettes sont présentées ici ensemble, avec une courte
introduction, une traduction, une édition et une copie.
administration were uncovered, of which 2,000 were from the two capital cities Aššur
and Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. Just as in any ancient state, slaves were a part of society. However, attestations of slaves are relatively uncommon, and most scholarly attention has gone to the related class of deportees and prisoners of war. Nonetheless, administrative documents such as loans provide us with sufficient information on debt and chattel slavery to make a number of observations on (semi) privately owned slaves.
This grammatical description of Middle Assyrian seeks to improve our knowledge of the language of these texts. It takes into account recently published texts, including the archives from Tell Aš-ŠēH Hamad, Tell Huwira, Tell Sabi Abyad and Tell Taban. The result serves as a long overdue supplementation to Mayer’s Untersuchungen zur Grammatik des Mittelassyrischen (1971). The monograph consists of an introduction to the corpus and its historical context, followed by discussions on orthography, phonology, morphology and syntax. Non-Assyrian influences on orthography and grammar are also subject of discussion. In addition, comparisons are made between the different stages of the Assyrian language in order to put Middle Assyrian into context of its intermediate stage between Old Assyrian (ca. 1900–1700) and Neo-Assyrian (ca. 1000–600). Thus, the monograph is aimed at Assyriologists as well as Semitists.
a strong position in negotiations with foreign kings, whose merchants did not travel to Anatolia or who depended on Assyrian import of tin.
consists of large archives from Old Assyrian merchants who had set up enterprises
in Anatolia. The documentation stemming from their activities provides us much
information on this early period of international trade, which concerned tin, copper,
other rare metals, textiles and wool. This paper describes the social interaction and
cross-cultural influences shared between the two ethnic groups involved in this early
trade.
Lviv Historical Museum (Львівський історичний музей) in Ukraine. For a PDF of the article, please send an email to one of the authors.
in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in Kiev. Nos. 1–2 originate from the city of Ĝirsu and were documented by the
Russian scholar Turaev at the beginning of the 20th century, while nos. 3–5 were previously unknown and come from the
ancient site of Umma. All tablets are presented here together, with a short introduction, translation, edition, and copy.
L’article suivant présente une petite collection de cinq tablettes administratives d’Ur III qui sont maintenant conservées à
l’Institut des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale Vernadsky d’Ukraine à Kiev. Les numéros 1-2 proviennent de la ville
de Ĝirsu et ont été documentés par le savant russe Turaev au début du 20e siècle, tandis que les numéros 3-5 étaient auparavant
inconnus et proviennent du site antique d’Umma. Toutes les tablettes sont présentées ici ensemble, avec une courte
introduction, une traduction, une édition et une copie.
administration were uncovered, of which 2,000 were from the two capital cities Aššur
and Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta. Just as in any ancient state, slaves were a part of society. However, attestations of slaves are relatively uncommon, and most scholarly attention has gone to the related class of deportees and prisoners of war. Nonetheless, administrative documents such as loans provide us with sufficient information on debt and chattel slavery to make a number of observations on (semi) privately owned slaves.
in the text corpus.
This fact has been known for a long time and is in itself not overly surprising as the Hittite state later rose in the same region. The achievement of Kloekhorst’s study is that it advances the case for classifying the local language as a predecessor of Hittite.
merchants (kārum) at Kaneš.