Assyriologists have a variety of methods available to assign unprove-nienced materials with educa... more Assyriologists have a variety of methods available to assign unprove-nienced materials with educated certainty to its ancient site. The occurrence of specific toponyms and month names as well as the detailed study of prosopo-graphy, paleography, orthography, lexicography, tablet shape, format and sealing practices assist specialists in reconstructing the ancient context of a specific object. Now, with the fluorescence of technology, new digital tools are being developed and refined that may contribute to the complex process of proveni-ence assignment. Text mining, the practice of deriving information from blocks of text using pattern recognition or trend analysis, has already been applied to corpora ranging from Shakespeare to Twitter. With the ability to search for statistically significant correlations in large blocks of text following user-defined criteria and rules, statistical methods, here accessed via text mining software, have significant potential for revealing new levels of data in cuneiform texts.
These files are those used in the keyness analysis for unprovenienced "Diyala" texts against tabl... more These files are those used in the keyness analysis for unprovenienced "Diyala" texts against tablets from Tutub, Eshnunna, Tell Suleimah, Kish and Girsu. Each site has two files: the cleaned atf used to generate a word list, and the word list giving the frequency of each word (based on the lemmatized version of words in the Lemma List and incomplete words in the Stopword List).
Thirteen tablets from LAUSD's collection of antiquities
are presented dating to the Ur III period... more Thirteen tablets from LAUSD's collection of antiquities are presented dating to the Ur III period (2112-2004 BC). Six come from the sites of Drehem (ancient Puzriš-Dagān) and Umma respectively, while one tablet likely comes from Girsu. As with most collections of this type, these tablets represent a medley of known Ur III archives. And, as is typical of such administrative miscellany, this potpourri of tablets offers certain insights into the terminology (šu-gid2 , ab2-rig5 ) and practices (bala, abbreviating year names, sealing) of the Ur III state apparatus.
Building upon the traditional methods of philological analysis, this dissertation incorporates em... more Building upon the traditional methods of philological analysis, this dissertation incorporates emerging technologies in text mining and social network analysis as a new approach for analyzing large blocks of cuneiform text corpora. Working within the Classical period of the Old Akkadian dynasty, the height of Empire’s reach and influence, these digital tools are deployed to ascertain the level of administrative similarity or difference between the major urban centers. The cities of the Diyala are used as a baseline specifically because of their peaceful relationship with the Akkadian Empire. These parameters explore whether the political relationship (peaceful or rebellious) affected the degree or extent of the Empire’s administrative presence in its various territories. Overall, the results indicate that the Akkadian kings practiced similar policies throughout Mesopotamia. The imperial administration was only minimally involved with the daily administration of these cities; they sought mainly refined or finished goods and left the local government to manage the means of production.
In the ED IIIb – Old Akkadian periods at Adab, Nippur and possibly the surrounding areas, the sat... more In the ED IIIb – Old Akkadian periods at Adab, Nippur and possibly the surrounding areas, the sattukku standard and the bronze standard were based on the 240-liter gur. These standards survive into the Ur III period and become based on the 300-liter gur and demonstrate more distinct spheres of application.
This document is a revised and edited transliteration of 133 Old Akkadian texts published by Abid... more This document is a revised and edited transliteration of 133 Old Akkadian texts published by Abid and al-Dahab, now available on CDLI (https://tinyurl.com/ya5y2gmf). I invite other scholars of the Old Akkadian period to collaborate and offer suggestions, improvements and corrections to our understanding of these new texts.
Assyriologists are accustomed to working with incomplete archives and records due to the chance o... more Assyriologists are accustomed to working with incomplete archives and records due to the chance of discovery, preservation and, occasionally, publication. In the analysis of the administrative records, this challenge is compounded by inconsistent terminology applied to inherently abbreviated texts. While certain transactions can be identified through contextual cues, some, such as the bala, rely more heavily on the explicit use of identifying terms. This article presents a series of related bala accounts, one of which does not identify the text as bala. This has implications for how researchers reconstruct and understand this enigmatic system within the Ur III state.
Assyriologists have a variety of methods available to assign unprove-nienced materials with educa... more Assyriologists have a variety of methods available to assign unprove-nienced materials with educated certainty to its ancient site. The occurrence of specific toponyms and month names as well as the detailed study of prosopo-graphy, paleography, orthography, lexicography, tablet shape, format and sealing practices assist specialists in reconstructing the ancient context of a specific object. Now, with the fluorescence of technology, new digital tools are being developed and refined that may contribute to the complex process of proveni-ence assignment. Text mining, the practice of deriving information from blocks of text using pattern recognition or trend analysis, has already been applied to corpora ranging from Shakespeare to Twitter. With the ability to search for statistically significant correlations in large blocks of text following user-defined criteria and rules, statistical methods, here accessed via text mining software, have significant potential for revealing new levels of data in cuneiform texts.
These files are those used in the keyness analysis for unprovenienced "Diyala" texts against tabl... more These files are those used in the keyness analysis for unprovenienced "Diyala" texts against tablets from Tutub, Eshnunna, Tell Suleimah, Kish and Girsu. Each site has two files: the cleaned atf used to generate a word list, and the word list giving the frequency of each word (based on the lemmatized version of words in the Lemma List and incomplete words in the Stopword List).
Thirteen tablets from LAUSD's collection of antiquities
are presented dating to the Ur III period... more Thirteen tablets from LAUSD's collection of antiquities are presented dating to the Ur III period (2112-2004 BC). Six come from the sites of Drehem (ancient Puzriš-Dagān) and Umma respectively, while one tablet likely comes from Girsu. As with most collections of this type, these tablets represent a medley of known Ur III archives. And, as is typical of such administrative miscellany, this potpourri of tablets offers certain insights into the terminology (šu-gid2 , ab2-rig5 ) and practices (bala, abbreviating year names, sealing) of the Ur III state apparatus.
Building upon the traditional methods of philological analysis, this dissertation incorporates em... more Building upon the traditional methods of philological analysis, this dissertation incorporates emerging technologies in text mining and social network analysis as a new approach for analyzing large blocks of cuneiform text corpora. Working within the Classical period of the Old Akkadian dynasty, the height of Empire’s reach and influence, these digital tools are deployed to ascertain the level of administrative similarity or difference between the major urban centers. The cities of the Diyala are used as a baseline specifically because of their peaceful relationship with the Akkadian Empire. These parameters explore whether the political relationship (peaceful or rebellious) affected the degree or extent of the Empire’s administrative presence in its various territories. Overall, the results indicate that the Akkadian kings practiced similar policies throughout Mesopotamia. The imperial administration was only minimally involved with the daily administration of these cities; they sought mainly refined or finished goods and left the local government to manage the means of production.
In the ED IIIb – Old Akkadian periods at Adab, Nippur and possibly the surrounding areas, the sat... more In the ED IIIb – Old Akkadian periods at Adab, Nippur and possibly the surrounding areas, the sattukku standard and the bronze standard were based on the 240-liter gur. These standards survive into the Ur III period and become based on the 300-liter gur and demonstrate more distinct spheres of application.
This document is a revised and edited transliteration of 133 Old Akkadian texts published by Abid... more This document is a revised and edited transliteration of 133 Old Akkadian texts published by Abid and al-Dahab, now available on CDLI (https://tinyurl.com/ya5y2gmf). I invite other scholars of the Old Akkadian period to collaborate and offer suggestions, improvements and corrections to our understanding of these new texts.
Assyriologists are accustomed to working with incomplete archives and records due to the chance o... more Assyriologists are accustomed to working with incomplete archives and records due to the chance of discovery, preservation and, occasionally, publication. In the analysis of the administrative records, this challenge is compounded by inconsistent terminology applied to inherently abbreviated texts. While certain transactions can be identified through contextual cues, some, such as the bala, rely more heavily on the explicit use of identifying terms. This article presents a series of related bala accounts, one of which does not identify the text as bala. This has implications for how researchers reconstruct and understand this enigmatic system within the Ur III state.
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are presented dating to the Ur III period
(2112-2004 BC). Six come from the sites of Drehem (ancient
Puzriš-Dagān) and Umma respectively, while one
tablet likely comes from Girsu. As with most collections
of this type, these tablets represent a medley of known
Ur III archives. And, as is typical of such administrative
miscellany, this potpourri of tablets offers certain insights
into the terminology (šu-gid2 , ab2-rig5 ) and practices
(bala, abbreviating year names, sealing) of the Ur III
state apparatus.
are presented dating to the Ur III period
(2112-2004 BC). Six come from the sites of Drehem (ancient
Puzriš-Dagān) and Umma respectively, while one
tablet likely comes from Girsu. As with most collections
of this type, these tablets represent a medley of known
Ur III archives. And, as is typical of such administrative
miscellany, this potpourri of tablets offers certain insights
into the terminology (šu-gid2 , ab2-rig5 ) and practices
(bala, abbreviating year names, sealing) of the Ur III
state apparatus.