Address behaviour in eight unpublished ana bēlīja letters from the late old babylonian Ur-Utu Archive: close relatives through a distant mirror?
One of the common forms of address, in Old Babylonian letters, is ‘to my lord’ (ana bēlīja). If letters come from clandestine digs, it is hard to know who is hiding behind this title. In the context of the Ur-Utu archive, there is one unknown variable less. The addressee is the archive’s owner. It o...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2018
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| In: |
Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie
Year: 2018, Volume: 108, Issue: 2, Pages: 149-166 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | One of the common forms of address, in Old Babylonian letters, is ‘to my lord’ (ana bēlīja). If letters come from clandestine digs, it is hard to know who is hiding behind this title. In the context of the Ur-Utu archive, there is one unknown variable less. The addressee is the archive’s owner. It occurred to me that in eight ana bēlīja letters from this collection, the senders bore names identical to those of Inanna-mansum’s sons (Ur-Utu, Kubburum, Ilī-iqīšam and Ḫuzālum) and Ur-Utu’s wife Rā’imtum. Can it be confirmed that the sender and the correspondent of these letters are indeed close relatives, and that the ana bēlīja format was used to address a father, brother or spouse? If so, what does this practice tell us about the address ‘my lord’, as a social habit? |
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| ISSN: | 1613-1150 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/za-2018-0011 |