CDLI NEWS: Editions of the law codes of Ur-Namma and Lipit-Ishtar

CDLI editions of the law codes of Ur-Namma and Lipit-Ishtar 

From Daniel Foxvog @comcast.net> 

On behalf of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI), I am pleased to announce completion of an initial digital capture and annotation of the so-called law codes of Ur-Namma, the first king of the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2112-2095 BC), and of Lipit-Ištar, the fifth king of the First Dynasty of Isin (ca. 1932-1924 BC). Both are in Sumerian, and like their more famous cousin from two centuries later, the Old Babylonian code of Hammurapi, both feature an introductory laudatory prologue, an epilogue containing curses upon anyone who dares to alter or destroy the inscription, and the laws themselves in differing states of preservation. The texts of the Codes of Ur-Namma and Lipit-Ištar are presented not just in composite versions with translation, but also in score (Partitur) editions, showing the composite version with translation followed by the witnesses for each individual line. As with other cuneiform royal inscriptions, the designation of these texts follows that of the RIME series, though in the case of Lipit-Ištar with an artificially generated designation RIME 4.01.05.add10, otherwise chosen by CDLI and by the Oracc initiative ETCSRI to enter texts or witnesses not found in RIME. CDLI further identifies royal texts with alphanumeric designations following the “Qcat” system maintained by Oracc. For the Ur-Namma composite click:http://cdli.ucla.edu/P432130 To see the composite plus all witnesses click there on the composite ID number Q000947 or enter it to the "Composite ID" field of the CDLI search pagehttp://cdli.ucla.edu/search/ For the Lipit-Ištar composite click:http://cdli.ucla.edu/P464355

The Diachronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature

The Diachronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature

The Diachronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature (DCSL) project seeks to establish a web-based corpus of Sumerian literature spanning the entire history of Mesopotamian civilization, over a range of 2500 years. It will make this corpus accessible and searchable on the model now provided by the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL). The ultimate research aim of the project is to make the corpus available for analysis in terms of change. Such an analysis hopes to contribute to the study of the intellectual history of Ancient Mesopotamia.

The project received a pump-priming grant from the John Fell OUP fund to begin work on the first stage in creating the corpus, compiling a diachronic catalogue of Sumerian literature. This catalogue displays the distribution of Sumerian literature across both space and time, and provides details of the primary and secondary sources for each composition.

The project is in the process of applying for further funding from bodies within and outside the UK. The project is headed by Marc Van De Mieroop, Professor of Assyriology, and is located in the Oriental Institute, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. The primary researchers affiliated with the project were Graham Cunningham and Jarle Ebeling.

Project goals Catalogue: Overview By period Across time Search Map of Mesopotamia Bibliography Abbreviations External links Acknowledgements