§1. Introduction

§1.1. In 2020 Tohru Ozaki published a valuable and important edition of 1,152^[1] cuneiform documents as no. 33 of the series Nisaba. Studi Assiriologici Messinesi. The book, published in two volumes with the collaboration of David I. Owen and Palmiro Notizia, was entitled The Lost and the Found. Cuneiform Collections Rediscovered, with copies by Herbert Sauren.

§1.2. The cuneiform texts, dated to different periods, were published in handcopy and transliteration, together with some philological commentaries. Unfortunately, no information was given about the collections to which the tablets belonged. The handcopies had been prepared a long time ago by Herbert Sauren during his visits to different museums and private collections. The task of their publication, which was never accomplished by Sauren, was generously taken over by Ozaki, as the Preface in volume I reveals.

§1.3. Some months ago, while Rudi Mayr, Manuel Molina and Walther Sallaberger were discussing some sealed Ur III documents, the latter made a connection between a tablet published in Nisaba 33 and another one kept in the Princeton University Library (PUL). On this basis and after consulting Sauren’s original manuscript, kindly provided by David I. Owen, Molina was able to identify most of the tablets published in Nisaba 33 as coming from the Princeton University Library^[2] and other collections (for details see §3 below). Sauren’s original manuscript was quite obscure as to the provenance of the documents (hence Ozaki’s decision to omit these references), but the information given in it was enough to advance several identifications, that could be tested and completed with the PUL catalogue published by Edward Chiera (1921) and the online PUL catalogue.^[3] Later on, R. Mayr visited the museum and randomly verified the accuracy of some of these identifications.

§1.4. The major effort in the identifications made by Molina concentrated on the third millennium texts, among which the Ur III documents represent the lion’s share. Independently, Zsombor Földi had been working on the post-Ur III texts published in Nisaba 33, and the results of his research matched very well with the conclusions reached by Molina, which is why they decided to publish these results in this joint article.

§1.5. The following is basically a list of collections (in the sequence of their museum sigla) that the cuneiform texts published in Nisaba 33 belong to; this list is accompanied by various observations made in the course of the identification work (§3). This list is followed by a concordance of the texts published in Nisaba 33, in the sequence of their Nisaba 33 edition numbers, which includes the individual texts’ museum number and previous text editions, some of which were also noticed by Ozaki on p. 55 (§4).

§2. Post-Ur III Texts

§2.1. The second and first millennium texts have largely been neglected and described consistently as Old Babylonian. Here follow the lists of the corresponding text numbers:

• Old Babylonian: Nisaba 33, 332–342, 352, 359, 369, 726–732, 734–735, 781–782, 1128, 1130–1133;
• Neo-Babylonian: Nisaba 33, 343–350, 360.

§2.2. The descriptions of these texts in the catalogue are very laconic and, although several of them were already published, the relevant information does not appear in the list of such documents on p. 55. For these reasons, the list in §4 includes references to previous publications and also a description of the previously unpublished documents.

§2.3. For most of these texts, no transliteration has been offered (except for Nisaba 33, 352 and 781–782); the editions of the Old Babylonian documents will be made available to Archibab and CDLI.

§3. Collections

§3.1. Sauren published documents from several collections and it is not surprising to find that some of the previously unpublished Nisaba 33 documents are housed in the very same collections; this applies especially to post-Ur III tablets. This circumstance implies that Sauren copied these tablets while preparing his editions of Ur III documents but omitted them from the publication and planned to edit them separately. This may apply to the tablets in the New York Public Library and the Columbia University Libraries.^[4] The organization of the material shows that Sauren was preparing these documents for publication; although there are a few exceptions, the tablets on one plate usually all belong to one collection.

§4. Notes on Individual Texts

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Footnotes

• ^[1] Nisaba 33, 1–449, 449bis, 450–1144, 1145-1–9. Nisaba 33, 830 is the envelope of Nisaba 33, 829, and Nisaba 33, 1126 and 1129 belong to one tablet (see below).
• ^[2] Földi, based on the Old Babylonian PUL letters published several decades ago by A. Goetze (1963), was led to similar assumptions and also identified the Nisaba 33 OB tablets that are housed at the PUL.
• ^[3] https://findingaids.princeton.edu (accessed February 2022).
• ^[4] See Sauren 1978 and Garfinkle, Sauren and Van De Mieroop 2010, respectively.
• ^[5] They correspond to the following texts: Berens 26 (CBL CT 26 = BDTNS 003987), Berens 29 (CBL CT 29 = BDTNS 003990), Berens 31 (CBL CT 31 = BDTNS 003992), Berens 46 (CBL CT 46 = BDTNS 004007), RA 74, p. 46 no. 113 (CBL CT 113 = BDTNS 023004), Amherst 47 (CBL CT 114 = BDTNS 023005), RA 74, p. 46 no. 115 (CBL CT 115 = BDTNS 023006), and RA 74, p. 47 no. 116 (CBL CT 116 = BDTNS 023007).
• ^[6] In the early 1950s, after Goetze had made his copies, the Garrett collection was donated to the Princeton University Library (see Gordon 1952 and Foster apud Goetze 2009: 73 with n. 3). Note that Garrett donated tablets to the PUL already in his lifetime (Chiera 1921: [iii]). The information given by Sauren for tablet no. 8, not copied in YOS 15, is the following: “Looks like an unopened case. It may be a cast. Deal apparently with grain. The rev. gives the name of the forwarding agent, and the date: mu é.^dŠára Umma ba-dù.” No. 10 is a stone tablet dedicated by Gudea to Nindara; the transliteration given by Sauren corresponds to RIME 3/1.1.7.31.
• ^[7] A few other Ur III tablets from the Princeton University Library have been published by E. Chiera (1922, 36 tablets), E. Sollberger (1966: no. 132 = YOS 15, 99) and W.W. Hallo (2001: 163, 1 tablet), in addition to the above-mentioned seven tablets from the Garrett collection published by A. Goetze in YOS 15; previous editions of PUL tablets in Nisaba 33 are given in §4.
• ^[8] https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/C0848\_c000001229 (accessed 5 September 2022). For some PUL royal inscriptions published by the same author, see Peled 2013.
• ^[9] Sauren copied seven tablets from the Schlumberger collection. Two of them were published in Nisaba 33 and correspond to unpublished texts (Nisaba 33, 1143 and 1144). The other five handcopies are available through CDLI and BDTNS and correspond to the five texts published by Everling 2000 (BDTNS 001664, 047655-8). The fact that these five texts are now kept at the Musée Archéologique de Strasbourg suggests that the rest of the Schlumberger collection is now dispersed.
• ^[10] Several of them were acquired from the private collection of F.-M. Allotte de la Fuÿe, dissolved at the Rencontre Assyriologique 1951 in Paris (Farber and Farber 1995: 73-74). Nisaba 33, 345 and 348 previously belonged to the collection of Joseph Offord, which dispersed over time. Some 20 Neo- and Late Babylonian Sippar documents were granted by the owner to the South African Cultural History Museum already in 1897 (Bongenaar 2000: 74 n. 5); three of these were published by Jursa (1995: 49), Bongenaar (1997: 65) and Wunsch (2003-04: 240-243 no. 22) and another referred to in CAD T (2006: 234b). Others were sold to É. Géjou (Waerzeggers 2014: 146 with n. 24). The rest of the Offord collection was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1924: two Ur III texts were identified in the Birmingham City Museum (Watson 1986: 8-10) but the whereabouts of most others remain unknown. The same applies to the cylinder seals, the most famous piece of which was discussed in detail by Rohn 2011: 236 (with earlier literature).
• ^[11] See, e.g., Foxvog 1993: 74 no. 5 purchased by Anne D. Kilmer.
• ^[12] On the possibility that the collection of J-Ph. Mariaud de Serres could be meant, see §4.
• ^[13] Ozaki writes that Nisaba 33, 55 is the same tablet as Babyl. 8 Pupil 36 = MVN 5, 289. Actually, Nisaba 33, 55 = MVN 5, 289 (BDTNS 205038), but Babyl. 8 Pupil 36 (BDTNS 006453) is a different tablet (they duplicate in fact part of the text, but the copies by Genouillac and Sauren show different tablets).
• ^[14] Cited by Hallo 1953: 62 n. 48 (= Schrijver no. 42); Gelb 1956: 384; Steinkeller 2007: 232.
• ^[15] Stol (1981: 82) provides a different collection number: “Tablet no. 119 in the collection of Adolf L. Schrijver (New York)”. For the dossier this letter belongs to see further AbB 12, 51–58.
• ^[16] The text belongs to the dossier of Ilšu-ibbišu (Santag 9, 131–141) which dates to the reigns of Itūr-Šamaš, Ubāya and Zikrûm; two of his texts (Santag 9, 132 and 141) are from the same year. For attestations of the unidentified year-name “Year the old palace was destroyed” see Goddeeris 2009: 21.
• ^[17] The text belongs to the dossier of Sîn-iddinam and is directly related to YOS 14, 83.
• ^[18] From the bīt asīrī archives.
• ^[19] The text belongs to the dossier of Ṣilli-Uraš and is directly related to YOS 13, 503 and VS 18, 7.
• ^[20] This text will be edited by Luis Sáenz in his PhD thesis on bilingual omens.
• ^[21] Although both texts are dated to the same day, this tablet is apparently not identical to the one sold at Sotheby’s and referred to as such by Brinkman and Kennedy 1983: 56 O.21 with 59 On.5 (compare also Pedersén and Ólafsson 2000: 107-108).
• ^[22] On Šamaš-ibni and Ṣillāya, the overseers of bakers and their activities see Bongenaar 1997: 177-178.
• ^[23] The text belongs to the dossier of Nanna-imaḫ, on which see Charpin 1986: 176-185.
• ^[24] The seal inscription under Nisaba 33, 449 does not belong to this text, but to a (possibly uninscribed) label with a seal impression (PUL Ex 764 = Nisaba 33, 449bis = BDTNS 164948).
• ^[25] See fn. above.
• ^[26] Sauren’s original manuscript gives the same PUL number for Nisaba 33, 643 and Nisaba 33, 644. They are perhaps two fragments of the same tablet (note description by Chiera 1921: Ex 996: “Baked tablet. Portions missing. Restored. Meas. 30+ x 35+ x 10 mm. Inscr. Obv. 5, Rev. 5.”).
• ^[27] See fn. above.
• ^[28] For an edition of this text see now Molina 2022.
• ^[29] As for the date, Ozaki, p. 22 argues for Šu-ilīšu year 2 but his reading of the year-name as mu ^dri-im-eš₁₈-< > would suggest Šu-ilīšu 6 (compare Sigrist 1988: 22-23 and more recently de Boer 2021: 11-12). The seal inscription is of the seal prayer type which argues for a later date (see now Földi 2022). Read therefore: mu ^dri-im-3[0^?].
• ^[30] Contents and description given in Chiera’s (1921) catalogue under Ex 266 clearly show that Nisaba 33, 830 is the fragmentary case of Nisaba 33, 829.
• ^[31] See fn. below.
• ^[32] This tablet is numbered in Sauren’s original manuscript as Ex 299a, but it does not belong to the envelope PUL Ex 299 (= Nisaba 33, 862).
• ^[33] According to Sauren’s original manuscript, the seal inscription given under Nisaba 33, 1058 (PUL Ex 628) belongs to Nisaba 33, 1057 (PUL Ex 629).
• ^[34] See fn. above.
• ^[35] According to Sauren’s original manuscript, the seal on Nisaba 33, 1087 [PUL Ex 668] is the same as the one on Nisaba 33, 1089 (PUL Ex 671).
• ^[36] See fn. above.
• ^[37] JM S, if that is the correct reading, would point to a tablet once in the possession of J-Ph. Mariaud de Serres, whose private collection was dispersed. An examination of the objects published as his property (see CDLI) shows a complex numbering system with sub-series A and C, yet B is unattested so far.
• ^[38] Nisaba 33, 1126 and 1129 are obv. and rev. of the same tablet (after Sauren’s original manuscript; cf. also Chiera 1921: Ex 522).
• ^[39] The text belongs to the dossier of Sîn-rībam (Santag 9, 110–130) which dates to the reigns of Gungunum, Itūr-Šamaš, Ubāya and Zikrûm (Goddeeris 2009: 15 n. 2). The unidentified year-name was read by Chiera (1921: 41) as “the year in which the wall A-dúr-shub-ba was destroyed”; the same may be attested on Santag 9, 179 (cf. Goddeeris 2009: 21 and 200; Sigrist, Zadok and Walker 2006: 199).
• ^[40] The text belongs to the dossier of Amat-Šamaš, daughter of Warad-Šamaš, and is directly related to MHET 2/3, 366.
• ^[41] The tablet, tagged as PML 2492 in Sauren’s original manuscript, was correctly identified on p. 55 with BRM 3, 114 (MLC 2402). Still, the existence of Sauren’s new copy requires explanation. After most Morgan Library tablets were acquired by Yale Babylonian Collection in 1972, only a selection of choice pieces remained in New York (Hallo apud Ryskamp 1976: 29). Among these tablets, an Ur III document with the same text and the museum number MLC 2657 was exhibited at the Morgan Library and considered unpublished (Hallo apud Ryskamp 1976: 30, 34); a re-numbering was assumed by Sollberger (apud Van Lerberghe-Voet and Van Lerberghe 1978: 262). Sauren either did not realise that the tablet was identical to BRM 3, 114, or this happened only after his copy was already finished; this latter possibility makes one assume a 2402/2492 typo. As for the other two unpublished tablets in the Morgan Library’s exhibition, MLC 2656 was subsequently edited by Wilcke (1982: 426-435). MLC 1338, an Old Babylonian letter probably from late OB Dilbat, remains unpublished.
• ^[42] Catalogued in Sauren’s original manuscript as “PML sans nº”. As Sauren’s PML turns out to mean Pierpont Morgan Library, one might assume that another such tablet is meant that was not acquired by the Yale Babylonian Collection (see previous footnote). Unfortunately, the tablet could not be identified as such (courtesy Sidney Babcock).
• ^[43] The attribution of the nine fragments published as Nisaba 33, 1145-1 to 1145-9 to the Princeton University Library collection is only tentative, based on their location within Sauren’s original manuscript.

Version: 2023-09-22

@article{Foldi2023Identification,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2024-09-17]},
	address = {Oxford; Berlin; Los Angeles},
	author = {F{\" o}ldi, Zsombor J. and Molina, Manuel},
	journal = {Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin},
	issn = {1540-8760},
	number = {3},
	year = {2023},
	publisher = {Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative},
	title = {Identification of the {Cuneiform} {Tablets} {Published} in {Nisaba} 33},
	url = {https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/articles/cdlb/2023-3},
	volume = {2023},
}

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