Two recent volumes of cuneiform texts are resulting in headaches for CDLI. CUSAS 16 by Steven Garfinkle, Herbert Sauren and Marc Van De Mieroop comprises an edition of the Columbia University Library collection with its very welcome set of collated transliterations, but the authors unfortunately did not prepare a full text concordance for the publication, in particular of Robert Lau, Old Babylonian Temple Records (=Columbia University Oriental Studies 3; New York 1906, reprinted 1966), even though this historically interesting volume contained often detailed catalogue and transliteration content on the texts, and was the basis for their inclusion in both Manuel Molina's BDTNS and in the CDLI. Based on OTR, ABTR and two smaller publications, CDLI (as BDTNS) has 279 entries for Ur III CUL texts that must be lined up with this new publication prior to the entry of its catalogue to our own. Thus, just looking through the 1906 catalogue, OTR 42 is apparently CUSAS 16, no. 125; OTR 199 appears to be CUSAS 16, no. 121; etc., but, given the time involved in tracing catalogue data through the copies and transliterations offered in CUSAS 16, a singularly unrewarding job in the post-publication stage, it is unlikely that the work will be done. As a consequence, Lau's catalogue and annotation efforts are likely to eventually disappear from our increasingly electronic records. Only the 61 OTR tablets that included hand copies were cross-referenced in the volume, and the 1906 copies were republished together with those of the remainder of the CUL texts left in the US many years ago by the co-author H. Sauren.
It remains, moreover, a mystery what aside from collations noted in transliterations but not noted in the hand copies, the purpose can be in the (re)publication of this large set of dated hand copies, already used by B. Jagersma and R. de Maaijer to produce CUL tablet transliterations freely available through BDTNS, together with their hand copies through CDLI, and the same use of legacy hand copies has happened in a second recent volume, YOS 15. Uncollated copies by A. Goetze in this latter book will compete for specialist attention against those of the same texts that have been produced by leading specialists, for instance in the case of publications by M. Sigrist, or D. I. Owen. Fair enough; this is presumably a sort of posthumous Festschrift, or a clearing of someone's desk, but then after many decades in waiting—publication permission for a number of small collections seems also granted to Yale Press from the beyond—the accurate reporting of the physical whereabouts of the published texts, as well as cross-references of legacy research to more recent publications are the more vital. Beyond contacting collection managers to verify reported holdings, there are many resources now available to do this for those who do not have the inclination, or the files to themselves check for previous publications. In the case of collection verification, we have some cause for concern. To take one example, texts 159, 200 and 205 are reported p. 73, with acknowledgement p. x, to be at Hunter College, NY. However following a time-consuming and ultimately unsuccessful correspondence with Julio L. Hernandez-Delgado, Head, Archives & Special Collections, Hunter College Libraries, then with Stephen Kowalik, Head of Hunter's Judith and Stanley Zabar Art Library, and finally with Professors Green and Koehl of the Department of Classical and Oriental Studies, I have given up the chase after these three tablets that are in clear need of collation and imaging. Who then did the editors of YOS 15 speak to at Hunter about these texts? Or is there another Hunter College in New York State that we are not aware of? Of course this need not be the failing of the editors of disparate cuneiform collections, where particularly in colleges and their various libraries such unusual artifact collections can be difficult to find. But to avoid potential problems in locating a published artifact is precisely why catalogues need to be meticulous—and open to inspection and corrections by experts—and where tablets from legacy work can no longer be found at the time of publication, this fact should be noted, sparing others from wasting their own time in the search. In the case of referencing earlier editions of texts published in the volume, no one has withheld relevant resources from the editors of YOS 15, which would have constituted the only justification I can see for the unprofessional bibliographical work that went in to it, if justification were sought. If a text is reported to be in a Saint Louis collection, then simply search for Saint Louis in one of the online catalogues, and check what you find against texts you propose to publish; these are after all not British Museum numbers of texts. Where hand copies or photos of tablets without further bibliographical data are prepared for publication, it is, similarly, a quick matter for the Assyriologist to simply check some section of the texts' transliterations against those offered online. You need not even be a registered user of BDTNS to search for the combination “ca3-gal cidim-e-ne” (using that site's “c” for “š”) in line 2 of YOS 15, 206, where the user will see that this text is entered as D. I. Owen, MVN 15, 107. Collaborators of research efforts to gather and make available primary cuneiform sources for cuneiform studies, for related disciplines and for the global community of informal learners are, unfortunately and unnecessarily, stymied by this lack of publication care, leaving us to do the work of others in cleaning up defective or incomplete catalogues; outsiders like ourselves, however, must work without access to internal resources, for instance the letters and notes of Goetze, that will have been available to those participating in a collective publication.
CUSAS 16's failings will not be repaired in the near future, if ever, but some of those of YOS 15 can be removed, at least for texts from epigraphic periods marked by online collaborations, that is, now nearly all periods of the late 4th and of the 3rd millennium BC, but, with the exception of the Old Assyrian corpus now in CDLI, the Hittite texts in the Hethitologie Portal Mainz and growing data sets in the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus, relatively little from later periods. We of course cannot include in these resources those internal files held back from public view, but apparently not consulted in this publication by Yale editorial staff. One might wonder why even Yale's own catalogue publication of 21 of the YOS 15 entries in CBCY 2 and 4 was not cross-referenced in the concordances, where in the 1990's Yale curators expended some effort in compiling, with public funding, a full electronic catalogue of their holdings that is being exported and published piecemeal in paper volumes, however with the full electronic catalogue itself jealously guarded from public access among others under the claim that it constitutes Yale University intellectual property. Below is a list of those entries to YOS 15 that were available for research prior to its appearance, including some 60 texts noted by the editors, above all 33 from the former collection of the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, New York, published in more reliable form by M. Sigrist in 1991, and sold at auction in 2003; with the kind collaboration of M. Molina, I was able to identify, using online tools available to anyone, anywhere, two dozen more texts as having already been published, or distributed through persistent online websites. Where photos and catalogue data of otherwise unpublished texts are freely available online, and, as we at CDLI have tried to make abundantly clear, permanently archived, they should be noted somewhere in text editions that they silently support; such references are set here in brackets. With my own, and the limited current online coverage of 2nd and 1st millennium texts, I cannot speak to the accuracy of their respective catalogue entries in YOS 15.
YOS 15 | Publication history | Collection | Museum no |
1 | Porter, H. and Pinches, Th., PEF Quarterly Statement 32 (1900) 123-124 (photo) and 273 (copy); Pientka, R., Die spätaltbabylonische Zeit (1998) 133-134 (noted in YOS 15 catalogue, not concordance); Lafont, B., AUB catalogue no. 23 (forthcoming, Fs Lenoble) = [http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/P387646] (photo) (not noted in YOS 15) | American University of Beirut Archaeological Museum, Beirut, Lebanon (AUB) | AUB 34.57 |
20 | CBCY 2, p. 57, NBC 7348 (the CBCY volumes were not referenced in YOS 15) | Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (YBC) | NBC 7348 |
21 | CBCY 2, p. 72, NBC 7850 | YBC | NBC 7850 |
22 | CBCY 2, p. 91, NBC 8696 | YBC | NBC 8696 |
23 | CBCY 4, p. 119, YBC 6509 | YBC | YBC 6509 |
24 | CBCY 4, p. 190, YBC 9959 | YBC | YBC 9959 |
25 | CBCY 2, p. 73, NBC 7858 | YBC | NBC 7858 |
26 | CBCY 2, p. 74, NBC 7885 | YBC | NBC 7885 |
27 | CBCY 4, p. 142, YBC 7567 | YBC | YBC 7567 |
28 | CBCY 4, p. 200, YBC 10436 | YBC | YBC 10436 |
30 | CBCY 4, p. 190, YBC 9957 | YBC | YBC 9957 |
38 | CBCY 2, p. 32, NBC 6290; Charpin, D., MOS Studies 2 (1998) 195 + n. 36 | YBC | NBC 6290 |
39 | CBCY 2, p. 31, NBC 6270 | YBC | NBC 6270 |
40 | CBCY 2, p. 33, NBC 6306 | YBC | NBC 6306 |
41 | CBCY 2, p. 33, NBC 6312 | YBC | NBC 6312 |
42 | CBCY 2, p. 33, NBC 6308 | YBC | NBC 6308 |
43 | CBCY 2, p. 31, NBC 6264 | YBC | NBC 6264 |
44 | CBCY 4, p. 246, YBC 13339 | YBC | YBC 13339 |
45 | CBCY 2, p. 34, NBC 6320 | YBC | NBC 6320 |
47 | CBCY 2, p. 33, NBC 6310 | YBC | NBC 6310 |
48 | CBCY 2, p. 31, NBC 6276 | YBC | NBC 6276 |
49 | CBCY 2, p. 32, NBC 6282 | YBC | NBC 6282 |
52 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270635] (not noted in YOS 15; the Cornell Library texts are being prepared for publication in CUSAS 15 by A. Gadotti and M. Sigrist) | Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York, USA (RMC-CUL) | RMC 1 |
53 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270643] (") | RMC-CUL | RMC 9 |
54 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270736] (") | RMC-CUL | RMC 116 |
55 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270658] (") | RMC-CUL | RMC 24 |
56 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270683] (") | RMC-CUL | RMC 52 |
57 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270674] (") | RMC-CUL | RMC 42 |
58 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270660] (") | RMC-CUL | RMC 26 |
59 | [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P270656] (") | RMC-CUL | RMC 22 |
72 | Stol, M. JCS 25 (1973) 228; Charpin, D., JA 270 (1982) 47 n. 47 (noted in YOS 15 catalogue, not concordance) | Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, USA (Allegheny) | Allegheny 15 |
73 | Owen, D. I. & Stone, E., MC 3, 27; Westbrook, R., AfO Beih. 23 (1988) 138 (noted in YOS 15 catalogue, not concordance); [http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/P270638] | RMC-CUL | RMC 4 |
96 | Richardson, S., OrNS 74 (2005) 42-50 (noted in YOS 15 catalogue, not concordance) | Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA | Smith College 272 |
98 | Michalowski, P., Letters no. 108; Lafont, B., AUB catalogue no. 19 (forthcoming, Fs Lenoble) = [http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/P200495] (not noted in YOS 15) | AUB | AUB 34.53 |
99 | TCS 1, 132 (noted in YOS 15 catalogue, not concordance); Michalowski, P., Letters no. 166; Chiera, E., CBCT-PUL Ex 1104 (not noted in YOS 15) | Princeton University Library, Princeton, New Jersey, USA | PUL Ex 1104 |
100 | Steinkeller, P., Sale Documents 95 (noted in YOS 15 catalogue, not concordance) | McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, USA | McCTS 26 |
101 | Steinkeller, P., Sale Documents 117 (noted in YOS 15 catalogue, not concordance) | Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey, USA (PTS) | PTS 1004 |
102 | Princeton 1, 365 | PTS | PTS 533 |
103 | Rochester 233 | sold; was Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, New York, USA (CRCDS) | was Crozer 87 |
104 | Rochester 131 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 95 |
105 | Allred, L., Cooks and Kitchens 234, 1; id., Fs Sigrist 16, no. 4 (not noted in YOS 15) | private: Garrett, Robert, Baltimore, Maryland, USA | Garrett 1 |
114 | Rochester 159 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 76 |
116 | Rochester 167 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 80 |
120 | Rochester 165 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 75 |
124 | StLouis 156 (not noted in YOS 15) | Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, USA (Kenrick) | Kenrick 13 |
127 | StLouis 155 (not noted in YOS 15) | Saint Louis City Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA (SLCAM) | StLCAM 131:22 |
128 | StLouis 148 (not noted in YOS 15) | SLCAM | StLCAM 132:22 |
131 | Rochester 110 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 78 |
132 | Rochester 106 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 79 |
133 | Rochester 105 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 81 |
134 | Rochester 138 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 84 |
135 | Rochester 123 (not 12!) | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 82 |
137 | Rochester 129 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 89 |
138 | Rochester 124 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 90 |
139 | Rochester 140 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 91 |
141 | Rochester 113 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 92 |
142 | Rochester 119 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 93 |
143 | Rochester 135 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 94 |
144 | Rochester 120 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 96 |
145 | Rochester 118 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 34 |
146 | Rochester 169 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 7 |
147 | Rochester 145 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 32 |
148 | Rochester 121 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 10 |
149 | Rochester 107 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 14 |
150 | Rochester 132 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 17 |
151 | Rochester 117 (missed in concordance p. 78) | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 18 |
152 | Rochester 109 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 15 |
153 | Rochester 146 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 21 |
154 | Rochester 127 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 20 |
155 | Rochester 144 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 23 |
156 | Rochester 115 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 25 |
158 | Goetze, A., JCS 17, 9 etc. (“Miss”[ouri] in subsequent publications mistakenly “Mississippi”); Klein, J., ZA 80 (1970) 38; Owen, D. I., JCS 33 (1979) 260; id., ASJ 15 (1993) 145 36; Michalowski, P., Fs Łyczkowska (2009) 152 (not noted in YOS 15) | Missouri School of Religion (“Bible College of Missouri”; reportedly on loan to the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia), Jefferson City, Missouri, USA | MSR 1 |
166 | Johnston, M., CUCT 4; Cohen, M., Calendars 98 (not noted in YOS 15) | Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA (CUA) | CUA 4 |
167 | Johnston, M., CUCT 117 (not noted in YOS 15) | CUA | CUA 117 |
169 | Johnston, M., CUCT 115 (not noted in YOS 15) | CUA | CUA 115 |
170 | Rochester 12 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 85 |
176 | MVN 15, 115 (not noted in YOS 15) | Allegheny | Allegheny 10 |
186 | Johnston, M., CUCT b (not noted in YOS 15) | CUA | CUA b |
189 | Johnston, M., CUCT 1 (not noted in YOS 15) | CUA | CUA 1 |
193 | Rochester 136 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 97 |
195 | Rochester 239 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 88 |
200 | SMS 2-3, 15 12 (not noted in YOS 15) | Hunter College, New York, New York, USA ? (not located) | HC 1 ? |
201 | Lafont, B., AUB catalogue no. 40 (forthcoming, Fs Lenoble) = [http://cdli.ucla.edu/P387663] (not noted in YOS 15) | AUB | AUB 34.74 |
206 | MVN 15, 107 (not noted in YOS 15) | Allegheny | Allegheny 5 |
212 | Johnston, M., CUCT a (not noted in YOS 15) | CUA | CUA a |
213 | MVN 15, 248 (not noted in YOS 15) | Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA | Wellesley 57f |
214 | Rochester 166 | sold; was CRCDS | was Crozer 83 |