Scholar-Scribes of the First Millennium B.C.E.

Sources

The Scribes of the Letters and Reports. It is hardly possible to overstate the importance of scholars to the kings of the late Assyrian Empire. Residing in cities all over the empire, Assyrian and Babylonian astral diviners in service to the Assyrian kings regularly watched the heavens, excerpted from the omen literature omens that they deemed appropriate to the observations, and sent this information back to the capital. Not only did their correspondence inform kings about what the scholars had observed and which omen from Enuma Anu Enlil and other omen sources could be derived from a particular celestial event, but the letters also advised rulers on propitious times for state activities and the precautions to be taken to avoid bad forecasts—thus influencing policy-making decisions. Their tablets reveal information about conditions within Assyria and Babylonia and diplomacy with bordering states. At the same time, the letters provide a window on the scholars’ private lives and their relations with the Assyrian kings.

Master Scribes and Peripheral Scribes. The most influential scribes, called master (Akkadian: ummanu), lived in the capital. They were descended from scribal families who traced their lineage far back in time. They were constantly summoned to court to explain their interpretations of observed phenomena. Another group of scribes was deployed throughout Babylonia and Assyria. These scribes were farther away from the ear of the king, did not have as much influence, and were not held in as high esteem as the clique at court. Because they all owed their livelihood to the king and depended on his goodwill, they peppered their professional correspondence with flattery and expressions of loyalty and devotion. When there was disagreement among the scribes about interpretations of observations, the king was the first to know of it.

Late Babylonian Scribes. Many of the Late Babylonian scribes who worked in the astronomical archive in Babylon are known to modern scholars from their colophons, inscriptions at the end of scholarly texts that included the title of the text and the name of the scribe who copied it. Their names and names of their scribal families are preserved, but the exact location of what must have once been a vast astronomical center is still unknown. Almost all its texts were either directly sold to dealers by the local population or legally excavated but without proper records being made. Though these scribes regularly signed most other astronomical texts, only five diary authors are known. They were scholars, astronomers, and scribes, who kept the nightly watch and wrote their observations in astronomical diaries. A few might also have performed cultic duties, such as the recitation of incantations and the performance of rituals, and they likely worked on other kinds of astronomical texts and computed tables of mathematical astronomical calculations. More is known about the authors of these other advanced astronomical texts, because many of their tablets are inscribed with their names, titles, and patronymics. As well as being scholars, some of these scribes were lamentation singers and exorcists. Many were members of the scribal group called “Scribe of (the omen series) Enuma Anu Enlil.” Possibly the scribes who prepared the diaries were also part of this group, but none described himself as such in the five colophons that have survived. The Late Babylonian scribes were still working at the Esangila Temple in Babylon into the early Common Era (C.E.), writing the latest known datable cuneiform text, an almanac for 75 C.E. Dating from possibly as late as the early third century C.E., a fragment of an incantation has also survived; it is written in Akkadian on one side, and on the other side is a transliteration in Greek, the common language of the day.

Anu-belshunu. One example of a scribe descended from a long line of scholars was Anu-belshunu, a prominent Hellenistic-period scribe who worked in the Anu temple in Uruk from at least 193 to 187 B.C.E. The son of another important scribe, Nidintu-Anu, Anu-belshunu and his father belonged to a family of scholars and scribes who traced their lineage back to Sin-leqeunnini, the author of the unified version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, who lived in the Kassite period, during the latter half of the second millennium B.C.E. Anubelshunu’s son, Anu-ab-uter, held the prestigious title “scribe of Enuma Anu Enlil” and is well known from the colophons of astronomical texts, among them an impressive astral omen tablet inscribed with fanciful drawings of several constellations. Among the few surviving proto-horoscopes is one for a man named Anu-belshunu, born on the second day of the tenth month in the sixty-third year of the Seleucid Era (that is, 30 December 249 B.C.E.). Since his patronymic is not included in the proto-horoscope, no one can say with certainty that it was written for Anu-belshunu the scribe. If it is his proto-horoscope, as some scholars suggest, then Anu-belshunu would have been between fifty-five and sixty-one years of age when he worked on the astronomical texts on which his name appears as copyist.

Sources

P.-A. Beaulieu and Francesca Rochberg, “The Horoscope of Anu-bëlšunu,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 48 (1996): 89–94.

John Britton and C. B. F. Walker, “A 4th Century Babylonian Model for Venus: BM 33552,” Centaurus, 34 (1991): 110–112.

M. J. Geller, “The Last Wedge,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasi-atische Archäologie,87 (1997): 43–95.

Hermann Hunger, ed., Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings, State Archives of Assyria, volume 8 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1992).

Otto Neugebauer, ed., Astronomical Cuneiform Texts: Babylonian Ephemerides of the Seleucid Period for the Motion of the Sun, the Moon, and the Planets, volume 1 (London: Published for the Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J., by Lund Humphries, 1955).

Simo Parpola, ed., Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian scholars, state archives of Assyria, volume 10 (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1993).

L. E. Pearce and L. T. Doty, “The Activities of Anu-belšunu, Seleucid Scribe,” in Assyriologica et Semitica. Festschrift für Joachim Oelsner anläβlicb seines 65. Geburtstages am 18. Februar 1997, edited by Joachim Marzahn and Hans Neumann, Alter Orient und Altes Testement, 252 (Münster: Ugarit, 2000), pp. 331–341.

Francesca Rochberg, Babylonian Horoscopes (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1998), pp. 79–81.

Rochberg, “Scribes and Scholars: The tupšar Enüma Anu Enlil,” in Assyriologica et Semitica. Festschrift für Joachim Oelsner anläβlich seines 65. Geburtstages am 18. Februar 1997, edited by Joachim Marzahn and Hans Neumann, Alter Orient und Altes Testement, 252 (Münster: Ugarit, 2000), pp. 359–376.

Francesca Rochberg-Halton, Review of volume 1 (1988) of Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, by Abraham Joseph Sachs and Hermann Hunger, Orientalia, 58 (1989): 551–555.

Abraham Joseph Sachs and Hermann Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, volume 1 (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988).

Ivan Starr, ed., Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, State Archives of Assyria, volume 4 (Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press, 1990).