Volume 5 issue 2 contents:

• Revisiting the Child Burials of Old Babylonian Ur: the Funerary Rite and its Spatial Aspects
• Preserving the Word of the King and the Word of the Father: New Joins to the Political Counsel of Mursili I
• Einige inneranatolische Wortverknüpfungen
• Neues zum epichorischen Namen der Stadt Side in Pamphylien

The archaeology of children is a new perspective steadily gaining popularity in research and in recent years, it has begun to be implemented in Mesopotamian archaeology as well. The material evidence of children’s lives in ancient communities, such as Old Babylonian Ur, is the most tangible through their burials. The aim of this study is to compile data on child burials in the private houses of Ur’s Old Babylonian levels from multiple published and unpublished sources, to explore connections between different aspects of the funerary rite, such as spatiality, grave form and grave goods, illustrated through three short case studies. Though there are challenges faced in reconstructing the normative burial rite of children, due to the often lacking or imprecise recording and publication of information on the graves, general trends are apparent, such as the concentration of child burials in the inner parts of the houses, the preference for enclosed clay containers as burial vessels and a small number of grave goods. Individual burial rites displaying a difference from this pattern may be interpreted as markers of a different social age category and indicate that at a certain point in the life stage, elements of the adult mortuary rite started to be employed.

Several joins among well-known Hittite texts and fragments from Ḫattusa / Boğazköy reveal that the composition hitherto known as The Edict of Ḫattusili I (KBo 3.27) and a text variously regarded as a fragment of the Palace Anecdotes or as an edict of Mursili I (KBo 3.28) in fact belong to a single tablet containing what one might now call the Political Counsel of Mursili I. The primary purpose of the Political Counsel is to underline Mursili’s authority and legitimacy, in large part through a repeated emphasis of the necessity of observing the ‘word(s) of the father’ or the ‘word(s) of the king’, invariably referring to traditions and precedents established by the author’s (adoptive) father and predecessor, Ḫattusili I. Most of the events narrated in the text thus occurred during the reign of Ḫattusili and are told in retrospect, partly from the vantage point of Mursili’s day, partly as if narrated by Ḫattusili himself. While many details of philology and history must remain open for discussion, the newly reconstructed text sheds light on a number of issues of early Hittite history. It is seen, inter alia, that there is no need to posit any Tawannanna in the Old Kingdom other than the queen of Labarna I, the aunt of Ḫattusili I. The succession to the throne of Ḫattusili I is likely to have been the result of a coup d’état rather than the desire of Labarna and Tawannanna, whose sons Ḫattusili apparently eliminated or outmaneuvered. And the so-called Purusḫanda Episode referred to here and in KBo 3.46+ can likely be placed in the reign of Ḫattusili I and may well reflect one episode of the disenfranchisement of Labarna’s and Tawannanna’s lineage.

Geographic names explainable by Hittite halluwa- “deep” attest the sound change *Cw > Cb from Labraunda up to Termessos. The Lycian personal name Xluwãnimi may join them as “deepening”. Lycian χrssẽni may be cognate with Hittite harsannas, an epiclesis of the Storm-god. The toponym Πασανδα near Caunos may be explainable by Hittite pahs- “protect”, the Lycian toponym Pttara by cognates in other Indo-European languages. Lycian hrm͂mã is probably not cognate with Lydian šyrma-, but with Hittite saram(m)a(n)-.

With the detection of a new sign for u, the transcription of Y as u is more questionable than ever, while new inscriptions confirm the transcription w for another sign. Therefore, it is proposed to transcribe Y by v. New attestations of the epichoric name of Side and its ethnicon show that Ω, attested only on coins, is a variant of Λ = r. The ethnicon is therefore now partially transcribable as ИirvawaƸ, probably nom. sg., and ИirvawƸis, probably nom. pl., and the city-name itself is attested now as Иirvaw. This is certainly less similar to the Greek name than supposed formerly.