University of Chicago. Oriental Institute

Assyrian Dictionary: S (Tsade)

The CAD project was initiated in the early 1920s, not long after James Henry Breasted founded the Oriental Institute in 1919, and barely one hundred years after the decipherment of the cuneiform script. This initial decipherment, and the soon-to-follow achievements in understanding the languages in which the hundreds of thousands of clay tablets were inscribed, opened an unsuspected treasure-house for the study and appreciation of one of the world's oldest civilizations. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary was conceived to provide more than lexical information alone, more than a one-to-one equivalent between Akkadian and English words. By presenting each word in a meaningful context, usually with a full and idiomatic translation, it recreates the cultural milieu and thus in many ways assumes the function of an encyclopedia. Its source material ranges in time from the third millennium b.c. to the first century a.d., and in geographic area from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Zagros Mountains in the east. With sixteen of the projected twenty-one volumes published and the remaining volumes in various stages of preparation, with close to two million file cards - a database which is continually updated and which is accessible to scholars and students who wish to consult it - the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary has become an invaluable source for the study of the civilizations of the ancient Near East, their political and cultural history, their achievements in the sciences of medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and linguistics, and not least the timeless beauty of their poetry. - Publisher.

Assyrian Dictionary

K. Aslihan Yener

The results of the Amuq Valley Regional Projects (AVRP) presented in this volume are the outcome of eight seasons of intensive fieldwork (1995-2002) representing the first phase of a long-range, broadly-based archaeological investigation in the Hatay region of southern Turkey. From its inception the research was conceived as a series of coordinated field projects. The detailed and expansive scope of the regional project originated from a number of theoretical and methodological considerations. Encouraged in part by its potential for providing the examination of interactions between technological developments, complex social institutions, natural resources, and the environment, the original Oriental Institute project (then called the Syro-Hittite Expedition) in the 1930s was formally reactivated in 1995. The strategy of taking a regional approach with a series of linked field projects established an unusual multi-institutional laboratory to research key themes that it is hoped will provide explanations about regional and interregional relationships. The initial stage of the research strategy focused on contextualising the settlements by survey, followed by site-specific investigations prior to the resumption of new excavations. The regional surveys targeted the Amuq Valley (the plain of Antioch, today Antakya) and the delta of the Orontes River (today Samandag). Artifactual and micro-scale studies were the focus of the third scale of investigations.

The Amuq Valley Regional Projects

Assyrian Dictionary: Z

A. Leo Oppenheim

Erica Reiner

Miguel Civil

Ignace Jay Gelb

Verlag J. J. Augustin (Glückstadt).

The Assyrian Dictionary

Assyrian Dictionary: G

Assyrian Dictionary: Š, pt. 1-3

Assyrian Dictionary: K

Robert John Braidwood

Cuyler Young

When editors of this volume began organizing a Festschrift in honor of Robert Braidwood, they hoped to interest scholars from a variety of different fields with a theme of the food-producing time range (10,000-4,000 B.C.). Many of the contributors have also incorporated in their discussions an important and controversial subject from Braidwood's large corpus of research, the development of agriculture. The first part of the volume is devoted to articles under the general heading of Syro-Palestine. The theories of spatial analysis are applied in several articles in the Mesopotamian section. Genevieve Dollfus, using Iranian sites of the fifth millennium such as Choga Mish, tries to make comparisons with patterns of land use and settlements from more contemporary periods. This Festschrift is as diverse and interesting as the multifaceted Robert Braidwood. [From a review by Margaret C. Brandt in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies 47 (1988) 294-96]

Essays on the Prehistory of Southwestern Asia Presented to Robert J. Braidwood, November 15, 1982

The Hilly Flanks and Beyond

Martha T. Roth

The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary was conceived to provide more than lexical information alone, more than a one-to-one equivalent between Akkadian and English words. By presenting each word in a meaningful context, often with a full and idiomatic translation, it recreates the cultural milieu and in many ways assumes the function of an encyclopedia.

Assyrian Dictionary: S

Assyrian Dictionary: I and J

Assyrian Dictionary: B

Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization

Harry A. Hoffner

Hans Gustav Güterbock

Theo P. J. Van Den Hout

The Hittite language is the earliest preserved member of the Indo-European family of languages. It was written on clay tablets in central Asia Minor over a five hundred year span (ca. 1650-1180 B.C.) which witnessed the rise, the floruit, and the decline of many political powers in the Near East. It is studied today for a wide variety of reasons. Historical linguists seek information in Hittite texts to elucidate the relationships between the various member languages of the Indo-European family, as well as the probable structure of their common parent, Proto-Indo-European. Historians find in Hittite annals, treaties, royal edicts, and political correspondence information of great value in reconstructing the sequence of events on the international scene of mid-second-millennium Western Asia. Anthropologists, mythographers, and students of comparative religion mine the riches of Hittite religious texts: myth, magic rituals to cure ailments, festivals to worship the gods of the empire. Students of the history of law discover ancient precedents for legal procedures which have survived to this day. All of these interested researchers share a dependence upon the written texts. None can penetrate further than our limited understanding of this language allows. [From the Preface, CHD L-N, p. ix].

The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

University of Chicago. Oriental Institute

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