The ''Urra=hubullu'' ( ; or ''HAR-ra = ḫubullu'', or ''Gegenstandslisten'' ("lists of objects")) is a major Babylonian

glossary A glossary (from , ''glossa''; language, speech, wording), also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of Term (language), terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a gloss ...

or "

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

". It consists of Sumerian and Akkadian lexical lists ordered by topic. The canonical version extends to 24 tablets, and contains almost 10,000 words. The conventional title is the first gloss, ''ur₅-ra'' and ''ḫubullu'' meaning "interest-bearing debt" in Sumerian and Akkadian, respectively. One bilingual version from

Ugarit Ugarit (; , ''ủgrt'' /ʾUgarītu/) was an ancient port city in northern Syria about 10 kilometers north of modern Latakia. At its height it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. It was discovered by accident in 19 ...

S2.(23)+is Sumerian/

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

rather than Sumerian/Akkadian. A partial table of contents: * Tablets 1-2: juridicial forms thought to be possibly part of the ana ittišu series * Tablets 3-7: names of trees, parts of trees, products of trees, and wooden objects * Tablet 4: naval vehicles * Tablet 5: terrestrial vehicles * Tablets 10-12: names of vessels, ovens, clay objects, hides, chemicals, and objects of bronze, copper, silver * Tablets 12, 14 & 15: systematic enumeration of the names of domestic animals, terrestrial animals, birds (including bats) and parts of the body * Tablet 16: stones * Tablet 17: plants. * Tablet 19: names of wool and vestments * Tablets 21-22: names of towns, countries, mountains, a and rivers * Tablets 22-23: provisions * Tablet 24: list of men The tablets form a series that had been arranged by time of the Sumarian

Dynasty of Isin The Dynasty of Isin refers to the final ruling dynasty listed on the ''Sumerian King List'' (''SKL''). The list of the Kings of Isin with the length of their reigns, also appears on a cuneiform document listing the kings of Ur and Isin, the ''Li ...

, with a bilingual tradition existing by the time the

Kassites The Kassites () were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from until (short chronology). The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 B ...

. The bulk of the collection was compiled in the Old Babylonian period (early 2nd millennium BC), with pre-canonical forerunner documents extending into the later 3rd millennium. Like other canonical glossaries, the Urra=hubullu was often used for scribal practice. Other Babylonian glossaries include: * Ea: a family of lists that give the simple signs of the cuneiform writing system with their pronunciation and Akkadian meanings. (MSL volume 14) * "Table of Measures": conversion tables for grain, weights and surface measurements. Again, it is not clear how these tablets were used. * Lú and Lú=ša, a list of professions (MSL volume 12) * Izi, a list of compound words ordered by increasing complexity * Diri "limited to compound logograms whose reading cannot be inferred from their individual components; it also includes marginal cases such as reduplications, presence or absence of determinatives, and the like." (MSL volume 14) * Nigga, Erimhuš and other school texts * Ana ittišu: a legal glossary.

Extant Tablets

Many copies of the series are known in collections such as the

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British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

and

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

. The original Akkadian texts were found during the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition to

Kish Kish may refer to: Businesses and organisations * KISH, a radio station in Guam * Kish Air, an Iranian airline * Korean International School in Hanoi, Vietnam People * Kish (surname), including a list of people with the name * Kish, a former ...

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(1923-1933). The texts are collated and summarised by Meer (1939).

References

* Benno Landsberger ''The Series HAR-ra="hubullu"'', Materials for the Sumerian lexicon (MSL), 5. 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11'', Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1957- *A. Poebel, ''The Beginning of the Fourteenth Tablet of Harra Hubullu'', The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Jan., 1936), pp. 111-114 *Soldt, W. H. van, "Babylonian Lexical, Religious and Literary Texts, and Scribal Education at Ugarit and its Implications for the Alphabetic Literary Texts," in: ''Ugarit: ein ostmediterranes Kulturzentrum in Alten Orient: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung'', Dietrich and Loretz eds., Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas, vol 7, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995, 171-212

References

External links

How to Recognize a Scribal School

The Kish tablets collection
at the

Ashmolean The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

Library, Oxford; at the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative Glossaries Mesopotamian literature {{AncientNearEast-stub