The present work is the last contribution to the edition „Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes“ (RGTC). Thirteen volumes have been already published in this series and they became - along with the corresponding TAVO-historical maps - an important research tool in the field of the historical geography of the Ancient Near East.
This volume presents the place names from the Neo-Assyrian period in two parts. The first volume (RGTC 7/1) comprises the toponyms from the Levant. The second volume (RGTC 7/2), now in preparation, includes the place names from the remaining regions, namely the northern, southern and eastern regions, as well as from Egypt and the Assyrian heartland. Although the arrangement of earlier volumes was followed, the critical commentary of the secondary literature demands a more extensive treatment in this volume.
The present work is the last contribution to the edition in several volumes „Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes“ (RGTC), published within the series „Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients“ (TAVO). Thirteen volumes have been already published in this edition RGTC and they became − along with the corresponding TAVO-historical maps − an important research tool in the field of the historical geography of the Ancient Near East.
This volume presents the place names from the Neo-Assyrian period in two parts. The first volume (RGTC 7/1) comprises the toponyms from the Levant. The second volume (RGTC 7/2), now in preparation, includes the place names from the remaining regions, namely the northern, southern and eastern regions, as well as from Egypt and the Assyrian heartland.
The arrangement of the book follows earlier volumes of the series. The material comprises all the published, non-literary sources from the Neo-Assyrian period, namely royal inscriptions, letters, legal and administrative texts, treaties, royal grant and decrees, astrological reports, and historiographical texts. Following RGTC Vol. 5 all the texts after 934 BC have been considered. The alphabetical collection of place names is divided as usual in the categories „place names“ and „watercourses“. The main criterion for the arrangement of the attestations are the different spellings. Within the same spelling the arrangement of the attestations follows chronological and typological criteria. The attestations are followed by a commentary concerning the identification of the place name with a discussion of the relevant secondary literature. Since the toponyms from the Levant have been intensive discussed in assyriological works as well as in works concerning the Old Testament, the earlier identification proposals demand a more extended treatment than in earlier RGTC-volumes. Comprehensive indices, among them a register of modern place names as well as a register of the mentioned Old-Aramaic, Biblical, Classical, Luwian, and Phoenician toponyms, complete the book. An enclosed map shows most of the identified places. A comprehensive, historic-geographic study of the presented material, including many historical maps, will be published separately.
„In conclusion, Bagg’s work is decidedly praiseworthy, in that the listings in RGTC 7//2/1–2 reflect in full the state of the art in toponomastic data and research from the Neo-Assyrian empire. Such a result is achieved by the author not only by subsuming in its entirety the vastly accrued corpus of relevant sources from the NA period which either came to light through new discoveries or was republished in totally updated form during the last thirty years, but also by scrupulously recording the essential information/opinions drawn from a large set of dedicated secondary studies of recent date, spread far and wide in journals, lexica, conference volumes and Festschriften, and thus hitherto quite inconvenient to gather and fit into a coherent research framework, as the reviewer can personally testify.“
Von Frederick Mario Fales
In: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung Bd. 115 Heft 4-5 (2020), S. 328-331
Ariel M. Bagg studied Civil Engineering and History in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Assyriology in Tübingen (Germany), where he got his PhD in 1997. He was Assistant Lecturer (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the Assyriological Institute of the Free University of Berlin and since 2007 he is Private Lecturer (Privatdozent). He wrote a post-doctoral qualification work (Habilitation) about the historical geography of the Levant in Neo-Assyrian times. His main research areas are the history of technology and the historical geography in the Ancient Near East.
