Historical geography is one of the most important disciplines which allow a reconstruction of the history of the Ancient Near East. There are principally the cuneiform sources which open the access to the numerous attested geographical names. The present volumes are the second part of the Neo-Assyrian toponyms for the series Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes (RGTC 7). RGTC 7/2 comprises approx. 1500 toponyms from the Assyrian heartland and neighbouring areas (the Transtigridean region, the Middle Euphrates, the Northern Jezireh, the Habur-Basin, the Eastern Jezireh and Northern Mesopotamia), as well from Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. The first part was published by the author in 2007 and dealt with the Levant (RGTC 7/1). The third and last part (RGTC 7/3) is in preparation and will cover the Eastern regions of the Assyrian empire and Babylonia.
Historical geography is one of the most important disciplines which allow a reconstruction of the history of the Ancient Near East. There are principally the cuneiform sources which open the access to the numerous attested geographical names. The toponyms from these sources were collected and commented in the series Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes (RGTC) published in the frame of the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (TAVO). Fourteen volumes already published in this series have become together with the corresponding TAVO-historical maps an important research tool in the field of the historical geography of the Ancient Near East. The final volume of the series (RGTC 7) is about the extensive (approx. 3450) place and river names from the Neo-Assyrian texts (10th to 7th cent. BCE) and was conceived a tripartite work. The present two-volume set is the second part of the Neo-Assyrian toponyms for the above mentioned series (RGTC 7/2). It comprises approx. 1500 toponyms from the Assyrian heartland and neighbouring areas (the Transtigridean region, the Middle Euphrates, the Northern Jezireh, the Habur-Basin, the Eastern Jezireh and Northern Mesopotamia), as well from Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. The first part was published by the author in 2007 and dealt with the Levant (RGTC 7/1). The third and last part (RGTC 7/3) is in preparation and will cover the Eastern regions of the Assyrian empire and Babylonia.
The arrangement of the book follows the 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 Kh. Nashef’s RGTC 5 (1982), all the texts after 934 BCE have been considered. The alphabetically arranged 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. As in the volumes RGTC 8 and RGTC 12/2, the toponyms are ordered according to their linguistic provenance. Comprehensive indices, among them a register of modern place names as well as a register of the mentioned Old-Aramaic, Biblical, Classical, and Phoenician toponyms, complete the book. Two enclosed maps show most of the identified places.
Ariel M. Bagg, born in 1959, is extraordinary Professor at the Institute of Assyriology of the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg (Germany). He studied Civil Engineering and History in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Assyriology in Tübingen (Germany), where he got his PhD in 1997. 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 of the Ancient Near East.
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