Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics

The present volume treats of some Aramaic inscriptions of the first millenium B.C. and deals with the personal names appearing in these documents. The author has chosen those inscriptions which, in his opinion, needed to be submitted afresh to a serious philological, historical, or exegetical analysis. They form three well delimited groups. The Old Aramaic inscriptions of Bar-Hadad and of Zakkur, as well as the Sefire treaties, are dealt with at first (Chapters I-III). Chapters IV-VI concern a decree law in Aramaic and Aramaic documents on clay tablets from Assur and Tell Halaf. A short study of an Aramaic inscription from southern Palestine (Chapter VII) precedes the chapters devoted to inscriptions from Asia Minor (Chapters VIII-X), which have a funerary or a commemorative character. Special attention is given to proper names occurring in the texts studied and in related documents, as names are an important source for our knowledge of ancient Aramaic and of the religious ideas of the Aramaeans.