58 DEIRDRE DEMPSEY BASOR 289

The ostracon was recovered from Locus 7 in N25/ W20. Locus 7 consisted of a thin layer of fine black ash, along a north-south axis from 20 to 80 cm below the surface. The ash layer was truncated by a modem army trench at the southern end of the excava­tion square. The disturbed nature of the locus precludes the of assigning its contents secure dates but

L H'C''',,''L, W. F. 1925 The Evolution of the West-Semitic Divinity

cAn-CAnat-CAtta. American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 41: 73-101.

AP= Cowley, A. 1923 Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth B.C. Ox­

ford: Clarendon. Brockelmann, K.

1928 Lexicon ",if·iar'l1m HaHe: Niemeyer. CIS=

1889 In.~'Crliptlionum Semiticarum. Pars Se­cunda. Inscriptiones A ramaicas. Paris: Acad­emic des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

Donner, H., and Rollig, 1964 Kanaanaische und aramaisclze lnschriflen II.

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Dornemann, R. H.

1990 First Preliminary of the 1989 Tell Nim-rin Project. Annual the An-tiquities 34: 153-81.

,.~ .. , 1 __ , J.

1967 The Aramaic of Sefire. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute.

Flarlaga:n, l . D. W. 1990 of the 1989 Tell

zum

the layer itself appears to have been deposited during the late Persian or the Hellenistic period.

21 thank the directors of the Tell Nimrin project, J. W. Flanagan and D. W. McCreery. Special thanks to Wayne Pitard and Edward M. Cook for their help with this article. Any errors are my responsibility.

Naveh, J. 1970

1982

The Development the Aramaic Script. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Proceedings VIi. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

History the Alphabet. Jerusalem: Magnes.

Smith, J. 1903 A Compendious Syriac

Clarendon. M.

1965 Anat. Pp. 235-4 1 in Warterbuch del"

Oxford:

ogie: Abt. I: Die alten Kultervolker: Bd. I Gatter and My then im vOl"deren Orient. ed. H. W. Haussig. Stuttgart: Klett.

Porten, B., and Yardeni, A. 1986 Textbook of Aramaic Documents An­

cient Egypt: I. Letters. Jerusalem: Hebrew University.

1989 Textbook of Aramaic Documents An­cient Egypt: If. Contracts. Jerusalem: Hebrew

J. 1954 Some Syriac on the

Century A.D. Bulletin the School of Orien-tal and Studies 16: 13-36.

1983 North .)aaOl'lra with Some Ex-

M. 1969

~okoIott. M.

ISRAEL

I"""""'·"'t,; of Jerusalem Mount '-''-'VIJUG. Jt:I'usalt::Ul, Israel

Kin-rot and measures Gate" that existed in ancient Palestine. the Gate" and, ~i"",i l n'rl"

the Temple") there were two additional systems in the ancient Near East, that " and that the King." These systems and tuncl'i011eci

different levels of economic and !Jolitieal organization.

THE TEXTS larly "The name slsro is not a divine name, as Franken and HCittl.lzf~r SlJgj~es,t, but

with the publication of the Deir CAlla texts, two short Aramaic

the eighth century B.C.E., found on the

incised der of a

firing) on the shoul-

engraved on a stone.

Of those mscnDtl ~,ms the excavator, function of stone is written ... ex-eludes the possibility that src~ is a proper name or

rather an officia1 name. In Greenfield's (1980: 251), it may be int,"' .. n",.pt",rI

but a hVJ:,ocilOfJlsti(;on

be either the lows 1,

should be

60 NAVEH BASOR 289 1993 THE 61

Drawing of the Tel Kinrot inscriptions (made by

. The jar inscription from Tel Israel Antiquities Authority). the same way can Judaean lmlk stamps on

in the

62 EPHCAL AND NAVEH BASOR 289

s.v. m,Jinn ru' pp. s.v.

Administrative documents from Mari attest to

the of silver-ina "in the stones of the >1an/n"'"lI'

205, 2

no. lt appears that these like

those in the Deir cAlla and Tel Kinrot inscriptions with similar formulations, standard

and measures of the market i.e., of

mscflptl~::mS refer to commercial where that

took Hebrew expres-in the Bible as well as in the Deir cAlla and

Tel Kinrot indicate first and foremost the location of the activi ty, the gate. That is natural: in where was mainly over water and to a lesser on land, goods could be assembled and traded m both and land centers.

the Akkadian terms for "market such as kant (originally place, anchor-

biibu " and siiqu "street" 1975-1976: relate to both of trans-

pa,Lestlne, on both sides of the Jordan

stamps on the jar-handles from Judah, over 1500 of which have been' discovered, indicated that the royal authorities approved the standard volume of those U ssishkin, after measuring nine such

points out that "the differences in volume are considerable (39.7 to 51.8 litres) making it most

that the stamps were a of 1983: the

do relate to the '-''''T'''''''' ' ~U

do not indicate that all the same but rather that their contents were of the same volume, having been filled by approved standard measuring vessels of the type under dis-cussion here Aharoni 981: no. 17, J[

[wft b J Jiysb bn wlql;zt m[sm] 1 smn l .. mhrh Jth Nahum, [and]

now: Go to the house of Eliyashib son of I-lcf"",.,hll

and take from [there] 1 (jar oil, and send (it) to . . . and seal it with your seal"). Thus, some were filled to the whereas others were fined to a lower level, but the volume of the contents was the same in all cases .

As both systems of and measures-that "of the gate" and the one---existed side side. close examination of their features reveals the circumstances under which each system functioned. One in "sellers

L U ULU, ... 'C , in which the merchandise CmnplrIS­

surpluses of homes and families from to without llH UUl'-'I.U'-'lCl,

of the ancient Israelite market 1961: Such a market demanded, of

course, and measures; but there was no need between the local system and other markets. contrast, the admin-ISH'anon, whose economic activities included the collection of various groups and their

territorial

1993 THE JAR OF THE GATE 63

measure of Bel Marduk) 1, no. 86:5-6; VAS 3, no. 187:13), "-of Samas" (VAS 6, no. 13:2, 10), "-of the Lady-of-Uruk" 6, Nos . 40:16; 47:8; YOS 7, no. 169:6), "-of the Eanna Temple" (YOS 7, no. 72:6); and in pt~ "by the stone (weight)s of Ptah" 1923: no. 11:2).

A morc common system of weights and capac­measures, beside the local systems "of the

of the mal:JIrulof the temple," was the "royal" one. Most of the following examp]es span the eighth to fifth centuries B.CE. :

The bronze lion-shaped weights from Nineveh (CIS II: nos. 1-14) have two to four inscriptions, each of which was designed for a different group of users. Weight no. 2 grams), for example, has the

Aramaic mnn 5 bzy :JrqJ "5 minas by (the of the country" (cf. ADD: no. 376: 11' [ina] MA.NA-e sa KUR-e "[by] the mina of the country").

(b) Five vertical strokes mCUc<H1flg the numeri-cal size of the for who read neither

1'?f.Jil pN (2 Sam Aramaic nor Assyrian. mlF (e.g., Cowley 1923: no. 15:10); (c) Aramaic m[n]y mlk "Five

cf. also the bronze weight from Gezer inscribed royal mi[nJas. lmlk 2, "2 (shekels by the weight) of the king". (d) Assyrian ekal mSulmiinu­(Macalister 1912, 2: 285, fig. 433); cf. also bmtqlt asaredu sar kurAS§ur 5 mana sa sarri "(Weight of) mlP "by the weight of the king" (Cowley 1923 : the palace of Salmaneser of 5 no. 28 : 11); and NIG .su LUGAL "weight stones royal minas." of the royal property" 7: no. 145:2; ARM 8: According to our view, each of the Aramaic in-nos. 89:2, 91 :2). scriptions represents a distinct standard: zy

mina: (ina) mane sa sarri (ADD: nos. JrqJ "of the country," i.e., of proper; zy 9: 1; 33: 1 etc.); mnn 2 zy mlk (CIS II : no. etc. mlk "royal," i.e., the imperial one. Since the stan-

seah: VII A:235. dard of Assyria proper was identical to the no. 124:2. ian) royallimperial one, the unit numbers on the

Cf. also "the standard measure of the Nineveh weights were the same. Outside masil:Ju sa sarri (VAS 3: no. 74:6; YOS 6; no. proper, however, where the local standards differed 150:9) . from the imperial one-for in

with the general designations mentioned above, which do not specify the kingdoms that used those units, there were others to """<",,,1-,,'" kingdoms, as follows:

"H,ahlvllrmiian mina" no. 180:9, rev. "mina of Carchemish"

67: 1).

(Bordreuil and Gube1

1976: 29: 1,

no.

Judah, and Carchemish numbers on weights to differ accord­

ing to local and imperial standards. One can, therefore, three standards

of and measures that might conceivably have been in use at the same time:

1. The local standard: for in tenlpl(~S and "of the gate."

2. The standard of the with explicit names of countries and "of the country," as well as the "royal" one there was no overall im-

from words , for and

64 EPHCAL AND NAVEH BASOR 289

1914

was still in use when its rate of exchange

shekel; cf. Tosefta, Bekhorot 13: 3.

R.p. and

sewn . '-.--llH_!lF;V.

= Johns, C. 1898- Assyrian Deeds and Documents . . . nn>sp r ll/'fJ

1923 the Collections the British Museum. London: Bell.

Aharoni, Y. at Tel Beer Sheba, Pn~hnllinary

of the Fifth and Sixth Seasons, 1973-1974. Tel Aviv 2: 146-68.

1981 Arad Inscriptions. Jerusalem: Israel L<AU1"'lU­

tion 7 = Bottero, J.

1956 Textes de la salle J 10. A r-chives royales de Mari 7. Paris: lmpnme:ne nationale.

ARM 8 = Boyer, G. 1957 Textes 1I1 f 'U1I.{}lJ,>S

ale . = Dossin, G., al.

Textes divers. Paris: Geuthner.

= Durand, J.-M. j 983 Textes adJ'nl11isl'ra,uJs

pafais de Mari. n. ; ·UHVCJ

Archives Jmpnme:ne nation-

royales de 13.

du de Mari 21.

5That the two latter units were of different capacity, d . VAS 8: no. 80: 1-4; CT 2: no. 29: 19-20.

CIS = 1891-

Im'cn'vtl'onum Semiticarum. Paris: Academie des

A. 1923 Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth

ford: Clarendon. CT 2 = Pinches , Th. G.

Belles-

B.C. Ox-

1896 Texts Tablets in the British Museum. ",-,U'BYVU. British Museum. and Naveh, J .

1989 Hazael's Israel r.XJ'JJlIffl-

Fritz, V. 1986

tion Journal 39: 192-200,

Kinneret, Vorbericht tiber die auf dem Tell el-cOreme am See Genazaret in den J ahren 1982-1985. Zeitschr~ft des Deut­schen Paliistina- Vereins 102: 1-39.

Gibson, J. C. L. 1975 Textbook Semitic voL

2: Aramaic lW'CflptiolllS. Oxford: Clarendon. Gordon, C. H.

1965 U garitic Textbook. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute.

Greenfield, J. C. 1980 Review of H()ttIlz.;~r 1976.

Journal Studies 25: ljn:~ennel,d, J. c. , and Shaffer, A.

1983 Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Statue from Tell 45: 109- 16.

Heltzer, M. 1978 Goods, Prices and Trade in

Wiesbaden : Reichert 1989 Questions

in Judah, Phoenicia,

1993 THE JAR

Jerusalem, April 1984. Jerusalem: Israel Ex­ploration

Macalister, R. A. S. 1912 The Excavations of Gezer. 1902-1905 and

1907-1909, vols. 1-3. London: Palestine Ex­plC1ratlOIl Fund.

McCarter. P. K. 1980 The Balaam Text from DeiI' CAlla: The First

Naveh, 1979

Combination. Bulletin the American Schools Oriental Research 239: 49-60.

Review of Aramaic Texts from Deir 'Alla, by J. and G. van der 1976. Israel ~x"JloratlOn Journal 29: 133-36.

Postgate, J. N. 1976 Fifty Neo-Assyrian Documents. War­

minster: Aris and Phillips . Rabinowitz.

1956 Aramaic of the Fifth Century B.C.E. from a North-Arab Shrine in Journal Eastern Studies 15: -9.

W. 1975- Der Markt. Die Welt des 1976 Orients 8: 286-95.

Sukenik, E. L. 1942 The Meaning of the 'Le-Melekh' Inscriptions.

Kedem 1: 32-36. (Hebrew)

THE GATE 65

TCL 1 Thureau-Dangin, F. 1910 Lettres et contrats de l'epoque de la premiere

/1"""-":T1L> bai'lylon.lenne. Musee du Louvre, De­partment des Antiquites, Textes Cuneijorms, 1. Paris: Geuthner.

Tufnell. O. 1953 Lachish Ill: The Iron London: Oxford.

Ussishkin, D. 1983 Excavatiolls at Tel Lachish 1978-1983: Sec-

Tel Aviv 10: 97-175.

:icJzriJ'td(;mkmafer der Konig­1909 lichen Museen Heinrichs.

de Vaux, R. 1961 Ancient Its Life and Institutions. Lon­

don: Darton. LuugJlHiin , and Todd. Welten, P.

1969 hG1nl;r;S-LJu::mJ'Je1. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. YOS 6 = UOlJgh,erty

1920

YOS 7

Records Erech, Time Nabonidus (533-538 s.c.). Yale Oriental Series, nian Texts 6. New Haven: Yale.

Cyrus and Cam­Oriental Series ,

Babylonian Texts 7. New Haven: Yale.