Language Usage and Rhetorical Strategies in Late Babylonian Letters – Macro and Micro Perspectives

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Abstract

In this presentation, I will talk about administrative letters from ancient Babylonia, an area roughly congruent with modern Iraq. The letters are written in cuneiform on clay tablets. They stem from the so-called “long sixth century” (Jursa 2010: 5), 626-484 BCE, a period which includes the rise and fall of the Neo-Babylonian empire and the early years of Persian rule after their conquest of Babylonia in 539 BCE. Despite these political changes, the period is marked by a high degree of economic and social coherence and continuity, also with regard to available sources. I will compare data gleaned from a macro perspective on Late Babylonian letters from two temples with data based on a micro perspective on the material in question. In a previous study, Jursa and Hackl (2015) distinguished different rhetorical strategies in Late Babylonian letters. They compared the usage of these strategies in Late Babylonian temple letters from the long sixth century BCE with their occurrences and frequencies in a comparable letter corpus from the Old Babylonian period (17th century BCE). In their study, they noticed, i.a., a marked difference in the usage of strategies referencing personal relationships as a means of persuasion. Late Babylonian letters use this strategy in far fewer instances than their Old Babylonian counterparts, a fact which Jursa and Hackl interpreted as an indication of an increase in “rational” elements in Babylonian temple bureaucracies, rational being used in a Weberian sense (Weber 1980 [1922]). This macro approach to the material can be further refined by adding a micro perspective, focusing on the temple communities at different points in time. We have data on these strategies from the beginning of the Neo-Babylonian empire, 626 BCE and onwards (Levavi 2018). I will compare this to material from the beginning of the Persian empire, from 539 to 484 BCE. This allows one to trace changes in language usage over the course of the long sixth century BCE, observing a different distribution of rhetorical strategies in these two phases. In addition, this analysis provides further data on the administrative ethos and identity of some of these temple officials in different political circumstances. Bibliography Jursa, M., 2010, with contributions by J. Hackl, B. Janković, K. Kleber, E.E. Payne, C. Waerzeggers and M. Weszeli, Aspects of the Economic History of Babylonia in the First Millennium BC. Economic Geography, Economic Mentalities, Agriculture, the Use of Money and the Problem of Economic Growth. Veröffentlichungen zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte Babyloniens im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. 4. AOAT 377. Münster. Jursa, M. and Hackl, J., 2015, “Rhetorics, Politeness, Persuasion and Argumentation in Late Babylonian Epistolography,” in: Procházka, S., Reinfandt, L., Tost, S. (eds), Official Epistolography and the Language(s) of Power: Proceedings of the First International Conference of the Research Network Imperium & Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom: University of Vienna, 10-12 November 2010. Papyrologica Vindobonensia 8. Vienna, 101-115. Levavi, Y., 2018, Administrative Epistolography in the Formative Phase of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Spätbabylonische Briefe 2. dubsar 3. Münster. Weber, M., 1980 [1922], Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie. Fünfte, revidierte Auflage, besorgt von Johannes Winckelmann. Studienausgabe. Tübingen. 5th, revised edition.

Speakers from the University of Münster

Schmidl, Martina

Professorship of Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Prof. Kleber)