Die Welt des Orients http://www.v-r.de/de/zeitschriften/500045/?sn=o5ojkpmo29cjc3cntm9rem4t94

To be continued …

ETCSL signlist

Sign name: KU Values: bid3, bu7, dab5, dib2, dur2, duru2, durun, gu5, ku, nu10, su?5, še10, tukul, tuš, ugu4

The basis for this list is the transliterations in the ETCSL (including proper nouns, but excluding numerals), and it only contains signs and values found in the ETCSL. In some cases the sample form given for a sign predates the corpus, highlighting differences between signs which can be less clear-cut in the period of the corpus.

To the ETCSL Signlist >>

The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary

The PSD is preparing an exhaustive dictionary of the Sumerian language which aims to be useful to non-specialists as well as Sumerologists. In addition, they are developing tools and datasets for working with the Sumerian language and its text-corpora. All materials will be made freely available on the website.

The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature is based at the University of Oxford. Its aim is to make accessible, via the World Wide Web, over 400 literary works composed in the Sumerian language in ancient Mesopotamia during the late third and early second millennia BC.

At this site you will find a catalogue of these works, together with a Sumerian text, English prose translation and bibliographical information for each composition. New material and new user facilities are added to the site regularly.

ETCSL Home, ETCSL How-To, ETCSL Complete Catalogue

The Agade List is a source of news run by Jack Sasson on a regular listserver. It covers the whole ANE.

To subscribe send a blank email to listserv@unc.edu, and write (as subject and in first line): subscribe agade

• “Tools of the Trade” is a collection of basic tools for the ANE scholar.
• I collect them all in this one place so as to have them ready-to-hand (as Heidegger would have it). I hope other students will find use for them.

• Keeping my tools sharpened is (one of) my way(s) to avoid or overcome writer’s block – that dull feeling in the head, that leaden feeling in the brain. Go back to the sources – learn some more cuneiform signs, study new vocabulary, make some grammar exercises, read a text real close – your basic mental warming up. Studying a sweet hard piece of grammar usually makes the head crystal-clear, shining & sparkling new.
• “Tools of the Trade” includes online dictionaries of Sumerian, Akkadian and Hebrew; A list of Journals, Periodicals, Major Reference Works, and Series; ecstatic rantings about the SBL Handbook of Style and all matters relating to SNOOTiness & Pedantry; Online Sign Lists and Text Collections; and so on – it is very much a work in progress.

Some more tips to keep mentally fit:

• Your basic sweaty work out: use the SQ3R-Method to analyse a Mickey Mouse album. Going back to the roots and spark new ideas: review and organise source material. Formulate and answer the really silly questions that keep bugging you: Where do I find a complete list of Sumerian signs? When was the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia? Can the Bible be considered a historical source? Is it politically correct to write “God” with a capital?
• Keep a writing-&-working-diary. Going over the work already done, re-reading about earlier enthusiasms and discoveries, maybe finding new connections to what you are doing today, or noting that you already had the problem of today before, in another context – it all helps to keep mentally fit and passionate.
• “State of the Arts”: Where do I stand methodologically, theoretically, and knowledge-wise? I am a pro-feminist, mostly heterosexual woman. Do I need to bother with Feminist Theory and Gender Studies? Can I find some more basic sources? Am I up-to-date with current state of research, and if not, where am I going to find the latest books and articles on my theme? Can I formulate exactly the problem I’m researching? Why am I doing this?

If there creeps in the last question a maudling note of desperation and self-pity, try the following:

• Work, study and improve your eccentricity characteristics. According to Dr. David Weeks eccentrics are very, very creative. They have extreme degrees of curiosity, and they’re very independent-minded. Their other motivation is fairly idealistic. They want to make the world a better place, and they want to make other people happy. They have these happy obsessive preoccupations, and a wonderful, unusual sense of humor, and this gives them a significant meaning in life. And they are far healthier than most people because of that. They have very low stress. They’re not worried about conforming to the rest of society. Eccentrics use their solitude very constructively. Low stress, high happiness equates with psychological and physical health.