Description, Translation, and Explanation of Babylonian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Ugaritic, Anu

(Comparative Lexicon of Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian,. d- Phoenician and Ugaritic words Shem and Shema, which mean the sun and are used as a .. And the epistemological meaning of Anu is: Lord; leader; king. .. Description, Translation, and Explanation of Babylonian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian.
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In this series, the author explains the meaning, the message and structure of hundreds upon hundreds of Mesopotamian, Phoenician, Ugaritic and ancient Middle and Near Eastern tablets, slabs, seals, obelisks, and cuneiform inscriptions. It was said, "A picture is worth a thousand words. But what if a picture is hard to understand or does not explain what we are looking at? This happens quite often in the vast literature and history of ancient civilizations. Especially, when the inscriptions on or under the pictures or illustrations are written in a language we do not understand, such as Cuneiform, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Sumerian, Phoenician, and similar writing systems of the ancient Middle and Near East.

And in many instances, no pertaining inscriptions or texts were ever provided to explain what the statues, figurines, slabs and tablets represent.

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To fully understand the scriptures, texts, epics and literature of Mesopotamia, Sumer, Assyria, Chaldea, Phoenicia, and Ugarit, one must become familiar with the meaning Hidden or revealed of the inscriptions, the symbolism camouflaged in intricate details, and the religious-artistic-philosophical nuances of the art of the era. It also requires familiarity with historical sites, ruins, and cities, and a perfect knowledge of the ancient languages and dialects of the ancient civilizations of the Near East, and the Middle East, and multiple linguistic analogies.

This book was written in order to deal with and to explain all these concerns, and above all to provide the readers with sufficient guidance, translation and explanation of major archaeological finds, ranging from a figurine to a massive monument. Example of an entry from this precious book, and how the author explained the illustrations Slabs, seals, inscriptions, statues, artifacts: A cuneiform Akkadian clay tablet circa B.

See on the next page an enlarged picture of the symbol, and meanings. Enlarged inscription-form of Dingir from the Akkadian-Sumerian clay tablet, circa B. It is used as a symbol, indication and reference to the deity status of a personage. For instance, Anu Dingir means God Anu. The sign in Akkadian, and Old Babylonian was always used as a determinative sign next to the name of gods and goddesses, in order to refer to their divinity status. Read more Read less. English Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download. The radicals are occasionally represented in transcription in upper-case letters, for example PRS to decide.

Between and around these radicals various infixes , suffixes and prefixes , having word generating or grammatical functions, are inserted. The resulting consonant-vowel pattern differentiates the original meaning of the root. Also, the middle radical can be geminated, which is represented by a doubled consonant in transcription and sometimes in the cuneiform writing itself.

Formally, Akkadian has three numbers singular, dual and plural and three cases nominative , accusative and genitive. However, even in the earlier stages of the language, the dual number is vestigial, and its use is largely confined to natural pairs eyes, ears, etc. In the dual and plural, the accusative and genitive are merged into a single oblique case. Akkadian, unlike Arabic , but like Hebrew , has only "sound" plurals formed by means of a plural ending i.

As is clear from the above table, the adjective and noun endings differ only in the masculine plural. Certain nouns, primarily those referring to geography, can also form a locative ending in -um in the singular and the resulting forms serve as adverbials. These forms are generally not productive, but in the Neo-Babylonian the um -locative replaces several constructions with the preposition ina. In the later stages of Akkadian the mimation word-final -m - along with nunation dual final "-n" - that occurs at the end of most case endings has disappeared, except in the locative.

Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapse to -u and in Neo-Babylonian most word-final short vowels are dropped. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings although often sporadically and incorrectly.

Akkadian language - Wikipedia

As the most important contact language throughout this period was Aramaic , which itself lacks case distinctions, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon. As is also the case in other Semitic languages, Akkadian nouns may appear in a variety of "states" depending on their grammatical function in a sentence.

The basic form of the noun is the status rectus the governed state , which is the form as described above, complete with case endings. In addition to this, Akkadian has the status absolutus the absolute state and the status constructus Construct state. The latter is found in all other Semitic languages, while the former appears only in Akkadian and some dialects of Aramaic.

The status absolutus is characterised by the loss of a noun's case ending e. It is relatively uncommon, and is used chiefly to mark the predicate of a nominal sentence, in fixed adverbial expressions, and in expressions relating to measurements of length, weight, and the like. The status constructus is a great deal more common, and has a much wider range of applications. It is employed when a noun is followed by another noun in the genitive, a pronominal suffix, or a verbal clause in the subjunctive, and typically takes the shortest form of the noun which is phonetically possible.

In general, this amounts to the loss of case endings with short vowels, with the exception of the genitive -i in nouns preceding a pronominal suffix, hence:.


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There are numerous exceptions to this general rule, usually involving potential violations of the language's phonological limitations. In many of these instances, the first vowel of the word is simply repeated e. This rule, however, does not always hold true, especially in nouns where a short vowel has historically been elided e. The same preposition is also used to introduce true relative clauses, in which case the verb is placed in the subjunctive mood.

The Akkadian verb has six finite verb aspects preterite , perfect , present , imperative , precative and vetitive and three infinite forms infinitive , participle and verbal adjective. The preterite is used for actions that are seen by the speaker as having occurred at a single point in time. The present is primarily imperfective in meaning and is used for concurrent and future actions as well as past actions with a temporal dimension.

The final three finite forms are injunctive where the imperative and the precative together form a paradigm for positive commands and wishes, and the vetitive is used for negative wishes. The infinitive of the Akkadian verb is a verbal noun , and in contrast to some other languages the Akkadian infinitive can be declined in case. The verbal adjective is an adjectival form and designates the state or the result of the action of the verb, and consequently the exact meaning of the verbal adjective is determined by the semantics of the verb itself.

The participle, which can be active or passive, is another verbal adjective and its meaning is similar to the English gerund.

The following table shows the conjugation of the G-stem verbs derived from the root PRS "to decide" in the various verb aspects of Akkadian:. The table below shows the different affixes attached to the preterite aspect of the verb root PRS "to decide"; and as can be seen, the grammatical genders differ only in the second person singular and third person plural. The following table demonstrates the verb moods of verbs derived from the root PRS "to decide","to separate":.

Akkadian verbs have thirteen separate derived stems formed on each root.

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The basic, underived, stem is the G-stem from the German Grundstamm, meaning "basic stem". Causative or intensive forms are formed with the doubled D-stem, and it gets its name from the doubled-middle radical that is characteristic of this form. The doubled middle radical is also characteristic of the present, but the forms of the D-stem use the secondary conjugational affixes, so a D-form will never be identical to a form in a different stem.

Finally, the passive forms of the verb are in the N-stem, formed by adding a n- prefix. Furthermore, reflexive and iterative verbal stems can be derived from each of the basic stems. An alternative to this naming system is a numerical system. The two numbers are separated using a solidus. The most important user of this system is the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. There is mandatory congruence between the subject of the sentence and the verb, and this is expressed by prefixes and suffixes. A very often appearing form which can be formed by nouns , adjectives as well as by verbal adjectives is the stative.

Nominal predicatives occur in the status absolutus and correspond to the verb "to be" in English. The stative in Akkadian corresponds to the Egyptian pseudo-participle. Hence, the stative is independent of time forms. Beside the already explained possibility of derivation of different verb stems, Akkadian has numerous nominal formations derived from verb roots.

A very frequently encountered form is the maPRaS form. It can express the location of an event, the person performing the act and many other meanings. Examples for this are: A very similar formation is the maPRaSt form. The noun derived from this nominal formation is grammatically feminine. The nouns which are formed with this suffix are grammatically feminine.

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The suffix can be attached to nouns, adjectives and verbs, e. Also derivatives of verbs from nouns, adjectives and numerals are numerous. For the most part, a D-stem is derived from the root of the noun or adjective. The derived verb then has the meaning of "make X do something" or "becoming X", for example: Independent personal pronouns in Akkadian are as follows:.

Suffixed or enclitic pronouns mainly denoting the genitive , accusative and dative are as follows:. Demonstrative pronouns in Akkadian differ from the Western Semitic variety. The following table shows the Akkadian demonstrative pronouns according to near and far deixis:. Relative pronouns in Akkadian are shown in the following table:.

Unlike plural relative pronouns, singular relative pronouns in Akkadian exhibit full declension for case. The following table shows the Interrogative pronouns used in Akkadian:. Akkadian has prepositions which consist mainly of only one word. There are, however, some compound prepositions which are combined with ina and ana e.

Regardless of the complexity of the preposition, the following noun is always in the genitive case. In an Assyrian poem, Dagan appears beside Nergal and Misharu as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the underworld prison warder of the seven children of the god Emmesharra. Sanchuniathon reportedly made Dagon the brother of Cronus , both sons of the Sky Uranus and Earth, but not truly Hadad's father. Accordingly, Dagon in this version is Hadad's half-brother and stepfather.

Akkadian language

Another temple, located in Ashdod , was mentioned in 1 Samuel 5: King Saul's head was displayed in a temple of Dagon. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus [6] mentions a place named Dagon above Jericho. Jerome mentions Caferdago between Diospolis and Jamnia. There is also a modern Beit Dejan south-east of Nablus. Some of these toponyms may have to do with grain rather than the god. The following morning the Ashdodites found the image of Dagon lying prostrate before the ark.

Marna of Gaza appears on coinage of the time of Hadrian. It is likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon. His temple, the Marneion —the last surviving great cult center of paganism—was burned by order of the Roman emperor during the Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire in Treading upon the sanctuary's paving-stones had been forbidden. Christians later used these same to pave the public marketplace. The "fish" etymology was accepted in 19th and early 20th century scholarship.

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This led to the association with the " merman " motif in Assyrian and Phoenician art e. Dagon was also equated with Oannes. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.