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qlqlt' tubkinnu, Refuse Tips and Treasure Trove
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The Tell Fekherye inscriptions contained more than one surprise for both the Assyriologist and the Aramaist. In this article we will deal with Aramaic qlqlt' which was previously known from texts in various Aramaic dialects from the first millennium C.E. and also with tubkinnu its equivalent in the Akkadian text. Richard Barnett, to whom this article is dedicated, has opened one of the great treasure troves to the scholarly world – the Western Asiatic collections of the British Museum. We take this occasion to also comment on treasure trove in the ancient world.
The word qlqlt' occurs in the Tell Fekherye inscription in 1. 22 of the Aramaic text: wmn qlqlt' llqṭw 'nšwh š‘rn klw “may his people scavenge barley to eat from the rubbish dump(s)”. The noun qlqlt' in this form occurs in various Targumic texts. Thus in 1 Sam 2:8 (= Ps 113:7) mē'ašpōt yārīm 'ebyōn “He lifts up the needy from the refuse heap” is translated miqqilqilātā/mĕrīm/yerīm hĕšīkā. The ša‘ar ha-ḥarsīt of Jer. 19:2 is translated tĕra‘ qilqiltā “dung gate” and the enigmatic śēfātayim of Ps 68:14 was interpreted as a plural of 'ašpā “dung heap, refuse dump” and translated qilqilātā. The same translation was offered for 'ašpātōt of Lam 4:5.
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- Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1983
References
1 “He revealed the hidden”, Old Babylonian Gilgamesh, cf. JNES 16 (1957), 256Google Scholar, 1.20.
2 Abou-Assaf, A., Bordreuil, P. and Millard, A. R., La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne (Études Assyriologiques, No. 7), Paris, 1982Google Scholar. We have treated various aspects of this inscription in Iraq XLV (1983), 109–116Google Scholar and Shnaton 5 (1983), 119–129Google Scholar.
3 The form qlqlt' is ambiguous, but to judge from tubkinnāte in the Akkadian text it is the plural qilqilātā.
4 See van den Heide, A., The Yemenite Tradition of the Targum of Lamentations (Leiden, 1981), p. 32Google Scholar*.
5 In the printed editions the texts often read forms qlqlt', the readings presented here are based on various manuscripts (Hamburg, Munich, etc.) and on readings preserved in Geonic material, the Commentary of R. Hananel and the Aruch.
6 For Syriac see Brockelmann, C., Lexicon Syriacum2 (Halle, 1928), 688bGoogle Scholar.
7 For Mandaic see Drower, E. S. and Macuch, R., A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford, 1963), 412aGoogle Scholar. The relationship of qlqlt'/qīqlā and Biblical Hebrew qīlqālōn “shame, infamy” is worth further consideration.
8 We are indebted to Prof. M. Sokoloff, who is preparing a Dictionary of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic for making his files available to us. Here too the readings presented are those of the superior texts.
9 For the text of MS. Vatican 60 see Sokoloff, M., The Geniza Fragments of Genesis Rabba and Ms. Vat. Ebr. 60 of Genesis Rabba (Dissertation, Jerusalem, 1971, Hebrew), p. 276Google Scholar.
10 The version found in Rosenthal, F. (editor), An Aramaic Handbook I/1 (Wiesbaden, 1967), p. 60Google Scholar is defective. The word given here as zabbinni (for zbny ot the text) may also be transliterated as zabbini.
11 For this tale, with bibliography, see Sperber, D., “Golden Food and Treasure Trove”, reprinted in his Essays on Greek and Latin in the Mishna, Talmud and Midrashic Literature (Jerusalem, 1982), 170–2Google Scholar.
12 TCL 9 58:34 = ARU 13. See Postgate, J. N., Fifty Neo-Assyrian Documents (Warminster, 197), 78 ff.Google Scholar, cf. ib. 195 where the correct meaning “dung-hill” is given for kiqillutu. Cf. also, ADD 337:5 ki-qi!-il-te, Parpola, S., Assur 2/5 p. 52Google Scholar. The translation “Zwangsverkauf” in AHw 483b is to be given up. If, however, the personal names Kiqillānu, etc. “the one from the dump”, “the one found on the dump?” quoted there is related, then the MA occurrence cited Qi-qi-la-a-ni (as yet unaffected by Geer's law) is interesting on chronological grounds.
13 Written tub/tub2-ki/kin-nu.
14 Construed as a masculine noun in CT 38 5:40 and CT 51 146 r. 6 quoted below.
15 With due adjustment to Geer's law, etymologically Related to tbq “to cover, extend over an area” etc. For a similar meaning in Akkadian cf. a.šà tu-⌈ub-qa⌉-tim ša i-[ga-ra-tim]” surface de l'espace interieur délimité par les murs”, Mari Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires 1 (1982) 139:20 and 144Google Scholar, and Journal des Savants 1980, 261 ffGoogle Scholar.
16 Cf. Hebrew, šefek ha-de šen (Lev. 6:12, ff.)Google Scholar.
17 The editors of the Tell Fekherye inscription read the word as tupqinnu and translated it “fosse à ordures” following von Soden, AHw 1365a “Höhlung, Loch”. It will be clear, however, from the material presented here that this is not correct.
18 GAG 56r and Supplement; tubku is to tubkinnu as qutru to qutrinnu, serqu to surqinnu, terdû/tardû to terdennu, arû–urinnu cf. ZA 42 (1934), 175Google Scholar. For tubku see below.
19 In CT 38 2:34 we read: tubkinnašu kakkabani (MUL.MEṠ) [lit. “stars"] malât (text corrupt?); tubkinnašu ilāni (DINGIR.MEŠ) malât (ib. 2:35).
20 The text reads niš būrti u hirīti nīs tubkinnu u āšibēša LKU 33 r. 9 ff. The series būrtu-hirītu-tubkinnu raises a question as to the topography of a tubkinnu. A suggestion to read tubkinnu in the right column of Šurpu commentary B, 1.17, Šurpu p. 50, has resulted in the restoration of the line as šat-pi tub-⌈kin-ni⌉: hi-⌈ri-tu⌉ (collation kindly effected by C. B. F. Walker and I. Finkel). Thus the tubkinnu was likely begun by dumping in a pit or ditch, hence its gloss by burtu and hiritu, but eventually it could become high and in piles, as in the passages quoted above. Šatpu, which tubkinnu explains, is in many respects a synonym. Like the tubkinnu the šatpu is the setting for magic rites, nig2-sag-il2-la-ni tul2 -sag-kalam-ma-se3u3-bi2-[in-tag4] puhšu ana šatpi ša māti ezbamma “abandon the likeness of him to a country dump”, CT 17 1:6–7. In a medical commentary, SpTU 50 i 39 eper šatpi is explained by eper tubkinni with a further explanatory quote eper šatpi atbuku eli qātiya “I poured earth from a dump on m y hands” ib. 40. The eper šatpī from which Sargon built Babylon, TCS V p. 149 etc. will be dealt with elsewhere.
21 The most recent translation of this text, that of Borger, R. in Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments I/2 (ed. Kaiser, O.), (1983), 156Google Scholar, “Ihr Lager möge in einem Loch sein” does not make sense.
22 ittarru is N ingressive.
23 Cf. Nabonidus' report of discovering the foundation tablets of Burnaburiaš and Hammurapi, VAB 4, 236:47; 238:20, and the Gilgamesh, Nimrud, Iraq XXXVII (1975), 160Google Scholar 1.22 f. where the author exorts the reader to take out a lapis tablet from the foundation box and read about Gilgamesh's adventures.
24 Palestinian Talmud 2:3 8c; Babylonian Talmud 25b–26a.
25 Cf. Wallach, L., “Alexander the Great and the Indian Gymnosophists in Hebrew Tradition”, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research XI (1941) 47–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp.63–71.
26 Nicholas, J. K. B. M., An Introduction to Roman Law (1962), p. 140Google Scholar.
27 Berger, A.. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (Philadelphia, 1953), p. 737Google Scholar s.v. thesaurus. See now, Braund, D., “Treasure-trove and Nero”, Greece and Rome XXX (1983), 65–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar who indicates that an emperor could confiscate treasure trove.
28 See D. Sperber (above, n. 11), p. 172.
29 Loeb Classical Library, Vol. I, 219–21.
30 For a richly illustrated survey of some aspects of the sociology of trash, including rubbish tips and the dwellers thereon, featuring the zabbaline of Cairo, cf. White, Peter T., “The Fascinating World of Trash”, in the National Geographic Magazine vol. 163, no. 4 (April, 1983) 424–57Google Scholar.
31 We owe this reference to Bella Greenfield.
32 Hammond, G. N., “Treasure Trove: ancient law to preserve archaeological relics”, Antiquity LVI (1982), 58–60Google Scholar; quotation from p. 60. On pp. 199–201, C. Sparrow “Treasure Trove: a lawyer's view” challenges some of Hammond's conclusions and notes that an object which fails to qualify as treasure trove belongs not to the finder but to the owner of the land under the old and fundamental principle “that things that are physically within the soil become part of the soil in law and belong to the landowner.”