Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea, Volume 3

Since the early 1990s, about two thousand Idumean Aramaic ostraca have found their way into museums, libraries, and private collections. Four major publications covering some of these texts have appeared, three of which encompass the ostraca held by individual collectors only. This multivolume work classifies the ostraca according to subject matter and brings them together in a single publication. Volumes 1 and 2 covered fifty personal name dossiers (TAO A1-50). Volume 3 contains more than two hundred more such dossiers (TAO A51-255a) and numerous fragments. Each text is accompanied by a color photograph and hand-copy, a facing transcription and translation, and a ceramic description and commentary. The translation uniquely provides marginal captions identifying the phrases. In addition to the presentation of individual texts, there are six dossiers of tables covering all the commodity chits, parallel tables that classify them according to month or size, and comparative lists of entries.

Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea is a unique source for the onomastics and the social and economic history of fourth-century Idumea and, by extension, Judah (Yehud).

“This series belongs in every research library, since it brings together a large collection of Aramaic texts from fourth-century BCE Idumea in a useable format, serviceable for teaching. For students of the Bible, this study falls into Bible backgrounds. Undergraduate teachers may wish to incorporate material, especially the pictures, into discussions of ancient writing media, explaining, for example, the use of sherds versus paper. Graduate teachers could read selected texts, discussing implications for society, culture, and economics.”—Jerome Lund, Review of Biblical Literature

Bezalel Porten is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University. He is the author or coauthor of ten books and more than one hundred articles.

Ada Yardeni is the author or coauthor of more than fifty articles and books on Hebrew paleography, including The Book of Hebrew Script.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations and Select Bibliography

Introduction

Explanation of Typographic Conventions

Grain Equivalencies

Terminology of Ceramic Descriptions

Numeration Legend

Texts

Comparative List of Entries