Couvent Saint-Étienne, Jerusalem: 9 (2023-03-23)

Created by: Englund, Robert K.

Berlin and Jerusalem joined.

Fragments of texts broken in antiquity or during their excavation can be separated by inventory keepers at archaeological digs, by museum curators receiving and putting to storage such pieces, or can be separated early on and be taken to separate collections altogether. Later research by experts has led to many thousands of post-accession joins, even to a sub-discipline playfully, or occasionally ironically, called “joinology” (small “j”!) by admirers and detractors of those who dedicate much of their careers to this painstaking, vitally necessary work; the vaunted Kuyunjik scholar Rykle Borger springs most to mind in identifying the dozen or so researchers who contributed so much to solving the puzzles of ancient cuneiform. Pieces of formulaic cuneiform texts such as literary or lexical compositions, often found in multiple copies and reduced to composite form by specialists, are more susceptible than unique records to this work, that can occasionally cross international borders, as in this fine example of a lexical text from the Old Babylonian period recording lists of gods. Originally from Babylon, the larger piece is in the collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, while the smaller one—the middle peak—, is housed in the Couvent Saint-Étienne, Jerusalem. Following a join made by the UC Berkeley Sumerologist Niek Veldhuis, CDLI staff at UCLA were able to digitally rejoin the fragments from Jerusalem and the German capital as part of scanning work completed in 2012 in Jerusalem by, coincidentally, Berlin/CDLI postdoctoral researcher Luděk Vacín. CDLI entry: P347139

credit: Englund, Robert K.