From: owner-ane@ (ANE Digest) To: ane-digest Subject: ANE Digest V1998 #324 Reply-To: Sender: owner-ane@ Errors-To: owner-ane@ Precedence: bulk ANE Digest Monday, November 23 1998 Volume 1998 : Number 324 ane Historical linguistics and "genetic" relationships Re: ane homeland of PS (kind of) ane Oldest common business documents ane FWD: Job: Nancient History - Saskatchewan ane Proto-"Semitic"? Re: ane Historical linguistics and "genetic" relationships Re: ane homeland of PS (kind of) Re: ane Proto-"Semitic"? ane e-mail address for JoAnn Scurlock? ane Publication Announcement, XXXIVth Assyriology Congress-Istanbul ane =?iso-8859-1?Q?Atlas_historique:=A0_Histoire_de_l'humanite?= ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 16:04:03 +0200 (EET) From: Robert Whiting Subject: ane Historical linguistics and "genetic" relationships There seems to be a good deal of confusion about what historical linguistics is and isn't. Historical linguistics is not a history of linguistics. It is an attempt to reconstruct the changes that a language or a group of languages have gone through over time. For historical linguistics it is essential that there be a record of the languages over time. Without a historical record, there is no historical linguistics -- there is only generative grammar. This is not to say that generative grammar is of no historical value; it is rather a matter of degree. The point to generative grammar is that grammar has to have a synchronic form that is independent of its history. The speakers of a language learn its grammar, very seldom the history of its grammar. But since the grammar (and lexicon) of a language is constantly changing, a synchronic (generative) grammar is at best a "snapshot" of the grammar of the language at a particular point in time. A synchronic grammar of the English of a century ago would be different from a synchronic grammar of today's English which would be different again from the synchronic grammar of English a century from now. What historical linguistics can do is link the different "snapshots" and explain the mechanisms of the changes. But the history of these changes is irrelevant to generative grammar which has to be able to explain the current grammar of the language as used by its speakers on its own terms. Now in historical linguistics it is possible to "prove" certain facts (subject, as in all fields that contain the word "historical," to the limits of the accuracy of the historical data). But establishing facts in history is not the end of the historian's problem. There is still the matter of interpretation. Indeed, the number of different interpretations of a given set of facts can, and often does, approach the number of different interpreters. But once we lose the historical (written) record. there is nothing that we can say with certainty about language. It is impossible to identify language through any cultural artifact other than writing. Therefore, any prehistoric reconstruction of a language or relations among languages is a hypothesis -- an extrapolation of the known historical facts (if any) to a prehistoric age. Furthermore, such a hypothesis is usually not falsifiable and therefore is a "just-so" story -- an inductive proof that the evidence does not prove, but simply does not disprove. In order for such a "just-so" story to be acceptable, the argument needs to be not merely plausible, but based on an overwhelming number of threads the convergence of which clearly defies coincidence. Historians often make use of analogies and parallels to show that a certain development is plausible, and historical linguists often adopt the same method. Thus for the breakup of a protolanguage into daughter languages we have the example of Latin and the Romance languages, a development that took place entirely within historical times and is well documented so that we can judge the time depth involved in the differentiation and detail the effects of superstratum, adstratum and substratum languages on the daughter languages of Latin. But does this mean that these various admixed languages are parents of the Romance languages in the same way that Latin is? No, it does not. All of the Romance languages can be traced back to Latin and the application of the methods of historical linguistics to these languages would give a fair approximation to Latin as a protolanguage. But the same methods applied to French or Spanish and Portuguese would not contribute much to a reconstruction of Proto-Celtic or Proto-Iberian. Basque was heavily influenced by Latin, but no one would consider Basque a Romance language or try to use it to reconstruct Proto-Romance. So it is with Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and Proto-Semitic (PS). The reconstruction of these protolanguages is based on argumentation that is no less convincing than Proto-Romance. The convergence of the daughter languages of PIE through their own families (Slavic, Germanic, Indo-Aryan, etc.) back to PIE is well beyond the likelihood of coincidence. Similarly, the daughter languages of PS clearly converge on a common language as families with about the same time depth of differentiation (perhaps along the lines of Slavic or Germanic). As to the effect of adstrata, etc., on Semitic languages, these are about what one would expect. Akkadian and Sumerian did converge during the time that Sumerian was a spoken language in much the way that is to be expected from two languages that share the same time and space. Akkadian SOV word order (as opposed to VSO elsewhere in Semitic) is generally taken to be a result of Sumerian influence (especially as there is evidence that Akkadian word order was not always SOV). There are numerous loan words from Sumerian to Akkadian and vice versa. There are also a number of loan translations. Akkadian a&&u(m) X "because of / on account of / on behalf of X" (ana &umi > a&&umi > a&&um > a&&u) is a calque on Sumerian mu X-&e3, literally "to the name of X". The expression does not appear in Akkadian until around 2000 BC. The Akkadian subjunctive (not found elsewhere in Semitic) is also borrowed from Sumerian which has a nominalizing particle that can be added to a verb phrase so that the verb phrase can be treated as a noun. This is the same function that the Akkadian subjunctive fulfills. But this degree of convergence does not mean that Sumerian is a parent of Akkadian (any more than Hurrian, Elamite, or any other languages that influenced Akkadian in one way or another are) or that Sumerian is a Semitic language. A teacher or a friend may have an influence on a person's development, but that does not make the teacher or friend that person's parent. In a similar way, the convergence of English with Latin and French (as superstratum languages) does not mean that English is now a Romance language rather than a Germanic one. To prove this, in addition to the previously adduced fact that the Swadesh list for English preserves 90% of the Germanic heritage, take a look at the same text written the various stages of the language. A good sample is the Lord's prayer (pater noster) which has been recorded for a long time so it is possible to find Old English, Middle English, modern English, Latin and French versions. A glance at these texts will make it clear what the affiliations of these various languages are. While it may be easier for a speaker of modern English to learn French or Latin than to learn Anglo-Saxon, the Germanic core of English is still intact and a historical linguist can quickly tell that part of the structure that is inherited from Germanic and that part that is borrowed from Latin or French. Indeed, by observing shifts in the superstratum languages, historical linguists can tell when the borrowing took place. For example, the shift in the Latin-French continuum of /k/ > /ch/ > /sh/ tells us when particular words from the same root (e.g., cant-chant-chanteuse, candle-chandler- chandelier) came into English. So when a historical linguist says that two (or more) languages are "genetically related" it means that these languages are descended from a common ancestor. It doesn't mean that the languages were in contact at some point and may have borrowed some features from each other. The problem is that it is often difficult to tell the difference and in the absence of written records the difference is impossible to prove deductively. Bob Whiting whiting@cc.helsinki.fi ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 17:29:04 +0200 From: Naccache Subject: Re: ane homeland of PS (kind of) On Fri, 20 Nov 1998 M. C. Vidal wrote: >technically, pre-contact New Guinea was not pre-Neolithic. A form of >horticulture has been practiced there for thousands of years (can't >find a reference to the date, but as I recall it was really ancient). Really ancient? Try that: the "Atlas historique: Histoire de l'humanite de la prehistoire a nos jours" edited by P. Vidal-Naquet, published by Hachette in 1987, section 8, 'domestication of plants and animals', dates horticulture in New Guinea to "- 9,000" . On the same map Mureibet and Jericho are dated to "-8,000"... Sincerely, Albert Naccache Beirut, Lebanon anaccash@nidal.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 10:32:40 -0800 From: Jon.Bosak@eng.Sun.COM (Jon Bosak) Subject: ane Oldest common business documents I am posting this inquiry to the ANE, LT-ANTIQ, and MEDIEV-L lists for reasons that will become clear below. Please excuse duplicate messages. (Since a first unsuccessful attempt to send this message, I have become aware that I am stuck in listserv hell with an old address that still allows me to receive messages in digest form from all of these lists but does not allow me to send them. I am now attempting, as carefully as I can, to resend this message in a form that will get to the lists. Please accept my profuse apologies for any duplicates resulting from this contretemps.) I'm looking for pictures of the oldest known examples of common business documents: inventories, receipts, manifests, price lists, purchase orders, contracts, expense reports, etc. I know that there are receipts for temple offerings that date back (if memory serves) to about 2000 BCE, but I need some good examples of the other categories, too. For instance, the receipts for the Ningal-temple at Ur are, if I remember them correctly, essentially identical in form and function to their modern counterparts, but I've never seen a purchase order from the pre-Christian era, and I wonder whether the P.O. in its modern form goes back further than Victorian times. So this inquiry raises the (I hope sufficiently interesting) question of when each category of modern business document (or form, if you will) first made its historical appearance. I need examples that can be reproduced on the web, so sources in the public domain would be especially desirable, and they must be accompanied by translations or detailed explanations of their content. Images that are already out on the Internet would be wonderful, but I am close enough to a couple of good research libraries (Berkeley and Stanford) that I should be able to find just about any source if I can get a citation. I will be visiting the British Museum for a short period of time in a couple of weeks, so if anyone knows of examples that happen to be in the collections there, that information would be particularly helpful. Thanks in advance, Jon - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Bosak, Online Information Technology Architect, Sun Microsystems - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 901 San Antonio Road, MPK17-101 | Best is he that inuents, Palo Alto, California 94303 | the next he that followes ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34::NCITS V1::OASIS | forth and eekes out a good Chair, W3C XML Coordination Group | inuention. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:45:48 -0600 From: "Charles E. Jones" Subject: ane FWD: Job: Nancient History - Saskatchewan Forwarded on behalf of the undersigned, to whom responses and inquiries should be directed. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan invites applications for a tenure-track position in ancient history. This appointment will begin July 1, 1999 at the assistant professor level and is subject to budgetary approval. Ph.D. and publications are strongly preferred. Evidence of teaching excellence is particularly invited. The field of ancient history is open as to period, approach, or specialization, although there is a preference for candidates interested in the Near East. The appointee's responsibilities will include surveys in Greek and Roman History as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in his or her speciality. Applicants should submit a letter of application, Curriculum Vitae, and any other supporting material, along with three confidential letters of reference to Larry Stewart, Head, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5A5 (Fax: 306-966-5852; E- mail: hist.dept@usask.ca). The University of Saskatchewan is committed to the principles of Employment Equity and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates. Women, people of aboriginal descent, members of visible minorities, and people with disabilities are invited to identify themselves as members of these designated groups on their applications. In accordance with Canadian immigration requirements, this advertisement is directed to Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Application deadline is February 15, 1999. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 17:32:50 -0500 From: NYOKABI@KINGCON.COM Subject: ane Proto-"Semitic"? On Nov. 21st P Daniels wrote (>>quoting A Naccache): >> High time we shelved the misleading term "Semites," and all its >> derivatives, together with the "phamily tree" model next to the >> "phlogiston" and "phrenology". Let us stop trying to force the >> huge amount of data we have into 19th century models. Instead, >> let us try to organize this hard-won knowledge in meaningful >> ways. > [P.D]: >What *exactly* is "misleading" about an arbitrary label that >happens to be taken from an etiological biblical narrative >(current also in Islam, considering where the relevant article >has been put in the EI)? Since 1781 it has had no denotatum other >than the group of languages that by their structure and >vocabulary obviously derive from a common, easily reconstructible >in outline and in many details, proto-language. It seems >in fact somewhat *less* misleading than your term, which would >place the language family "east" of some reference point >(Europe?) -- and would seem to contrast with "Maghrabi" or >something like that, which already happens to be in use for a >small subset of the Semitic languages! >Semitic happens to fit Neogrammarianism about as well as any >known language family there is! > A little odd to quarrel about the use of the term "east" on a list titled the "Ancient Near East" (east of where?)! I would think Mashriqian could simply be understood as Eastern Afro-Asiatic. The problem with the label "Semitic" in relation to the biblical narratives is that it may have been placed on the wrong family of languages.[Was it Schmolzer, Schlozer? who made this fatal choice of names in 1871? I have just moved and my files are all in stacks of boxes, sorry.]Was it Lenormant? Maspero? who kept raising this issue, that in fact the so-called Semitic languages were probably in fact Hamitic, meaning, in a family with Egyptian et al. Since Kanaanite was regarded by the OT as part of Hamitic, Hebrew was the "lip of Kanaan" etc.,and Agade was one of the Nimrodian Kushitic cities, and even the Arabs according to Tabari? Masudi? had a tradition that the first speakers of their language were children of Ham, only later joined by descendants of Shem,-- perhaps the real language of Shem was the language of Shumer. Whoever it was that already argued all of this (at the end of the last century and/or early decades of this one) pointed out all the obvious: Abraham traced himself back to Shinar which was being seen as a version of Shumer; the term Shumer is nowhere part of Sumerian, but is an Akkadian [Hamitic/Af-As] label used to describe their neighbors/subjects, whom they conquered and whose language they replaced with their own, but whose knowledge of ancient history and the local gods they respected ...[Genesis 10 lists Shem first, as if the oldest, and doesn't Egyptian have a sem/oldest son, heir apparent, cf. Sem priest article in LdA]. Getting into the sons of Shem with this theory is interesting. Although we don't see any genetic relationship with say Elamite or Hurrian [Arpachshad?] and Sumerian, to the Afro-Asiatic speakers, their exotic nature, by comparison with their own language, may have made them all seem to be related "ancient native languages", much as we have difficulty today distinguishing between ancient ancient Australian, and ancient Australian immigrants. We don't know who the OT meant by Lud and whether the ancient Shemitic Lud was believed to have joined the Hamites in Egypt, changing language and becoming the Hamitic Ludim during the Jemdet Nasr Egypt-Sumerian contact period, but we do know the Arabs threw in Lud as the oldest Semitic ancestor of peoples such as the Amelekites who were believed to have started out as Ham and later became Shem. Ashshur would simply mean that the ancient "Sumerian/Semitic" natives who wanted to escape the Nimrodian/Agadian/Af-As cultural domination emigrated north to found a colonial branch of their own civilization, only going under themselves later to the Mashriqian language by the time of Bit Sargon. As for Aram, I suggested a year or so ago that this was the ancient A3mu of the Egyptian texts, the pre-Mashriqian inhabitants of the Levant, who lost their[proto-Urarto-Hurrian?]language to waves of Af-Asiatic conquerors from the Nile Valley/N Africa, but withdrew northeastwards with their ancient memory preserved in the name of the land Syria/Aram, after which toponym the later Mashriqian language, Aramaic, was named. Theories like this die, I should imagine, not because they have been proven definitively wrong, but because accepting them would require so many thousands of scholarly works to be consigned to the junk heap, and so many inflammatory religio-politico-racio? dragons to raise their heads, that their proponents probably let them die in the interests of their own sanity. I put them in a place in my own head along with theories excising centuries from the blackboard we are all writing on, as quite possibly correct but too paralyzing in their present effect to be kept on center stage. They wait threateningly off stage in Pandora's box... E Adams ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 18:59:06 -0500 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane Historical linguistics and "genetic" relationships Robert Whiting wrote: > > There seems to be a good deal of confusion about what historical > linguistics is and isn't. Historical linguistics is not a > history of linguistics. It is an attempt to reconstruct the > changes that a language or a group of languages have gone through > over time. For historical linguistics it is essential that there > be a record of the languages over time. Without a historical > record, there is no historical linguistics -- there is only > generative grammar. This is not to say that generative grammar > is of no historical value; it is rather a matter of degree. This is only the second time I've encountered someone saying that "historical linguistics" and "comparative linguistics" aren't synonyms - -- that "hist. ling." is specifically the study of _texts_ through time. (The other was in the ms. of Patrick Bennett's *Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual* (Eisenbrauns, 1998); he's primarily an Africanist. The qualification was taken out because I suggested it would confuse the novice American linguist or Semitist the book is addressed to.) Can you identify a tradition that uses the distinction actively? > The point to generative grammar is that grammar has to have a > synchronic form that is independent of its history. The speakers > of a language learn its grammar, very seldom the history of its > grammar. But since the grammar (and lexicon) of a language is > constantly changing, a synchronic (generative) grammar is at best > a "snapshot" of the grammar of the language at a particular point > in time. A synchronic grammar of the English of a century ago > would be different from a synchronic grammar of today's English > which would be different again from the synchronic grammar of > English a century from now. What historical linguistics can do > is link the different "snapshots" and explain the mechanisms of > the changes. But the history of these changes is irrelevant to > generative grammar which has to be able to explain the current > grammar of the language as used by its speakers on its own terms. But it's not coincidental that for quite a few years, generative grammars (especially phonologies) recapitulated historical developments, claiming in effect that English-speakers had a Proto-Germanic grammar plus a bunch of rules in their head. Eventually they got away from that. In toto, Bob, thanks for putting it all so clearly! - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 19:10:38 -0500 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane homeland of PS (kind of) Naccache wrote: > > On Fri, 20 Nov 1998 M. C. Vidal wrote: > >technically, pre-contact New Guinea was not pre-Neolithic. A form of > >horticulture has been practiced there for thousands of years (can't > >find a reference to the date, but as I recall it was really ancient). > > Really ancient? Try that: the "Atlas historique: Histoire de l'humanite > de la prehistoire a nos jours" edited by P. Vidal-Naquet, published by > Hachette in 1987, section 8, 'domestication of plants and animals', dates > horticulture in New Guinea to "- 9,000" . On the same map Mureibet and > Jericho are dated to "-8,000"... Sounds like a useful atlas. Is it a giant scholarly production, like the *Grosser historischer Weltatlas* in three frequently updated volumes; or is it a more popular but sound one, like the Times or Harper historical atlases (both of British origin)? - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 19:44:23 -0500 From: "Peter T. Daniels" Subject: Re: ane Proto-"Semitic"? NYOKABI@KINGCON.COM wrote: > A little odd to quarrel about the use of the term "east" on a > list titled the "Ancient Near East" (east of where?)! I would think > Mashriqian could simply be understood as Eastern Afro-Asiatic. But that would be wrong. It would seem to revive the false distinction between Semitic and "Hamitic," which referred to Egyptian/Berber/Chadic/Cushitic/Omotic, which, however, is not a legitimate linguistic grouping. "ANE" of course reflects the European viewpoint of the founders of "Orient"al studies; in view of the Said argument, it seems odd for an Arab scholar to advocate returning to "Oriental" translated into Arabic. > The problem with the label "Semitic" in relation to the biblical narratives > is that it may have been placed on the wrong family of languages.[Was it > Schmolzer, Schlozer? who made this fatal choice of names in 1871? Schlözer, 1781. I've no idea what these whole two paragraphs are about. Is it simply saying that the Genesis 10 genealogies don't reflect historical reality as reconstructed? Well, sure, so what? We use one of the names in it for the akk/arab/aram/eth/hebr family, and another of the names in it for the family that includes Oromo and Somali, and we no longer use another of the names in it for Afroasiatic minus Semitic ... > I have > just moved and my files are all in stacks of boxes, sorry.]Was it > Lenormant? Maspero? who kept raising this issue, that in fact the so-called > Semitic languages were probably in fact Hamitic, meaning, in a family with > Egyptian et al. Since Kanaanite was regarded by the OT as part of Hamitic, > Hebrew was the "lip of Kanaan" etc.,and Agade was one of the Nimrodian > Kushitic cities, and even the Arabs according to Tabari? Masudi? had a > tradition that the first speakers of their language were children of Ham, > only later joined by descendants of Shem,-- perhaps the real language of > Shem was the language of Shumer. Whoever it was that already argued all of > this (at the end of the last century and/or early decades of this one) > pointed out all the obvious: Abraham traced himself back to Shinar which > was being seen as a version of Shumer; the term Shumer is nowhere part of > Sumerian, but is an Akkadian [Hamitic/Af-As] label used to describe their > neighbors/subjects, whom they conquered and whose language they replaced > with their own, but whose knowledge of ancient history and the local gods > they respected ...[Genesis 10 lists Shem first, as if the oldest, and > doesn't Egyptian have a sem/oldest son, heir apparent, cf. Sem priest > article in LdA]. > > Getting into the sons of Shem with this theory is interesting. > Although we don't see any genetic relationship with say Elamite > or Hurrian [Arpachshad?] and Sumerian, to the Afro-Asiatic > speakers, their exotic nature, by comparison with their own language, may > have made them all seem to be related "ancient native languages", much as > we have difficulty today distinguishing between ancient ancient Australian, > and ancient Australian immigrants. We don't know who the OT meant by Lud > and whether the ancient Shemitic Lud was believed to have joined the > Hamites in Egypt, changing language and becoming the Hamitic Ludim during > the Jemdet Nasr Egypt-Sumerian contact period, but we do know the Arabs > threw in Lud as the oldest Semitic ancestor of peoples such as the > Amelekites who were believed to have started out as Ham and later became > Shem. Ashshur would simply mean that the ancient "Sumerian/Semitic" natives > who wanted to escape the > Nimrodian/Agadian/Af-As cultural domination emigrated north to found a > colonial branch of their own civilization, only going under themselves > later to the Mashriqian language by the time of Bit Sargon. As for Aram, I > suggested a year or so ago that this was the ancient A3mu of the Egyptian > texts, the pre-Mashriqian inhabitants of the Levant, who lost > their[proto-Urarto-Hurrian?]language to waves of Af-Asiatic conquerors from > the Nile Valley/N Africa, but withdrew northeastwards with their ancient > memory preserved in the name of the land Syria/Aram, after which toponym > the later Mashriqian language, Aramaic, was named. > > Theories like this die, I should imagine, not because they have > been proven definitively wrong, but because accepting them would > require so many thousands of scholarly works to be consigned to > the junk heap, and so many inflammatory religio-politico-racio? dragons to > raise their heads, that their proponents probably let > them die in the interests of their own sanity. I put them in a > place in my own head along with theories excising centuries from > the blackboard we are all writing on, as quite possibly correct > but too paralyzing in their present effect to be kept on center > stage. They wait threateningly off stage in Pandora's box... ? - -- Peter T. Daniels grammatim@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 16:50:53 -0800 From: "Andrew Jones" Subject: ane e-mail address for JoAnn Scurlock? I'm trying to contact JoAnn Scurlock who I think is at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Does anyone know if she has an e-mail address or how I could contact her directly? I would like to ask her some questions about Assyrian chariot wheels. Thanks for any help! Andrew Jones ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 10:07:38 +0300 From: "IRERP" Subject: ane Publication Announcement, XXXIVth Assyriology Congress-Istanbul Dear ane subscribers, The proceedings of the XXXIVth Assyriology Congress, Istanbul-1987 is finally out and can be supplied from TTK Publications-Ankara. I can send a full list of the contents to the list if anybody is interested. Best wishes, Vasif Sahoglu IZMIR REGION EXCAVATIONS AND RESEARCH PROJECT (IRERP) Vasif Sahoglu ANKARA UNIVERSITESI | PHONE: (312) 3103280/1133 DIL VE TARIH COGRAFYA FAKULTESI | (312) 2133864 PROTOHISTORYA VE ONASYA | ARKEOLOJISI ANABILIM DALI | E-MAIL: 06100, SIHHIYE | irerp@superonline.com ANKARA - TURKEY http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/8635/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 10:17:09 +0200 From: Naccache Subject: ane =?iso-8859-1?Q?Atlas_historique:=A0_Histoire_de_l'humanite?= On Sun, 22 Nov 1998 Peter T. Daniels: >> the "Atlas historique: Histoire de l'humanite >> de la prehistoire a nos jours" edited by P. Vidal-Naquet, published by >> Hachette in 1987, >Sounds like a useful atlas. Is it a giant scholarly production, like the >*Grosser historischer Weltatlas* in three frequently updated volumes; or >is it a more popular but sound one, like the Times or Harper historical >atlases (both of British origin)? > I am not familiar with the Harper's Atlas. Vidal-Naquet's is a scholarly production "similar" to Barraclough's Times Atlas of World History. Smaller format (barely bigger than A4). No glossary, less flamboyant cartography, but very clear and legible (prepared under the direction of Jacques Bertin). The information is sound, clearly presented and generally pertinent (it is written by "une equipe d'historiens -pour la pluspart collaborateurs de l'Ecole des Annales"). Very enjoyable read, good first orientation. By the way, I have recently spent an hour drooling over B. Hrouda's "L'Orient Ancient", Bordas Civilisations, 1991. Superb reproductions, very interesting content. Large format (like the Times). Albert Naccache Beirut, Lebanon anaccash@nidal.com ------------------------------ End of ANE Digest V1998 #324 **************************** Back issues are available on the Oriental Institute World-Wide Web (WWW) site at: http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/OI_ANE.html