Volume 22 of the IOS Annual is arranged according to three sectionsâthe Ancient Near East, Semitics, and Arabic Language and Literature, and includes nine articles.
The Ancient Near East section is devoted exclusively to the late period of ancient Near Eastern historyâNeo-Babylonian Mesopotamia and the Achaemenid Empire. The first article is a publication of a new inscription of King Nebuchadnezzar (Da Riva and Novotny). The other three articles are the outcome of papers given at a conference held at the University of Leuven, 8â9Â February 2016, Babylonian Names and Name-Giving: What Names Tell Us About Social Realities, organized by Kathleen Abraham and Melanie GroÃ. The articles well-represent the aim of the conference which was to investigate how cuneiform onomastic data contribute to our understanding of Mesopotamian social history, and which theoretical and technical frameworks are needed to gather and successfully use the vast onomastic data for this purpose. The onomastics of the Neo-Babylonian period and the Achaemenid empire are tackled from different perspectives: the use of names in Neo-Babylonian letters (Levavi); the Aramaic renderings of Iranian names in chiefly Persepolis (Tavernier and Azzoni); and the private and family names held by the scribal profession in the city of Borsippa (Zadok).
The Semitic section includes three articles dealing with contact between various languages of the Semitic language group and between Semitic languages and dialects and other language groups. There is a discussion of Jibbali/Åḥer
In the Arabic section we have two articles. The first is an investigation into the use of the folktale and folklore elements in the works of two major Arab poets of the 20th century, Iraqi Badr ShÄkir al-SayyÄb and Egyptian á¹¢alÄÌḥ Ê¿Abd al-á¹¢abÅ«r (Khoury). The second article traces the transformations and adaptations of the figure of Rahab the prostitute in Early Muslim tradition, where other figures from the Biblical world are met, notably, Nebuchadnezzar (Yavor).
The title of Volume 22 of the Israel Oriental Studies Annual, âTelling of Olden Kingsâ, is a verse phrase taken from a poem by the Iraqi poet Badr ShÄkir al-SayyÄb (1926â1964), who seeks his Iraq through memories, folktales, and stories of old (Khoury). It encapsulates in essence the spirit of the articles in the current volume. Histories, traditions, beliefs, and memories of âOlden Kingsâ have shaped and continue to shape the rich and varied cultural and linguistic landscapes of the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. Historical Nebuchadnezzar whom we meet in the first article, seals our volume as a fictional figure, looming large in early Muslim traditions. And kingdoms lost and whose rulers are forgotten set the background for language contact, change and survival, from Oman, through the Horn of Africa, and further west to Malta.
The IOS Annual is generously supported by the School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, and the School of Cultural Studies, Tel Aviv University and by the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University. The Editors thank and acknowledge the assistance of managing editor Yael Leokumovich. We also extend our thanks to Isra Nashef, our Arabic editor.
The Editors welcome original studies in the languages, philology, histories and religions of the ancient Near East and the wider Mediterranean World, stretching from Central Asia to the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa. We invite scholars of the ancient Near East and related fields, such as Biblical Studies, the Classics, and Archaeology of Mesopotamia, the Levant and the Mediterranean, scholars of Semitic and Afroasiatic languages and cultures, and scholars of Arabic, Arabic linguistics, socio-linguistics and dialectology, Arabic philology, philosophy and literature to send in their contributions to the IOS Annual and enhance our study and knowledge of the languages, philology, histories and religions of the ancient Near East and Middle East throughout the ages in their wider Mediterranean Context. Information about in-house style and submitting a contribution can be found at
Editor-in-Chief
Yoram Cohen
Section Editors
Amir Gilan and Nathan Wasserman, The Ancient Near East
Letizia Cerqueglini, Semitic Languages and Linguistics
Beata Sheyhatovitch, Arabic Language and Literature