Volume 25 of the Israel Oriental Studies Annual includes nine articles. The Ancient Near Eastern section consists of three articles.
The first article is a study of the way in which Mesopotamian scholarly knowledge was memorized and internalized. By following subtle use of metaphoric language in scholastic texts and a few documentary sources, Gabbay traces the ways by which the scholarly materials of the professional classes in First Millennium Mesopotamia were internalized and studied.
The second article attempts to etymologize and give meaning to an Anatolian name attested on a silver ring recovered from the site of Ortaköy/Šapinuwa. Simon offers a new interpretation of the name by way of discussing the beginning of rhotacism in the Luwian language.
The third and final article of the Ancient Near Eastern section provides an edition of an unpublished inscribed metal‑bowl of Iddin‑Sin, king of Simurrum. Wasserman identifies a hitherto unknown son of Iddin‑Sin and hints at possible historical ties between the kingdom of Simurrum and Elam during the early Old Babylonian period.
The Semitic section includes six articles. By sole coincidence, although perhaps tellingly meaningful, all articles touch upon languages primarily attested, but not solely, in Africa. This is yet again a reminder of how much the languages of this great continent are valuable in our search for the reconstruction of cultures and societies of our wide region. The earliest are extinct—Ancient Egyptian and Punic/Phoenician—but the rest are living vernaculars among various communities, some having left North Africa and Ethiopia and settled in Israel.
Borg and Sheyhatovitch consider the shared etymology of some cultic terms in Ancient Egyptian and Arabic. Special attention is given to the lexeme ḥnf in ancient Egyptian. Cerqueglini, Silber‑Varod and Klein introduce a new Digital Humanities project of Phoenician and Punic inscriptions. By way of introducing the goals of the project in light of new challenges and opportunities the digital world offers us, the contributors provide us with a comprehensive overview of past and on‑going digital projects dedicated to the study of Semitic languages.
Gębski undertakes a novel investigation of the syntax of Hebrew spoken by the first generation of the Algerian Jewish community of Wad‑Souf, currently residing in a moshav in Israel. Illuminating examples demonstrate a variety of syntactical phenomena in Hebrew which can be explained by recourse to the Arabic substrate.
The final three articles are concerned with the languages of the horn of Africa. Gutgarts explores Tigrinya, the most common language of Eritrea, as well as of the Tigray regional state in Ethiopia. His focus is on the nomina agentis of Tigrinya, which he analyzes by morphology, syntax and semantics. Rom‑Shiloni provides us with a detailed study of the oral and written Beta Israel traditions of the Decalogue. By first‑hand knowledge of the manuscripts and the interpretation of the Qesočč—the religious leaders of the Ethiopian Jews in Israel, she compares and contrasts three written versions of the Book of Exodus with the textus receptus of the Christian Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, the Septuagint, and the Masoretic Text.
The final article in the volume by Teferra is a socio‑linguistic study of Amharic names and Hebraized names of Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. Teferra’s investigation reveals patterns of naming in Jewish and Christian Ethiopian communities in Ethiopia, and the translations and adaptation modes of traditional Amharic names, once the Beta Israel immigrated to Israel and made it their home.
The title of volume 25—Memories Near and Far—wishes to evoke some of the key themes discussed in our volume: the ways of internalizing sacred or special knowledge, remembering or partially recollecting what was long forgotten, and, in fear of oblivion, revitalizing past traditions in a new land.
The IOS Annual is generously supported by the School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, the Koret Center for Jewish Civilization, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The editors thank our managing editor Yael Leokumovich and acknowledge her contribution in editing this volume. We also extend our thanks to Dunia Khateeb, our Arabic editor.
The editors welcome original studies in the languages, philology, histories and religions of the Middle East and the wider Mediterranean World. The IOS Annual gives special space for research on classical and modern varieties of Hebrew, treated from linguistic and philological perspectives, and on Arabic dialects, including religious communal varieties and vernacular traditions. Likewise, the IOS Annual is interested in studies of the history, languages, ritual and liturgy of past and present Christian denominations of the Middle East, as well as studies of the Baha’i faith and the Manichaeistic religion.
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 and Islam, including Arabic linguistics, Medieval Arabic grammatical tradition, Arabic socio‑linguistics, dialectology, philology, philosophy, and literature (classical and modern) to send in their contributions to the IOS Annual.
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 and Michal Marmorstein, Arabic Language and Literature