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Appropriate to the task
In his contribution to a volume honoring William Moran, the British Assyriologist W. G. Lambert offered the following reflection on his own methodology: « »As with archaeological digging and housekeeping, sound principles have always to be adapted to the particular job at hand. »22 Despite the levity, and the far-flung nature of the comparisons, the point Lambert made seems both reasonable and germane: a valid methodology is seldom to be determined a priori, independent of a detailed study of the available sources. In other words, it is the data that are primary, and it is they which determine, to very large measure, which methodological approaches will be most fruitful, and not the other way around.
My method in treating Ugaritic epistolography was established in working through the philological and interpretive problems of twenty-one newly recovered epistolary documents, the edition of which is currently in preparation.23 This study led to two methodological priorities: (1) at the present state of the field, a study of the formal features of Ugaritic letters is the most productive means of approaching the genre as a whole, and (2) an effective means of digesting and interpreting the divers body of formal features found in the letters, and of perceiving and evaluating standard and variant patterns among them, is provided by typological classification.
Form and Content
Why study structure? This is certainly a valid question, especially in light of my extensive citation of Oppenheim in the paragraphs above. He had pointed out that the formal aspects of ancient literary genres were more often than not an impediment, that rigidity of form can occasionally prevent direct access to the individual humanity of the text.24 If Oppenheim’s capacity as a historian lead him to privilege content, especially that of an individual or distinctive nature, over uniformity of form,25 in his role as a lexicographer he would certainly not have claimed that the study of structure was unimportant.26 On the contrary, for historian and lexicographer alike, a sound grasp of form is essential for perceiving and distinguishing both human individuality and literary tradition behind the textual veil.
Such a discussion of the respective roles of form and content in interpretation is reminiscent of the dichotomy of the hermeneutic circle, the paradoxical notion that the whole cannot be understood without reference to the component parts, nor the parts without reference to the whole.27 A similar dictum has long circulated in the halls of the Oriental Institute, though in more casual terms: « »You can’t read a text until you know what it says, and you can’t know what a text says until you read it ».28 Beyond Assyriology, however, in a more esoteric domain like Ugaritology, the delicate balance of this dichotomy is upset, and this for the simple reason that the Ugaritic language is still poorly understood, certainly much less well understood than Akkadian.29 When this lacuna in the modern linguistic knowledge of Ugaritic is coupled with the patterned formalism observable in the tablets themselves, structural considerations assume paramount importance in the ongoing interpretation of Ugaritic texts.
Such an apology for a form-critical approach to Ugaritic texts should not, however, be taken to mean that the study of the whole should entirely supplant the study of the component parts. Rather, by emphasizing the limits of our modern knowledge of the Ugaritic lexicon and syntax, the study of the whole often informs the requisite, if imperfect, study of the parts in a way that is not simply beneficial but necessary.30 With respect to the topic studied here, a reasonably accurate understanding of the Ugaritic letter-writing tradition, or, less generally, of any given Ugaritic letter, necessarily entails, perhaps more than anything else, an adequate understanding of the structure of a typical Ugaritic letter. The structure of epistolary texts, like that of legal or administrative texts, provides an interpretative frame, a set of expectations so to speak, which restricts interpretation effectively enough to inspire a fair amount of confidence that the documents in question are understood more or less accurately. It is in this sense that structure guides interpretation. Furthermore, the relative effectiveness of such a structural approach in text interpretation is directly proportional to the amount of formality present. Since the formulaic nature of the introductory sections of Ugaritic letters has long been recognized, a form-critical approach seems, almost a priori, very promising. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, structural analysis works. In other words, many aspects of the Ugaritic epistolary texts are explained by resorting to an analysis of form.
The interest of this study
After several years of research, my work on Ugaritic epistolography may be considered as a contribution toward a formal typology of the Ugaritic epistolary texts; by « »typology » I mean a reasoned classification on the basis of criteria taken to be of diagnostic import.
In working through the new Ugaritic letters,31 it quickly became evident that they could be best appreciated not only through comparison with the rest of the Ugaritic epistolary corpus, but also with the contemporary cuneiform corpora from other sites in Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. Such an undertaking demands a typology as a prerequisite, not only to ensure the solidity of ensuing cross-linguistic comparisons, but also to appreciate the originality and formal distinctiveness of the Ugaritic tradition.
More than simply a tool which permits comparative research, however, typological classification is also a heuristic aid in the comprehension of the Ugaritic texts themselves, for it provides a framework for organizing and conceiving the corpus. The filling out of this framework brings to the fore both differences in internal structure and similarities. In this way, typological classification is, in and of itself, a way to understand, one way among many others perhaps, but a way that is at once useful and practicable.32
It is useful on several levels, but first and foremost because it is empirical, and therefore less vulnerable to the kinds of error typical of more intuitive approaches. This empirical aspect has especial relevance for the establishment of diagnostic criteria. If the criteria by which a typology is organized are valid, the resulting classification will bear this out; if not, the imbalance will be noticeable. The « »forced observation » required by typological classification provides an empirical basis for the identification of those formal patterns which may be considered standard or normative in the known Ugaritic epistolary tradition,33 as well as those motifs which have few or no parallels. It is naturally these standard formulas, and their composition, that are diagnostic in classification. Such form-critical analyses can also contribute extensively to the broader interpretation of individual epistolary texts, by an increased critical attention not only to the generic identification of letters as such,34 but also to their contextual interpretation, especially with respect to the implications of « »non-standard » formal features.
Finally, on a practical level, a rigorous typology permits, of course, the reconstruction of fragmentary texts. Typology provides a frame of formal and structural expectations which guide the eye in epigraphy. Here again one finds the delicate compromise between form and content in interpretation: formal constraints do not replace basic epigraphy, but thanks to these expectations, the epigrapher knows what to look for, and where.35
These benefits, described above, apply to all Ugaritic texts bearing recognizable patterns in the structure of their composition. In practical terms, this includes letters, of course, but also lists of all sorts, tables, contracts, school exercises, « »scientific texts » characterized by the protasis-apodosis structure, votive inscriptions, rituals, and even the narrative poetic texts. The limitations of the method are indirectly proportional to the amount of formal structure present in the text; the greater the formality the more promising the method.
34For example, had the typological characteristics of Ugaritic letters been better known, the analysis of the text RS 11.772+ (KTU 3.1) as a letter in G. Knoppers, BASOR 289 (1993) 81-94, would not have been proposed, much less accepted in subsequent discussions, as in A.-S. Dalix, CRAIBL (1997) 819-824; and idem, Semitica 48 (1998) 5-15. On the generic interpretation of this text, see now D. Pardee, Semitica 51 (forthcoming).
DEFINITION OF THE CORPUS
As in virtually any other study of a typological nature, be it textual or material, I have proceeded here in a series of steps: (1) the definition of a corpus, (2) the study and detailed description of the repetitive characteristics there observable, (3) the identification of those criteria by which these repetitive characteristics may be understood, (4) the elaboration of various workable nested classifications of the corpus accordingly, and finally, (5) a comparative analysis which attempts to replace the inner Ugaritic data within a broader external typological context. This process, of course, is not always a neat linear progression, but more often then not recursive, with repeated returns to the basic study of the primary data after failed attempts at classification or the discovery of striking parallels in the comparative corpora.
If the first steps seem relatively easy to accomplish, the final step, comparative analysis, is more troubling to a Ugaritologist. It is thus with a good deal of clumsiness that the Akkadian and especially the Hittite sources are dealt with, these being the two principal languages of the contemporary epistolary corpora essential for the appreciation of the Ugaritic texts. Nevertheless, in order to render a descriptive study such as this one valuable and useful, especially for those who are not Ugaritologists, it seemed worthwhile not to turn a blind eye to all that lay beyond the alphabetic domain, but rather to attempt to confront the results of an internal study with the external data. In spite of the inevitable shortcomings of such a comparative project, in which a specialist pretends to be a generalist, the potential benefits of such an undertaking seem encouraging.
Elaboration of a definition
Typological classification begins by establishing the Ugaritic epistolary corpus. This seemingly simple step requires, first and foremost, a workable definition of a « »letter », as distinct from other literary genres in the inventory of Ugaritic scribal compositions.
Ugaritic terminology for written correspondence
The terminology employed by the Ugaritian scribes themselves when alluding to written correspondence provides an interesting, and perhaps even essential, point of departure. One finds at least four common nouns, for example, which, given an appropriate context, can refer to a « »letter ». In terms of their usage in Ugaritic, as well as their etymology, two of these nouns, rgm and t“m, can be connected with the semantic field of « »speaking », and the other two, spr and l“t, with that of « »writing ».
The least-marked English gloss of rgm is « word’,36 but it occurs in the specific sense of « message’, probably of the written kind, in the formulaic « »information request », one of the few formulaic motifs to be found in the body of Ugaritic letters.37 A typical example of that idiom is rgm ®®b ly,38 literally « Send word back to me!’, a request for subsequent written correspondence, probably which specifically incorporates the epistolary « »situation report »: ≤mny ßlm, « with me, it is well.’39
The noun t“m is best glossed by « message’, be it of the written or oral40 variety. A textbook example of t“m in the sense of « written message’ or « letter’ is, of course, provided by the epistolary address formula itself, as in t“m mlkt,41 « Message of the queen’. Here the nominal phrase serves as a heading or title of sorts to the written message it introduces.42 Another, less formulaic but equally telling instance drawn from the epistolary corpus is provided by the phrase ky l•kt bt mlk t“mk hln[y],43 a fronted nominal clause which can be translated: « (As for the fact) that you sent your message to the royal palace, now then . . . .’
Table of contents :
Appropriate to the task
Form and Content
The interest of this study
Ugaritic terminology for written correspondence
Conclusion
