Hittite Logograms and Hittite Scholarship

Abstract

The cuneiform writing system, as used by the Hittites in Anatolia of the 2nd millennium BC to write their own language, was composed of both phonetic and logographic writings. The logograms, most generally defined as non-phonetic writings of Hittite words, were derived from Sumerian and Akkadian, the cuneiform languages of Mesopotamia, from where the Hittites inherited the script. This book investigates logographic writings in Hittite cuneiform as a phenomenon of ancient scholarship. Many Hittite logograms are used with different meanings, forms or functions to those usually found for the same or related writings in Mesopotamia. Analysis of these differences helps to place Hittite cuneiform within the so-called peripheral cuneiform world and to elucidate the processes constituting the transmission of cuneiform knowledge into Anatolia. It also throws light on scholarship in the textually poorly attested contemporary period in Mesopotamia.