Critical Edition, Electronic Database, and Systematic Analysis of the Hittite Palace Administrative Corpus (CTH 240-250, 503, 504, 513)

• Applicant: Dr. James Burgin
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 382183667

The project Critical Edition, Electronic Database, and Systematic Analysis of the Hittite Palace Administrative Corpus (CTH 240-250, 503, 504, 513) will edit and digitize the economic records of the central government of the Hittite state, one of the most important powers in the Late Bronze Age Near East. The texts, translations, and critical commentary will be hosted in a searchable electronic format on the Hethitologie-Portal Mainz (HPM) website (http://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de), and selected texts and derived thematic studies will be published in print as part of a book on Hittite economic administration.The Hittite Palace Administrative Corpus (HPAC) is one of the only glimpses into the day-to-day working of the Hittite state, consisting largely of inventories of raw materials or luxury goods in single copy. The laconic nature of the HPAC means that understanding any individual text requires synthetic study of the corpus as a whole. Since the corpus was last edited thirty years ago, the number of fragments attributable to the corpus has nearly doubled, from 145 to 270, and advances in archaeology and philology have reconfigured our understanding of the economy and early statehood in Hittite Anatolia. It is thus vital that the Hittite administrative corpus be re-edited to include the new texts and re-evaluated with the latest theory and historical models if an accurate understanding of Hittite and ancient Near Eastern history is to be achieved.The specific objectives of the project are:Revised and Expanded Edition of the HPACEditions of all texts classified under CTH 240-250, 503, 504, 513 according to accepted Hittitological standards and hosted online per agreement with the HPM website.Hittite Palace Administrative Corpus DatabaseA searchable database allowing queries of text data, including statistical analysis of luxury goods by material and quantity.Thematic studiesThe philological and historical analysis of the HPAC will be presented in three interconnected thematic studies:1.) Classification of the Internal Structure of the HPAC: A new division of the corpus based on formal and functional criteria, using quantification wherever possible in commitment to a social-scientific approach to history. 2.) Prosopography and Geography of the HPAC: A geography and prosopography of the corpus, including cross-reference with administrative seals.3.) Administrative Terminology in the HPAC: Study of administrative terminology, both internal and external to the HPAC, in full engagement with the extensive and contested secondary literature on the operation of the Hittite state.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants