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The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire Numerous languages are represented in the Neo-Assyrian onomastic material. While the majority of the names are Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian), names from other Semitic languages represent another large part of the onomasticon: the Northwest Semitic names, i.e. Aramaic, Phoenician, Moabite and Hebrew, dominate but there are also a number of Arabic names. Surprisingly, many Egyptian names are attested in Assyria proper, especially in the 7th century material from Assur. Some of the earliest attestations for Iranian names are found in the Neo-Assyrian sources. Hurrian, Urartian, Anatolian and Elamite names are also known, as well as a number of Greek names. Onomastic material is not only an important source for linguistics and philology; names also shed light on many aspects of the cultural history of the people that use them. The study of the principles underlying naming practices proves a veritable goldmine of information on religion, folklore, ideology and mentality. The distribution of names in time and space offers substantial data on the ethnic composition of Assyria, which is one of the earliest examples of an integrated empire of many different peoples. To bring all this information together and to make it available to scholars of all disciplines is the goal of the PNA project, begun in 1997 as part of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.

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