The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India. Getzel M. Cohen

to four other sources of information for Hellenistic Mesopotamia, which I list here in rough chronological order: (a) cuneiform documents, (b) seals and sealings, (c) the Babylonian Talmud,⁴ (d) the Syriac chronicles.⁵ The geographic focus of these varies somewhat. The cuneiform tablets as well as the seals and sealings are found in Babylonia (i.e., southern Mesopotamia) and provide information for that region. The Syriac chronicles give some information about northern Mesopotamia, while the Babylonian Talmud provides bits of information about towns and regions in both northern and southern Mesopotamia.

      Cuneiform Documents. Babylonian culture in general and the use of cuneiform in particular were severely affected by the arrival of the Macedonians and Greeks following Alexander’s conquest.⁶ In 1931 M. San Nicolo remarked that more than 7,000 cuneiform documents dealing with juridical and administrative matters from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. were then known, but only around 150 were attested for the third and second centuries.⁷ Discoveries since that time have increased these overall numbers but have not significantly changed the disparity in the number of documents between the earlier and later periods. This disparity is a clear reflection of the fact that following the conquest of Alexander a major change in record keeping and writing took place: clay tablets were replaced by papyri and parchment; Akkadian was replaced by Aramaic and Greek. The replacement of clay tablets by papyri and parchment was—for the historian of antiquity—unfortunate; while some of the relatively few tablets from Hellenistic Babylonia have survived, none of the far more numerous papyri and parchment from that area have. All that survives of the latter are the bullae that enclosed them. Finally, in the second century B.C. we find Greek script being used to transcribe Akkadian texts.⁸ The last datable cuneiform that has survived is the text of an astronomical diary from 75 A.D. However, it is possible that cuneiform was still being sporadically used as late as the second or possibly even the third century A.D.⁹

      Many of the surviving cuneiform tablets are from URUK. By contrast, at SELEUKEIA on the Tigris, where over 30,000 sealings have been discovered (see below), only one cuneiform tablet has thus far been published. Found in situ (though the text was written at Kutha), it is dated to 225/4 B.C.¹⁰ The cuneiform documents found at URUK deal primarily with a few types of business transactions, such as bills of sale.¹¹ As such, they are important sources of information about economic life and administration in Hellenistic Babylonia.¹² And a cuneiform text from an archive in URUK has provided the only attestation to date for a previously unknown settlement, ANTIOCH on the Ishtar Canal.¹³

      In addition to the many individual cuneiform tablets recording, for example, letters, business documents, religious and literary texts, we may—somewhat arbitrarily—distinguish at least two broad categories of cuneiform texts: astronomical diaries and chronicles.¹⁴ The astronomical diaries are collections of cuneiform texts from Babylonia in which astronomical data and political events were recorded.¹⁵ The oldest extant texts date to 652/1 B.C., the most recent to 61/0 B.C. The astronomical diaries were monthly reports, filled with daily entries as observations were made.¹⁶ A typical entry would normally contain information relating to the following topics: (a) the moon, (b) planets, (c) solstices, equinoxes, and Sirius phenomena, (d) meteors, comets, etc., (e) weather, (f) the prices of commodities (actually, the purchasing power of the shekel in relation to five basic foodstuffs as well as wool), (g) the river level, and (h) historical events.¹⁷ The sections dealing with historical events are quite uneven. In the texts one frequently encounters the word alteme, “I heard.” And this quite accurately reflects the situation. As A.J. Sachs and H. Hunger note, the compilers of the diaries lived in Babylon and for their historical information relied on whomever or whatever they happened to hear. For the student of Hellenistic settlements the diaries and other cuneiform texts offer at least two delightful gifts: evidence for a previously unknown foundation—SELEUKEIA on the Euphrates (Babylonia)—and much interesting information about Hellenistic BABYLON and (to a lesser extent) SELEUKEIA on the Tigris.

      Babylonian chronicles (i.e., chronographic texts) are essentially a subset of Mesopotamian historiography.¹⁸ The extant Babylonian chronicles focus especially on the second half of the second millennium and the first millennium down to the first century B.C.¹⁹ As A. K. Grayson points out, the documents are related from the perspective of typology, source material, outlook, and phraseology. They represent “the highest achievement of Babylonian historians with regard to the writing of history in a reliable and objective manner.”²⁰ The texts as preserved are fragmentary; nevertheless, enough remains to indicate that if they had been completely preserved we would have a continuous native history of Babylonia from the eighth to the third century B.C.

      Seals, Sealings, and Bullae. Seals were used throughout the ancient Greek world and the Near East to attest the authenticity or integrity of an attached document or object.²¹ In Hellenistic Babylonia, as elsewhere, seals were widely used to identify owners and the object or documents with which they were associated and to prevent unwarranted access to a document or container to which they were attached. The impressions made by the seals are commonly referred to as “sealings.” The sealings were made on clay or bitumen objects, most frequently on bullae or on single clay seals that were attached directly to leather, parchment, or papyrus documents. Examples of these have been found at SELEUKEIA, BABYLON, URUK, and Nippur; however, it is only at Seleukeia that these have been found in a controlled archaeological context.²² It is important to bear in mind that the documents—which were written on perishable materials—have not survived. Only the bullae, the seals, and the document sealings have survived.

      “Bulla” refers to a clay envelope that was stamped by one or more seals and wrapped around a papyrus or parchment document (the term “bulla” is used somewhat incorrectly, since the Mesopotamian object that is conventionally described by modern scholars as a “bulla” has nothing in common with Roman bullae). As R. H. McDowell explains, “The written sheet was rolled or folded and tied around several times with a cord. A thick strip of clay or bitumen was then pressed over the cord to encircle the document completely. Rostovtzeff has aptly compared this form to a napkin ring.²³ While the material was still soft, seals were impressed on its outer surface. A bulla as we find it, separated from its document, is, then, a spheroidal lump with a large tube-like hole through the center. The outer face is composed of a series of facets, each bearing a seal impression. The inner surface of the ring shows a series of grooves left by the now disintegrated cord. Since many of the bullae have survived only as fragments, it is largely the presence of these grooves that enables one to distinguish a bulla fragment from a flat appended sealing. The size of a bulla was dependent upon two factors, the diameter of the rolled or folded document and the number of seals whose impressions were required.” With the passage of time the papyrus or parchment documents that were enclosed by the bullae disintegrated or were destroyed; all that remains today are the (fragments of the) bullae. At SELEUKEIA, URUK, and Nippur the extant bullae—as well as the clay impressions—date from the early part of the third century B.C. to the middle of the second.

      Rostovtzeff pointed out that the bulla was a compromise between the Babylonian and Greek systems of sealing documents. He noted that “the Babylonian system is represented by the cuneiform tablets of the Hellenistic period found . . . [in] Babylonia. . . . The seals of the contracting parties and of the witnesses were impressed into the wet clay of the tablet itself.”²⁴ On the other hand, the Greeks normally wrote on papyrus or parchment. Under the Greek system, a document written on papyrus or parchment was sealed with single clay lumps on which the seals of the contracting parties and the witnesses were impressed.

      The bullae normally have one or more impressions on them. In many instances at Seleucid URUK the impressions on the bullae and single clay seals were made by the same type of seals that were impressed on cuneiform tablets.²⁵ Bullae with one or two sealings, for example, were probably documents drawn up by an individual that required a notary. Bullae with four or more sealings—the majority of those found at SELEUKEIA—normally enclosed documents that required witnesses. We can distinguish two broad categories of seal impressions: those made with the seals of private persons and those made with official seals. Some of the latter bear inscriptions mentioning a particular office or registration, while others refer to various taxes. Furthermore, the impressions on the bullae are