Related to the commentaries are the synonym lists, such as Malku= sˇarru. Here
difficult Akkadian (or foreign) words were explained by other Akkadian words. For
example, in the first line of the text the word malkuis explained by sˇarru, meaning
‘king’.
Perhaps the last significant development in the Babylonian list tradition was the
creation of a type of text known to us as ‘Graeco-Babyloniaca’. Here Sumerian and
Akkadian words are transcribed into Greek letters (but note that the text is not
translated into Greek). Their text is that of the canonical version. This small but
interesting group of texts dates from very late in Babylonian history, perhaps even
as late as the early centuries AD.
THE USE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LISTSWe are very fortunate indeed to have so many sources for the lists. Apart from their
interest for the history of ideas, they have played a central role in modern attempts
to penetrate the complexities of reading cuneiform, and have provided an invaluable
source for the reconstruction of the lexicons of Sumerian and Akkadian. They have
been particularly useful in the case of Sumerian, for which no related language is
known. Akkadian is a Semitic language, so we can draw on other Semitic languages
to help us understand it. Our knowledge of Akkadian makes bilingual texts very
helpful. In fact, we see Sumerian largely through the eyes of the Babylonians.
In the early days of Assyriology, a theory was developed whereby the thematic lists
were explained as primitive steps towards science. According to that theory, the
ancients tried to list everything around them in an attempt to understand the universe,
assigning everything a place within it. Much work has been done on the lists since
then and such ideas are no longer tenable. We now know much more about the
people who wrote the lists, the circumstances in which they were studied, and particu-
larly about the lists themselves and the individual clay tablets upon which they were
written. The thematic lists cannot be separated from the other lists. And there is no
strict ordering of items into a particular place within a particular list. It should be
remembered that ordering by meaning, shape or sound are the only options open
when using a non-alphabetic writing system such as cuneiform. The Babylonian lists
cannot meaningfully be compared to Greek scientific writings because they were not
intended as science. Rather, the lists form one part of a wider system, one aimed
at initiating new scribes into the intricacies of cuneiform writing and enculturating
them via the accumulated ancient tradition of learning. The transmission of lists over
the centuries and the different uses to which they were put are complex stories.
Attempts to interpret the different appearance of the lists over time simply as cognitive
development – as has occasionally happened in the past – are mistaken.
There are a number of difficulties involved in the interpretation of the lists. These
stem from the fact that they were never intended as self-teaching resources; a skilled
teacher was always required. The written text that remains for us to study represents
only part of the original text and none of its explanation. This is a particular problem
with the Old Babylonian lists, but applies also to the later lists. For the lists do not
function in the same way as modern dictionaries. They do not provide definitions,
but rather equivalents. These are often only single word equivalents; of course, there
is no simple one-to-one correspondence in the use and meaning of words in Sumerian
— Babylonian lists of words and signs —