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The Syntax of the Gezer Calendar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

The list of eight seasons named in the Gezer Calendar is consecutive and complete, and there is no reason for supposing that the word in that inscription has any other than its normal meaning of “lunation, month”, or that the annual cycle at Gezer in the second half of the tenth century before the common era differed from the twelve-month year found in other parts of the North-West Semitic world as well as in Mesopotamia. It follows that some of the periods named in the Gezer list must extend over more than one month, i.e.—since there is no indication in the text of any fraction of a month—over two months at least. H. L. Ginsberg was the first to see that the solution is to be sought in the differing forms and , each of which occurs four times. Ginsberg proposed to treat the latter form as construct singular and the former as a construct dual with waw as a mater lectionis to represent -ō < -ā in the nominative dual construct.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1953

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References

page 53 note 1 General bibliography will be found in Lidzbarski, : Ephemeris für Semitische Epigraphik, iii (1909), 36–7, n. 1Google Scholar; Diringer, : Le Iscrizioni Antico-ebraiche Palestinesi (1934) 1820Google Scholar; Albright, in B.A.S.O.R., 92 (1943), 16, n. 2Google Scholar; Moscati, : L'Epigrafia Ebraica Antica, 1935–1950 (1950), 8 sqqGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 2 This dating is arrived at by Albright, upon archæological grounds, in pp. 17–19 of his comprehensive study in B.A.S.O.R., 92 (1943), 1626Google Scholar. If Albright is correct in his suggestion that the tablet is a scholar's exercise block and that the text is a palimpsest in an unformed and unpractised hand, it follows that ordinary palæographical tests cannot safely be applied; cf. also Diringer, in P.E.Q., 1943, 50–4Google Scholar.

page 53 note 3 Langdon, : Babylonian Menologies and the Semitic Calendar (1935), Lecture IGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 4 B.J.P.E.S., ii (1935), 49Google Scholar; Arch. Or., viii (1935), 146–7Google Scholar.

page 53 note 5 Bauer-Leander, : Historische Grammatih der Hebräischen Sprache, i (1922), § 14mGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 6 The introduction of genuine vowel letters did not precede, and to a large extent developed from, historical spellings in which the consonantal second element of a diphthong continued to be written after the reduction of the diphthong to a vocalic monophthong. Other factors were the desire to eliminate homographs, e.g. in the third person singular and plural of the perfect of the verb, and the need for the fullest possible graphic representation of proper, and especially foreign, names. Cf. Blake, in J.A.O.S., lx (1940), 396Google Scholar.

page 54 note 1 Cf. Albright, in J.B.L., lxiii (1944), 209210Google Scholar.

page 54 note 2 “Canaanite Pronominal Suffixes at Byblos and Elsewhere,” in J.R.A.S., 1941, 31–6; cf. Albright, in J.A.O.S., lxvii (1947), 160Google Scholar.

page 54 note 3 Loc. oit.;B.A.S.O.R., 92 (1943), 24Google Scholar; J.B.L., lxiii (1944), 211Google Scholar.

page 54 note 4 Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, xxxviii (1949), 25–6, 35Google Scholar.

page 54 note 5 J.N.E.S., x (1951), 228230Google Scholar.

page 54 note 6 Taylor Prism, ii, 48.

page 54 note 7 Josephus, , Contra Apionem, i, 123, 156Google Scholar.

page 55 note 1 The catalogue form of the text requires consistency of syntax. In the case the dual nouns a nominative form is excluded by the fact that reduction would take place, thus—yarḫā-hu > yarḫāu > yarḫō, and the genitive by the position of the word at the beginning of the text. In the case of the singular nouns the requirement of parallel structure excludes the genitive, but a nominative case-ending is a possibility, thus—yarḫu-hū > yarḫū. What this possibility implies will be considered below.

page 55 note 2 On the textual difficulty, cf. Moscati, op. cit., 13–16.

page 55 note 3 Cf. Reckendorf, in Z.D.M.G., liv (1900), 130–6Google Scholar. With the substitution of “measure” for “count” his statement on p. 132 applies precisely to the present examples, “Das Suffix vertritt nicht das regierende Zahlwort, sondern das was gezählt wird.”

page 55 note 4 The form of the statements of the Gezer Calendar would then be not unlike our “February fill the dyke”; the simple and vigorous staccato utterance is well suited to the seasonal lore of a child's writing exercise.

page 56 note 1 Cf. supra, n. 1, p. 55.

page 56 note 2 The traditional explanation of these expressions will be found, e.g. in Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley, : Hebrew Grammar (1910), § 90oGoogle Scholar. It is worth noting, in view of the alternative explanation here proposed, that the -ō at the end of the first word is accented and that these expressions are found in the oldest surviving pieces of Hebrew. Cf. Albright, in J.B.L. lxiii, (1944), 233Google Scholar.

page 56 note 3 Brockelmann, : Grundriss der Vergleichenden Grammatik der Semitischen Sprachen, ii (1913), 243–6Google Scholar.

page 57 note 1 Dillmann-Bezold-Crichton, : Ethiopic Grammar (1907), 426–8 (§ 172 (c))Google Scholar; Praetorius, : Die Amharische Sprache (1879), 199Google Scholar; Cohen, : Traité de Langue Amharique (1936)Google Scholar. I am obliged to my colleague Dr. Ullendorff for information as to the prevalence of this usage in Amharic, where the third person singular masculine suffix has become the normal means of grammatical determination.

page 57 note 2 E.g. ENöldeke, : Kurzgefasste Syrische Grammatik (1880), § 206 C–EGoogle Scholar; Strack, : Grammatilc des Biblisch-Aramäischen (1921), § 7mGoogle Scholar; Cantineau, : Le Nabatéen, i (1930), 63Google Scholar.

page 57 note 3 Streck, in Vorderasiatische Bibliothek, vii (1916), 590Google Scholar; Brockelmann, op. cit., 245.

page 57 note 4 Fischer, in Z.D.M.G., lxi (1907), 178185Google Scholar.

page 57 note 5 Cf. Havers, : “Zum Kapitel: ‘Syntax und Primitive Kultur,’” in Wörter und Sachen, xii (1929), 161173, esp. 169–170Google Scholar.

page 57 note 6 Cf. Pokorny, in Zeitschrift für Keltische Philologie, xvi (1927), 252Google Scholar.

page 57 note 7 C.I.S., i, 31, 41–2; so probably also Karatepe Gate, iii, 4, though other interpretations are possible.

page 57 note 8 On the position of Paculot in the Canaanite calendar see J.E.A., xxvi (1940), 65, n. 10Google Scholar; according to the reckoning of Rabbi Judah in the passage mentioned in the next note 'Etanim, i.e. Tišri, would correspond to the second month of the ingathering.

page 58 note 1 Tacanit, i, 7 ad fin.

page 58 note 2 As against that of Rabbi Dosa, ibid., who reckons from the middle of the month in each case. The adjustment of an even fortnight, or indeed of a whole month, is no great matter in the case of a lunar calendar, which cannot correspond to the solar cycle for as long as one single year.