Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

  This form is a common example of the so-called Kinship Names, where 
'father','uncle' or 'brother' refer to the deity as a family or clan member, 
though ususually in a lead position.
 
 As it happens, this exact name is attested in the EA tablets: No 152  where 
"Abi-Milku" appears in full, and also in restoration; and in No. 146 in 
restoration. The meaning here is 'my father , the God, is king'. This can be 
checked in the Moran translation.
 
  Sometimes two kinships appear in one name as in the famous, though perhaps 
not so fortunate, biblical Ahab.
 
   Cheers,
 
  Uri Hurwitz                                                             
Great Neck, NY
 
 
      < snip>


 1.  ABYMLK could simply mean "My father is king". This is a perfectly 
acceptable name. I don't know why you've avoided it as a possibility.
 2.  Even if ABYMLK means "father of the king", it too would be a perfectly 
acceptable name. The father of such a person called ABYMLK would merely be 
implying by the name that he hopes for a dynasty to continue through his son 
and grandson.
    [George Athas] 



>From bjwvmw AT com-pair.net  Wed Apr 15 01:04:23 2009
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Dear List,

See link and article below on new information on Nabonidus.

Bryant

http://www.dainst.org/index_1_en.html

A new inscription of the Babylonian king Nabû-na'id from Tayma (Saudi Arabia)

During the current season of excavations of the Orient Department of the 
German Archaeological Institute and the General Commission for Tourism and 
Antiquities at the oasis of Tayma, a further cuneiform text has been 
discovered. The fragment mentions for the first time the name of the last 
Babylonian king Nabû-na'id at Tayma, according to the epigrapher Hanspeter 
Schaudig, University of Heidelberg. The text was found near a building which 
may have been a former temple.

The newly discovered text joins with an inscribed fragment made of sand-stone 
found in 2006. The flat and circular carrier of the inscription may have been 
a pedestal for a stele, since the word before the king's proper name means 
"image" or "statue".

In previous seasons, three fragments of cuneiform inscriptions have been 
found as well as a stele of Mesopotamian type representing a royal figure and 
three astral symbols (crescent, winged sun-disk and star). Iconography and 
text of the stele can be attributed to Nabonidus but its name is not 
preserved.

The stele has been on display on the occasion of the Babylon exhibition in 
Paris, Berlin and London in 2008 and 2009 and will soon be returned to the 
Tayma Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography.

In the surroundings of Tayma, a number of Taymanitic (Thamudic) rock 
inscriptions mention "Nabonidus, king of Babylon" (NBND MLK BBL). Most of 
these inscriptions are located at ancient water sources in the desert, as 
explains Ricardo Eichmann, head of the German component.

The last Babylonian king Nabû-na'id (556-539 BC) spent ten years of his 
reign at Tayma and exercised control over the region of Tayma and several 
adjacent oases. Apart from the recent epigraphic record, no other remains at 
the site have been unequivocally identified as being from king Nabonidus or 
from his period.

Archaeological excavations at Tayma have been conducted since 2004 under the 
direction of the General Commission for Tourism and Antiquities and the 
Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute (field director 
Arnulf Hausleiter).

The German component has been supported by the German Research Foundation / 
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn (DFG).

Further information about the project can be obtained at 
www.dainst.org/index.php?id=3258.

photo credit: DAI, Dr. Arnulf Hausleiter