The reviewed work honours Stefano de Martino, Ordinary Professor at the Department for the Study of History, University of Turin. The volume begins with a Preface (pp. xi–xiii) outlining the career of Professor de Martino, and continues with a List of Publications (pp. xv–xxv). The volume's editors are three of de Martino's students, Michele Cammarosano (Würzburg), Elena Devecchi (Turin), and Maurizio Viano (Berkeley), whose own accomplishments testify to the honouree's impact as a teacher.
Befitting Prof. de Martino's research interests, the 34 contributions to the volume cover a broad range of topics. Most numerous are the Hittite articles. M. Alparslan and M. Doğan-Alparslan (pp. 23–6) publish a small New Hittite ritual fragment given to the Boğazkale Museum in 2018. A. Archi (pp. 27–36) uses personal names attested at Ebla to argue for the presence of Proto-Anatolian speakers in Malatya and the Samsat plain in the mid-third millennium. Y. Cohen and N. Anor (pp. 71–80) provide a new edition of KUB 19.27 (CTH 50), which defines the borders of the Hittite kingdom at Carchemish. M. Forlanini (pp. 141–74) locates the origins of the Kaškaens in the disaffection of the Hattic north and the replacement of its local nobility by Nešite and Luwic elites. R. Francia (pp. 175–93) discusses the different names for Babylon in the Hittite sources. H. Freydank and D. Prechel (pp. 193–202) provide philological commentary to the “Labarna's letter”. A. Gilan (pp. 203–14) reviews the “Episode of the Daughter” in the Political Testament of Ḫattušili I to argue that Ḫattušili ruled from Kuššara for a longer time at the end of his reign than previously thought. F. Kaynar (pp. 225–37) edits KUB 32.121, a fragment from the Ritual of Šalašu. J. Klinger (pp. 257–74) examines the distribution of the conjunctions mān, māḫḫan, and maḫḫan to affirm that texts using temporal mān “when” were composed in Hittite, not Akkadian, in the pre-Telipinu period. J.L. Miller (pp. 345–50) discusses two passages in the Kizzuwatna treaties to conclude that the Tudḫaliya I–Šunaššura Treaty (CTH 41) entertained the possibility of Mitanni becoming a Hittite vassal. C. Mora (pp. 351–60) contrasts the purely Anatolian iconography of the Hittite cylinder seals of local production to the cylinder seals at Hittite Carchemish. A. Schachner (pp. 399–420) explains the founding of Ḫattuša as a node of inter-regional commerce, which only later was selected as the Hittite capital based on its local defensiveness. A. Süel (pp. 421–32) publishes a clay mould for a plaque of a seated god figure from Ortaköy/Šapinuwa. G. Torri (pp. 433–52) gives an overview of potters and pottery in Hittite texts.
The Mesopotamian contributions to the volume include G. Buccellati (pp. 37–50), who parses the phrase awīliš īwē “to become a (civilized) human being” in the Epic of Gilgamesh as revealing the centrality of urban existence in Mesopotamia. A. Cellerino (pp. 51–70) interprets the seal IM 115642 to depict the turtānu Šamšī-ilu (early to mid-eighth century bc) and a goddess. R. Dolce (pp. 109–20) discusses the audience in Mesopotamian visual media. F.M. Fales (pp. 121–40) examines toponym clusters around Assyrian capital cities to probe the economic control of rural hinterlands in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. F. Giusfredi (pp. 215–24) newly defines the Old Assyrian term tuzzinnum as a camp for household labourers. V. Messina (pp. 331–44) reconstructs the Late Babylonian statue of the mušḫuššu, the “serpo-dragon” of Marduk, based on textual and glyptic evidence. S. Ponchia (pp. 377–82) meditates on how Gilgamesh and Enkidu's shared lack of parents initially alienated them from humanity's “sequence of generations”. R. Rollinger (pp. 383–98) traces the concept of the limits of the earth in impassible, shallow waters from Gilgamesh to Herodotus.
The Anatolian hieroglyphic/Neo-Hittite contributions include S. Alaura (pp. 1–22), who discusses the “discovery” of a group of Anatolian hieroglyphic forgeries from the 1890s, which were composites based on Neo-Hittite inscriptions from Malatya. L. d'Alfonso (pp. 81–102) presents evidence for the previously unrecognized fact of urban and monumental continuity in South Central Anatolia after the fall of the Hittite Kingdom. B. Dinçol and H. Peker (pp. 103–8) publish three Anatolian hieroglyphic seals from Hittite Alalaḫ, including a seal of Tudḫaliya, the “Great Priest” and his wife Asnuḫepa. M. Marazzi (301–316) discusses the readings and etymologies of the Anatolian Hieroglyphic signs porta (*238), porta2 (*239), *259 (proposed portax), and *502 (proposed lax).
The Hurrian contributions include M. Kelly-Buccellati (pp. 237–56) demonstrating the continuous maintenance of the main plaza at Hurrian Urkesh from the Late Chalcolithic to the Middle Assyrian period. P. Matthiae (pp. 317–30) dates the fall of Ebla in the “Song of Release” to a co-ordinated strike by Muršili I against Aleppo and Pizikarra of Nineveh against Ebla. F. Pinnock (pp. 361–76) reviews the iconoclastic mutilation of Palaeo-Syrian Eblaite statues to conclude that Hurrians, not Hittites, committed the act. M. Weeden (pp. 469–88) interprets a number of Hurrian words from the Tigunānum šumma izbum corpus. G. Wilhelm (pp. 489–500) analyses the Hurrian name Allaituraḫe as “Herrin ist die Turäerin”(?), after a possible place-name *uruTura.
Finally, Prof. de Martino's museological connections are evidenced by the contributions of R.V. Ricciardi and E. Foietta (pp. 453–68), who typologize the belts and belt buckles of Parthian statuary found at Hatra in Syria, and C. Lippolis and R. Menegazzi (pp. 275–86), who report on the role of the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia (CRAST) in encouraging heritage conservation and public archaeology in Iraq and Mongolia.
This volume of Ancient Near Eastern studies presented to Prof. de Martino contains a number of truly valuable contributions to the field, and is recommended to anyone interested in the interface of Anatolia and Mesopotamia in the cuneiform era. I join the volume's editors and contributors in wishing Prof. de Martino long years.
