Browsing by study line "Digitaaliset ihmistieteet"

This study gives a glimpse on some elements that were used in Neo-Assyrian names. The data set used in this study is ‘A Social Network of the Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire’ that has been edited by Dr Heidi Jauhiainen and Dr Tero Alstola. The data set is based on the ‘The Prosopography of Neo-Assyria (PNA)’ project directed by Dr Simo Parpola at the University of Helsinki. The data set originally included names in more than ten different languages, but this study focuses solely on names that are in Akkadian, so names of other origins were left out. Also, only names that were identified as male were studied. As this study is a master’s thesis for digital humanities, digital methods were used. Neo-Assyrian names offer an interesting insight to the society of Neo-Assyria and how the Akkadian language was used. The names were short phrases or sentences, so they can tell a lot of the surrounding society. Especially theophoric elements and how they were connected to other elements is something that this study focuses on. Theophoric elements are usually names of deities which were often used in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian names. The most common theophoric elements in this data set were Nabû, Aššur, and Bēl. In addition of theophoric elements, other elements were studied too. The most frequent other element was naṣāru ‘to protect’ which was almost only found together with theophoric elements. Other popular elements were nadānu ‘to give’ and šarru ‘king’. The naming patterns of Neo-Babylonia have been studied more than Neo-Assyrian practices. For example, it was quite common for Neo-Babylonians to give their first-born son a name that incorporated the elements aplu ‘heir’ and the theophoric element Marduk. In the names of second-born sons the theophoric element Nabû was often combined with some form of the verb nadānu ‘to give’. Based on this study it seems that a similar practice of naming a second-born son might have been used in Neo-Assyria as well. However, the element aplu was very infrequent in the studied data set.