著者

守屋 彰夫

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

東京女子大学比較文化研究所紀要 (ISSN:05638186)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.59, pp.47-68, 1998

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Studies in ancient epistolography have been systematically undertaken since a conference on ancient letter writing at the annual convention of the Society of Biblical Literature held in 1973. Along with this current, various projects have shed light on the epistolary features of letters written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin. As a result, above all, Aramaic letters in Achaemenian Persian period, almost all of which were found in Egypt, have been verified to have extensive common characteristics with Akkadian letters exchanged in the preceding centuries in Assyria and Babylonia. Some scholars insist, however, that numerous traits of the Aramaic private letters are derived from Egyptian letter formulae, and this position was dominant in the beginning of 1980s. However F.M. Fales raised an objection to this perception in 1987. In his opinion, almost all the traits found in the Aramaic private letters, to say nothing of official ones, evolved from Akkadian usages. The problem challenges us to come up with an explanation. A succinct history of letter writing is presented in the first part of this article, beginning with Sumerian and continuing up to the Imperial Aramaic period. In the second part, the observation focuses on how epistolary formulae were carefully learned at scribe-training schools in Sumer and Akkad and how they gradually became completely fixed. Every generation accepted the fixed wording as a model and transmitted to following generations. Thus, the traditional epistolary formulae in Sumerian and Akkadian languages reached Aramaic speaking people in Egypt ruled by the Achaemenian Empire notwithstanding geographical and temporal remoteness. In the third part, the derivation of the opening clauses, the temple greeting, the blessing formula, and so on, attested in the Aramaic letters are examined. In the conclusion it is claimed that quite a few of the formulae except for the temple greeting might go back to an epistolary tradition found in the official correspondence of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. The temple greeting alone might owe a debt to the Egyptian style. In sum, the Aramaic private letters as well as official ones were deeply influenced by the preceding Akkadian tradition as pointed out by Fales.