Babylonia in the 2nd millennium BC witnessed a process of textualization of epistemic knowledge. As, for example, in the cuneiform sign lists, the process has its roots in the very beginnings of the cuneiform tradition. The Old Babylonian Period, however, also sees the rise of multithematic lexical compendia, initially in monolingual Sumerian versions, which summarize epistemic knowledge as lists derived from various fields.

One subtype of these lexical compendia is represented by the so-called "legal phrasebooks," in which scribes compiled the vocabulary and formulary of Old Babylonian legal texts and which have survived in various local versions, for example at Nippur and Sippar. By the 1st millennium BC, the information contained in these phrasebooks found its way into the canonical versions of the bilingual Sumero-Akkadian lists ana ittišu and ur₅-ra = ḫubullu.

The project has two main goals: first, to examine the internal lines of transmission between textual genres by comparing the legal phrasebooks with both texts from a curricular context (excerpts, model contracts) and legal documents; second, to examine the relationship between the Old Babylonian texts and the extensive lists from the 1st millennium BC.

The dissertation forms part of the research cluster SFB 980 "Episteme in Bewegung".

Advisors: Prof. Dr. Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum