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Palmyrene Aramaic Texts. By DELBERT R. HILLERs and ELEONORA CUSSINI. The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project. Baltimore: THE JoHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. xvii + 458, 3 maps. $65.
As stated in the introduction, this book had its origin in the files of the Aramaic Lexicon Project. The authors had aimed to gather all the texts available in Palmyrene Aramaic in order to check the complete lexicographical material. But, as this lexicon was to be a long-time project, they decided that the files could become a useful research tool. Hence this publication, which will be most welcomed by anyone who has had to plough through CIS II, the different volumes of the Inventaire des inscriptions de Palmyre, the catalogues of Ch. Dunant and M. Gawlikowski, as well as many dispersed articles.
2832 entries are recorded, each receiving a new number under the sigla PAT (for Palmyrene Aramaic Texts). The order chosen is totally arbitrary, the inscriptions being classified neither by their genre, ancient or actual location, nor by the chronological order of their publication, but by the alphabetical order of their first or more important publication, sequentially from Acta Archeologica to Yale Classical Studies. This means that, to find a specific inscription, one has to know where it was first published. After sigla and reference, a headnote gives all useful information on the inscription: the date, if included in the inscription, converted to A.D. (PAT 1684:...