Computational Dating for the Nuzi Cuneiform Archive: The Least Squares Constrained by Family Trees and Synchronisms

TL;DR

This paper presents a computational dating method for the Nuzi cuneiform archive using family trees and synchronisms, integrating historical data with least squares optimization to date ancient documents accurately.

Contribution

It introduces a novel computational approach combining family kinships and constraints to date ancient Mesopotamian archives, validated against established Assyriological findings.

Findings

Results align with Maidman's findings on family seniority.

The method successfully dates documents within the Nuzi period.

Applicable to other archives with similar data structures.

Abstract

We introduce a computational method of dating for an archive in ancient Mesopotamia. We use the name index Nuzi Personal Names (NPN) published in 1943. We made an electronic version of NPN and added the kinships of the two powerful families to NPN to reflect the Nuzi studies after 1943. Nuzi is a town from the 15th - 14th century B.C.E.for a period of some five generations in Arrapha. The cuneiform tablets listed in NPN are for contracts on land transactions, marriage, loans, slavery, etc. In NPN, the kinships and cuneiform tablets (contracts, documents, texts) involved are listed for each person. We reconstruct family trees from the added NPN to formulate the least squares problem with the constraints: a person's father is at least 22.5 years older than the person, contractors were living at the time of the contract, etc. Our results agree with the Assyriological results of M. P. Maidman on the seniority among siblings of a powerful family. Our method could be applied to the other clay tablet archives once we have the name index in the format of NPN.