The Idrimi Statue Inscription in its Late Bronze Age Scribal Context

The Idrimi Statue Inscription from Alalakh (modern Tell Atchana) has added immeasurably to our understanding of Late Bronze Age Syria since it was published by Sidney Smith in 1949. However, it is notorious for its non-standard Akkadian grammar and paleography. While recent studies have explained individual problems in the inscription, a systematic framework for the verbal system has been lacking. Following a suggestion from Manfred Dietrich and Oswald Loretz (1981), I examine three types of non-standard verb forms in the inscription and argue that these are best understood as reflexes of a scribal code similar (but not identical) to the Canaano-Akkadian code of the Taanach and Amarna Letters. These non-standard verb forms are limited to the first part of the inscription while standard Akkadian verbs appear in the second part of the inscription, suggesting that the scribe was switching between orthographic codes in order to achieve his rhetorical goals. I end by considering some of the questions raised by the inclusion of the Idrimi inscription’s code in the orthographic and linguistic repertoire of Syro-Palestinian scribes.