A new spelling for the name of Laodice in cuneiform: a matter of literacy?

A large number of Greek names, including a small fraction referring to women, are recorded in cuneiform sources. Among them is that of Laodice, identifying either the wife of Antiochus II or the daughter of Antiochus III, for which different spellings are attested. The recent publication of a tablet in the British Museum recording a duplicate copy of the so-called Lehmann text bears witness to the existence of a further spelling of the name of the queen in addition to those already known to us. Examining the mechanisms that lie behind the choice for a particular spelling, and on the basis of the fact that copies of the same document exhibit differtent spellings for one and the same name, in this paper I argue that spelling variation reflect the different degree of expertise in the relevant language (i.e. Greek) on the part of the scribe, offering another example of the difficulties they had to overcome to transcribe foreign names into their language, using a non alphabetic writing system.