From Stylus to Sign: a Sketch of Old Akkadian Palaeography

The corpus of Old Akkadian inscriptions has increased enormously in recent years. Nevertheless, framing the available evidence within a chronological grid is often a difficult task. This is because very few tablets are dated by year names, and even when they are, they may not contain information relevant to a precise dating. In addition, a comprehensive sign list and syllabary for the Sargonic period is still missing. Because of these issues, attribution of tablets to a sub-phase of the Sargonic period (Early, Middle, Classical, and ‘Late’) largely remains an impressionistic affair, based on reconceptions and personal opinions. Taking basic prosopographical information as a starting point of the discussion, the paper aims to pinpoint relevant features in the development of the Old Akkadian script, in order to help scholars in the difficult task of structuring the valuable historical information contained in the texts within a relative chronology.