The Battle of Actium, September 2, 31 BCE

The battle for the Roman world
Came down to boy meets boy meets girl:

Antonius, Caesar’s magister,

Was mired in a love affair

With Cleopatra Philopater

(Who also was his children’s mater).

He picked a very foolish fight--

In truth he wasn’t very bright.

He challenged young Octavian

Agrippa, and his navy and

Then with his queen began a battle

With ships stuffed full of sails and chattel.

Thus the once-triumvirate

Their ships with weapons aristate,

Met and clashed in mighty fracas

Rome v. posse comitatus,

Led by M. Vipsan. Agrippa

Naval whiz and valiant skipper.

For Cleo and Marc Antony

There would be no amnesty;

In manner most Shakespearian

(Some would say, ophidian)

They shuffled off their mortal coils

Leaving Rome with all the spoils.

Octavian had won the Nile,

Its grain, its every crocodile;

And though the war was slightly civil

No one raised the smallest cavil

Octavian, in fact of matter

Was made a triple triumphator.

And so that day at Actium

Augustus won imperium.

Like a less depressed Aeneas,

(Devoid of any thought impious)

He gave the world the Pax Romana

In truth, Memento Augustana*.

*Neuter accusative plural- things Augustan.

King Mesha of Moab

Mesha was a king of Moab, Israel's neighbor, in the 9th century BCE. He was a contemporary of the kings Omri and Ahab who was husband of Jezebel of Tyre. He took back Moabite land that the Israelites had conquered and commemorated his deeds in the Mesha stele, also called the Moabite Stone.

It's interesting for a number of reasons: it tells the Biblical story of the Moabite revolt from the other side; it contains the earliest extra-biblical mention of YHWH, and it may (depending on how you read it) mention the House of King David. It's also a look at what a king deemed worthy to record: battles, building projects, and his devotion to his god, Kemosh.

Wikipedia has a rather good literal translation as well as the story of the stele's discovery. The Israelite side of the story is in 2 Kings 3. The biblical version describes, "King Mesha of Moab ... used to deliver to the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs, and the wool of one hundred thousand rams" and also mentions that Mesha sacrificed the eldest son of the Edomite king to his god Chemosh.

For your pleasure, I present my translation in verse, a la Thomas Macauley. The spelling of the proper names is subjective since the Hebrew/Moabite language does not record vowels. The last lines of the stele are quite damaged.

The Mesha Stele
I am King Mesha, Kemosh-yatti’s son

He ruled 30 years, and then my day begun.
After my father, the Dibonite lord,
I ruled over Moab and saw my reward.
I built this high place for Kemosh in Qarcho
By his stern grace I had quashed all of our foes.

Omri was then-king of Israel’s land
He swore he would show me the might of his hand.
His son also ruled and he swore to oppress
And while Kemosh was angry, he found brief success,
But city by city, I did repossess.
Forever I conquered his house and his nation
Devastation I wreaked for all generations.

Omri had ruled in the land of Medaba
For 40 years clutching his desert-derata.

But Kemosh returned it to Moab and Mesha
And I, King of Moab, restored its foundation.
Baalmeon I built and I stockpiled its waters
Qiryaten I built; Ataroth I slaughtered.
The once-king of Israel had built it for Gad
But I gave it to Kemosh, and all that they had,
The hearth-altar of David I dragged to Qiryot
I settled there men of Sharon and Machrot.

Now Kemosh said, “Go, from the Ivri take Nebo!”
I travelled by night--“cherem” was my credo.
I fought through the dawn to the heat of the day
Men, women and children, all were my prey,
Seven thousand I killed, nor once did I falter.
And the vessels of YHWH?  Ashtar-Kemosh’s altar.

Yahaz was once built by Israel’s king
But he ran from his city when he felt the sting
And the lash of Kemosh who drove him out
So I seized all his captains and finished the rout.
I annexed it to Dibon, by his own chosen men,
I made Qarcho better than once it had been:
The acropolis, gates, its towers and waters
A fine royal palace, all built by my orders.

In the midst of the city, no cistern was there,
So I built water channels and made it my care
Each man for his home would have its own well
All built by my prisoners from Eretz Israel.

Aroer I built, and the roadway of Arnon
The ruins of Bet-bamot, I next turned my eyes on;
Bezer lay in ruins before Mesha of Dibon,
Bet-Medaba, Diblaten and Bet-Baalmeon,
All these I rebuilt, and for many were rubble
The heaps became towers and Moab redoubled.

The men of all Dibon stood in formation
For I held all of Dibon in my subjugation.

I ruled over hundreds in my annexed towns
I grazed my fine flocks in lands all around.

The house of old David had dwelt in Hauranen,
But Kemosh said, Mesha, go down, put your hand in
He delivered Hauranen, just as he swore it,
In my days, the great days, Lord Kemosh restored it.

[Reconstructed final lines]
From the high place of justice, I rule Moab’s land
By Kemosh’s will and the power of my hand.
Secure in my kingship, I say from my throne:
Woe to the one who smashes this stone
Woe to the king who erases my name
May he go down to death with no son, with no fame
The throne of my kingship will overturn—never.
Mesha rules Moab from now till for ever.

Epilogue

They say I gave innumerable flocks

“Paid tribute” is their taunt.

They say I sacrificed a prince

Believe it if you want.

My stele is as black as night

Endless is my fame

Son of Kemosh, Moabite,

Mesha is my name.

Many Waters

Stories of a great deluge occur across many cultures. The return of the primeval waters drowns wickedness and leads to a regenesis of life.

Speculations on the historical source of these stories include a meteor, a tsumani caused by the eruption of Thera and changing water levels after the last ice age. There is no geological evidence in Mesopotamia or Israel of a universal, catastrophic flood.

The flood story word-clouds below (created using Wordle), are Mesopotamian, Greek and biblical. Identify which is which in the comments to win a $5 Amazon gift card.

Extra credit for explaining your reasoning, making a good pun or identifying a common ark-etype.

1. 

2.

3.

Good luck!

Update 1/9: won via Facebook!  More coming soon..boatcha coulda got it if you trid-ent!

Headlining at Ashurbanipal's Garden Party

Ashurbanipal was the last powerful Assyrian king, ruling from about 668 BC to 627 BC. He is famous for amassing a large library at Ninevah, lion hunting, military accomplishments and extreme cruelty to his enemies.

Which is why I was surprised, on my visit to the British Museum, to see a wall relief called "The Garden Party of Ashurbanipal:"

Here is Ashurbanipal with his queen, reclining in a leafy pavilion. They are drinking wine and being cooled by fans and serenaded by musicians. The king, as is customary, is depicted as slightly taller, and seated slightly higher than anyone else. The detail of the furniture, the instruments, and the plants, is exquisite. I remember seeing this with my husband and commenting how unusual a domestic and romantic scene like this was in Assyrian art. I really liked the queen's crown too.

My husband, like King Ashurbanipal, had his eye on the big picture. "What's on that tree over there," he asked, "...a head?"

Yes, the King is looking over his queen and her crown, at the head of his recently decapitated enemy, King Teumman of Elam, hung festively in a tree.

Well, why settle for a party lantern when you've got an Elam-(l)ite? Say what you will about their garden parties -- the Assyrians knew how to get ahead.

Hercules, Diogenes and Ulysses

Truthfully, I'm not sure the actual title of the fabulous movie referenced above--I think it was "Hercules and the Princess of Troy"--but it featured Hercules, Diogenes and Ulysses. I always liked the combination: one is mythological, one is historical, and one is fictional.  But they're all sailing to(!) Troy and fighting pirates together.

In that spirit, dear reader, I bring you three tag clouds, courtesy of Wordle. One is classical, one is biblical and one is liturgical (from a Jewish poem).  Can you guess which is which?  Extra credit for author or title.  Leave your best guess in the comments!

Mazel tov and bona fortuna!

Gazelles & Warriors in the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) is like a garden in the desert, lush and unexpected. It has more in common with Egyptian love poems than with other books in the Tanach. It's been elaborately allegorized, interpreted in dazzling multiplicity, and called the holy of holies. It's at least 2,000 years old and still packs a poetic punch.

There are many words and phrases that are unique in the Bible and notoriously hard to understand. Here is verse 3, line 5:

I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,   

by the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field,

that ye stir not up, nor awake my love,

till he please.

In context, this line doesn't actually seem too strange. The translators are largely consistent here...with the exception of the Septuagint, which balks at swearing by gazelles and hinds (hinds are young female deer). The phrase in question in Hebrew:

בִּצְבָא֔וֹת א֖וֹ בְּאַיְל֣וֹת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה

Bitz'vaot (by the gazlles) o (or)  b'aylot (by the hinds) hsadeh (of the field)

The Septuagint translates:

ὥρκισα ὑμᾶς θυγατέρες Ιερουσαλημ ἐν ταῖς δυνάμεσιν καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἰσχύσεσιν τοῦ ἀγροῦ ἐὰν ἐγείρητε καὶ ἐξεγείρητε τὴν ἀγάπην ἕως ἂν θελήσῃ

“I have adjured you, o daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and forces of the field,

Do not stir up or awaken love until it wishes.”

Why does the Septuagint translate “by the powers and forces” rather than “by the gazelles and by the does”?

The translator of the Septuagint knows the words as "gazelles and does" and translates them accordingly in Deuteronomy in describing clean and unclean animals. (Deut 12:15, 12:22, 14:5, 15:22). Closer to our passage, the bride compares her lover to a gazelle leaping on the mountains, and the Greek translates "gazelle:" Songs 2:9, 4:5, 7:3, 8:14,  δορκάδι, deer, gazelle, n.f.; in Songs 2:17, δόρκωνι, roe [deer] n.m.. There are two different Greek words but both are for ruminant herbivores, not “powers and forces.” 

So the translator (no surprise) knew what he was reading. But does swearing by gazelles and deer make any sense?  Clearly other translators, like Jerome, saw this as part of the poem's pastoral vibe. But then again, these animals are used elsewhere in the Songs only as part of a metaphor or simile. Moreover they are known for swiftness, as in 2 Samuel 2:18, “Asahel was as quick on his feet as one of the gazelles in the field.” So, the translator might wonder, why swear by a shy animal that would run away?

But what else might these words mean?  The Hebrew word for gazelle, צְבִי (tz'viy) has a second root meaning “beauty, honor” as in the passages Isaiah 13:19, “Babylon, the most admired of kingdoms” and Jeremiah, 3:19, “a beautiful heritage among the armies of nations", nachalat tsviy tsvaot goyim) נַחֲלַת צְבִי צִבְאוֹת גּוֹיִם.

"Beauty" might work as a swear-by but now we have a better choice.  The clue is in Jeremiah’s wordplay: צְבִי צִבְאוֹת, heritage among the armies: צָבָא, army, host.  Heritage=tsviy, (with plural tsvaot) and armies=tsvaot. These root words for "beauty/heritage" and "army" are homonyms...so Jerome sounds like "inheritance of the infantry," only better.

Adonai Tsvaot is Lord of the Hosts, a frequent appellation of God in the Bible. So in fact the verse sounds like "swear by of-the-Hosts"; and “swear by of-the-hosts” could be a read as a shortened form of God's name used out of respect given the context. If I were an Alexandrian Jew, translating my sacred work for a large audience of intellectuals and--heavens forfend--classicists, I might not want to show Jews swearing by animals. (Clean animals, but still). But now I have another interpretation for my tsvaot.

The Greek for Lord of the Hosts: frequently κύριος τῶν δυνάμεων, kurios ton dunameon, (I Kings 18:15, 2 Kings 3:14, Psalm 24:10). So, δυνάμεσιν dunamesin of the field makes sense. δύναμις dunamis means “power, might, strength.”  And "deer" is similar to a word that means "ram" or "oak" or "leaders"; and in it you can hear "El."  Parallelism is the engine of biblical poetry, and isxus, force/strength is a good parallel for dunamis, power.  Isxus also captures the idea of "leaders."

Now we have a nice compromise: the "powers and force of the field" have a nice pastoral quality connoting the numinous powers of the countryside and for the in-crowd, we're really swearing by Jahweh.

                                                                                                                                                        

Michael Fox, in his wonderful "The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs" (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985) cites a more scholarly and complete version of this argument: 

The best explanation is that of Gordis (1961:26-28), who argues that צְבָא֔וֹת and אַיְל֣וֹת הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה are circumlocutions for titles of God, the first for צְבָא֖וֹת אֱלֹהֵי, (God of) Hosts, the second for and El Shadday… The author uses these animal names to avoid divine titles in a secular context…We see here the first sign of a tendency, which becomes important in the Talmudic period, to substitute for divine names and titles in oaths various words, sometimes meaningless words such as “by the fish net” and “by the life of summerfruit.” (Fox, 110)

The "El Shadday" comes from the deer and of-the-field, sadeh. 

So what does the poem say:  armies, gazelles or God?  In a poem filled with wordplay, the answer is surely "yes." Gazelles are often used figuratively of young warriors in the ancient Near East (although the Septuagint translators wouldn't have known that) and the warriors of David make an appearance later in the Song. The circumlocutions for God certainly work; and the gazelles and deer are like the maidens of Jerusalem (all are feminine) and fit the lush pastoral setting.

So knowing all this, we come to the next question: is the speaker, the bride, asking the maidens of Jerusalem to swear by a pun?

“How are you going to make it move? It doesn't have a – "

"Be very quiet," advised the duke, "for it goes without saying."

And, sure enough, as soon as they were all quite still, it began to move quickly through the streets, and in a very short time they arrived at the royal palace.”

― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

I leave it to you, dear reader, to translate.

The Lamassu

I was lucky enough to visit the British Museum last year.  My visit was on a Friday night, about an hour before closing, when it had that magic-twilight empty “night at the museum” quality.  

Friday night in Assyria

In the fabulous Assyrian collection is the lamassu, a winged, human-headed lion. He guarded the entrances into the throne room of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC).  Lamassus also guarded the gates of cities. According to the British Museum, “The helmet with horns indicates the creature's divinity.”

The museum also has relief panels in its Ninevah room showing the transport of lamassu sculptures. According to the Museum, these guys weighed up to 30 tons. You think they would have carved them in place, but maybe the king didn’t like the hammering.

Their most interesting feature, and one I completely failed to notice, is that lamassus all have five legs. From the front, they appear to be standing firm and protecting the gates, and from the side, striding forward, going forth to protect the city.

Photo from the British Museum -
count the feet!

I wonder how this came about? A mistake? Two sculptures seem from an angle that gave someone a great idea?  Or just one visionary sculptor?  If ever you feel like a fifth wheel, remember lamassu guarding the king from the demons of chaos, and take heart. You’re in good company.  

If you want to read more, here is the British Museum’s  description of the lamassu.

The pleasures of reading in the original

Some of the reasons reading in the original language is so pleasant (aside from the bragging rights):

Connotations: some words don’t have equivalent English word clouds. “Priscus” in Latin means ancient, but also carries the sense of something venerable, noble and pious.  It’s an upright kind of word, and to my ear, distinctly Roman praise. For fun, compare and contrast our use of "gravitas."

Structure: Latin is the obvious example because it has no articles, and doesn't truck much with pronouns or prepositions; it’s all about construction of beautiful clauses.

Hebrew has some flexibility of word order and also has a direct object marker which is attached to definite objects. When God addresses Abraham in Genesis 22 and says, “Abraham, please, could you take (direct object) your son…(direct object) your only one …(sub-clause) whom you love…(direct object) Isaac… ” it does seem a little wordy. God knows perfectly well who Isaac is without all the qualifiers; he was there for the conception.

And then: “... and bring him up as a sacrifice on a mountain.”  Wait, what?  But Abraham just packs his wood and saddles up his donkey. It's the same story, but with a slightly different rhythm.

Speed:  translation slows you down. Especially reading the classics which, let’s face it, you've read in English so many times you can pretty much skim. Moses and the plagues: “and God said,  ‘locusts’ and boom! there were locusts but, still, the Pharaoh wouldn't let the people go, and so on."  

“So Moses held out his rod over the land of Egypt and the Eternal drove an east wind over the land all that day and all night; and when morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts.”

The Hebrew does have some “creation / let there be” elements:  the day and the night, the wind and the morning. But it’s not so much the words that strike me as the detail of that wind that blows all day and night. Whether it makes you think of sky deities or Stephen King, it’s creepy.  And easy to miss if you are breezing (I said it) through the English.

In reading Exodus, with its page after page of wonders, and incident after incident of “murmurings”, (the Israelites doubting Moses) you really start to wonder if the Israelites are...well...idiots. Hey, Israelites, remember the manna? Look at the page across from this one you're on--it's right there.  But then, remember that thing you read yesterday, how cool it was, and how you couldn't see how anyone could ever be bored in this world? And then today, when you could hardly get out of bed? The Israelites had a point: given any length of time, even a page or two, the universe can seem pretty fickle.

The God Who Does

(Biblical studies)

If you try to picture the God of the Tanakh (the Old Testament to Christians), chances are you’ll picture someone like the God of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, zooming in on his cloud of heavenly host, reaching out to zap Adam with the spark of life. Jehovah is a god on the move: creating the earth, destroying the earth, parting seas, sending plagues and smiting the wicked.

“Gods of ancient Greece,” though, evokes the Elgin marbles, Winged Victory and red figure vases; ox-eyed Hera, charm-fashioner Aphrodite, Zeus who hurls thunder, Artemis of the golden distaff. While in the Bible humans yearn for God’s presence, it’s better to stay far from the Olympians. Mortals are liable to be turned into a tree or burst into flames. Every romance results in conception and every interaction ends catastrophe.

But somehow ancient Greece feels familiar; the modes of thought, the values, the motivations, even the clichés: you’ll stumble across “one swallow does not make a summer” reading Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics (I.1098a18).  It’s actually jarring to realize these same guys are out there fighting with spears and sacrificing cows.

To really study the Tanakh is to find yourself a stranger in a strange land, among birthrights, dietary laws, circumcision, family idols, camels, narrative discontinuity, and a surprising amount of straight-up lying. It’s also the story of nomads, a people on the move: we cover 400 years of slavery in just a few verses, but the Jews wander through hundreds of pages in the desert. How many other books have so many maps just to keep track of the main characters?

The Hebrew language reflects this primacy of action: adjectives and adverbs are minimal, and verb tenses are few: something is either done or not. But there are many shades of action active, passive, intensive, causative, reflexive, and character is often revealed in action--for example, pious Abraham serving his heavenly guests.

You’d think an action-defined God would be the one closest to our action-oriented hearts, but I think the “Make no graven image” rule actually distances God from us highly visual humans. We always want something we can see: a saint, some lambs, a baby in a manger.  Even in the temple, we have a grumpy Moses looking down from his stained glass window. It’s a paradox that we are made in the image of a God who doesn’t have an image.  As the poet said, "just wanna see his face."

Praise for King Shulgi

Sumerian King Shulgi of the Ur III dynasty ruled for 48 years (2029 BCE–1982 BCE), completed the Great Ziggurat, waged wars, repaired roads, built the first hotel / rest area, standardized weights and measures, and was a long distance runner in his spare time.

Reconstructed ziggurat

But Shulgi never summited.  His name has survived largely through copies of compositions and hymns made by schoolboys studying to be scribes. From "A History of the Ancient Near East" (Mieroop): "Remarkable is the lack of interest in this period by later Mesopotamians when compared to how the Akkadian kings were remembered." (Think Sargon.) Like Horatius at the Bridge and the Light Brigade, Shulgi's fame is as a school exercise.

I asked noted American historian and friend of the blog, Dr. Dave Nichols, for an analogy. He writes:

“James Garfield was not only a Civil War hero, but could supposedly write Latin with one hand while writing Greek with the other (according to Joe Queenan, who may have been exaggerating). And yet he is primarily known as the president who served for just a few months before being shot by a frustrated office-seeker (and then dying a few months later because doctors couldn't find the bullet). Or he is confused with a cartoon cat. Sounds like your Shulgi analogue to me.”


May my Hymn to King Shulgi be pleasing!

Inventor of rest stops, impeccable scribe¹,

Like a mes² tree in bloom, you're hard to describe.

Swift as a cheetah³, you built ziggurats,

Defending your land so that Ur bigger-got.

Most notable king, of legend Nestorian⁴,

Gush-liking ruler, the summus Sumerians.

1. From Self-Praise of Shulgi: "…the fair goddess Nanibgal, the goddess Nisaba, provided me amply with knowledge and comprehension. I am an experienced scribe who does not neglect a thing."
2. "You are a sweet sight, like a fertile mes tree laden with colorful fruit."
3. "When I sprang up, muscular as a cheetah, galloping like a thoroughbred ass at full gallop..."
4. King Nestor was a prolix giver of advice in the Odyssey and most ashur-edly a bore.
"Gush-liking" I leave to you, dear readers, to solve.

On the Beginning of Writing in Mesopotamia

It’s hard to imagine life without reading and writing.  Speech is fine as far as it goes, but it’s essentially non-persistent and short-range: the need to communicate over time and space can’t be filled by speech.  

If you ever were, or knew, a teenage girl, you have seen the true manifestation of an insatiable need for communication. This need is now filled largely by writing, in the form of texting, Facebook, emails and whatever else has been invented lately that I’m too old to know about.

Historically, however, teenage girls were unlikely to be those with the resources for inventing writing in a largely pre-literate world.  Instead it was the poets, stirred by the divine breath of the gods themselves, stretching the wings of song...not!  It was rich guys and their accountants.  Surprised? 

"The oldest signs in the system seem to be imitations of clay tokens of diverse forms, used as counters in an accounting procedure throughout the Near East from the 9th millennium B.C. to the 2nd; each type of counter presumably represented an individual type of goods, and therefore an individual word."

-Introduction to Akkadian, Fourth edition, Caplice and Snell.

This wasn’t so much about communication (yet) as counting. However, where clay tokens were, taxes, tax bills, and letters about taxes soon followed.  And since you’re writing, it was natural enough to ask after the guys over in Accounts Payable in the Ashur office.  And by the way, are you avoiding my calls?

            A letter:

“Speak to Bibiya

            Thus (speaks) Gimil-Marduk,

May Shamash and Marduk keep you alive forever for my sake.

I wrote concerning your well-being: send me (news about) your well-being.

I came to Babylon, but did not see you; I became very upset.

Send me news of your traveling that I may rejoice…

Be well forever for my sake.”

-Saison de Fouilles a Sippar, Vincent Schiel, pg. 131.

Sadly, (S)he’s Just Not That Into You won’t be written for another four thousand years.  Let’s hope Gimul-Marduk figured it out.



To the left is a clay tablet from the British museum from 1850BCE.  You can also see the envelope and read the story here.

(Very) Old Friends

In beginning my travels in Akkadian, I’m happy to see my old friends the nominative, genitive and accusative cases in my grammar book.  The dual is/are there too.

Some words familiar from Hebrew:

• Abum, father, Hebrew abba.  Abra-ham means the father of nations.
• Ummum, mother, Heb. im, ima
• Sissû , horse, Heb. sus
• Bītum, house, Heb. bayit; from this word dervice synagogue names like “Beth Am,” House of the People.
• Alpum, ox. Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, is derived from a symbol of an ox’s head, meaning strength.  

There is another nifty word, “mimation” which is the suffixing of a letter m.

I always find it comforting to read translation exercises like, “The army of the king was in the city,” and “the wife’s wool is in the house.” The simple declaratives speak to countless generations of scholars, brows knit, with ink (or clay) stained fingers. As we dutifully ponder the mysteries of case-gender-number, it’s hard not to wonder why the wife was so absent-minded and where she meant to take that wool in the first place.  

The Seven Kings of Rome - Ab Urbe Condita

Romulus founded the city of Rome,

Numa strengthened religion at home,

Tullus with Alba was hostilely warring,

Ancus, bridge builder, especially boring,

Tarquinius came from out of town,

Servius came from way low down,

Tarquin was the last of the kings

Tullia drove him to horrible things.

By A. Student & E. Bennett

On Learning Akkadian

Assyrian king from
the British Museum

For the past year or so, I've been trying to learn Biblical Hebrew. It's definitely worth the effort to be able to read the Bible in the original. Having mastered reading backwards and the aleph-bet, what is more natural than to want to learn Akkadian too?

Akkadian is the language of ancient Mesopotamia and the earliest-attested language of the Semitic family. Evidence of Akkadian is found in names as early as the 26^th century BCE.  It probably dropped out of spoken use around in the mid first millennium BCE, being replaced by Aramaic. It was still used as a written language until the first century CE. 

Classics students who rejoice in having read all of Sappho, or dodging the lost books of Livy, might be dismayed to learn that there are hundreds of thousands of extant Akkadian texts to be read.  Unlike papyrus,  baked clay is nearly indestructible. On the bright side, if you’re worried about the meaning of a mongoose running under the king’s chariot, you’re in luck.

Important Mongoose Update:  You'll have to go here: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/saa10/corpus and go to page 2 to learn about A Mongoose Under the King's Chariot.  Thank you to the brilliant and talented Jennifer Nicole Roman!