On behalf of the American Oriental Society, the selection committee has agreed
unanimously to name Michael P. Streck of the University of Munich the Jonas
Greenfield Prize winner for 2003.
Streck's contribution, “Keilschrift und Alphabet,” in Hieroglyphen
- Alphabete - Schriftreformen. Studien zu Multiliteralismus, Schriftwechsel
und Orthographieneuregelungen. Lingua Aegyptia - Studia monographica ; 3. (Göttingen
2001) 77-97, documents in great detail numerous irregularities in Akkadian documents
from the first millennium B.C.E., especially as regards misrepresentation of
syllable structure. But, rather than accepting the reigning explanation that
these aberrant representations reveal internal decay of the syllabic writing
system, Streck proposes that they reflect the influence of Aramaic, of which
the writing system was consonantal. This study, with its citation of numerous
data in support of the author's interpretation, constitutes an important contribution
to our understanding of the growing status of Aramaic in the Assyrian Empire
and of the cultural interconnections between speakers and writers of Akkadian
and Aramaic.
Previous Greenfield Prize Winners
•1998: Christa Mueller-Kessler, for her article “The
Story of Bguzan-Lilit: Daughter of Zanay-Lilit,” JAOS 116 (1996): 185—195
• 2000: J. N. Ford, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “‘Ninety-Nine
by the Evil Eye and One from Natural Causes’: KTU21.96 in its Near Eastern Context”
(Ugarit-Forschungen 30 [1998]: 201–278).