Yoram Cohen has a very helpful review of Cuneiform in Canaan in the February 2008 issue of BASOR (pages 83-86). Not only does he provide his own corrected and supplied readings to many of the texts included in the book, but he also gives his own views on the existence of scribal schools in ancient Canaan. Here are some juicy quotes:

In spite of the authors’ measured skepticism (p. 13), there is little doubt that within the city walls [MB Hazor] a scribal school for cuneiform flourished. Even if not exactly contemporary, the finds speak for themselves: the mathematical prism (Hazor 9) was an educational tool that taught the student how to deal with multiples; the fragment of the lexical list HAR-ra=hubullu, or Urra (Hazor 6) was a part of the training in the cuneiform writing system; and the inscribed liver models (Hazor 2-3), while primarily meant to assist the diviner in their profession, were products of the Mesopotamian world of learning…The lexical fragments from Late Bronze Age Aphek (nos. 1 and 3) and Ashqelon (no. 1) can be taken as evidence of similar schooling institutions, as can the celebrated Gilgamesh Epic fragment from Megiddo (no. 1).¹

Isolated finds from elsewhere–Beth Shean, Gezer, Hebron, Jericho, and Shechem–complete the picture by showing how widespread writing in cuneiform was at this period. Even if concrete proof of schooling activities is lacking, it is obvious that the faculty of writing was transmitted to these places by some means and put into practical purposes, as the letters, administrative documents, and inscribed personal seals demonstrate.²

Even though there are some mistakes in the book–such as photos reproduced upside down and backwards, and I have a some slightly different readings on a couple of the texts that I have collated from high-res photos–this is a really great volume that I recommend. It’s greatest contribution is rounding up all the texts and major bibliography into one handy volume:

Cuneiform in Canaan
Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Times

by Wayne Horowitz, Takayoshi Oshima, and Seth Sanders
Israel Exploration Society, 2006
239 pages, 171 illustrations, English
Cloth, 17 x 27 cm
ISBN: 9652210625
Your Price: $56.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~HORCUNEIF

1. Page 83. [back]
2. Page 84. [back]