of a longer‐lasting institutional environment that upheld it created the backdrop for an Aramaic “world literature” to evolve. Although its true extent cannot be outlined, remains of an erstwhile common literary language still surface in various local traditions during the post‐Achaemenid period and point to such a shared matrix. Court novels in particular, as in Aḥiqar, Daniel, and some Qumran texts, constitute a genre closely associated with Aramaic (Gzella 2017). As a universal medium of expression, Aramaic could promote exchange of literary motives and figures between Egypt and Mesopotamia during the Achaemenid period. One can also suppose that knowledge of Mesopotamian science, glimpses of which appear in later writings, spread via lost Aramaic translations of technical writings (Ben‐Dov 2010).
Aftermath
The Persian administration consolidated earlier networks between Aramaic‐speaking regions throughout the empire and thus created a lasting heritage that outlived its chancery. By that time, Aramaic was deeply entrenched as a language of administration, law, and religious literature, which consolidated its long‐term success. Once the central authority disappeared with Alexander's conquest, elements of the official scribal tradition could interact more freely with regional forms of Aramaic, and linguistic innovations could spread more easily across the speech area (see Gzella 2011b and, more extensively, 2015: pp. 212–280 for an overview). Although it quickly faded away in Anatolia and lasted only until the Ptolemaic period in Egypt, the use of Aramaic as a standardized written, though not necessarily spoken, language largely continued in the western and eastern peripheries of the dialect landscape, in the form of very conservative varieties in northern Arabia (especially Nabataean) and Parthia (scattered epigraphic material and Aramaic ideograms in Middle Persian). In Hellenistic‐Roman Syria and eastern Mesopotamia (Palmyra, Edessa, Hatra), by contrast, several regional dialects of Aramaic were promoted to chancery idioms of small local kingdoms, yet were highly influenced by received spelling conventions. Judaea, finally, saw the gradual transformation of an Aramaic literary heritage into a new form of Jewish literary Aramaic between the fourth and the second centuries BCE. As a result, the end point of Achaemenid Official Aramaic is hard to determine. Aramaic still acted as a prestigious vehicle for reasserting local cultural self‐awareness in Hellenistic and Roman times (Gzella 2006; Healey 2009: pp. 1–51) and subsequently produced a number of long‐lasting religious literatures in Late Antiquity (Gzella 2015: pp. 281–381).
REFERENCES
1 Azzoni, A. (2008). The Bowman MS and the Aramaic tablets. In P. Briant, W.F.M. Henkelman, and M.W. Stolper (eds.), L’archive des fortifications de Persepolis: état de question et perspective de recherches. Paris: de Boccard, pp. 253–274.
2 Ben‐Dov, J. (2010). Scientific writings in Aramaic and Hebrew at Qumran: translation and concealment. In K. Berthelot, D. Stökl Ben Ezra (eds.), Aramaica Qumranica: Proceedings of the Conference on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix‐en‐Provence 30 June–2 July 2008. Leiden: Brill, pp. 379–399.
3 Betrò, M. (2005). La tradizione di Ahiqar in Egitto. In R. Contini, C. Grottanelli (eds.), Il saggio Ahiqar: Fortuna e trasformazione di uno scritto sapienziale: Il testo più antico e le sue versioni. Brescia: Paideia Editrice, pp. 177–191.
4 Bowman, R.A. (1970). Aramaic Ritual Texts from Persepolis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
5 Briant, P. (2002). From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
6 Contini, R., Grottanelli, C. (eds.) (2005). Il saggio Ahiqar: Fortuna e trasformazione di uno scritto sapienziale: Il testo più antico e le sue versioni. Brescia: Paideia Editrice.
7 KAI: Donner, H., Röllig, W. (1966–2002). Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
8 Driver, G.R. (1954). Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
9 Driver, G.R. (1965). Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C.: Abridged and Revised Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
10 Dušek, J. (2007). Les manuscrits araméens du Wadi Daliyeh et la Samarie vers 450–332 av. J.–C. Leiden: Brill.
11 Fitzmyer, J.A., Kaufman, S.A. (1992). An Aramaic Bibliography Part I: Old, Official, and Biblical Aramaic. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
12 Funke, P. (2008). Integration und Herrschaft: Überlegungen zur “Trilingue von Xanthos”. In I. Kottsieper, R. Schmitt, and J. Wöhrle (eds.), Berührungspunkte: Studien zur Sozial‐ und Religionsgeschichte Israels und seiner Umwelt: Festschrift Rainer Albertz. Münster: Ugarit‐Verlag, pp. 603–612.
13 Gianto, A. (1995). A new edition of Aramaic texts from Egypt: Ahiqar, Bar Punesh, Bisitun: accounts and lists. Biblica, 76, pp. 85–92.
14 Greenfield, J.C. (1974). Standard literary Aramaic. In A. Caquot, D. Cohen (eds.), Actes du prémier congrès international de linguistique sémitique et chamito‐sémitique. Hague, Paris: Mouton, pp. 280–289.
15 Greenfield, J.C., Porten, B. (1982). The Bisitun Inscription of Darius the Great: Aramaic Version. London: Lund Humphries.
16 Grelot, P. (1972). Documents araméenns d’Égypte. Paris: Éditions du Cerf.
17 Gropp, D.M. (2001). The Samaria papyri from Wadi Daliyeh. In D.M. Gropp, J.C. VanderKam, and M. Brady (eds.), Wadi Daliyeh II and Qumran Miscellanea 2, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 28. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 3–116.
18 Gross, A.D. (2008). Continuity and Innovation in the Aramaic Legal Tradition. Leiden: Brill.
19 Gzella, H. (2004). Tempus, Aspekt und Modalität im Reichsaramäischen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
20 Gzella, H. (2006). Das Aramäische in den römischen Ostprovinzen: Sprachsituationen in Arabien, Syrien und Mesopotamien zur Kaiserzeit. Bibliotheca Orientalis, 63, pp. 15–39.
21 Gzella, H. (2008). The heritage of Imperial Aramaic in Eastern Aramaic. Aramaic Studies, 6, pp. 85–109.
22 Gzella, H. (2011a). Imperial Aramaic. In S. Weninger, G. Khan, M.P. Streck, and J.C.E. Watson (eds.), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, pp. 574–586.
23 Gzella, H. (2011b). Late imperial Aramaic. In S. Weninger, G. Khan, M.P. Streck, and J.C.E. Watson (eds.), The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, pp. 598–609.
24 Gzella, H. (2011c). Introduction. In H. Gzella (ed.), Languages from the World of the Bible. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, pp. 1–13.
25 Gzella, H. (2014). Language and script. In H. Niehr (ed.), The Arameans in Ancient Syria. Leiden: Brill, pp. 71–107.
26 Gzella, H. (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden: Brill.
27 Gzella, H. (ed.) (2016). Aramäisches Wörterbuch, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament Vol. IX. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
28 Gzella, H. (2017). Von der Kanzlei‐ zur Kultursprache: Die Anfänge der aramäischen Weltliteratur. Theologische Quartalschrift, 197, 107–132.
29 Healey, J.F. (2005). New evidence for the Aramaic legal tradition: from Elephantine to Edessa. In P.S. Alexander, G.J. Brooke, A. Christmann, J.F. Healey, P.C. Sadgrove (eds.), Studia Semitica: The Journal of Semitic Studies Jubilee Volume. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 115–127.
30 Healey, J.F. (2009). Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period: Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, IV. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
31 Hoftijzer, J., Jongeling, K. (1995). Dictionary of the North‐West Semitic Inscriptions, 2 vols. Leiden: Brill.
32 Hug, V. (1993). Altaramäische Grammatik der Texte des 7. und 6. Jh.s v. Chr. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orient‐Verlag.
33 Kaufman, S.A. (1974). The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
34 Khan, G. (2007). Aramaic in the medieval and modern periods. In J.N. Postgate (ed.), Languages of