ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 introduces a case study of two unique Middle Babylonian verbal forms that occur in two different Canaanite Letters written by two different people, EA 300 and 378. The verbs are instantiations of the Gtn stem of the verb šemû “to obey” (“I am always obeying”). They are used to express the intensity and habitual obedience of Yapa‘i of Gezer, a Canaanite ruler, to the pharaoh's orders. These verbal forms are rare in the Canaanite cuneiform practice, which raises the question of when and where the verbs were written in this way. Curiously, EA 300 and 378 were not written at Gezer; their likely place of origin is the Egyptian center at Gaza. It is proposed that the two scribes drew from the orthographic practices of Egyptian Akkadian scribes, mediated through their letters and possible in-person encounters at Gaza. They employed these Middle Babylonian forms as a higher register with which to encode deference to the pharaoh.
