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“Siege-Documents” from Nippur*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

A. L. Oppenheim
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Extract

In the season 1950–51, the Joint Expedition of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and of the Babylonian Museum of the University of Pennsylvania excavated in Nippur a cache of twenty-eight Neo-Babylonian tablets. They were found in the location TA/52, 30 cm. above level III/1 floor, and they now carry the numbers 2 NT 280 to 2 NT 307.

All but three of these texts are legal documents, the exceptions being 2 NT 306, a private letter, and 2 NT 283 and 307, the contents and paleographic features of which mark them as administrative tablets. They had been included in the cache for reasons which remain unknown. In the location TA/34 (level III/1) a tablet, 2 NT 165, was found which, because of the personal names it mentions, must be added to the present group. There is, of course, a definite possibility that the inhabitant of the house in which 2 NT 165 was found had hidden a group of valuable documents in a cache in an empty lot behind his backyard (cf. p. 70 for further discussion).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , Spring 1955 , pp. 69 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1955

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Footnotes

*

The author wishes to thank Prof. D. McCown for permission to use the text material discussed in this article, and Dr. C. J. Gadd, Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum, for permission to quote the partly unpublished tablet B.M. 77216 (cf. note 26).

References

1 This information concerns the exact date of the fall of Nippur to the army of Aššurbanipal. The rule of Šamaš-šum-ukîn is attested in this city for his sixteenth and seventeenth year by the two new tablets 2 NT 303 and 304. Another new Nippur text, 2 NT 281, is, however, dated in the eighteenth year of Aššurbanipal. Since the regnal years of the two brothers differ by one (cf. simply Dubberstein, W. in J.N.E.S. III, p. 39Google Scholar), the tablets dated respectively in the seventeenth year of Šamaš-sum-ukîn (2 NT 304), and in the eighteenth year of Aššurbanipal (2 NT 281), were necessarily written in the same year. The latter is dated the 19th day of the 11th month; the former gives us the date the 25th or 26th of the 10th month. During these three weeks, Nippur must have changed hands.

2 I must gratefully acknowledge here that I had occasion to discuss with Dr. Landsberger some of the problems connected with these texts.

3 The texts will appear in autographic copies—as all other Neo-Babylonian texts from Nippur—made by Prof. L. Hartman, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.

4 For the evaluation of female children cf. the revealing passage in Nehemiah v. 2, 5 (commentary: Weil, H. W., Gage et cautionnement dans la Bible, in A.H.D.O. II (1938), 176, 183Google Scholar).

5 This is shown by the texts: Strassmaier Nabuchodonosor 100: 3 (DUMU.SAL-šu ṣa-ḫír-tum mart-um 3 MU.AN.NA.MEŠ); Nabonidus 196: 3 (SAL qal-lat-su ṣa-ḫír-tum “four years old”); 693: 4 (six years) Cf. also K.A.V. 39: 1, 2, 4, 6 where the word ṣa-ḫír-tuji (describing DUMU) designates the stage following that of DUMU parsu and GA, comparable perhaps to Latin iuventus. For an exception cf. Figulla, U.E.T. IV, 27: 2Google Scholar SAL.NAR-ti ṣa-ḫír-ti referring to a bride. Ṣaḫiru is rarely said of a male in Neo-Babylonian texts, cf. Peiser, O.L.Z. VII (1904) col. 39: 3Google Scholar, and Y.O.S. VI, 154 (p. 4)Google Scholar. In our text group ṣaḫirtu cannot be translated by “slave-girl” in spite of the fact that the context of the individual tablets would seem to allow this. In 2 NT 299 a SAL ṣaḫirtu is sold in the presence of her mother which demonstrates unequivocally that she could not have been a slave-girl because her mother's consent would not have been required when she was sold by her owner. The use of the term bulluṭu in 2 NT 293 makes sense only if the ṣaḫirtu sold to be bulluṭu, i.e., “kept alive” is the daughter of the seller and not his slave-girl whose fate after the sale transactior cannot possibly be his concern. The text 2 NT 297, moreover, refers to a female sold for exactly the same purpose as “daughter” so that there can hardly be any doubt that all ṣaḫirtu sold to Ninurta-uballiṭ and his associates are disposed of by their parents and not their masters. And for this reason, the two persons named Marduk in the genealogies of 2 NT 302 cannot be assumed to be identical. In 2 NT 301, the only case of a boy occurring in our texts, one of the two women who are named as the sellers is called his mother. For a proposed explanation for the use of ṭaḫirtu in this context cf. p. 00.

6 The Akkadian term bulluṭu has an exact semantic parallel in the Egyptian s‘nḫ “to keep alive (during a famine)”. Cf Vandier, J., La famine dans l'Égypt ancienne (Publications de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, Recherches vol. VII (1936)) passimGoogle Scholar.

7 Cf. for a discussion of the differences of these two texts (2 NT 293 and 297) p. 00.

8 The pertinent phrase of Figulla U.E.T. IV, 8 runs as follows (lines 5 -7)Google Scholar: “They have sealed(?) my house (É-a ik-tak-kan-ma), give me (enough) silver that I may eat (KUG.BABBAR bi-nam-ma lu-kul) and pay my debtors (LÚ(l) ri-šu-ta-nu … lu-šal-lim).”

9 Cf. for a translation Dougherty, R. Ph., Shirkûtu, 33fGoogle Scholar.

10 The spelling and the vocabulary (note the use of the term baqārum) of this text, as well as its onomastikon, have induced Dr. Landsberger to date it later than the bulk of the “Cappadocian” tablets, cf. Kurumu, Turk TarihBelleten III, 207Google Scholar.

11 From § 117 of the Code of Hammurabi it can be inferred that children could be sold (ana kaspim nadānum) by the pater familias under specific circumstances (individual emergency, cf. p. 71 f.) which even entitled him to sell his wife. A further restriction is contained in the time limit during which the “sold” children could be made to work for the man who “bought” them.

Turning from the pretenses and aspirations of the law code to the realities as they are reflected in the Old Babylonian legal documents, we find that the sale of children by their parents is very rarely recorded. In fact, such texts are only found in the archives of the well-known businessman Balmunamḫe of Larsa, where they seem to be the expression of a local economic crisis (cf. also Landsberger, O.L.Z. XXV (1922), col. 408Google Scholar). These are the texts: Riftin no. 24, Babyloniaca VII, 45Google Scholar, and V.S. XIII, 64Google Scholar.

The text C.T. VIII, 22bGoogle Scholar (= Schorr, V.A.B. V, no. 77Google Scholar = Kohler-Ungnad, H.G. III, 424Google Scholar) constitutes a special case which, like the sale of infants to (V.S. VII, 10–11Google Scholar) and by wet nurses (V.S. XVI, 80Google Scholar), need not be discussed here.

Cf. to this topic finally Kraus, F. R., Nippur und Isin (= J.C.S. III), 113f., 166f., 173Google Scholar.

12 For another interpretation of the Old and Middle Assyrian term balluṭu cf. Lewy, J. in Eisser-Lewy, M.V.A.G. XXXV/3, 162 note a, endGoogle Scholar.

13 Cf. also David, M.-Ebeling, E., Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft XLIV, 7ff., no. 7Google Scholar, Koschaker, N.R.U.A., 97 note 5 et passGoogle Scholar.

14 For Itqu “adoption”, cf., e.g., ana ittišu (Landsberger MSL I) 3rd tabl. col. III: 26–27 (but ibidem, line 53 leqû “adoptee”).

15 Translation of K.A.J. 7: “Iluma-irîba, the slave of Amurru-naāṣir, redeemed (paṭāru) Asûat-Gula, the daughter of Nirbia, from the house of Aššur-rîṣua, son of Ibaššî-ilu. Upon the (oral) request of Asûat-Gula, Iluma-irîba removed (zukkû) her from the status of a slave-girl and made her his wife. … In compensation for the fact that Iluma-irîba removed her from the status of a slave-girl and made her his wife, Asûat-Gula and her offspring will be alaiū of Amurru-nāṣir and his children; they will perform duties pertaining to the alaiū-status for Amurru-nāṣir and his children, whereas Amurru-nāṣir and his children will not seize Asûat-Gula and her offspring as slaves. …”

16 It is possible that the husband functions here as goel (cf. David, M., Het Huwelijk van Ruth, 9fGoogle Scholar.

17 Translation of K.A.J. 167: “For Asât-Idiglat, the daughter of Nirbia, an Assyrian girl, who was taken into the house of Aššur-rêṣua, son of Ibaššî-ilu, to be kept alive (during the famine) and to be adopted, Aššur-rêṣua, the son of Ibaššî-ilu, has received a Subarian (slave-girl) as a substitute of Asât-Idiglat. He is satisfied and free (of any further claims). Aššur-rêṣua and his brothers will not have any claims against Asât-Idiglat. Ilima-rîba has given for her a Subarian (slave-girl). Aššur-rêṣua alone is responsible to make her (i.e., Asât-Idiglat) free from any claims (made) by his brothers.”

18 David, M.-Ebeling, E., Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft XLIV, 64 note 74Google Scholar.

19 Translation of K.A.J. 168: “x minas of tin (are the claim) of Uqrabi, daughter of Mukallimtu, the wife of Irrigi, son of Abadia, against Mušallim-Šamaš, son of Aššur-ašared (the scribe adds here erroneously:il(!)-te-qi-ma). This (amount of) tin has been given to him as the equivalent price of one female. This female they shall keep alive; they shall call out (or: announce) the price (value) of his female (and then) he shall take (for himself) the balance of his tin.”

20 For previous translations, cf. Driver-Miles, , The Assyrian Laws, 406f. and 478Google Scholar. The passage was also misunderstood by San Nicolò, M. in Orientalia N.S. XVII, 282Google Scholar. One is inclined to propose the restoration bal-(lu)-ṭa-at to fit the context.

21 From the point of view of statistics, the Assyrian and Babylonian references to such emergencies show certain differences. In spite of the abundance of extant legal documents throughout the Neo-Babylonian period, the pertinent Babylonian texts all originated in the period of Assyrian supremacy (or immediately afterwards). In Assyria, the occurrences are much more rare but they are spaced in time and are even attested in the law code. It is not impossible that our group of Nippur texts reflects the influence of Assyrian customs. For further discussion of the differences between the pertinent Assyrian and Babylonian material, cf. p. 72 f.

22 The nearly consistent use (exception: 2 NT 297: 2 KÁ.GAL, i.e., abullu) of the word KÁ instead of the expected abullu is strange. Cf., however, the phrase ina patê KÁ which may be interpreted as referring to the lifting of a siege (note 50).

For abullu, in connection with edēlu, cf. the Old Babylonian liver omen, Goetze, Y.O.S. X, 24Google Scholar: rev. 28 (apodosis) a-bu-ul-lum in-ne-en-di-il a-lum ma-ru-uš-tam i-mar “the city gate will be closed; the town will experience evil things.”

23 Cf. now M. San Nicolò, Babylonische Rechtsurkunden des ausgehenden 8. and des 7. Jabrbunderts v. Chr. no. 19.

24 Cf. Meissner, O.L.Z. XXII (1919), col. 209fGoogle Scholar., and now M. San Nicolò, op. cit. no. 20.

25 Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute XXVI, 173Google Scholar. Mr. D. J. Wiseman has now identified this text as B.M. 47366.

26 Another text written during this siege is mentioned by Johns, C. H. W. in P.S.B.A. XXVII (1905), 98Google Scholar, in “Chronology of Aššurbanipal's Reign B.C. 668–626”. This tablet (quoted by Johns as 83–1–18, 2597 B and kindly identified by Mr. D. J. Wiseman as bearing now the number B.M. 77216) records the sale of a slave-girl. With the permission of Mr. C. Gadd, Keeper of the Department of Assyrian and Egyptian Antiquities, I offer here transliteration and translation of lines 1–9 (lines 10–16 list the witnesses and give the dating): [ina M]U 19.KAM dGIŠ.NU9.MU.GE. NA LUGAL DIN.TIRki [su]-un-qu ù dan-na-tum ina KUR iš-sá-kin-ma [x]-ta-a u dUTU.NUMUN-ib-ni DUMU-šú [dN]a-na-a-ki-šir-rat GEME2-ta-šu-nu [a-na x] + 2 GIN KUG.BABBAR ù 110 (SILÀ) ŠE.BAR [ana ŠÁ]M ḫa-ri-iṣ a-na mMa-am-ma-a [iddinū] pu-ut LÚ si-ḫi-i ù LÚ pa-qí-ra-nu [ša dN] a-na-a-ki-šir-rat [x-ta]-a ù dUTU.NUMUN-ib-ni na-šu-ú “[In] the 19th [ye]ar of Šamaš-šum-ukîn, king of Babylon, there occurred a catastrophic famine in the country and [….]tâ and his son Šamaš-zêr-ibnî [sold] their slave-girl Nanâ-kešrat to Mammâ for [x+]2 shekels of silver and 110 (sila) of barley as the exact(?) [pr]ice. […. ]tâ and Šamaš-zer-ibnî guarantee against a vindicator or a contestant on behalf of Nanâ-kešrat.”

27 Weidner, E. F.A.f.O. XVI, 37Google Scholar, copy of Pinches on pl. III (B.M. 74652).

28 For the content of the tablet, cf. below pp. 82 f.

29 Z.A. 9 (1894), 398Google Scholar, “Sînšariškun and his rule in Babylonia “, and now M. San Nicolò, op. cit. no. 71.

30 J.R.A.S. 1921, 381ffGoogle Scholar. “A Loan-tablet dated in the Seventh Year of Saracos”.

31 For an example of the influence of literary texts of this nature upon historical inscriptions, cf. the following passage from a broken prism of Esarhaddon (C.T. XXXIV pl. 1) I: 12–16 UD. SAG la na-par-ka-a in-šu-’u NÍG.ŠU.MEŠ šá a-ḫa-meš ma-a-ru ina su-ú-qi e-ta-ra-ar AD-šu ri-e-šu a-na EN-šu [….] “… without interruption they stole each other's possessions; the son cursed his father in the street, the slave [….] against his master.”

32 For this type of literature, cf. Güterbock, H. G. in Z.A. XLII, 20fGoogle Scholar.

33 A similar situation can be caused by an epidemic and is described in the Old Babylonian omen, Goetze, Y.O.S. X, 56 III: 3–5Google Scholar: mu-ta-nu da-an-nu-tum ib-ba-aš-šu-ú-ma a-ḫu-um a-na bi-it a-ḫi-im ú-ul i-ru-ub “there will be a terrible epidemic, a brother will not (even) enter the house of (his) brother.”

34 The text continues with a clear reference to cannibalism during a siege, which is also attested in Aššurbanipal Cyl. A V R pl. 4, IV: 44f. etc. For references in the Old Babylonian omen-literature, cf. Goetze, Y.O.S. X, 45:22, 29, 51Google Scholar. Such occurrences of cannibalism during a siege are also mentioned in the Bible, cf. Deut. 28: 53–57, 2 Kings 6: 28–30 and Lam. 4: 10. For an Egyptian parallel, which I owe to Dr. Keith Seele, cf. the Hekanakhte Papyri in Winlock, , Excavations at Deir el Bahri (1942), 62Google Scholar.

35 Note the variant, Virolleaud, , L'Astrologie chaldéenne, Ishtar XXVI: 25Google Scholar, UN.MEŠ ŠÁM.DUMU. MEŠ-ši-na KÚ.MEš, “the people will live off (lit.: eat) the price (they will receive) for their children.”

36 Cf. Smith, S., Babylonian Historical Texts (London, 1924), pl. XVIII p. 155ffGoogle Scholar.

37 The text has actually ina x-[….]-y-tum UG6.ME. The proposed restoration, based upon the Pinches text quoted on p. 11, does not fit these traces too well.

38 Cf. the commentary to a pertinent Šumma izbu omen (C.T. XXVII, 23, 24Google Scholar) on the unpublished tablet V.A.T. 9718 communicated to me by Dr. Landsberger, UN.MEŠ DUMU.MEŠ-ši-na i-sa-la-a “the people will expose their children” explained by sa-lu-ú = pa-šur-tú KI.LAM, “to expose (means) merchandise to be sold for any price on the market.”

39 In his “Reflexe astrologischer Keilinschriften bei griechischen Schriftstellern”, 17 (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Kl. 1911–7).

40 For some characteristic examples illustrating this nuance of pašāru “to sell merchandise in retail, to distribute” in CH XVII: 104, cf., e.g., the kudurru King B.B.St, pl. LXVIII col. IVa: 9, Esarhaddon, Black Stone (I R 49, I, 17–18, maḫariš pašāru), Aššurbanipal V R. 6, VI: 15 (Streck, V.A.B. VII, 50Google Scholar); also ana kaspim pašārum in V.S. XVI, 140: 11Google Scholar, Ebeling, K.A.J. 316: 7Google Scholar and Pinches, A.f.O. XIII, pl. III: 3Google Scholar.

Note also the instructive contrast pašāru—šâmu in mathematical texts, Neugebauer, O.—Sachs, A.M.C.T. (= A.O.S. XXIX), 107, note 276hGoogle Scholar.

41 Here reference should be made to a Chinese practice of the Han period (cf. Wilbur, C. M., Slavery in China during the Former Han Dynasty, Chicago, 1943, pp. 86 and 266CrossRefGoogle Scholar, a book to which my colleague, Dr. Edward Kracke Jr., University of Chicago, referred me) when imperial edicts expressly permitted the sale of small children during a catastrophic famine.

42 It should be noted that there are three more texts in which women alone sell their children. In 2 NT 297 and 298 the situation is clear; mothers sell their daughters. In 2 NT 301, however, a boy who is identified by his name, by that of his father, and who is, furthermore, identified as a free-born citizen of the town of Marad, is sold—exactly as in 2 NT 299 —by two women one of whom is described as the boy's mother. Since the boy is expressly referred to as free-born, one cannot assume that he was the child of a concubine sold by the main wife. Perhaps, a grandmother is acting with the consent of the mother. Both women are mentioned in the šīḫû-paqirānu-clause which means that they both also assume the guarantee against any “vindication”.

The fact that women appear as sellers in these texts could be due to the war situation. The husbands had perhaps been killed or were in the service.

43 Cf. also the plural of the suffix in the phrase: ina ḫud libbišunu in line 3.

44 Bad preservation also prevents full understanding of the variant wording of the akālu-clause (cf. above p. 71f.) in 2 NT 293, “give me 6 shekels so that I may give for my(?) … (a-na x-a lud-din) (and that) I may eat!’” (lines 5–6).

45 The solemn declaration: “she shall be your youngster/slave-girl” recurs in the text Y.O.S. VI, 154 (cf. above p. 72)Google Scholar, and in marriage and adoption contracts of this period. Cf. Ungnad, V.S. VI, 3 and 95Google Scholarlû aššati šî, “she shall be my wife”; Pohl, , Analecta Orientalia VIII, 14: 5Google Scholar, and Pinches, T. G., Hebraica III, 15: 8Google Scholar, lû mârua šû, “he shall be my son.” It seems that these formulae were used whenever a person changed social affiliations.

46 Cf. simply Schorr, M.V.A.B. V, 119fGoogle Scholar., for the Old Babylonian, and Nicolò, M. San–Ungnad, A.N.R.V. I, 141fGoogle Scholar., for the Neo-Babylonian period.

47 For arkû cf. simply Ungnad, , Glossary to N.R.V. I, 34Google Scholar, also A.f.O., Beiheft VI, 52Google Scholar.

48 Text: ki-i šá tu-ub-ba-lu. For (w)abālu “to fetch (a price) “cf. my remarks in J.N.E.S. XI, 131Google Scholar.

49 This group of texts has not been utilized by Dubberstein, W. in his article in J.N.E.S. III, 38ffGoogle Scholar., “Assyrian-Babylonian Chronology (669–612 B.C.) “. Cf. Unger, E., Istanbul Asariatika Muzeleri Nesriyate, no. IX (Istanbul, 1933), 23fGoogle Scholar.

50 Both these documents (cf. now M. San Nicolò op. cit., nos. 68 and 69) indicate the time when a loan (of silver) fell due by the unique phrase ina pa-te-e KÁ (T.u.M. II–III 41: 3 and 42: 3Google Scholar; debtors and creditors are identical, the texts date from the first and the sixth day of the same month and year). Since they represent the last tablets coming from Nippur and are dated with reference to king Sîn-šar-iškun, the mentioned phrase suggests that they are likewise “siege-documents” written during the very siege in which Nippur fell to Nabopolassar. The phrase ina patê bâbi would then correspond to ina edil bâbi; the former is used to refer to the lifting of a siege, the latter to the siege itself.

This interpretation differs from that offered by M. San Nicolò, op. cit., p. 122, who proposes to see in ina patê bâbi a reference to an important annual cultic festival, the “Opening of the (sacred) door (of the temple)”. However, if such datings had been customary in the Babylonia of that time, one would expect more occurrences of this phrase.

51 Cf. my translation in Pritchard, A.N.E.T., 304Google Scholar.

52 A very damaged fragment of a contract (loan?) dated in the third year of Sîn-šar-iškun mentions in line 3 the name mEN-ú-sat (identical with that of the father of Ninurta-uballiṭ). It was found in the house in the rear of which the cache was hidden.