Life at the Bottom of Babylonian Society: Servile Laborers at Nippur in the 14th and 13th Centuries B.C.

291 Pages·2011·6.893 MB·English

by  Jonathan S. Tenney

Life at the Bottom of Babylonian Society
Culture and History of the
Ancient Near East
Founding Editor
M.H.E. Weippert
Editor-in-Chief
Thomas Schneider
Editors
Eckart Frahm
W. Randall Garr
B. Halpern
Theo P.J. van den Hout
Irene J. Winter
VOLUME 51
The titles published in this series are listed at: www.brill.nl/chan
Life at the Bottom of
Babylonian Society
Servile Laborers at Nippur in the
14th and 13th Centuries B.C.
By
Jonathan S. Tenney
LEIDEN • BOSTON
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tenney, Jonathan S.
Life at the bottom of Babylonian society : servile laborers at Nippur in the 14th and 13th
centuries, B.C. / by Jonathan S. Tenney.
p. cm. -- (Culture and history of the ancient Near East, ISSN 1566-2055 ; v. 51)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-20689-2 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Working class--Iraq--Nippur (Extinct city)-
-History. 2. Labor--Iraq--Nippur (Extinct city)--History. 3. Social status--Iraq--Nippur
(Extinct city)--History. 4. Families--Iraq--Nippur (Extinct city)--History. 5. Nippur (Extinct
city)--Population--History. 6. Nippur (Extinct city)--History--Sources. 7. Nippur (Extinct
city)--Social conditions. 8. Nippur (Extinct city)--Economic conditions. 9. Babylonia--Social
conditions. 10. Babylonia--Economic conditions. I. Title.
HD4844.T46 2011
305.5’620935--dc22
2011011313
ISSN 1566-2055
ISBN 978-90-04-20689-2
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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CONTENTS
Preface ................................................................................................. ix
List of Examples ................................................................................. xi
List of Figures .................................................................................... xiii
List of Tables ...................................................................................... xv
List of Abbreviations ......................................................................... xvii
Selected Rulers of Kassite Babylonia ............................................... xxi
Chapter One. Servile Laborers in a Favored Province ................ 1
Introduction .................................................................................. 1
Prior Work ..................................................................................... 2
Current Approach ......................................................................... 5
Chapter Two. Sources .................................................................... 7
Introduction .................................................................................. 7
Process of Selection ...................................................................... 7
Terminology .................................................................................. 9
Simple Rosters ............................................................................... 14
Inspections ................................................................................ 15
Transfers of Personnel .............................................................. 18
Summaries ................................................................................. 20
Undetermined ........................................................................... 22
Remarks ..................................................................................... 23
Ration Rosters ............................................................................... 23
Barley or Oil Allocations as Rations (šE.BA and Ì.BA)
to Persons and Families (for Periods of Six Months
or Less?) ................................................................................. 25
Barley Allocations as Rations (šE.BA) to Persons
Divided into Tenēštu Groups by Occupation
(Period Undetermined) ....................................................... 25
Barley Allocations for Various Purposes to Animals
and Humans by Location outside of Nippur
(Period Undetermined) ....................................................... 26
Barley Allocations as Rations (šE.BA) and Date
Allocations to Persons for Periods of More Than
Six Months ............................................................................ 27
vi contents
Ration Allocation Summaries for Groups in a
Single Location, Including a Numerical
Personnel Census ................................................................. 27
Remarks ..................................................................................... 31
Purchases of Personnel ............................................................ 31
Purchases of Personnel in Groups .......................................... 31
Purchases of Single Individuals .............................................. 32
Miscellaneous Texts ...................................................................... 34
Concluding Remarks on Sources ................................................ 36
Chapter Three. Population: Sex, Age, Death, and Health ......... 37
Introduction .................................................................................. 37
The Data Base ................................................................................ 37
The Data and Their Limitations .................................................. 39
Problems of Preservation and Access .................................... 41
Chronology of the Statistical Corpus ..................................... 42
Problem of Personal Name Repetition .................................. 43
Groups as Recorded: A Caution ............................................. 47
Descriptive Statistics for the Worker Population ...................... 47
The Entries ................................................................................. 48
Males and Females ................................................................... 48
Demography, Statistics, and the Sex Ratio ............................ 50
Young versus Old ...................................................................... 53
Sex Ratio by Sex and Age Classification ................................ 56
The Dead (Úš, BA.Úš, and IM.Úš) ....................................... 58
The Blind (NU.IGI, IGI.NU.GÁL, and NU) ......................... 60
The Ill (GIG) .............................................................................. 62
Travelers (KASKAL) ................................................................ 62
Concluding Remarks on Population .......................................... 63
Chapter Four. Family and Household ......................................... 65
Introduction .................................................................................. 65
The Families of BE 14 58 and Related Documents ................... 65
Identification of Family Units within the Text Corpus ............ 71
The Household .............................................................................. 76
Comparisons with Other Premodern Societies .................... 82
Slaves and Households ............................................................. 83
The Conjugal Family Unit ............................................................ 84
Conjugal Family Size and Composition ................................ 85
Single Mothers .......................................................................... 86
Polygyny ......................................................................................... 88
contents vii
Death and Marriage ...................................................................... 90
Conclusions on Family and Household ..................................... 91
Chapter Five. Work, Flight, Origins, and Status ........................ 93
Introduction .................................................................................. 93
Organization of the Servile Labor Pool ..................................... 94
Tasks and Occupations of the Workers ...................................... 98
Administration and Supervision of Workers ............................ 102
Flight and Diminution of the Working Population .................. 104
Identification of Escapees in the Texts (ZÁḪ or ḫalāqu) .... 105
The Meaning of ḫalāqu (ZÁḪ) ............................................... 106
Basic Statistics on Runaways ................................................... 107
Circumstances of Flight ........................................................... 111
Escape as a Cause of Work-Force Depletion ........................ 113
Recapture and Reassignment .................................................. 115
Confinement: Prisons and Fetters .......................................... 118
The šandabakku and the King ................................................ 120
Origins and Civil Status ............................................................... 121
Origins ....................................................................................... 121
Civil Status ................................................................................. 129
Concluding Remarks on Work, Origins,
and Status ................................................................................... 132
Chapter Six. The Servile Work Force in Local and National
Perspective ..................................................................................... 135
Introduction .................................................................................. 135
Population Size and Proportion .................................................. 136
Nippur in its Spatial Context ....................................................... 138
Nippur in National Context ........................................................ 140
Future Research ............................................................................. 144
Appendix One. Selected Households from Middle Babylonian
Sources ........................................................................................... 147
Introduction .................................................................................. 147
Households .................................................................................... 151
Appendix Two. Size and Composition of Select Mobile
Work Groups ................................................................................. 211
Introduction .................................................................................. 211
Size and Composition of Select Mobile Work
Groups (Table) .......................................................................... 213
viii contents
Appendix Three. Sex and Age Classification of Attested
Occupations in Middle Babylonian Rosters .............................. 229
Select Bibliography ............................................................................ 233
List and Index of Cuneiform Sources ............................................. 245
General Index .................................................................................... 253
Index of Select Akkadian Words and Logograms ........................... 266
PREFACE
The initial draft of this book was written in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University
of Chicago. The topic was first suggested by J. A. Brinkman, who served
as the chairman of the dissertation committee and presented me with
an initial list of texts and notes. The depth of his knowledge on the
Kassite Period is without peer, and his assistance during the genesis of
the manuscript was invaluable. It was an honor to study under him,
and it would be impossible to return his kindness and understanding.
I am proud to call him a friend. Professors Matthew Stolper and
Stephan Palmié also served on the dissertation committee, and
I would like to thank them for their interest and comments. Revision
and expansion of the initial manuscript into its final form was done
while I served in positions at Loyola University New Orleans and the
Center for Identity Formation at the University of Copenhagen. I am
very grateful to both institutions for their support.
During several visits in the 1970s, Professor Brinkman was able to
study the unpublished Middle Babylonian tablets from Nippur kept in
the collections of the Archaeological Museums of Istanbul, and he pro-
vided me with transliterations and notes for the Ni. tablets that appear
in this work. The transliterations of these texts are provisional, and
many of these readings may be improved once the documents become
available for further study.
I would like to express my gratitude to the faculty of the Department
of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of
Chicago, particularly to Walter Farber and McGuire Gibson for their
past and continued support. I wish also to thank Profs. Wolfgang
Heimpel, Mogens Trolle Larsen, and John Nielsen, who each read and
commented upon drafts of this work. Roger S. Bagnall, whose research
with Bruce W. Frier has set a high standard for ancient population
studies, was of considerable help in puzzling out some of the more dif-
ficult aspects of the quantitative data that appears in the following
pages. I would also like to acknowledge the humor and friendship pro-
vided by Hratch Papazian, which proved invaluable during the final
stages of the writing process.