5.1 Introduction
The Murašû archive was the most important source for the study of Judeans in Babylonia until the publication of the texts from the environs of YÄhÅ«du.863 The archive consists of circa 730 texts864 relating to the business activities of the descendants of Murašû in the Nippur region from the tenth year of Artaxerxes I to the first year of Artaxerxes ii (454â404 bce).865 The Babylonian family of the Murašûs were entrepreneurs in the land-for-service sector of local agriculture, and their archive is an indispensable witness to this economic sphere and the role of immigrants in it.
This chapter is divided into six sections. Sections 5.2 and 5.3 focus on Judean farmers and landholders in the Nippur countryside, and Sections 5.4 and 5.5 discuss Judean officials and witnesses. Sections 5.6 and 5.7 analyse the socio-economic status and cultural traits of the Judeans in the Murašû archive.
5.1.1 The Murašû Archive
The Murašû archive was found in situ in Nippur during the American excavations led by John Henry Haynes in May and June of 1893. The clay tablets and twenty clay bullae were unearthed in a small room in the so-called Camp Hill, west of the Inanna temple and Ekur. As no excavation reports were published, only meagre information on the archaeological context can be obtained from Haynesâ field notes and letters. According to them, the tablets were discovered in a single room which was part of a larger house.866 The bulk of the clay tablets were divided between Istanbul and Philadelphia, and currently they are kept at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. A number of tablets found
Unlike the Neo-Babylonian cuneiform documents in general, the texts from the Murašû archive hardly ever identify persons using three-tier genealogies with family names.870 Thus, the members of the Murašû family are not descendants of an eponymous ancestor from time immemorial but the sons and grandsons of Murašû, son of Hatin, who is attested in two early documents of the archive.871 The chief protagonists of the family were Enlil-Å¡um-iddin (active in 445/444â421 bce) and his nephew RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta (429â415/414 bce),872 but the servants of the family also play a prominent role in the archive, the most important of them being RÄ«bÄtu/BÄl-erÄ«ba.873 Although family names cannot be used to link the Murašû family to a specific segment of society, their residence in Nippur,874 high socio-economic status,875 and personal names referring to Enlil and Ninurta, the chief deities of Nippur, indicate that they belonged to the urban Nippurean upper class.
The business activities of the Murašû family took place in a certain economic sphere.876 Persian aristocracy and high officials administered royal
The Murašû archive documents the business transactions of a family of entrepreneurs working in the land-for-service sector. The archive consists of promissory notes, leases, receipts, and other legal texts primarily relating to credit granting and agricultural management.877 The Murašûs served as middlemen between small landholders and the administrative apparatus, as they facilitated the payment of taxes by granting credit to landholders. The Murašûs received payments from the farmers in agricultural produce but paid rent and taxes primarily in silver; retail sales of produce were an essential part of their business, as is shown by a number of texts on beer brewing in the archive.878 The Murašûs also managed the cultivation of royal lands in the Nippur region. They acquired landholdings in two ways: first, they leased land and water rights directly from the representatives of the crown. Second, they granted credit to farmers in the land-for-service sector and gained control over the plots that were pledged to secure the debts. The Murašûs then subleased lands, water rights, and draught animals to tenants, including the actual holders of the pledged lands.
In contrast to the abundance of business documents in the Murašû archive, there are no texts referring to the familyâs houses or other property than slaves. This implies that the present archive is a selection of tablets removed from the
5.1.2 Judeans in the Murašû Archive
The economic and legal aspects of the Murašû archive have been thoroughly studied,881 and the ethnic and onomastic diversity in the Nippur region has been surveyed in several studies.882 However, there has been less interest in the life of the people figuring in the archive. This applies to the Murašûs themselves, as well as to their clients, many of whom were descendants of foreign deportees. The social and religious history of Judeans in the Nippur region has been briefly discussed by Daiches, Bickerman, and Zadok,883 and although the presence of Judeans in the Murašû archive is acknowledged in most studies dealing with the Babylonian exile, only a page or two is normally devoted to discussing the material.
Although the Murašû archive documents business activities from the viewpoint of the archive-holding family, it is a relatively rich source for the study of Judeans in Babylonia. Altogether 61 Judean individuals appear in 64 different documents, making the archive the most extensive source for the study of Judeans after the texts from YÄhÅ«du and its surroundings.884
The documents pertaining to Judeans cover the whole chronological span of the archive. A Judean is already attested in the second earliest text of the archive from the thirteenth year of Artaxerxes i (BE 9 3, 452 bce), and another Judean features in the late Aršam group in the eleventh year of Darius ii (pbs 2/1 148, 413 bce). Moreover, the chronological distribution of the documents
Some features of Figure 9 require explanation. First, the peak in the thirty-fourth year of Artaxerxes i is incidental, and it results from the fact that Pili-YÄma/Å illimu happened to witness three documents in Nippur on the same day (BE 9 34; imt 7, 8). Second, there is no peak in the number of documents from the last year of Artaxerxes i and the first year of Darius ii. In the archive as a whole, the peak in these two years results from the large number of debts to the Murašûs by landholders whose plots were pledged to secure the debts. As Stolper suggests, these mortgages may have resulted from the financial difficulties that farmers in the Nippur region experienced because of the increased burden of tax and service obligations during the fight for the Persian throne after the death of Artaxerxes i.886 Some Judeans were also affected by the crisis (BE 10 33; pbs 2/1 27, 185), and it remains unclear if the small number of Judeans involved only results from the accidental preservation of texts or if their situation was different from landholders in general. Third, there is a sharp peak in the number of documents pertaining to Judeans in the fourth year of
These statistics indicate that no major changes occurred among the Judean population in the Nippur region in the last half of the fifth century. Because the chronological distribution of Judean texts mirrors that of the archive as a whole, large groups of Judeans hardly migrated to or from the region. As this chapter shows, nothing in the texts suggests that the socio-economic status of Judeans was any different from other deportees in the Nippur countryside, and the statistical anomalies in 41 Art i â 1 Dar ii and in 4 Dar ii are probably incidental.
5.1.3 Seal Impressions
The sealing of cuneiform tablets has a long history in Babylonia. In addition to their legal value, seal impressions conveyed other messages: some seals were connected to a certain office or royal authority, whereas seal use and imagery can shed light on the social status and cultural values of an individual. Accordingly, seal impressions can effectively supplement the picture emerging from the texts themselves. The use of personal seals became increasingly common in the Persian period, and the Murašû archive is a rich source for the study of sealing practices in Babylonia. Judeans followed the general trend: the single Judean seal owner attested before the mid-fifth century is AhÄ«qam/RapÄ-YÄma, who impressed his seal on a single tablet in the twelfth year of Darius i (B9). This changes in the Murašû archive, in which fourteen Judeans used seals, some of them even two different ones.887
This remarkable difference is the result of changes in sealing practices in Babylonia from the sixth to the late fifth centuries.888 In the archives from the early sixth century, only documents pertaining to the transfer of real estate were sealed, and the sealers belonged to a distinct group of scribes or notaries. The sellers of real estate impressed their nail marks on the tablets, but their seal impressions are never attested.889 Sealing practices started to change in the late Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods: new document types were sealed or marked with nails and sealing was not practised exclusively by scribes. The sealing of a tablet still remained an exception, rather than the rule.
Seal use became more widespread during the fifth century, and the Murašû archive is a very rich source for the practice.891 The principals who ceded rights or took an obligation rather consistently impressed their seals or nail marks on the tablet, and if judges were present at the transaction, they always used a seal. Impressing a nail mark did not necessarily imply that the person could not afford to buy a seal, as the use of nail marks was preferred in certain types of transactions.892 Witnesses occasionally impressed their seals on tablets in the early reign of Artaxerxes i, but this custom changed drastically in the late reign of Artaxerxes i and the early reign of Darius ii, when the majority of witnesses sealed tablets.893
These developments are the underlying factor for the scarcity of Judean seal owners in the environs of YÄhÅ«du and their frequent attestation in the Murašû archive. Some Judean seal owners will be treated in the discussion below, and Judean seal use in its socio-economic and cultural context will be treated in Section 5.7.
5.2 Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma: Entrepreneurs or Representatives?
The members of the Murašû family are an example of people who worked as middlemen between the state administration and landholders, finding business opportunities within the framework of the land-for-service sector. It is not always easy to determine, however, if people dealing with the Murašû family were landholders in their own right, representatives of a family or community, minor officials of the land-for-service sector, or entrepreneurs who further subleased the landholdings at their disposal. Such a strict classification of roles may even be misleading, as the interplay of family ties, communal and personal interests, and official capacities is common in any human society. An important example of this complexity is a dossier of twelve texts pertaining to Pili-YÄma/Å illimu, Yadi-YÄma/BanÄ-YÄma, and Yadi-YÄmaâs son YÄhû-natan.894 These Judean men dealt with the Murašûs and the farmers in the village of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya in 24â40 Art i (441â425 bce). A careful analysis of these men and their
5.2.1 Business Partners of the Murašûs?
The earliest document pertaining to Yadi-YÄma/BanÄ-YÄma was written in Nippur in 5-V-24 Art i (EE 2). He leased out the BÄl and MuÅ¡Äzib-BÄl canals and perhaps uzbÄru land to Enlil-Å¡um-iddin/Murašû for the annual rent of 200 kurru of produce.895 Two documents from the twenty-eighth (BE 9 16) and thirty-first (EE 30) years of Artaxerxes i show that Enlil-Å¡um-iddin later subleased the BÄl canal to his tenants and slaves.896EE 2 is not explicit about the status of Yadi-YÄma, and one might interpret him either as a royal agent or sub-lessor. According to Stolper, the Murašûs leased canals predominantly â if not exclusively â from the royal administration, but van Driel is open to the possibility of subleases as well.897EE 2 could well be a sublease, judging by the fact that Yadi-YÄma did not bear any official title and that the royal administration is referred to only at the end of the operative part, where Yadi-YÄma guarantees that the canal manager (Å¡a muhhi sÅ«ti Å¡a nÄrd[x]) will not contest the lease. This assumption is further supported by the analysis of other documents in this cluster, which show that Yadi-YÄma was involved in the exploitation of canals and adjoining lands rather than their management.
Pili-YÄma/Å illimu appears for the first time in Nippur in 28-X-28 Art i (BE 9 14). He and Enlil-Å¡um-iddin/Murašû pay the sÅ«tu rent of 97 kurru of millet to the manager of the Sîn canal, the servant (mÄr bÄ«ti) of the maÅ¡ennu official Artabara.898 The payment is due from the land of BÄl899 and (a part of) the
These two texts alone would suggest that Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma appear to be entrepreneurs like the Murašûs, leasing and subletting royal properties in the Nippur countryside. However, their transactions in the following years indicate that they may be better understood as representatives of larger communities, not merely as entrepreneurs acting for their own profit.901
5.2.2 Yadi-YÄma and the Village of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya
Yadi-YÄmaâs economic status worsened over time, which is already apparent in the thirty-first year of Artaxerxes i. In a document written in Nippur (BE 9 25, 17-I-31 Art i), he leases the Urâti canal, his bÄ«t ritti, âthe land for which he is agentâ (a.Å¡Ã na-áš-par-ti-šú),902 and his pledged property for three years from Enlil-Å¡um-iddin for the annual rent of 200 kurru of barley. The rent was to be paid in a place called GÄrÄya. Some of his landholdings had apparently been pledged as a security for some previous debt, and they had come into the disposal of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin. In BE 9 25, Yadi-YÄma asks his creditor to lease the pledged lands to Yadi-YÄma himself instead of leasing them to someone else. This transaction is a good example of the business model of the Murašûs: credit granting allowed the family to get hold of land properties, which could be leased back to their actual holders.903 The meaning of bÄ«t ritti is not completely understood, but it does not seem to denote a specific type of landholding in the land-for-service sector like bÄ«t qaÅ¡ti. In the Murašû archive, it was perhaps more of an umbrella term which could refer to various types of landholdings, sometimes â if not usually â belonging to a temple or the crown. In Hellenistic Uruk, bÄ«t ritti properties were closely related to the temple of Anu.904 It is quite probable that the bÄ«t ritti was not Yadi-YÄmaâs private property.
Three details of the transaction shed light on Yadi-YÄmaâs economic role in the land-for-service sector. First, he was the nominal holder of some of the leased lands, not just a businessman taking them on lease. Second, the lease also involved lands (a.Å¡Ã na-áš-par-ti-šú) that were not Yadi-YÄmaâs personal
Yadi-YÄmaâs representative role in BE 9 25 is corroborated by BE 9 45 (Nippur, 20-V-36 Art i). Enlil-Å¡um-iddin leases water rights and land to Yadi-YÄma, his three sons, a Judean man, four other people, and their anonymous colleagues (kinattu) in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya for three years. The leased property consists of the Urâti canal, tithe land (bÄ«t eÅ¡rî) and Yadi-YÄmaâs bÄ«t ritti on the banks of the Urâti, lands on the left bank of the Milidu canal, and three plots of land irrigated by waterlifts910 on the right bank of the same canal. The annual rent was 700 kurru of barley, two oxen, and twenty sheep, far more than a single farmer could produce in a year.911 Here the lessees quite clearly constitute a community of farmers who not only leased new lands to cultivate them, but also sought to retain their hold on Yadi-YÄmaâs bÄ«t ritti. As the interests of the larger group and Yadi-YÄma appear to be intertwined and as BE 9 25 and 45 partially pertain to the same landholdings, it seems quite certain that Yadi-YÄmaâs transaction in BE 9 25 relates to this community of farmers as well.912
This community of farmers should be geographically connected to (BÄ«t-)GÄrÄya,913 a settlement which was probably located by the canal system fed by the Euphrates of Nippur (Purat Nippur).914 The place name is only mentioned in BE 9 25, BE 9 45, and EE 98 (20-IX-36 Art i), which was written in the same village. The latter document (EE 98) is a promissory note for 70 vats of beer, owed by a certain BÄl-idrÄ« to Yadi-YÄma. The repayment of the debt was to take place after the next date harvest. If read together only with EE 2, this promissory note would corroborate the idea that Yadi-YÄma was an entrepreneur like the Murašûs, practising agricultural management and turning his revenue of agricultural produce into silver by beer brewing and retail. EE 98 undoubtedly reflects commercial activity, and it might well be connected to the retail of date beer to urban customers. However, as the transaction took place in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya only four months after BE 9 45, it is fully possible that Yadi-YÄma did not act only on his own behalf here either. The debtorâs name BÄl-idrÄ« cannot be found in any other Murašû document, and thus his identity and the relationship of this transaction to the Murašûs remain unknown. It is noteworthy that both EE 98 and BE 9 45 were witnessed by Pili-YÄma, while a certain Satturu/Å abbatÄya witnessed EE 98 and was Yadi-YÄmaâs co-lessee in BE 9 45. EE 98 is the last attestation of Yadi-YÄma.
The village of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya was evidently the focal point of Yadi-YÄmaâs activities. He had colleagues in the village, he was supposed to deliver his rental payment there, and one of his transactions was concluded there. At the same time, the communal aspects of his transactions suggest that he was not merely a businessman working in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya but more like a representative or foreman of the local community.
5.2.3 Pili-YÄmaâs Transactions
After his first appearance as Enlil-Å¡um-iddinâs co-lessee in 28 Art i (BE 9 14), Pili-YÄma is attested five times as a witness before he appears again as a debtor and lessee in 37 and 38(?) Art i (EE 94, 26). In addition to Yadi-YÄmaâs transactions BE 9 45 and EE 98, Pili-YÄma witnessed three documents (BE 9 34; imt 7, 8) which were written in Nippur in 7-IV-34 Art i by the same scribe before the same witnesses.915 All documents are leases of animals and/or land granted by Enlil-Å¡um-iddin to three different lessees. None of the lessees bore a Judean name, and Pili-YÄma had no obvious connection to them. It is possible
Two documents from the late years of Artaxerxes i shed more light on Pili-YÄmaâs connections with the Murašû family. The first document is a promissory note for a kur.ra textile916 worth 30 shekels of silver, written in Nippur in 26-V-37 Art i (EE 94). The debtor is Pili-YÄma and the creditor TÄ«rÄ«kÄma, a well-known servant of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin.917 The value of the textile is surprisingly high in comparison to the prices of kur.ra textiles from the late seventh to the late sixth century, when the prices fluctuated generally between two and seven shekels of silver.918 Although the price of kur.ra textiles rose in the late sixth century,919 the general trend of prices in Persian-period northern Babylonia920 does not favour the assumption that kur.ra textiles were on average worth half a mina in central Babylonia in the late fifth century. As far as I know, there are no other Murašû texts referring to kur.ra textiles. The textile in EE 94 is described as birÅ¡u921eÅ¡Å¡u, âcoarse (fabric and) newâ, which does not unequivocally indicate that the high quality of the textile made it exceptionally valuable. As kur.ra was a common type of textile in Babylonia, the promissory note cannot be related to any specific type of economic activity. However, the exceptional value of the textile and the absence of other kur.ra texts in the Murašû archive make this an intriguing document.
The last document (EE 26) pertaining to Pili-YÄma922 is a lease of the BadiÄtu canal of Marduka (nÄr BadiÄti Å¡a Marduka). The transaction is badly broken, but it shows that Pili-YÄma and two other men leased the canal from a member of the Murašû family, most likely Enlil-Å¡um-iddin, around 38 Art i.923 In order to understand the context of this transaction, it is necessary to study two earlier documents concerning this branch or part of the BadiÄtu canal.
In 12-V-32 Art i (BE 9 29), Marduka, the slave of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin, rented the BadiÄtu canal of Yadi-YÄma (nÄr BadiÄti Å¡a Yadi-YÄma), adjoining lands,
In light of these three transactions, âthe BadiÄtu canal of Mardukaâ and âthe BadiÄtu canal of Yadi-YÄmaâ refer to one and the same canal. The name of the current or previous tenant served as an identification marker which helped to distinguish the canal from other homonymous watercourses or to specify which part of the canal was meant.926 Because PÄn-Enlil-adaggalâs three-year lease was recorded in 35 Art i, Pili-YÄma and his two co-lessees leased the canal after PÄn-Enlil-adaggal, probably in 38 Art i (EE 26).927
Nothing is known about Yadi-YÄmaâs tenancy of this branch or part of the BadiÄtu canal, but given the other documents referring to him, two scenarios are possible: first, Yadi-YÄma leased the canal directly from the royal administration and it came into the possession of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin by a sublease or as a result of Yadi-YÄmaâs insolvency. Alternatively, Yadi-YÄma leased the canal from Enlil-Å¡um-iddin, like Marduka and others after him. Be that as it may, the BadiÄtu canal of Yadi-YÄma and Marduka was at the disposal of the Murašûs for almost a decade or more, and the family repeatedly leased it out to its servants and other tenants. The document referring to Pili-YÄmaâs lease (EE 26) is badly broken, and the names of his two co-lessees survive only as PN/BarÄ«k-il and Minyamin/PN. BarÄ«k-il and Minyamin are both West Semitic names,928 and the Judean background of these people remains a possibility that cannot be confirmed or excluded.929 However, Minyamin is perhaps attested together
The information on the extent of the lease and the size of the rent has been mostly destroyed in EE 26, and only the references to the NaËilti-il canal and 76 kurru of emmer remain. Emmer was usually only a subsidiary component of the annual rent in the leases of canals,931 and the extent of the lease in EE 26 may resemble imt 10, which refers to the fields extending as far as the NaËilti-il canal. As the annual rent in the earlier leases of the BadiÄtu canal of Yadi-YÄma and Marduka was around 1,000 kurru of produce, it is likely that the scope of EE 26 was roughly the same.
At first glance, Pili-YÄmaâs transactions could well pertain to his private business. The two leases of canals and the promissory note for a kur.ra textile do not directly pertain to the community of farmers in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. However, Pili-YÄma and Yadi-YÄma shared an interest in the tenancy of one and the same canal, and Pili-YÄma was also connected to BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. He witnessed Yadi-YÄmaâs transaction in the village and another document connected to Yadi-YÄma and his colleagues in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. The leases of the BadiÄtu canal could have merely been private transactions, but they may also indicate that the canal was important to the community to which the two Judeans belonged.
5.2.4 YÄhû-natan, Son of Yadi-YÄma
After Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma disappear from the scene, Yadi-YÄmaâs son YÄhû-natan appears in yet another lease of the Urâti canal in 29-V-40 Art i (EE 92). He had been involved in the leases of this canal already earlier: he witnessed a lease of the canal in 31 Art i (BE 9 25) and was among his fatherâs co-lessees in 36 Art i (BE 9 45). In EE 92, he and BÄnia/AmÄl-Nanâ promise Enlil-Å¡um-iddin to perform maintenance work on part of the canal during a two-week period until the twelfth day of the sixth month. This period from late August to early September coincides with the time when the water level in the Euphrates was low after the annual flood season was over.932 This was a natural moment to dig canals and repair damage caused by the flood. In compensation for their work, YÄhû-natan and BÄnia were granted a lease of the canal,933 but it remains unclear how long it was for. In any case, a very short lease, such as only for the
This document again stresses the fact that YÄhû-natan and BÄnia could not have acted alone, but they had to have had a considerable workforce at their disposal. The workers digging the canal were most probably the inhabitants of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, represented here by YÄhû-natan and BÄnia. This link is not only suggested by the connections to Yadi-YÄma and the Urâti canal, for BÄnia was also a member of the community in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. He was Yadi-YÄmaâs co-lessee in BE 9 45 and a witness to Yadi-YÄmaâs promissory note for beer (EE 98), which was written in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. Furthermore, he might have been the father of Minyamin/BÄnia, the aforementioned witness of BE 9 45 and a possible co-lessee of Pili-YÄma in EE 26.934
5.2.5 Representatives of a Community of Farmers
The picture emerging from the documents relating to Yadi-YÄma, Pili-YÄma, and YÄhû-natan is one of men who were capable of organising the cultivation of large tracts of land and mustering a sufficient workforce to dig a canal. In the earliest documents, both Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma deal with Enlil-Å¡um-iddin like business partners, but in the later documents they only appear as tenants of the Murašû family. Yadi-YÄmaâs economic situation was evidently difficult after the thirtieth year of Artaxerxes i, and his dependency on the Murašûs is reflected by the fact that he had to lease his own pledged lands from Enlil-Å¡um-iddin. Nothing suggests that the social or professional status of Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma changed over time, and the changes in their economic status may reflect the fact that they were actually the more vulnerable party in their transactions with the Murašû family.
One way to explain Yadi-YÄmaâs and Pili-YÄmaâs transactions is to perceive them as entrepreneurs who were engaged in agricultural management, similar to the Murašûs. That would neatly explain the earliest leases: EE 2 would be a sublease of the properties which Yadi-YÄma had leased from the state administration, and in BE 9 14, Pili-YÄma and Enlil-Å¡um-iddin would simply be business partners leasing some royal properties. The later leases would bear testimony to the tenancy of royal lands one step below the Murašû family: the Judean men leased rights to water and land from the Murašûs and then subleased those rights to their tenants. Yadi-YÄmaâs and Pili-YÄmaâs profit was generated from the difference between the rent they paid to the Murašûs and the rent they charged from their tenants. The reference to date beer perfectly
The weakness of the entrepreneurial scenario is the strong communal aspect of Yadi-YÄmaâs and Pili-YÄmaâs activities. This is apparent in the lease of the Urâti canal in BE 9 45, in which Yadi-YÄma does not act alone but with eight co-lessees and their unnamed colleagues in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya.936 The Urâti canal is the subject of two other leases (BE 9 25; EE 92), both of which exhibit strong connections to BE 9 45. There is only one more Murašû text (imt 24) referring to this canal,937 but the contents of this small fragment are incomprehensible. The three leases of the Urâti canal not only show that the canal was of great importance to the family of Yadi-YÄma, but all establish a firm connection to the village of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya.
BÄ«t-GÄrÄya is only attested in three documents in the Murašû archive, all of which are related to Yadi-YÄmaâs transactions (BE 9 25, 45; EE 98). Several other people link these documents to each other: Pili-YÄma, Satturu/Å abbatÄya, and BÄnia/AmÄl-Nanâ appear in BE 9 45 and EE 98, and YÄhû-natan is attested in BE 9 25 and 45.938 The population of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya was at least partially of Judean origin. In EE 98, which is the only document written in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, almost every witness bears a West Semitic name or patronymic. The only exception is BÄnia/AmÄl-Nanâ, but, as shown above, BÄnia was not an outsider but a man with close ties to Yadi-YÄmaâs family. West Semitic names are also well represented among Yadi-YÄmaâs co-lessees in BE 9 45, who, according to the document, appear to be people from BÄ«t-GÄrÄya.939 BÄnia/AmÄl-Nanâ is again the only person bearing both an Akkadian name and patronymic. Yahwistic names are well represented among the West Semitic onomasticon, both in EE 98 and in BE 9 45.
It thus appears that Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma were connected to the settlement of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, which was inhabited by people of Judean and generally non-Babylonian origin, and which was insignificant enough to be very rarely mentioned in the Murašû archive. It was apparently a village located near the Urâti canal, as people from BÄ«t-GÄrÄya rented the canal in BE 9 45, and the rental payment of the canal was to be delivered to the village (BE 9 25). The canal was important to the village, and the leases in BE 9 25 and EE 92 are to be seen in the context of BE 9 45. The roles of Yadi-YÄma, YÄhû-natan, and
Pili-YÄma had close connections to Yadi-YÄma and BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, but he was also in regular contact with the Murašûs and often present in Nippur. The most revealing document about his status is EE 26, in which he leases the BadiÄtu canal of Marduka, the same canal which was held or leased by Yadi-YÄma several years earlier. His two co-lessees were of non-Babylonian descent, and one of them was perhaps attested as a witness in BE 9 45. The case bears resemblance to that of the Urâti canal, and it is reasonable to suggest that this derivative or part of the BadiÄtu canal was also of special importance to Yadi-YÄma, Pili-YÄma, and the community in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. The BadiÄtu canal of Yadi-YÄma and Marduka cannot be geographically located in relation to BÄ«t-GÄrÄya,940 but it is hardly a coincidence that Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma shared an interest in this canal. Moreover, Pili-YÄmaâs lease of the BadiÄtu canal of Marduka took place in 38 Art i or later, and as Yadi-YÄma is not attested after 36 Art i, there is a good chance that Pili-YÄma took over some communal responsibilities after Yadi-YÄmaâs death. This scenario also fits YÄhû-natanâs lease of the Urâti canal in 40 Art i.
Despite the entrepreneurial features of Yadi-YÄmaâs and Pili-YÄmaâs transactions, they cannot simply be labelled as businessmen.941 Both men were Judeans, closely linked to the village of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya where they perhaps also resided. There is no reason to suppose that the community in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya was exclusively Judean,942 but it is evident that many of its inhabitants were of Judean origin. Surprisingly, bow lands, haá¹rus, or minor officials of the land-for-service sector are not referred to in the documents pertaining to Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma. Therefore, these men were hardly officials, such as Å¡aknu-type foremen of a haá¹ru in the environs of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, but influential members of the village community.943 In this function, they travelled to Nippur to represent the community and lease canal rights from the Murašû family. This does not exclude the possibility that their private interests are present in the documents
The size of the transactions pertaining to Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma is very different from what we see in the documents from YÄhÅ«du and its surroundings. AhÄ«qamâs largest transactions of over 5 minas of silver or 160 kurru of barley (B5, 6; C17, 18) are of comparable size, but, in general, the transactions from the environs of YÄhÅ«du are significantly smaller. It is noteworthy that AhÄ«qamâs largest transactions pertain to his business with the royal administration (B6; C17, 18) or dealings in Babylon (B5); accordingly, they do not relate to his interaction with farmers or small landholders. Texts pertaining to AhÄ«qam testify that he acted as an intermediary between farmers and the royal administration. Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma occupied the same functional position in the administrative hierarchy of the land-for-service system. As representatives of the villagers of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, they acted as intermediaries between the farmers and the next level of hierarchy, the Murašû family or state administration. Private, communal, and official roles should not be seen mutually exclusive, and all three of the Judeans were in a position to benefit from their status of an intermediary.
5.3 Judean Landholders and the Land-for-Service Sector
5.3.1 General Features
The Murašû archive is held as the prime example of the land-for-service sector in Babylonia, but the documents pertaining to Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma hardly touch upon this issue. No haá¹rus or bow lands are mentioned, and although Yadi-YÄmaâs bÄ«t ritti may not have been his private property, the term itself is not characteristic of the land-for-service sector. The BÄ«t-GÄrÄya dossier was written in 24â40 Art i, and it belongs to a less intensively documented phase of the Murašû archive. The dossier constitutes a distinct group, and none of its Judean protagonists is attested after 40 Art i.
The absence of certain terminology does not necessarily mean that Yadi-YÄma, Pili-YÄma, and their colleagues in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya were not integrated into
Eleven Judeans in seven different documents are attested as holders of bow lands in the Murašû archive.947 It is evident that âbow landâ does not simply refer to a plot that was held or cultivated by a single farmer: in six documents, bow lands are held nominally by at least two people, and four documents refer to an undetermined group of âbrothersâ (Å¡eÅ¡.meÅ¡; BE 10 118; EE 111) or âlords of the bow landâ (lúen.meÅ¡ giÅ¡ban; pbs 2/1 89, 218) as co-holders of these properties.948 This applies to the Murašû archive as a whole, and, in the promissory notes with real estate securities, bow lands are normally held by more than one person.949 This is not unattested in the environs of YÄhÅ«du either, where six documents refer to the co-ownership of a bow land.950 Inheritance divisions are often given as the reason for the co-ownership of bow lands,951 but this is not the entire picture, as co-holders also bore different patronymics and were thus presumably unrelated.952 There is also one example of a Judean holding a share in a horse land (ucp 9/3, 18-X-2 Dar ii); I will discuss this important document in more detail below.
Like the number of co-holders, the size of bow lands varied considerably. In the Murašû archive, the debts secured with landholdings range between 10 and
A critical question regarding the functioning of the land-for-service system is the relationship between the size of a bow land and the number of its holders. If the scenario of successive inheritance divisions is right, most bow lands should have been split into tiny fragments by the late fifth century. As Judeans were settled in the Babylonian countryside soon after the deportations from Judah in the early sixth century, the holders of the bow lands in the Murašû archive must have belonged at least to the fifth or sixth generation. If a man held a hereditary bow land which was divided in equal parts and given to two sons in successive generations, his descendants in the fifth generation would only inherit a 1/16 share of the bow land, or 1/32 in the sixth generation. On the contrary, the available evidence shows that an average share in a bow land was still large enough to support a family. Based on his analysis of promissory notes with real estate securities, imittu rents, and leases of date gardens, Jursa concludes that the average share in a bow land in the Murašû archive roughly corresponded to the size of a plot held by a family in other Babylonian sources.957
As shares in bow lands were hereditary,958 it is reasonable to suggest that more royal lands were taken under cultivation as the rural population grew over time. The low cost of land and the prevalence of extensive arable farming suggest that land was readily available.959 This supports the commonly held view that one of the fundamental aims of the land-for-service system was to bring new lands under cultivation and royal control, and thus increase agricultural output and tax income.960
Even if a single plot was cultivated by a single family, the communal aspect of landholding is evident. Most bow lands were cultivated by several landholders, but only some of them often acted as representatives of the whole group, in the same vein as Yadi-YÄma and Pili-YÄma above. The use of representatives makes sense from a practical perspective: if a group of people shared the responsibilities related to a certain landholding, it was not necessary to record everybodyâs name on the document. As the majority of documents were written in Nippur while the landholdings were located in the countryside, it was good for the agrarian community if not everybody had to make the journey to the city. A clear example of the use of representatives is found in pbs 2/1 218, a receipt of sÅ«tu rent paid by RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta/Murašû concerning the bow land of AbÄ«-YÄma/Å abbatÄya, Zabad-YÄma, and âall the other holders of their bow landâ (lúen.meÅ¡ giÅ¡ban-šú-nu gab-bi). At the end of the operative part of the document, Abi-YÄma takes responsibility for the whole group and guarantees that his colleagues (kinÄtÄtiÅ¡u) will not contest the transaction. This phenomenon is reminiscent of the structure of the YÄhÅ«du imittu lists, in which a group of ten landholders is represented by one of their peers (C14, 15).
The communal aspects of landholding are apparent in the texts pertaining to the three bÄ«t ritti lands (co-)held by Judeans in the Murašû archive. As argued above, Yadi-YÄmaâs leasing operations were closely related to certain canals and the community at BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, and, accordingly, it is possible that his bÄ«t ritti may actually be a property held by a larger group of people (BE 9 25, 45). Two other bÄ«t rittis were held by two persons. Haggâ and Mattan-YÄma hold a bÄ«t ritti together in EE 24. In BE 9 3, Arad-Gula and Hanan-YÄmaâs bÄ«t ritti is leased to five persons for sharecropping. This indicates that the size of the landholding was rather large and that there may have been other landholders in addition to Arad-Gula and Hanan-YÄma.
In order to place these observations in a larger context, it is necessary to examine the size of transactions pertaining to Judeans in the Murašû archive. Table 1 presents all transactions with quantifiable data: documents in which Judeans appear as debtors or lessees, documents in which the Murašûs cultivate land on behalf of Judean landholders, and documents in which Judeans appear as creditors or lessors. The table reveals that small transactions of no more than 10 kurru or 10 shekels â those typical to the tablets from the environs of YÄhÅ«du â are very rare in the documents pertaining to Judeans in the Murašû archive. Only two transactions (10%) belong to this category. When the total size of the payment is divided by the number of obliged persons, the share of a single person remains above 10 kurru or 10 shekels in all but two cases. This emphasises a key difference between the texts from the environs of YÄhÅ«du and those from the Murašû archive: AhÄ«qar and AhÄ«qam dealt directly with
5.3.2 Haá¹ru of the SÄpirus
5.3.2.1 Haá¹rus in the Murašû Archive
As the land-for-service sector was designed to generate tax income and provide the state with a workforce and soldiers, the landholders and their holdings were attached to complex administrative structures. In YÄhÅ«du, the fields of Judean Å¡uÅ¡Änus were eventually put under the supervision of the governor UÅ¡tanu, and several royal officials participated in their everyday administration through a long chain of command. The estates of royalty and high officials are also attested in the region. A similar picture emerges from the Murašû archive: landholdings were attached to estates of the crown, royalty, and high officials, and the governor GÅ«baru and his agents were also involved in the management of the land-for-service sector.961
In comparison to the environs of YÄhÅ«du, an important feature of late fifth-century Nippur is the organisation of landholdings in administrative units called haá¹rus.962 More than sixty different haá¹rus are attested in the Murašû archive, and their names generally refer to an administrative unit, such as the estate of the rab urâti (âthe one in charge of horse teamsâ), or to professional and ethnic groups, such as the gate guards and the Carians.963 It is hard to believe that these designations were completely arbitrary, and, at least originally, they must have been related to the people attached to the haá¹ru, to its function, or to its administrative affiliation.964 Names referring to the estates of the crown or high officials demonstrably reflect the submission of the given haá¹ru, its landholders, and their holdings to the estate.965 In the case of ethnic designations of haá¹rus, the most logical reason behind these names is the assignment of deportees to haá¹rus according to their place of origin.966
However, the case of professional designations is more complicated. Despite the absence of a haá¹ru of the Judeans, it is striking that all the bow and horse lands which were (co-)held by Judeans and which can be connected to a certain haá¹ru belonged to a haá¹ru of sÄpirus (pbs 2/1 89, 218), sÄpirus of the troops (uqu) (pbs 2/1 27; ucp 9/3), or sÄpirus of the estate of the rab unqÄti (âthe one in charge of sealsâ, pbs 2/1 185). In addition, a Judean is also attested as a co-holder of grain fields (zÄrÅ« pÄ« Å¡ulpi) belonging to the haá¹ru of the gardu (âdependent workersâ, BE 10 92), and another one served as the Å¡aknu (âforemanâ) of the Å¡uÅ¡Änus of the storehouse (nakkandu) in BE 10 65.
5.3.2.2 Haá¹ru of the SÄpirus (of the Troops)
Since Cardasciaâs and Stolperâs studies, it has been well established that the designations haá¹ru Å¡a sÄpirÄ«, haá¹ru Å¡a sÄpirÄ« Å¡a uqi, and haá¹ar uqi refer to a single haá¹ru.967 The professional designation sÄpiru not only refers to scribes competent in Aramaic, but the available evidence shows that they also took care of administrative tasks.968 Accordingly, it would be tempting to argue that the evidence of haá¹rus of sÄpirus shows that a large number of Judean landholders were literate clerks in the state administration. However, although a number of
Three documents from the beginning of the reign of Darius ii show that the haá¹rus of the sÄpirus and the sÄpirus of the troops were identical.970 A certain BÄl-YadÄ/Mannu-kÄ«-Nanâ, a Judean man called Aqbi-YÄma/BÄba-Äá¹ir, and their anonymous colleagues held a bow land belonging to the haá¹ru of sÄpirus in 28-IX-4 Dar ii (pbs 2/1 89). The bow land was located in BÄ«t-á¹¢urrÄya by the Harri-PiqÅ«du canal, and it was under the supervision of a certain Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹. Their bow land was pledged to secure a debt of 60 kurru of dates, the equivalent of the taxes in silver which RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta/Murašû had paid to their Å¡aknu. Three years earlier, BÄl-YadÄ and Aqbi-YÄma held half a bow land together with Nidinti-[Enlil] (pbs 2/1 27, 14-?-1 Dar ii).971 Their land was at the disposal of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin/Murašû, who paid taxes on their behalf to Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹/BalÄá¹u, the brother (ahu) of ZabÄ«n the Å¡aknu of [â¦]. Here ahu is not a mere designation of a collegial relationship, for the two men were actually brothers.972 In another document (pbs 2/1 29) written on the same day before the same witnesses, Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹ collects taxes on bow lands belonging to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops. He is again described as the brother of ZabÄ«n, whose title is now fully preserved as the Å¡aknu of the sÄpirus of the troops. It becomes clear that the haá¹rus of the sÄpirus and the sÄpirus of the troops were identical, and that ZabÄ«n and Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹ played a key role in the administration of this haá¹ru.
Both ZabÄ«n and Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹ worked as Å¡aknus in the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus (of the troops) during the first years of Darius ii. The evidence relating to ZabÄ«n was discussed above, and his brother Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹ held the position in the first year of Darius ii (BE 10 7, 2-I-1 Dar ii).973 This document is
The evidence discussed thus far confirms that the haá¹ru managed by ZabÄ«n and Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹ was known by three names: haá¹ru of the sÄpirus, haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops, and haá¹ru of the troops. This variance is not a result of different scribes favouring different names, because a single scribe, Ninurta-ab-uá¹£ur/Enlil-Å¡um-iddin, wrote the great majority of tablets pertaining to this haá¹ru and used all three designations.977 From now on, I use the name âhaá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troopsâ to refer to this unit. The designation âhaá¹ru of the troopsâ is attested only in BE 10 7:3 and might be a scribal mistake.978
5.3.2.3 Haá¹rus and High-Ranking SÄpirus
In addition to the three names discussed above, there are two other haá¹ru names that refer to sÄpirus. The first, haá¹ru Å¡a sÄpirÄ« Å¡a bÄ«t rab unqÄti, is attested in imt 5 (18-VI-40 Art i) and pbs 2/1 185 (2-VII-1 Dar ii).979 The name refers to the estate of the rab unqÄti (âthe one in charge of sealsâ), a high official in Babylonia who is attested in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. His exact duties are unknown, but it is likely that he belonged to the kingâs retinue.980 Apart
According to pbs 2/1 185, two Judean men, AbÄ«-YÄma/Å abbatÄya and HannÄn/Hanan-YÄma, and a certain BÄl-ittannu/QiÅ¡-ga-a belonged to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate and held a bow land which was located in BÄ«t-ErÄ«bâ by the Harri-PiqÅ«du canal. The bow land was pledged to Enlil-Å¡um-iddinâs son Murašû to secure a debt of 70 kurru of dates.981 Five years later, AbÄ«-YÄma/Å abbatÄya held a bow land together with a Judean named Zabad-YÄma and their colleagues in BÄ«t-Å alÄmÄ by the Harri-PiqÅ«du canal (pbs 2/1 218, 26-VIII-6 Dar ii). The bow land belonged to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops and was at the disposal of RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta, who paid the sÅ«tu rent of 1 mina of silver to AbÄ«-YÄma. It appears that the documents refer to two different bow lands, but it is surprising that a person named AbÄ«-YÄma/Å abbatÄya appears as a co-holder of both of them. There are no other attestations of the name AbÄ«-YÄma in the Murašû archive. It is also an important observation that the names of the two haá¹rus resemble each other and that both bow lands were located by the Harri-PiqÅ«du canal, by which some other landholdings of the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops lay.982 These observations suggest some connection between the two haá¹rus. imt 5 adds little to this discussion, but it shows that a certain Lâbâši/Nabû-ittannu and his colleagues held land belonging to the sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate. The plot was located in Til-hurdi, which lay at the junction of the Sîn and Enlil canals.983
Neither imt 5 nor pbs 2/1 185 refer to the Å¡aknu of the sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate, but the latter document reveals that the haá¹ru was under the management of a certain Mannukiya. The name (spelled Man-ki-ia or Man-nu-ki-ia) is very rare in the Murašû archive, with only one man having it. He was a servant (ardu) of Prince ManuÅ¡tÄnu in the late reign of Artaxerxes i,984 and, after the accession of Darius ii and the defeat and death of ManuÅ¡tÄnu,985 he served as a sÄpiru of GÅ«baru, the governor of Akkad.986 His father Paqiqi probably served GÅ«baru as well and acted as a Å¡aknu in the haá¹ru of the
Mannukiya was a man of importance, emphasised by the fact that he visited Susa together with RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta and other people from Babylonia at the end of Darius iiâs sixth year.989 The visits of Babylonian businessmen and officials to Susa were related to taxation,990 and Mannukiyaâs role as a sÄpiru of the governor, supervisor of a haá¹ru, and witness of tax-related transactions (EE 56; TuM 2â3 180) fits this pattern perfectly.991 Moreover, his servants received a payment for transporting barley used for flour from Nippur to the Kabaru canal, which was the principal waterway connecting Babylonia to Susa.992 In addition to managing tax flows from the Nippur region, Mannukiyaâs local importance in Nippur is underlined by a legal case involving property worth 30 minas of silver, which he witnessed together with other officials (BE 10 118). It must be noted that not all sÄpirus in the archive exercised such power, but most of them were literate clerks employed by royal officials or businessmen.993
The haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops was also managed by a high-ranking sÄpiru.994 A certain AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de, who is in charge of the haá¹ru in pbs 2/1 3, is most likely AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de the sÄpiru in BE 10 5 and pbs 2/1 173. AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de was not a low-ranking clerk but superior to the minor officials of the haá¹ru (pbs 2/1 3) and the master of a number of servants (pbs 2/1 173). He also authorised tax collection in the haá¹ru of the sword-bearers of the crown princeâs estate (BE 10 5), which connects him to Mannukiyaâs father, who supervised the same haá¹ru.995
AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de appears in pbs 2/1 3 together with a man named á¹¢ihÄ, who is perhaps identical with á¹¢ihÄ the ahÅ¡adrapÄnu (âsatrapâ) in pbs 2/1 2.996 In addition to AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de and á¹¢ihÄ, two other men, PatÄÅ¡u and IspitÄmaË, had authority over the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops in the first year of Darius ii.997 Their titles are not given in any text, but they appear to be men of high rank. IspitÄmaË was perhaps the son of PatÄÅ¡u, and he is attested as a member of the jury in a legal case from the accession year of Darius ii (imt 105)998 and perhaps as a landholder in the environs of Babylon or Borsippa in a text from the Kasr archive (unpublished ybc 11562).999
It is hardly a coincidence that both Mannukiya and AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de were sÄpirus. Although the offices held by á¹¢ihÄ, PatÄÅ¡u, and IspitÄmaË remain uncertain, it is reasonable to suggest that the sÄpirus who are referred to in the names of some haá¹rus were officials of high rank and beneficiaries of the landholdings, not the people who cultivated the fields, paid taxes, and performed military service.1000
Mannukiya also helps to establish a link between the sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate and ZabÄ«n, the Å¡aknu of the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops. The two men appear in a document of litigation in Nippur in 13-I-7 Dar ii (BE 10 118): only the seal of ZabÄ«n/BalÄá¹u and the accompanying caption have been preserved, but he was most probably among the witnesses of the document. He bears here an exceptional title, didakku, an Iranian loanword based on *didÄ«-ka (âsupervisorâ).1001 This is the only attestation of didakku in Babylonian sources, and it likely renders his usual title Å¡aknu. Mannukiya is listed among the witnesses together with IqÄ«Å¡a, his frequent companion and a sÄpiru of GÅ«baru.1002 Their official titles are not preserved in the document, but another document related to the same litigation (EE 111) features IqÄ«Å¡a, the sÄpiru of GÅ«baru, and thus confirms the identification. In light of these documents, it appears more and more unlikely that the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops and the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate were unrelated.
There is yet another administrative designation pertaining to sÄpirus, namely, the Å¡aknu of the sÄpirus of the rab ummuâs estate. A certain Lâbâši/MuÅ¡Äzib-BÄl, who held this title in the third year of Darius ii (pbs 2/1 196, 28-VI-3 Dar ii), was in charge of a bow land in the village of BannÄÅ¡u1003 by the Namgar-dÅ«r-Enlil canal. The word haá¹ru does not occur in this document, but there is no doubt that the text concerns a similar administrative unit. The rab ummu was a Babylonian official, but, as is the case of the rab unqÄti, his concrete duties are mostly unknown.1004 A text from the Ebabbar archive (BM 64707)1005 and the rab ummuâs seal impression with a military scene (Stolper 2001 no. 9) may imply that he had a military function, and Stolper proposes that the word ummu in his title may mean âquiverâ.1006 However, this remains speculative in the absence of further evidence.1007 The title rab ummu is attested in several texts from the Murašû archive, and one holder of this title, MÄ«nu-ana-BÄl-dÄn/ṬahhÅ«a, is known by name.1008
MÄ«nu-ana-BÄl-dÄn the rab ummu can also be connected to the sÄpirus of the governor GÅ«baru. He witnessed a large tax payment of 15 minas of silver in Nippur together with Tattannu/Aplâ the simmagir and BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur/ BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur, the sÄpiru of the governor GÅ«baru (BE 10 101, 18-VII-5 Dar ii). The career of BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur was perhaps similar to that of Mannukiya, who first served Prince ManuÅ¡tÄnu and later the governor GÅ«baru. In 29-III-40 Art i, a certain BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur/BÄl-[â¦] the brewer (lúsiraÅ¡), another brewer, and a mÄr [bÄ«ti?] of ManuÅ¡tÄnu received a sÅ«tu payment of 40 kurru of kasû by the written order of ManuÅ¡tÄnu (imt 40). As the lower left horizontal wedge of the ad sign and the upper right Winkelhaken of the ùru sign seem to be preserved, reconstructing BÄl-ab-uá¹£urâs patronymic as BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur is likely.1009 Given the delivery of kasû, a plant commonly used in brewing,1010 BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur was obviously a brewer of some sort. However, he was not necessarily involved in the actual brewing process; he could perhaps have been a foreman of a brewery held by ManuÅ¡tÄnu.1011 In the early years of Darius ii, BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur/BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur is attested in three
5.3.2.4 Conclusion
A careful reading of the texts pertaining to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops, sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate, and sÄpirus of the rab ummuâs estate reveals close connections between the officials in charge of these holdings. At the same time, it becomes clear that the administrative structures in the land-for-service sector were complex and several people of higher and lower statuses participated in the management of landholdings and their taxation. Two brothers, ZabÄ«n and Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹, took care of the everyday affairs of the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops, but three different men â AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de, PatÄÅ¡u, and IspitÄmaË â figure as their superiors in the first year of Darius ii. At the same time, Mannukiya managed the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate. Other documents reveal that both AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de and Mannukiya were sÄpirus, but not mere alphabetic scribes.
The career of Mannukiya is especially noteworthy: he first served Prince ManuÅ¡tÄnu and later the governor GÅ«baru, and he travelled to Susa in his role as an official in charge of tax flows from Babylonia. He also knew ZabÄ«n and another sÄpiru of GÅ«baru, BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur. In his turn, BÄl-ab-uá¹£ur was in contact with both ZabÄ«n and Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹, and he witnessed an important transaction with MÄ«nu-ana-BÄl-dÄn, the rab ummu. Accordingly, the people managing the three haá¹rus of sÄpirus were closely connected. Moreover, AbÄ«-YÄma/Å abbatÄya was obviously a landholder in the haá¹rus of the sÄpirus of the troops and the sÄpirus of the rab unqÄtiâs estate.
The case of AbÄ«-ul-Ä«de and Mannukiya suggests that the holders of bow lands in these three haá¹rus were not sÄpirus themselves but subordinates of
It is evident that Gadal-YÄma was supposed to perform military service as a horseman, and he was not the only soldier travelling to Uruk at this time. Six other documents from the Murašû archive show that holders of bow lands in the Nippur region were obliged to send soldiers to Uruk in the tenth month of the second year of Darius ii.1019 The terminology employed in the texts makes it very clear that people were fitted out as soldiers and were sent to Uruk to perform actual service. Although external sources do not shed light on the circumstances which led to the mustering of troops at this precise moment â if the call-up was not annual1020 â the documents emphasise the fact that the military and service obligations attached to bow and horse lands were not fictional. As there is no military rationale to send an educated scribe or clerk to serve as a soldier, Gadal-YÄma, a member of the family who held the horse land, was hardly a sÄpiru. The document is the only piece of evidence showing that Judeans also held shares in horse lands.
The previous investigation has revealed that the sÄpirus who lent their titles to the pertinent haá¹rus were not subordinates of these units but high officials
A number of people and institutions were supervisors and beneficiaries of the haá¹ru, among them the sÄpirus, the rab ummu, the rab unqÄti, their estates, the governor of Akkad, and, eventually, the king. Like in the environs of YÄhÅ«du, the highest official in this administrative hierarchy was a governor, in this case GÅ«baru. His sÄpirus, high officials in the Nippur region, supervised the landholdings and tax flows together with the staff of the rab ummuâs and rab unqÄtiâs estates. This structure also resembles the situation in the surroundings of YÄhÅ«du, where the deputy of the rab urâti was in charge of the governorâs lands. This picture is in line with Stolperâs observations about the administration of other landholding units in the Nippur countryside.1022 Judean landholders in the haá¹ru were not sÄpirus themselves but farmers who had to perform actual military service for the state.
5.3.3 Large-Scale Landholding: Rahīm-il and His Family
Not all Judean landholders in the land-for-service sector farmed a modest plot of land. Some had significantly larger holdings. An important example is RahÄ«m-il, who together with his family held several plots, including a horse land, in the Nippur region.1023 At least some of RahÄ«m-ilâs landholdings belonged to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus: Gadal-YÄma, who was discussed above in the context of his trip to Uruk to perform military service, was RahÄ«m-ilâs son (ucp 9/3). The family is attested in eleven documents from the thirty-third year of Artaxerxes I until the fifth year of Darius ii. Figure 10 presents their family tree.
The earliest document pertaining to the family is EE 35 (17-I-[33] Art i), a receipt of a sÅ«tu payment in silver from BarÄ«k-il/RahÄ«m-il to MunnÄtu/Umahparê. The amount of silver is broken and the juridical status of the pertinent landholding remains unclear. MunnÄtu/Umahparê, the recipient of the rental payment, was probably a royal official, judging by his Iranian name and Egyptian patronymic.1024 UdarnaË, a brother of BarÄ«k-il, witnessed the transaction.
UdarnaËâs Iranian name1025 betrays his fatherâs familiarity with the onomasticon of the foreign elite, which most likely resulted from regular contact with the officials in the land-for-service sector. This view is supported by two documents which UdarnaË witnessed in the following years. The first one pertains to Enlil-Å¡um-iddinâs leasing of land for thirty years from Halabesu/Paá¹-Esu and Halabesu/MukÄÅ¡u (imt 3, 8-XI-34 Art i), and the second one to Enlil-Å¡um-iddinâs sÅ«tu rent payment to MitrÄn, a servant of the maÅ¡ennu official Tattannu (BE 9 59, ?-?-37 Art i). MitrÄnâs name is Iranian,1026 and Halabesuâs Egyptian patronymic Paá¹-Esu1027 suggests that he was connected to the royal administration.
The life of the family was affected by distrust and tension between the brothers. In the thirty-ninth year of Artaxerxes i, UdarnaË addressed Enlil-Å¡um-iddin at the assembly (puhru) of Nippur, claiming that Enlil-Å¡um-iddinâs servants and agents together with UdarnaËâs brother Zabdia and a certain BÄl-ittannu, had come to UdarnaËâs house and taken his property illegally (BE 9 69,
The extensive size of RahÄ«m-ilâs landholdings becomes apparent in BE 9 86a (?-?-[41] Art i). This document is a lease of several plots of land from Enlil-Å¡um-iddin to his slave Ea-zittiÅ¡u/AhdatuÅ¡e and a certain [G]a-da-al-Ë-a/Å abbatÄya. The leased lands consist of the holdings of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin and two bow lands of RahÄ«m-il and his sons (Ira-hi-im-dingir.meÅ¡ u dumu.meÅ¡-šú). RahÄ«m-ilâs bow lands must have been vast, as one holding was located in Til-GabbÄri, BÄ«t-il-Å¡akÄ, Til-RahÄ«mu, and the environs (limÄ«tu) of Til-GabbÄri, and the other in Titurru Å¡a simmagir, HuṣṣÄti Å¡a [rÄËê?],1030 IÅ¡qallÅ«nu, BÄ«t-KikÄ«, BÄ«t-AkkÄ, and extending onto both sides of the Simmagir canal. In addition to these lands, 72 oxen, 18 ploughs, seed corn, and barley for the wages of workmen were included in the three-year lease, the annual rent of which was 2,700 kurru of produce and additional payments.
A reference to the bow lands of RahÄ«m-il and his sons in BE 9 86a would not alone confirm that the RahÄ«m-il in question is identical with the Judean man discussed in this section. However, [G]a-da-al-Ë-a/Å abbatÄya, the lessee of the lands in BE 9 86a, can be connected to the Judean family. First, there was a close relationship between a certain Gadal-YÄma/Å abbatÄya and the family of RahÄ«m-il. Hanan-YÄma/UdarnaË and Gadal-YÄma/Å abbatÄya together witnessed two documents, the litigation document BE 9 69 and BE 10 7 (2-I-1 Dar ii), a receipt of tax payment from horse and bow lands belonging to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops. Second, Ga-da-al-Ë-a is a hypocoristic writing of Gadal-YÄma. A similar writing of the name Gadal-YÄma is attested in EE 65 (20?-VI-[41 Art i]), in which a seal caption naming a certain Ga-da-al-ia is preserved on a partially illegible tablet. The same cylinder seal is attested in ucp 9/3, in which the seal userâs name is Gadal-YÄma.1031 We may conclude that [G]a-da-al-Ë-a/Å abbatÄya in BE 9 86a was identical with Gadal-YÄma/Å abbatÄya
It becomes apparent that RahÄ«m-il was not a subsistence farmer cultivating a small plot with his family but a significant landholder in the land-for-service sector. The same picture emerges from ucp 9/3, which concerns the horse land of RahÄ«m-il. His son Gadal-YÄma travelled to Uruk to perform the military service incumbent on the holder of the horse land. This RahÄ«m-il is most likely identical with the RahÄ«m-il discussed in this section, as, according to the text, he had given BarÄ«k-ilâs share in the horse land to Enlil-Å¡um-iddin by means of a fictional adoption. Our RahÄ«m-il had a son named BarÄ«k-il as well, and the document fits the picture of a family that was a significant landholder in the Nippur region but suffered from financial difficulties in the late reign of Artaxerxes i. During that difficult period â perhaps related to the accession wars after Artaxerxesâ death â Enlil-Å¡um-iddin was able to interfere with the family property. The fictional adoption of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin was obviously a way to transfer part of the horse land to the Murašûs and perhaps settle some outstanding claims (ucp 9/3).1032 Similarly, some bow lands of the family had come into the disposal of Enlil-Å¡um-iddin, possibly via a lease or as pledged property (BE 9 86a). Finally, the tensions between Enlil-Å¡um-iddin and RahÄ«m-ilâs family are betrayed by the litigation over UdarnaËâs stolen property (BE 9 69).
Despite its difficulties, the family did not disappear from the scene after the accession of Darius ii, and Hanan-YÄma is attested twice as a witness in the fourth and fifth years of the king (BE 10 84; pbs 2/1 107). It is noteworthy that he impressed a different seal on the later document, compared to BE 9 69 seven years before.1033 Ownership of seals was very common in this family, as UdarnaË, Hanan-YÄma, and Gadal-YÄma1034 all impressed their seals on one or more documents in the archive. This is suggestive of the high socio-economic status of the family. An interesting feature of the seals is their imagery, which always employs the motif of a bull or lion. This may tell something about the preferences of the family, because these motifs were not otherwise favoured by Judean seal owners.1035
The texts pertaining to Rahīm-il and his descendants constitute an exceptionally informative group about an important Judean family in the Nippur region. The family had several large landholdings in the land-for-service sector,
The only comparable group of texts related to Judeans are the documents on the community in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. Although the groups differ in many ways, they show a similar relationship between the Murašûs and the protagonists of the text groups. The protagonists had significant resources at their disposal, but their distressed financial situation or aspiration to expand their farming activities forced them to seek help from the Murašûs. This is a common pattern in the archive, and Judean landholders are usually attested only when they needed the services provided by the Nippurean family. Those Judeans who never sought such help or support are invisible to us. This aspect of the archiveâs composition needs to be taken seriously, as it can greatly affect the conclusions about Judean landholding in the Nippur region.
5.3.4 Other Judean Landholders
Apart from the documents discussed above, one more Judean landholder can be connected to a particular haá¹ru. BE 10 92 (13?-IX-4 Dar ii) is a receipt of a sÅ«tu rent of grain fields (zÄrÅ« pÄ« Å¡ulpi) in AppÄru Å¡a Tahmiya and GammalÄ, which belonged to the haá¹ru of the gardu. Å abbatÄya/Hi-il-lu-mu-tu â a man of Judean origin1036 â held these lands together with Il-gabrÄ« and Nabû-nÄ, the sons of Å Å«zubu, and their anonymous colleagues. The same brothers appear again in imt 32 (?-V-? Dar ii) as holders of a bow land which was leased out for date cultivation. The communal nature of landholding is apparent again, as the brothers held this date plantation with two other named colleagues from the haá¹ru of the gardu. The appellation gardu is somewhat elusive in Babylonia, but its semantic range corresponds to its Elamite counterpart kurtaÅ¡, which is a designation for state-dependent workers in the Persepolis archives.1037
The rest of the land properties (co-)held by Judeans cannot be linked to any particular haá¹ru or estate. In two documents related to the same litigation over land properties in GammalÄ and IÅ¡qallÅ«nu (BE 10 118, 13-I-7 Dar ii; and EE 111,
In addition to the documents pertaining to the bow and horse lands, four texts relate to bÄ«t rittis and one text to a date garden (co-)held by Judeans. The earliest attestation of a Judean landholder and the second earliest text in the whole Murašû archive is BE 9 3 (26-II-13 Art i), in which Enlil-hÄtin/Murašû leases the bÄ«t ritti land of Arad-Gula and Hanan-YÄma to five people for sharecropping. As customary, any institutional affiliation of the bÄ«t ritti is not given, but as pointed out above, landholdings designed like this may also have belonged to a temple or the crown. Another bÄ«t ritti, held by Haggâ/PN and Mattan-YÄma/PN, is mentioned in passing in EE 24 (?-X-? Art i). The landholders rent two oxen from Enlil-Å¡um-iddin to plough the fields in their bÄ«t ritti. The bÄ«t ritti lands of Yadi-YÄma (BE 9 25, 45) were discussed in Section 5.2.2.
There is only one document that refers to a Judean landholder not explicitly linked to the land-for-service sector or an institutional landholding. Hanan-YÄma/Aplâ had leased his date plantation (zÄru zaqpu) in BÄ«t-MurÄnu by the Harri-PiqÅ«du canal to RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta, who paid the imittu rent in 20 shekels of silver instead of dates (EE 34, 4-VII-7 Dar ii). It is interesting that Hanan-YÄma bore the title sÄpiru (see Section 5.4) and he had given an Iranian name BagÄÅ¡u1038 to his son. GukkaË,1039 the slave of BagÄÅ¡u, collected the rental payment from the sÄpirus of RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta. There is no reason to suppose that Hanan-YÄma was a high-ranking official like Mannukiya; more likely he was one of the petty officials attested in the Murašû archive. His duties perhaps brought him into regular contact with the Persians, which could have encouraged him to give an Iranian name to his son.
5.3.5 Patterns of Judean Landholding
The results of the previous survey of Judean landholders and landholdings conform to the general patterns of the Murašû archive. Judeans are primarily attested as holders of bow lands and bīt rittis, and only one Judean landholder
There seems to be no reason to doubt that most Judean deportees worked in the land-for-service sector in Babylonia. The picture emerging from the Murašû archive is consistent with that from the environs of YÄhÅ«du: Judeans were settled in communities and assigned to certain administrative units which were still observable 150 years after the deportations from Judah. The strong Judean presence in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya and the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus emphasises this observation, but there are also other villages in which Judeans are regularly attested. Noteworthy examples are GammalÄ1040 and IÅ¡qallÅ«nu:1041 Judeans are present in every document pertaining to the former, and a group of Judeans owned houses in the latter (BE 10 118; EE 111).1042 The landholders in IÅ¡qallÅ«nu bore exclusively West Semitic names, and, in addition to Judeans, Philistines obviously lived in this twin town of Ashkelon.1043 There is no evidence of a haá¹ru of Judeans, but the administrative logic behind the local communities and the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus was the same. It was practical to retain the basic communal structures which allowed the local officials to deal with the representatives of the community, not directly with each family unit.
The communal aspect of landholding characterises the transactions pertaining to Judean farmers. There is no direct evidence of landholdings being split into tiny fragments by inheritance divisions; rather, judging by their patronymics, the co-holders of land properties were often unrelated. As I argued above, the idea of shrinking landholdings is contradictory to the aims of the land-for-service sector. If land was readily available and the crown strived to increase agricultural output and tax flows, there was every reason to bring new lands under cultivation when the existing fields and gardens could not support their holders anymore.
It must also be emphasised that there was a lot of flexibility in the terminology pertaining to the land-for-service sector. A bow land was not a plot of
Finally, it must be emphasised that farming communities and groups of co-landholders were hardly homogenous. Some co-landholders of Judeans bore Babylonian names, and Philistine deportees must have composed the bulk of the original population in the village of IÅ¡qallÅ«nu. These two phenomena â the survival of communities and their constant interaction with other deportees â have important implications for the discussion of Judean culture and identity in the Nippur countryside. I will return to these questions in Section 5.7 below.
5.4 Judean Officials
The efficient collection of taxes and organisation of work and military service necessitated the presence of administrative personnel in Nippur and the surrounding countryside. Judeans are not attested among the higher functionaries of the hierarchy, but some minor officials were recruited from their ranks.
As I argued above, the Judeans attached to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus were not sÄpirus themselves, and there is no reason to suppose that the level of literacy was high among the Judean farmers. Hanan-YÄma/Aplâ is the single Judean sÄpiru attested in the archive (EE 34).1044 The Iranian name BagÄÅ¡u, given to his son, suggests that Hanan-YÄma was in regular contact with the Persian authorities, which naturally fits his profession. Nothing is known about Hanan-YÄmaâs professional duties, because EE 34 pertains to the lease of his date plantation (see Section 5.3.4). However, there is no reason to suppose that he was a high-ranking official like Mannukiya; more likely he was one of the petty officials attested in the Murašû archive.
The duties of four Judean officials were directly related to the administration of the land-for-service sector. IÅ¡rib-YÄma/Pili-YÄma, the only Judean Å¡aknu in the Murašû archive, managed the haá¹ru of the Å¡uÅ¡Änus of the storehouse (nakkandu).1045 As Å¡aknus were not systematically recruited from among the
A Judean called Il-yadin/Yadi-YÄma1051 was a servant (ardu) of ArtahÅ¡ar as well. He and Nidinti-Å amaÅ¡/Kartakku, another servant of ArtahÅ¡ar, collected a rental payment (zittu) originating from the fields of their master in pbs 2/1 84 ([Sîn-b]ÄlÅ¡unu, 19-V-4 Dar ii). The lands were taken on lease by the Murašûs, and, two years later, RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta and Il-yadin are attested as co-creditors in Sîn-bÄlÅ¡unu (pbs 2/1 121, 10-VI-6 Dar ii). Il-yadin does not bear any title in the latter document, and RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta appears to have been the main creditor who kept the pledged bow land at his disposal until the debt was paid back. Although Il-yadin is not attested in other documents, his colleague Nidinti-Å amaÅ¡ is better known. He was the manager (paqdu) of ArtahÅ¡arâs estate and a frequent witness in the early reign of Darius ii.1052 His co-occurrence with Il-yadin and the contents of pbs 2/1 84 and 121 suggest that the Judean was also
Parysatis, the Persian queen and wife of Darius ii, held lands in the Nippur region, which were managed by her paqdu Ea-bullissu.1054 A Judean called Mattan-YÄma/AmuÅ¡e collected rental payments from the Murašûs on behalf of Ea-bullissu in pbs 2/1 50 (12-IX-3 Dar ii)1055 and witnessed another rental payment pertaining to Parysatisâ holdings in pbs 2/1 60 (3-IV-3 Dar ii). He impressed his iron ring on both documents.1056 Mattan-YÄma is also attested in EE 113 (?-?-33+ Art i), which does not refer to Parysatis or Ea-bullissu but is a contract between four Judeans and Enlil-Å¡um-iddin. The Judeans, one of them Mattan-YÄma, owed a debt which they agreed to pay back by providing Enlil-Å¡um-iddin with forty paid workers and ten Å¡uÅ¡Änus for a month. The document attests that human labour was used to pay off debts,1057 but unfortunately the text does not specify the relationship between the debtors and the workforce. However, BE 9 28 (18-VII-31 Art i) sheds some light on the institutional affiliation of the debtors: Å illimu/YÄhû-laqim, one of the co-debtors in EE 113, appears as a witness to rental payments pertaining to the lands of the queenâs estate (é mà šá é.gal).1058
The emerging picture conforms to Stolperâs hypothesis that Parysatis took over the landholdings of the former queen after the accession of her husband Darius ii.1059 In the late reign of Artaxerxes i, a group of Judeans were attached to the queenâs estate. The four Judeans were in a position to hire forty paid workers and order ten Å¡uÅ¡Änus to work for the Murašûs, but their relationship to the workers is not made explicit. Given the fact that the Judeans were indebted to the Murašûs, the transaction should be seen in the same context as EE 92, in which YÄhû-natan and BÄnia lease a canal from the Murašûs and pay the rent by assuming the maintenance work of the canal. As headmen of the village of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, YÄhû-natan and BÄnia had the resources of the community at their disposal. Likewise, the four Judeans of EE 113 were representatives of the local community, and they were important enough to be mentioned as witnesses in other documents as well. In the reign of Darius ii, Parysatis gained control over the queenâs estate and the landholdings attached to it, including the holding of Mattan-YÄma and his Judean colleagues. In this new situation,
Finally, a Judean man called BarÄ«k-YÄma, a servant (ardu) of the maÅ¡ennu official Artabara,1060 collected some oil from the subordinates of RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta (BE 10 60, 25-IX-2 Dar ii). He acted together with BÄl-iddin/BÄl-bullissu, the sÄpiru of the maÅ¡ennu. BarÄ«k-YÄma did not impress a seal on the tablet and he is not attested in any other document.
Some Judeans worked as minor officials in the land-for-service sector of the Nippur region, but the number is small in comparison to the numerous attestations of Egyptian officials. Moreover, unlike Egyptians, Judeans are only attested on the lowest rungs of the administrative hierarchy.1061 Only two Judeans, one sÄpiru and one Å¡aknu, bore a formal title, but the Judean servants of high officials obviously acted in an official position as well. The Murašû archive provides examples of people who are sometimes designated as servants of high officials and royalty but bear an official title in other documents.1062 An interesting feature that characterises Judean officials is the frequent use of seals, implying that they participated in transactions so often that it made sense for them to acquire one. The imagery of these seals and the hints they give of their ownersâ cultural identity will be discussed below in Section 5.7.
5.5 Judean Witnesses
In almost half (45%) of all occurrences in the Murašû archive, Judeans are attested as witnesses. Some Judean witnesses, such as Pili-YÄma and UdarnaË, had a business relationship with the Murašû family, but 55 per cent of Judean witnesses are never attested as principals in the documents. It is well known that the parties of a transaction sought to have their family members, friends, and business partners as witnesses to their documents,1063 and the Murašû family also had its circle of frequent witnesses.1064 The testimony of such witnesses
Judeans witnessed transactions concerning their family members and other Judean acquaintances, but this was only sometimes the case. Pili-YÄma, for instance, witnessed two documents pertaining to Yadi-YÄma (BE 9 45; EE 98), as well as three others which do not pertain to any Judean principal (BE 9 34; imt 7â8). The three latter documents were written on the same day before the same witnesses, and they all concern Enlil-Å¡um-iddinâs business dealings. Mattan-YÄma/Å irkÄ is attested three times as a witness to RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurtaâs transactions, but only one of the documents features Judean principals (BE 10 83; EE 34; pbs 2/1 203). Likewise, UdarnaËâs son Hanan-YÄma witnessed a litigation concerning his father (BE 9 69), but he appears as a witness in three documents without Judean principals (BE 10 7, 84; pbs 2/1 107). These two men themselves are never attested as principals of a transaction, but they both owned a seal1066 and were obviously men of some importance. It is possible, of course, that Pili-YÄma, Mattan-YÄma, or Hanan-YÄma belonged to the Murašû familyâs circle of witnesses, but it is more likely that they acted in an official capacity or were considered neutral parties, who were occasionally asked to witness a document when they were available in Nippur.1067
5.6 Socio-Economic Status
5.6.1 The Framework of the Archive: the Land-for-Service Sector
The text groups discussed above shed light on different aspects of life in the Nippur countryside. The documents pertaining to Yadi-YÄma, Pili-YÄma, and the villagers in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya show few affinities with the texts relating to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus. The former group lacks the keywords typical of the land-for-service sector, such as haá¹ru, bow land, and Å¡aknu, and it attests to the efforts of villagers and their representatives to make the best of their economic situation in the Babylonian countryside. On the other hand, Judeans attached to haá¹rus and Judean officials were evidently living in the framework of the land-for-service sector and under the control of high officials and royal estates. It is not immediately clear if the seeming difference between the two groups is
However, the structures of the land-for-service sector were not created in the beginning of Darius iiâs reign. Bow lands and haá¹ru-like structures existed in the environs of YÄhÅ«du long before the Murašû archive. Given the importance of the land-for-service sector in the Nippur countryside, it is unlikely that the villagers in BÄ«t-GÄrÄya â many of them descendants of Judean deportees â were left outside of it. Although bÄ«t ritti is an ambiguous term in this regard, it implies that Yadi-YÄmaâs landholdings were not exclusively his private property. At the same time, the case of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya reminds us that the landholders in the land-for-service sector were not deprived of their agency and that they could strive to improve their economic situation. This picture is corroborated by other texts as well. BE 10 118 and EE 111 show that owning private lands and holding bow lands were not mutually exclusive, and AhÄ«qam and AhÄ«qar did much more than cultivate their landholdings in YÄhÅ«du and NaÅ¡ar. The texts pertaining to BÄ«t-GÄrÄya should be seen in this context.
In general, it has to be kept in mind that the Murašû archive emphasises certain social and economic aspects of life in the Nippur countryside. Because credit granting and agricultural management dominate the contents of the preserved texts, Judeans are usually attested when they needed assistance with farming their lands or fulfilling the state obligations imposed on them. Those who did not require such services had little reason to deal with the Murašû family. Alternatively, the Murašûs met some Judean minor officials when managing lands belonging to the state and royalty. This structural skew may lead to inaccurate conclusions about the economic status of agricultural communities, because their financial difficulties are more likely to be reflected in the archive than their ability to pay taxes and fulfil service obligations. Consequently, other economic activities than farming are obviously underrepresented. A couple of texts shed light on other ways of making a living in the countryside: in one case, a Judean fisherman and his colleagues lease nets from a servant of the Murašûs (pbs 2/1 208),1068 and in another a Judean herd the sheep and goats of Prince Aršam (pbs 2/1 148). In any event, half of the population is absent from the archive: not a single Judean woman is attested.
5.6.2 Taxation and Service Obligations
Given the fact that the Judeans in the Murašû archive were primarily attached to the land-for-service sector of the Babylonian economy, taxation and service obligations had a decisive impact on their life and economic situation. However, only two texts shed light on the taxation of Judean landholders in particular. These documents pertain to the taxation of the bow land held by Aqbi-YÄma, together with his co-landholders in the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops. Even in this case the payment was indirect, as members of the Murašû family paid taxes on behalf of landholders. In the first year of Darius ii, Enlil-Å¡um-iddin paid the qÄmu and bÄru taxes (pbs 2/1 27), and three years later, the landholders owed 60 kurru of dates to RÄ«mÅ«t-Ninurta, who had paid their taxes in silver (pbs 2/1 89). An instructive case is also BE 10 65, in which the Judean Å¡aknu IÅ¡rib-YÄma collects the taxes incumbent on a number of bow lands. The payment of 2 minas of silver comprises the whole ilku, the kingâs man (á¹£Äb Å¡arri), flour (qÄmu), bÄru, and any other presents to the house of the king (mimma nadÄnÄtu Å¡a bÄ«t Å¡arri).
The terminology employed in these documents is representative of the Murašû archive as a whole.1069 The usual phrase covering the annual tax obligation is ilku gamrÅ«tu á¹£Äb Å¡arri qÄmu Å¡a Å¡arri bÄru u mimma nadÄnÄtu Å¡a bÄ«t Å¡arri, meaning âthe whole ilku tax, the kingâs man, the kingâs flour, the bÄru tax, and any other presents to the house of the kingâ. In the Murašû archive, this tax obligation is normally paid in silver. The word ilku originally denoted a service obligation towards the state, but in the late fifth century, it had become an umbrella term which could include all other tax payments as well. In fact, it is customarily used alone, having the same general meaning as the entire long phrase.1070á¹¢Äb Å¡arri, the kingâs troops, still designated actual service in the sixth century, but the documents from the Murašû archive refer to it as a type of tax payment.1071 The flour tax (qÄmu) relates to agricultural produce provided for the king. As grinding flour was considered a menial task, delivering flour to oneâs overlord can be seen as a symbolic act. The nature of the bÄru tax â an Iranian loanword meaning âto carryâ â is not well understood.1072 The litany of taxes paid in silver is completed by the reference to any other deliverables to the king (mimma nadÄnÄtu Å¡a bÄ«t Å¡arri), affirming that everything was included
It has to be noted, however, that there was a real link between landholdings and service obligations in the late fifth century as well. This is emphasised by the texts from the second year of Darius ii, which show how the holders of bow and horse lands in the Nippur region had to equip bowmen and horsemen and send them to Uruk.1073 The service was performed by the landholders themselves. Gadal-YÄma, the co-holder of a horse land, travelled to Uruk with a horse, arms, and other necessary gear of a horseman. This text group is exceptional in the Murašû archive, but the affair was perhaps not exceptional in itself. Ad hoc recruitment of soldiers would have been extremely impractical, especially when it came to horsemen and charioteers. As one cannot ride a horse or chariot â let alone engage in battle â without training, it would have been a waste of resources to equip unskilled farmers with very expensive animals and gear and then send them to perish in their first encounter with the enemy. Horses were not used in Babylonian agriculture, and, unlike in early modern Europe, the average farmer or landholder probably had no experience of riding or handling a horse. It therefore seems likely that Gadal-YÄma and his colleagues had received training and that they belonged to a permanent reserve of the army. Work service in the land-for-service sector was also concrete: two documents pertaining to Judean communities (EE 92, 113) show how a large group of people could be assigned to dig a canal or work for the Murašû family in order to pay back a substantial debt.
The documents from the environs of YÄhÅ«du corroborate the view that tax payments and concrete service obligations could exist at the same time.1074SÅ«tu and imittu payments in produce and ilku payments in silver were delivered by proxies to the officials who managed the land-for-service sector, and these payments should be considered taxes. At the same time, landholders hired substitutes to perform work and military service on their behalf. Although actual work or military service is only sporadically attested in the environs of YÄhÅ«du and in the Murašû archive, the preserved texts show that such levies were imposed and that ilku payments in silver did not cover all service obligations. There are obvious reasons why concrete military and work service is rarely attested in the Murašû archive: the service obligations were not incumbent on the Murašûs, and they only touched upon the Nippurean family if landholders needed credit to fulfil their duties. If a Å¡aknu ordered thirty landholders in his haá¹ru to travel to Elam, this left no traces in the archive.
It also has to be taken into account that the average bow land in the late fifth century does not appear to have been cultivated by a single farmer and his family but a larger group of co-landholders.1075 The size of bow lands varied significantly, and the tax and service obligations had to vary respectively. In any case, a larger group of landholders was obviously better suited for fulfilling the service obligations, and the single farmer did not need to balance between the agricultural duties and his other obligations. The communal aspect of landholding and the attachment of bow lands to haá¹rus and larger estates imply that substitutes could easily be recruited locally.
Indebtedness among landholders and their strained economic situation in relation to the Murašû family are characteristic features of the Murašû archive.1076 They are reflected in the texts pertaining to Judeans as well: Yadi-YÄma and his colleagues had to lease Yadi-YÄmaâs pledged landholdings from the Murašûs, and RahÄ«m-ilâs landholdings had come into the disposal of the Nippurean family. The documents pertaining to AhÄ«qarâs activities show that the same difficulties also touched upon some landholders in the environs of NaÅ¡ar. However, it is impossible to know if this picture applies to landholders in the land-for-service sector in general. We are again dependent on the available sources, which illustrate the situation from the perspective of the credit grantor. If a landholder did not need credit, this left no traces in the archives of the businessmen in the land-for-service sector.
We may conclude that Judean landholders in the land-for-service sector were subject to tax payments in silver and to concrete work and military service. Although tax payments in silver are prevalent in the Murašû archive, the central aim of the whole tax regime was to provide the state with workers and soldiers, not to fill the Persian treasuries with tons of the precious metal.1077 However, taxes paid in silver could be used to hire troops and labour locally. It is therefore likely that many Judeans had to serve the state as workers or soldiers not only in Babylonia but also in other parts of the empire. The burden of these obligations on a single farmer remains unclear;1078 although there are symptoms of indebtedness among Judean landholders, there are reasons to suppose that such cases are overrepresented in the Murašû archive.
5.6.3 Dependency and Freedom
The majority of Judeans in the Murašû archive are farmers, and a small number worked as minor officials in the land-for-service sector. There are no
Unlike in the environs of YÄhÅ«du, Judeans are not explicitly called Å¡uÅ¡Änus in the Murašû archive, although the term is well attested, especially in the names of haá¹rus.1081 As discussed in Section 4.2.2, the term refers to dependent people who were attached to the state or landed estates and who could not be sold into chattel slavery. Despite the lack of direct evidence, it is probable that the status of Å¡uÅ¡Änu applied to some part of the Judean population in the environs of Nippur. An important text in this regard is EE 113, in which four Judeans provide Enlil-Å¡um-iddin with forty paid workers and ten Å¡uÅ¡Änus to pay a back a debt. This text seems to imply that there were two sorts of people in rural communities: those who had to be actually hired and those who could be sent to work without salary. In light of the evidence from YÄhÅ«du, it seems likely that the holders of bow lands predominantly belonged to the category of Å¡uÅ¡Änus. Stolper might be right in suggesting that â[t]he frequency of the term Å¡uÅ¡Änu in characterizing ḫaá¹rus and their members indicates that this status was typical and perhaps universal among Babylonian feudatoriesâ.1082
The context of the land-for-service sector proved to be a successful way to control Judean deportees and their descendants for more than 150 years after the deportations to Babylonia. Although some Judeans held large plots of land and they could work as minor officials and engage in business activities, the constraints of landholding effectively limited their freedom. There was no need to enslave the deportees. As it was not possible to sell the plots and get rid
5.7 Culture
Like other legal documents from Babylonia, the Murašû archive is a difficult source for the study of culture and identity among the rural population. The texts pertain to the economic activities of a Babylonian family, and Judeans appear in the documents only sporadically. The Murašû archive has one advantage, however: seal impressions on the tablets are abundant, and nineteen seals used by Judeans are also attested. Because there are clearly distinguishable patterns of seal use in the archive, the choice of seals appears to adhere to the preferences of their users. The imagery of the seals can therefore reveal something about the Judean seal users as well.
5.7.1 Seal Use
The seals used by Judeans are an important source of information about the taste and preferences of their users. However, some caution needs to be exercised: the use of a certain seal does not necessarily imply that its imagery reflected its userâs values or beliefs. In any case, Bregsteinâs analysis of sealing practices in the Murašû archive highlights some differences in the seal choice between various social and ethnic groups.1083 As the number of different seals in the Murašû archive is close to 700,1084 these statistical differences cannot be taken as completely incidental. Bregsteinâs criteria for identifying Judeans are somewhat different from the ones used in the present study,1085 and the figures which she provides cannot be used as such. Table 2 lists the seal users whom I identify as Judeans.
Following Bregsteinâs typology, the seals used by Judeans can be assigned to four different categories.1086 The two largest ones are contest scenes (6 attestations, 38%)1087 and Western-style rings (5 attestations, 31%).1088 Three seal
The first remarkable feature of Judean seal usage is the large number of Western-style rings and rings in general. By âWestern-style ringsâ, Bregstein refers to motifs which were not traditionally Babylonian but originated in the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean region. The use of metal rings in general was a novelty in Babylonia, where stone was traditionally used to produce stamp and cylinder seals.1090 Only 10% of the seals in the Murašû archive were
Another peculiar aspect is the prominence of contest scenes on the stamp and cylinder seals used by Judeans. The scenes depict heroes who fight against monsters and animals or who hold subjugated creatures in their hands. The heroes can be divided into two categories according to their clothing, which Bregstein defines either as Babylonian or Persian.1092 The contest scenes with a Persian hero constitute 13% of the seals in the whole corpus, 15% of the seals used by people with West Semitic names or patronymics, and 31% of the seals used by Judeans. The scenes with a Babylonian hero count for 10% of the seals in the whole corpus, 10% of the seals used by people with West Semitic names or patronymics, and 6% of the seals used by Judeans.1093
A scene that is never attested on the seals used by Judeans, and very rarely on the seals of people with West Semitic names or patronymics (3%), is that of worship.1094 Depicting a man â namely, âa worshipperâ â standing alone or before divine symbols or creatures, it was one of the standard motifs of Babylonian seal impressions in the sixth century.1095 The scene is attested in 8% of the seal impressions in the Murašû archive. Favoured by scribes and regular witnesses of the documents, it was also used by people with Iranian names.1096
Based on the rarity of worship scenes on the seals used by Judeans and other people with West Semitic names, Bregstein argues that these people deliberately avoided scenes depicting foreign religious rituals.1097 However, when the texts from the environs of YÄhÅ«du have now become available, her statement needs to be adjusted. AhÄ«qamâs seal on B9 depicts the Babylonian worship scene, even though AhÄ«qamâs patronymic RapÄ-YÄma and the Yahwistic names of his sons leave little doubt about his Judean origin.1098 Using a seal with the worship scene was evidently not unthinkable for someone dealing regularly with royal officials. Moreover, it has to be emphasised that the seals used by Judeans in the Murašû archive did contain other religious symbolism. The seal of Hanan-YÄma/UdarnaË depicts the crescent moon above the bull held by the Babylonian hero (no. 108), and the god Ahura Mazda hovers above the Persian hero on the seal of IÅ¡rib-YÄma (no. 37). It is very unlikely that the crescent
Judeans did not avoid religious imagery on their seals, and the reasons for differing preferences need to be sought in local traditions and social structures. One decisive factor seems to again be the division between the urban upper class and the rest of society. Judeans, like other people with West Semitic names, favoured rings and imagery from the Eastern Mediterranean, both of which were novelties in Babylonia. The worship scene, on the other hand, had a long history in Babylonia and it was traditionally used by scribes.1099 Thus, it is not surprising to find that the scene was very popular among the scribes and frequent witnesses of the Murašû documents: of all people attested in the archive, these men most likely belonged to the Nippurean urban upper class. At the same time, the scribes and regular witnesses used Western-style rings (5%) and rings in general (19%) much less frequently than all seal users in the archive (10% and 33%, respectively).1100 This comparison suggests that traditional imagery was favoured by the urban Nippureans, whereas Judeans and other people with West Semitic names were open to international influences and did not share the same traditional values as the urban upper class.1101
A surprising feature of Judean seal usage is the exceptional frequency of Persian contest scenes. Thirteen per cent of all seal impressions in the archive belong to this category, and the figure is roughly the same among people with Babylonian, Iranian, and West Semitic names.1102 However, almost one third of the seals used by Judeans depict this scene.1103 The scene with the Persian hero was not traditionally Babylonian but created during the reign of Darius i.1104 The novelty of this imagery may again explain the Judean preference for it.
Judean seal use does not exhibit aniconic or marked religious tendencies. Different religious symbols and motifs were employed, but Judeans often used
5.7.2 Naming Practices
Because we can only identify Judean families on the basis of Yahwistic names, it is not possible to say what percentage of Judeans used such names in the late fifth century. It becomes clear, however, that in addition to Yahwistic names, Judeans in the Murašû archive bore West Semitic, Akkadian, and Iranian names, including names which refer to other deities than Yahweh. The use of Akkadian and non-Yahwistic West Semitic names is by no means surprising, but the adoption of Iranian names is interesting, as it shows that the Persian rule affected naming practices even in the Babylonian countryside. Table 3 summarises the data on Judean naming practices in the Murašû archive. The reader immediately notices differences in naming practices between Judean fathers and sons. This phenomenon, first observed by E.J. Bickerman,1105 will be discussed in a larger context in Section 8.5.
Two Judeans, UdarnaË/RahÄ«m-il and BagÄÅ¡u/Hanan-YÄma, bore Iranian names. The use of Iranian names in these families seems to result from their interaction with Persian officials. The family of RahÄ«m-il held several plots, including a horse land, in the Nippur region, and their large-scale landholding makes it probable that the family had closer interaction with the Persian administration than the average Judean landholder (Section 5.3.3). BagÄÅ¡uâs father Hanan-YÄma (EE 34) was a sÄpiru, which suggests that he was also regularly in touch with the Persians. If Iranian names were not simply trendy, they
There are two noteworthy examples of fluctuation in the spelling of Yahwistic names. The West Semitic name Mattan-YÄma (âGift of Yahwehâ) is often spelled in the quasi-Akkadian form Mannu-danni-YÄma (âWho is stronger than Yahweh?â).1106 There are two persons whose name is attested in both variants,1107 and, in one case, the same scribe employed both orthographies.1108 Two different factors may contribute to this phenomenon: on the one hand, cuneiform scribes often had difficulties in spelling non-Akkadian names, and they were perhaps tempted to use a quasi-Akkadian orthography to render the West Semitic name. On the other hand, it is possible that the Judeans themselves played with the ambiguity of their name, using a quasi-Akkadian form in the public sphere.1109
There is also ambiguity in the way in which the patronymic of Yadi-YÄmaâs father is spelled. Three times the patronymic is spelled Ba-na-Ë-dingir.meÅ¡ (BE 9 25, 45; EE 98), reflecting the name BanÄ-il. However, the patronymic is once spelled Ba-na-ia-a-ma (EE 2), reflecting the Yahwistic name BanÄ-YÄma. Because two different scribes employed the form BanÄ-il but there are no parallel cases of representing the Yahwistic element with dingir.meÅ¡, it is likely that Yadi-YÄma himself used the forms BanÄ-il and BanÄ-YÄma interchangeably when referring to his father.1110
Finally, full names and hypocoristics formed from Yahwistic names were sometimes used interchangeably. Hanan-YÄma/UdarnaË is attested with his full name in three documents (BE 9 69; BE 10 7; pbs 2/1 107), but the hypocoristic HananÄ« (Ha-an-na-ni-Ë) is used in BE 10 84. The name Gadal-YÄma appears twice in its hypocoristic form [G]a-da-al-Ë-a (BE 9 86a) or Ga-da-al-ia (EE 65).
5.7.3 Conclusion
The texts from the Murašû archive refer to numerous ethnic minorities living in the Nippur countryside. Although deportees were originally settled in communities according to their origin, the population of the settlements had become diverse by the late fifth century. A noteworthy example of this phenomenon is Išqallūnu, a village named after the Philistine city of Ashkelon: it was
Judean seal users chose their seals on sociocultural grounds: they used seals with diverse religious imagery but favoured Western and Persian seal types, which were not traditional in Babylonia. They rarely used Babylonian seal types, which suggests that the cultural preferences of the Babylonian urban elite were quite different from those of the multi-ethnic rural population. Nevertheless, at least some Judean landholders were in regular contact with cuneiform scribes who belonged to this Babylonian urban elite. The ambiguity of some Judean names may attest to their efforts to support their own naming traditions but, at the same time, use names that sounded familiar to a Babylonian ear.
In addition to West Semitic anthroponyms, Judeans used Babylonian and Persian names. The adoption of Persian â and perhaps also Babylonian names â was related to an effort to get closer to the governing elite of the land-for-service sector. At the same time, the persistence of Yahwistic names in late fifth-century Babylonia implies that some descendants of Judean deportees still supported their own naming traditions.
5.8 Conclusion
As the Murašû archive focuses on business activities related to the land-for-service sector of Babylonian agriculture, only certain population groups in the Nippur region are represented in it. The clients of the Murašû family were predominantly holders of state lands encumbered with tax and service obligations. Another important group in the archive are state officials and servants of estate owners, from whom the Murašûs leased canals and lands and to whom they paid taxes and rental payments. Judeans are attested among both groups, as landholders and as minor officials.
The Judean landholdings varied in size and juridical status. Although Judeans owned some private land as well, the evidence from the Murašû archive primarily pertains to institutional landholdings such as bow lands, horse lands, and bīt rittis. None of these designations referred to a plot of standard size, as the extent of bow lands and the number of pertinent landholders varied
Although the holders of state lands could not apparently alienate their holdings, they could lease them out, possess private land, and strive to improve their income in other ways. A good example of this is found in the villagers of BÄ«t-GÄrÄya, whose efforts in expanding agricultural production are reflected in the documents pertaining to Pili-YÄma, Yadi-YÄma, and YÄhû-natan. These people were not mere serfs under the control of feudal lords, and it is thus dangerous to apply the terminology of European feudalism to the Babylonian land-for-service sector.1112 Annual tax payments and the fulfilment of more or less regular service obligations appear to have been the primary constraints of their freedom. The majority of Judean landholders in the land-for-service sector co-held modest bow lands with several colleagues, but some Judeans had significantly larger holdings. RahÄ«m-il held several bow lands and a horse land, and judging by the Iranian name of his son and the frequent seal usage among the family, their socio-economic status was rather high.
Some Judeans were involved in the management of the land-for-service sector as minor officials in the service of royalty and high officials. However, they apparently did not succeed to the middle and higher rungs of the administrative hierarchy. Judean officials are often called slaves (ardus) of high officials, but the word obviously refers to hierarchical subordination. Judean chattel slaves are not attested in the archive. Some significant sectors of the Babylonian rural economy are seriously underrepresented in the archive: two documents indicate that Judeans also worked as fishermen and herdsmen.
Analysis of Judean seal use reveals that Judeans did not avoid Persian and Babylonian religious imagery, but their preferences were very different from those of the Nippurean upper class. Judeans favoured ring seals, which were a novelty in Babylonia, and the motifs of their seals primarily originated from
The Murašû archive constitutes the last significant corpus of cuneiform evidence on Judeans in Babylonia. Only a single text survives from the fourth century, drafted in the eighth regnal year of Artaxerxes ii or iii.1113 Rabbinic writings from the early first millennium ce shed light on the life of Judean â or better put, Jewish â communities again.
This chapter has benefitted from the working notes on the Murašû texts by Govert van Driel and his students (see van Driel 1989, 227 n. 1), archived at Leiden University. Particularly helpful were the transliterations of the texts in pbs 2/1 and van Drielâs geographical classification of the texts according to the respective canals and settlements. In the following discussion, these working notes are referred to as âvan Driel, working notesâ.
Stolper 1985, 14; Jursa 2005a, 113.
Stolper 1985, 23.
Stolper 1985, 1, 157â168. On the history of early American excavations in Nippur, see Meade 1974, 47â63.
Stolper 1985, 11; 2001, 84â85.
Hilprecht and Clay 1898 (BE 9); Clay 1904 (BE 10); Clay 1912 (pbs 2/1). Three tablets (nos. 124, 126, and 127) in Clay 1908 (BE 8) belong to the Murašû archive. Stolperâs 1974 dissertation is published as Stolper 1985 (EE). The tablets in Istanbul are published in Donbaz and Stolper 1997 (imt). On the publication history, see Cardascia 1951, iiâiii; Stolper 1985, 11â14; 2001, 83â84. Texts from BE 9 and BE 10 have been recently transliterated by Gauthier Tolini and texts from pbs 2/1 by Denis Bouder (http://www.achemenet.com).
Lutz 1928 (ucp 9/3); nos. 124, 145â148, 180, 182â191, 203â204 in Krückmann 1933 (TuM 2â3); nos. 40â42, 63â70, 72â88 in Joannès 1987; no. 126 in Spar and von Dassow 2000; nos. 1â6 in Stolper 2001.
Wunsch 2014, 295 + n. 21; Zadok 2015a, 103.
Stolper 1985, 19.
Stolper 1985, 18â20.
Cardascia 1951, 11â17.
The archive was unearthed in Nippur and the majority of documents were drafted there. See Stolper 1985, 24.
This is suggested by the size of their transactions (Stolper 1985, 125â151), their role in the agricultural management in the Nippur region (Stolper 1985, passim), and slave ownership (Cardascia 1951, 11â17).
This overview is based on Cardascia 1951; Stolper 1985; van Driel 1989, 2002, 226â322; Jursa 2010a, 405â414; 2011a, 435â437.
On the business profile of the Murašûs, see Stolper 1985, 2005; van Driel 1989; Jursa 2010a, 198â199, 405â414; Pirngruber 2017, 47â66.
van Driel 1989, 225â226.
van Driel 1989, 203â204, 223â226; Jursa 2005a, 113. Stolper 1985 (28â29, 152â156) has different ideas about the end of the archive, but see Stolper 2001, 85.
Stolper 1985, 23â24; van Driel 1989, 204; Jursa 2005a, 113.
Cardascia 1951; Stolper 1985, 2005; van Driel 1989, 2002, 155â322; Jursa 2010a, esp. 405â414; Gordin and Zadok 2016.
Coogan 1976a; EphËal 1978; Zadok 1979a, 2002, 2015a; Dandamayev 2004; Lämmerhirt 2014.
Daiches 1910; Bickerman 1978, 1984; Zadok 1979a.
A prosopographical database of Judeans in the Murašû archive is available online at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3351259.
Donbaz and Stolper 1997, 6â10.
Stolper 1985, 104â124; Donbaz and Stolper 1997, 5â15; Jursa and Stolper 2007, 270. Cf. van Driel 1989, 223â224.
BE 9 25, 45, 69; BE 10 65, 83, 118; EE 34, 65, 89, 107; pbs 2/1 5, 50, 60, 84, 107, 119, 218; ucp 9/3.
For an overview, see Oelsner 1978.
Oelsner 1978, 168â169; Baker and Wunsch 2001.
Oelsner 1978, 168â169; Baker and Wunsch 2001, 203.
Bregstein 1993, 340â354.
Bregstein 1993, 359â360.
BE 9 14, 25, 29, 34, 45; EE 2, 26, 92, 94, 98; imt 7â8.
The lease of a canal probably included the adjoining lands as well, even if this is not made explicit in the contract. See van Driel 1989, 217 n. 25; Stolper 2005, 335. The text of EE 2 is broken, and it is unclear if the uzbÄru land was included in or excluded from the lease (see van Driel 2002, 201). UzbÄru was a type of royal land. See Stolper 1985, 41â42; van Driel 2002, 200â202.
van Driel, working notes.
Stolper 1985, 50; van Driel 1989, 217. But see the somewhat indecisive position taken by Stolper in 2005, 335â336.
On the term mÄr bÄ«ti, see Stolper 1985, 21. MaÅ¡ennu officials were in charge of royal landholdings and taxation (Stolper 1985, 45â49; Jursa and Stolper 2007, 260), and people called Å¡a ana muhhi sÅ«ti Å¡a nÄr x (âthe one in charge of the rents of the canal xâ) appear to have been their subordinates, either officials directly involved in transactions concerning royal lands and canals (Stolper 1985, 37â45; Stolper 2001, 117) or rent farmers (van Driel 1989, 215; see also Stolper 2005, 335â336). In both cases, the authority of canal managers derived from the crown and they were royal agents in that sense.
See Stolper 1985, 42â44.
On the name and person, see Zadok 1979a, 32, 59.
As already suggested by Zadok 1979a, 54â58 (Yadi-YÄma as a member of the BanÄ-YÄma clan); van Driel 2002, 215 (Yadi-YÄma as a member of a group of villagers joining forces).
The translation is adopted from cad N/2, 76.
Stolper 1985, 104â107.
On bÄ«t rittis on agricultural land, see van Driel 2002, 305â308 with further literature. On bÄ«t rittis in Hellenistic Uruk, see Baker 2005, 30â37; Corò Capitanio 2012.
cad N/2, 75â76.
Bregstein 1993, 365â366.
cad A/1, 200â203.
Bregstein 1993 no. 578. The seal depicts a nude couple embracing.
Bregstein 1993 no. 642. The imagery is unclear.
3-ta dìm.me.meÅ¡ on line 11 may refer to waterlifts (cad M/1, 143) or, more likely, to plots irrigated by waterlifts (Stolper 2001, 122â123).
The average barley yield of a hectare was 1,728 litres in sixth-century Sippar, and the material from Uruk and Sippar show that a single plough team could not work more than 37.5 hectares of land in a ploughing season (Jursa 2010a, 49â50). This means that circa 73 hectares of land and two full plough teams were needed to produce the rent of 700 kurru of barley.
van Driel 2002, 215.
Zadok 1979a, 57.
Zadok 1978a, 288â292 (but cf. 318); 2015a, 140.
Except for MukÄ«n-apli/Enlil-naËid, who is attested in imt 7 and 8 but not in BE 9 34. Cf. Donbaz and Stolper 1997, 84.
On kur.ra textiles, see Bongenaar 1997, 39â40; Zawadzki 2010, esp. 412â414; Spar and Jursa 2014, 67.
Stolper 1985, 21.
Jursa 2010a, 619â623.
There are some late cases when the price was 7, 7.25, and 13 shekels; see Jursa 2010a, 622.
cad B, 261: âwoolen fabric with raised napâ. Villard 2010, 395: âde texture grossièreâ or âfeutréâ; according to Villard, the term may indicate fabrics of ordinary finish.
Pili-YÄmaâs name in this text is broken, and only the signs -ia-a-ma A-šáIÅ¡e-li-im-mu are fully preserved. However, the remnants of the sign âliâ can be seen before the sign âiaâ, and the contents of the transaction make the identification very probable.
On the date of this document, see below.
Only the ploughs are mentioned in the text, but the oxen were likely included as well (Stolper 1985, 132).
The sum of the different types of produce is 1,025 kurru, but the tablet gives the sum as 1,015 kurru. See Augapfel 1917, 70.
Zadok (1978a, 292, 314) favours the idea that there was more than one BadiÄtu canal, and the qualifiers were used to distinguish the canals. Both he (292, but cf. 314) and Stolper (1985, 40 + n. 13) suggest that the BadiÄtu of Yadi-YÄma and the BadiÄtu of Marduka were one and the same canal, named after its current tenant.
The regnal year of Artaxerxes is damaged in the document, and only three vertical wedges can be read. Stolper (1985, 244) restores the number as â36â, but given the three-year lease of PÄn-Enlil-adaggal in 16-XIIb-35 Art i (imt 10), a more probable restoration is â38â.
On Barīk-il, see Pearce and Wunsch 2014, 44; on Minyamin, see Section 1.5.2.
Cf. Zadok 2002, 39.
Zadok 2002, 39.
According to Stolper (1985, 131), barley was the main component of rental payments. For the relative importance of barley and emmer in some leases, see BE 9 29; EE 2; imt 10.
Charles 1988, 6, 38.
See Zadok 2002, 37â39. Stolper seems to understand the document similarly, as he inserts â¨bi in-na-na-Å¡iâ© (âplease give itâ) on line 4 of his transliteration (1985, 271).
Zadok 1979a, 56, 58.
On AhÄ«qamâs brewing activities, see Section 4.3.6.3.
The idea that BE 9 25 and 45 reflect villagersâ attempts to promote their own cause is proposed by van Driel 2002, 215.
van Driel, working notes.
The Nippurean witnesses of BE 9 25 and 45 are not taken into account here.
âPN1, PN2, ⦠PN9, and all their colleagues who are in BÄ«t-GÄrÄyaâ.
Zadok 1978a, 292 claims that the BadiÄtu of Yadi-YÄma and Marduka flowed through BÄ«t-GÄrÄya. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. On the different watercourses named BadiÄtu, see Zadok 1978a, 288, 292, 314.
On Pili-YÄma, see Cardascia 1951, 77.
Cf. Zadok 2002, 39, who identifies all Yadi-YÄmaâs partners in BE 9 45 as Judeans. See also his concept of Judean clans in the Nippur region in Zadok 1979a, 53â58.
Cf. Zadok 1979a, 58â59.
On promissory notes with real estate as security, see Stolper 1985, 104â124; van Driel 1989, 223â224; Donbaz and Stolper 1997, 9â12. On receipts, see Cardascia 1951, 69â123.
BE 9 86a; BE 10 118; EE 111; pbs 2/1 27, 89, 185, 218. Note BE 10 33, which pertains to the same bow land as pbs 2/1 27 and 89, although the Judean co-landholder is not mentioned.
BE 9 86a refers to the lands of Rahīm-il and his sons.
Cardascia 1951, 29.
B2, 13; C15:15â16; 66, 69, 72.
Stolper 1985, 26; van Driel 1999, 219â220; Pearce and Wunsch 2014, 120.
B13; C69, 72; pbs 2/1 27, 89, 185.
Cardascia 1951, 28; Jursa 2010a, 409.
Cardascia 1951, 36.
Stolper 1985, 147.
See Jursa 2010a, 409.
Jursa 2010a, 409â412.
Cardascia 1951, 29 n. 5; Stolper 1985, 25.
Stolper 1985, 125â134; Jursa 2010a, 417â418.
Stolper 1985, 99; van Driel 2002, 311â313; Jursa 2011a, 435.
On the administration of the land-for-service sector in the Murašû archive, see Stolper 1985, 52â103.
Stolper 1985, 70â103; van Driel 2002, 308â310.
Stolper 1985, 72â79.
See Stolper 1985, 72.
Stolper 1985, 54â55, 89â93.
EphËal 1978, 80â83; Jursa 2011a, 435.
Cardascia 1951, 113; Stolper 1985, 76, 93â95.
Å a sÄpirÄ«: BE 10 33, 37, 57; EE 82; pbs 2/1 3, 11, 89, 218. Å a sÄpirÄ« Å¡a uqi: BE 10 102; pbs 2/1 (27), 29, 34, 66; ucp 9/3. Haá¹ar uqi + Å¡aknu Å¡a sÄpirÄ«: BE 10 7. Å a sÄpirÄ« Å¡a bÄ«t rab unqÄti: imt 5; pbs 2/1 185. Å a sÄpirÄ« Å¡a bÄ«t rab ummu: pbs 2/1 196. These designations will be discussed below.
Augapfel 1917, 43â45; Cardascia 1951, 113â114; Stolper 1985, 83, 94.
BÄl-YadÄ, Nidinti-Enlil, and their anonymous colleagues of the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus are also attested in BE 10 33 (27-IV-1 Dar ii). The text pertains to the same bow land in BÄ«t- á¹¢urrÄya by the Harri-PiqÅ«du. The land was pledged to Enlil-Å¡um-iddin to secure the debt of 287;3 kurru of dates. This document is a good example of the legal and scribal practices in the archive: although Aqbi-YÄma must have been among the landholders, his name is this time lumped together with other anonymous colleagues.
BE 10 102 gives ZabÄ«nâs patronymic, BalÄá¹u. See Stolper 1985, 83.
See Stolper 1985, 83, 85, 93â94.
Cardascia (1951, 113) and Stolper (1985, 93) discuss BE 10 7, but they mistakenly claim that the document refers to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops.
Stolper 1985, 85, argues that he was the Å¡aknu at this time.
Stolper 1985, 83â88.
BE 10 7, 33, 37, 102; pbs 2/1 3, 27, 29, 66, 89, 218; ucp 9/3. In addition, three documents (imt 5; pbs 2/1 185, 196) are special cases and they will be discussed below.
However, note that Nabû-mÄ«t-uballiá¹âs title on the following line is simply âthe Å¡aknu of the sÄpirusâ.
On the correct reading of pbs 2/1 185, see Donbaz and Stolper 1993, 1997, 82. cad UâW, 203 should be corrected accordingly.
See Donbaz and Stolper 1997, 82. The rab unqÄtiâs close connection to the king is suggested by bin 1 22; yos 6 10, 11. On the two latter documents, see Frame 1991, 54â61.
On Murašû/Enlil-šum-iddin, see Cardascia 1951, 10; Stolper 1985, 20.
BE 10 7, 33; pbs 2/1 3, 89.
On Til-hurdi, see Zadok 1978a, 289, 291, 306; 1985, 310â311, 370.
TuM 2â3 180 (40 Art i); BE 9 84 (41 Art i). EE 56 is a broken text which refers both to ManuÅ¡tÄnu and to Mannukiya (20+ Art i).
Stolper 1985, 90â92; Briant 2002, 588â589.
imt 46 (text: 5 Dar ii, but emendated by Stolper 1992, 71 + n. 10 as 6 Dar ii); pbs 2/1 100+ (6 Dar ii; edited in Stolper 1992, 75â76); BE 10 118 (7 Dar ii). In these texts, he is always attested together with IqÄ«Å¡a, another sÄpiru of GÅ«baru. He is probably attested with IqÄ«Å¡a in EE 111 (7 Dar ii?) as well; the text is closely related to BE 10 118. On GÅ«baru, see Stolper 1987, 396â398; 1989, 290â291.
TuM 2â3 180 reveals Mannukiyaâs patronymic, and it is plausible that the homonymous individual in BE 10 84 and 85 is his father. See Zadok 2015a, 117.
Stolper 1985, 91â92. See Section 5.4.
imt 46; pbs 2/1 100+. See Stolper 1992; Waerzeggers 2010b, 784â785.
Waerzeggers 2010b, esp. 797â809.
Cf. Bloch 2018, 302â317.
BE 9 84 (see Stolper 1990, 167; Waerzeggers 2010b, 807 n. 111). On the Kabaru canal and tax deliveries to Susa, see Waerzeggers 2010b, 790, 804â807; Tolini 2011 vol. 1, 491â498.
Cardascia 1951, 15; Stolper 1985, 22.
Stolper 1985, 93â94.
On the haá¹ru of the sword-bearers (of the crown princeâs estate), see Stolper 1985, 54â55, 76.
Stolper 1985, 94. See also Jursa and Stolper 2007, 264â265, 269â270. The title ahÅ¡adrapÄnu does not necessarily refer to a satrap (governor) of a province (Jursa and Stolper 2007, 264).
PatÄÅ¡u: BE 10 33 (27-IV-1 Dar ii); BE 10 37 (2-V-1 Dar ii). IspitÄmaË: pbs 2/1 27, 29 (both 14-?-1 Dar ii). See Stolper 1985, 94â95.
On their possible consanguinity and identification with Petisas and Spitames in Ctesiasâ Persica, see Stolper 1985, 94 + n. 100; Dandamayev 1992b, 88, 112; Donbaz and Stolper 1997, 153.
Stolper 1987, 395, 400.
Stolper 2001, 106 seems to suggest this as well.
Tavernier 2007, 419â420. See also cad D, 135.
See above.
âThe town of Cariaâ, apparently a settlement of Carian deportees or mercenaries. See Zadok 1985, 64â65.
MacGinnis 1998; Stolper 2001, 103â111; cad UâW, 133.
Published in MacGinnis 1998.
Stolper 2001, 107.
See Stolper 2001, 106â107; cf. MacGinnis 1998, 180.
The title rab ummu is attested in the following Murašû texts: BE 9 72; BE 10 101; pbs 2/1 175, 196, 207. MÄ«nu-ana-BÄl-dÄn is attested in BE 10 101; pbs 2/1 207 (his servant witnesses); and in a non-Murašû text edited in Stolper 2001 (no. 9).
Cautiously suggested by the editors of the text as well.
Personal communication with Caroline Waerzeggers.
BE 10 118; pbs 2/1 72, 224.
Bregstein 1993 no. 173.
Compare Bregstein 1993 no. 38 to no. 27.
Bregstein 1993, 430 makes the same identification.
Cf. Bloch 2018, 317â331, 380â397.
This document has been discussed in several studies. See Lutz 1928; Cardascia 1951, 179â182; Ebeling 1952; Zadok 1979a, 66â67; Stolper 2001, 120â127; van Driel 2002, 235â236; Manning 2016; Bloch 2018, 326â331.
See Cardascia 1951, 179â182; Joannès 1995, 1481. The clause about the adoption is difficult as it refers to BarÄ«k-ilâs share, which RahÄ«m-il had given to Enlil-Å¡um-iddin. Some commentators have judged that BarÄ«k-il was RahÄ«m-ilâs (step-)father (Lutz 1928, 269; Zadok 1979a, 66â67; 2002, 40), but EE 35 suggests that BarÄ«k-il was RahÄ«m-ilâs son and thus Gadal-YÄmaâs brother (see my discussion in Section 5.3.3 below).
BE 10 61, 62; pbs 2/1 54, 162, 194; imt 83. EE 117 is badly broken but may belong to this group as well. The texts were written between the eighteenth and twenty-fourth day of the tenth month. See Augapfel 1917, 17â18; Cardascia 1951, 40, 99; Joannès 1982a, 17â20; Stolper 1985, 123 + n. 46; 2001, 124 n. 53; Briant 2002, 598â599.
See Stolper 1985, 123; Briant 2002, 598â599.
Stolper 1985, 76 and Bregstein 1993, 648 suggest that there was some connection between the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops and the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the rab ummuâs estate.
Stolper 1985, 48â49, 54â55, 88 + n. 70, 89â96, 100â103.
Some aspects of this familyâs activities are briefly discussed by Zadok 1979a, 54, 64â67; 2002, 38â40. He accepts fewer people as members of this family than I do.
MunnÄtu: Tavernier 2007, 337; Umahparê: Zadok 1989â1990, 274; Hackl and Jursa 2015, 179.
Tavernier 2007, 65.
Tavernier 2007, 250.
Zabdia, son of RahÄ«m-il, is also attested as a witness to Enlil-Å¡um-iddinâs transaction in BE 9 65 (28-?-38 Art i).
UdarnaË: Bregstein 1993 no. 362. A lion attacks a prey, perhaps a bull or boar. Hanan-YÄma: Bregstein 1993 no. 108. The Babylonian hero subjugates a bull, and the crescent moon hovers above them.
The emendation is suggested by Augapfel 1917, 66; Zadok 1985, 176.
Bregstein 1993 no. 16. The Persian hero holds two lions in his hands.
See Cardascia 1951, 181â182.
Bregstein 1993 no. 268. The seal depicts a bull.
Bregstein 1993 no. 16. The Persian hero holds two lions in his hands. The seal is attested in EE 65 and ucp 9/3.
See Section 5.7.
The identification of this person as a Judean is based on his rare patronymic, which is attested only in imt 94 (Hi-il-mu-tu) as the patronymic of a certain Å amÄ-YÄma.
Stolper 1985, 56â59; Briant 2002, 429â439, 456â459; Tavernier 2007, 423â424; cf. cad G, 50.
Tavernier 2007, 135.
Another Iranian name; Tavernier 2007, 187.
Attested in BE 10 83, 92, 118; [EE 111]; pbs 2/1 115.
Attested in BE 9 86a; BE 10 118; EE 111; imt 17.
On GammalÄ and IÅ¡qallÅ«nu, see Zadok 1978a, 311, 319; 1985, 137â138, 183.
See EphËal 1978, 80â83; Zadok 1978b, 61.
On this text, see Bloch 2018, 344â347.
See Stolper 1985, 89â93 for a discussion of this estate and its personnel.
Stolper 1985, 85â88.
On Pamunu, see Stolper 1985, 92 n. 89.
On this expression, see cad L, 173.
Stolper 1985, 91â92.
Bregstein 1993 no. 37.
His patronymic has been preserved as Ia-a-d[a-] in pbs 2/1 84 and Ia-di-hu-ia-a-[â¦] in pbs 2/1 121, and the restoration Yadi-YÄma is very likely.
Stolper 1985, 92 + n. 88 (his reference to pbs 2/1 84 is to be corrected: Nidinti-Å amaÅ¡ is titled ardu instead of paqdu); Bregstein 1993, 442, 607. Note that he witnessed two documents pertaining to the haá¹ru of the sÄpirus of the troops, pbs 2/1 27, 29. On the title paqdu, see Stolper 1985, 22, 66â67; cad P, 135â136.
Bregstein 1993 no. 93.
See Stolper 1985, 63â64; Cardascia 1991. On Parysatis, see also Stolper 2006b.
See Cardascia 1991, 367â368 for a helpful reconstruction of this broken document.
Bregstein 1993 no. 281. The seal impression depicts a lion.
Stolper 1985, 81.
On this estate, see Stolper 1985, 62â63.
Stolper 1985, 64.
On Artabara and maÅ¡ennu officials in general, see Stolper 1985, 45â49; Jursa and Stolper 2007, 260.
Hackl and Jursa 2015, 168â172.
See, for example, the case of Nidinti-Å amaÅ¡/Kartakku above, and the case of GirparnaË in Stolper 1985, 67, 96. See also Hackl and Jursa 2015, 161.
von Dassow 1999b, 5â7; Still 2019, 169â170.
Cardascia 1951, 20; Cussini 2013, 43â49.
Still 2019, 169.
Mattan-YÄma: Bregstein 1993 no. 574; Hanan-YÄma: nos. 108 and 268.
On neutral parties as witnesses, see Still 2019, 169â170.
The sequence of lessorsâ names and patronymics on lines 1â3 is unclear and it can be read in different ways. Compare, for example, the edition at ctij to Horowitz and Gheva 2017. In light of the fact that the fishermen lease five nets, the most probable number of lessors is five. One of them is Judean, Zabad-YÄma/HinnÄ«-BÄl.
On taxation in the Murašû archive, see Cardascia 1951, 98â106; van Driel 2002, 226â273; Jursa 2011a.
Cardascia 1951, 98â99; van Driel 2002, 254â259.
van Driel 1989, 210â212; Stolper 2001, 123â127.
van Driel 2002, 268â270.
Section 5.3.2.4.
See Chapter 4.
Sections 5.2 and 5.3.
Stolper 1985, 104â114.
Jursa 2011a.
See van Driel 2002, 270â272.
Stolper 1985, 25.
See Jursa 2011a.
On Å¡uÅ¡Änus in the Murašû archive, see Stolper 1985, 72â82; van Driel 2002, 210â211.
Stolper 1985, 82.
Bregstein 1993, 366â373.
Bregstein catalogues 657 seal impressions in her dissertation. Some twenty or so seal impressions from Istanbul need to be added to this number. Bregstein 1993, 51â52 + n. 8.
Bregstein (1993, 226) does not include people who bore non-Judean personal names but whose fathers had Judean names. At the same time, she apparently considers some non-Yahwistic personal names as distinctly Judean, although she only names the Yahwistic element as a criterion for identification (Bregstein 1993, 226 but cf. 577).
Bregstein 1993, 71â108.
Nos. 16, 31, 37, 91, 93, 108.
Nos. 559, 568, 571, 574, 578.
Nos. 268, 281, 362.
Bregstein 1993, 52â54, 94â97.
The figures in the Murašû archive in general and the people with West Semitic names are adopted from Bregstein 1993, 225. I have calculated the percentage of people with a West Semitic name or patronymic by combining the data from the fourth and sixth columns of Bregsteinâs table.
Bregstein 1993, 73â79.
Bregstein 1993, 225.
Bregstein 1993, 225.
Bregstein 1993, 82â85; Ehrenberg 1999, 15â25, 43â44.
Bregstein 1993, 189â205, 225, 233â234.
Bregstein 1993, 227, 234â235.
See Section 4.3.6.3.
Bregstein 1993, 191â192.
Bregstein 1993, 191, 200. Seventeen per cent of scribal seals were rings with Western-style compositions, but Bregstein notes (191) that they also employ Mesopotamian symbols.
Bregstein (1993, 191â197, 200â202) acknowledges the cultural factors which influenced the seal choice of scribes and regular witnesses, but she fails to notice the sociocultural reasons behind the seal choice of Judeans and other people with West Semitic names (218â238).
Bregstein 1993, 220â221, 225.
Because Bregsteinâs criteria for identifying Judeans are different, the preference for Persian contest scenes does not appear so strikingly in her figures (1993, 226â227). She proposes that an avoidance of other types of images might explain this preference.
Bregstein 1993, 76â79.
The names are attested in BE 10 83; EE 24, 34, 113; pbs 2/1 50, 53, 60, 119, 148, 203. See the discussion in Stolper 1976, 26â27; Pearce and Wunsch 2014, 64, 66; Pearce 2015, 23â24.
One cluster of texts is EE 113; pbs 2/1 50, 60; another one is BE 10 83; EE 34; pbs 2/1 203.
BE 10 83; EE 34.
These ideas are expressed in some form already in Coogan 1974, 11; Stolper 1976, 26â27; Pearce 2015, 23â24.
Cf. Zadok 1979a, 12.
See Section 5.3.5.
On this question, see Cardascia 1983; Stolper 1985, 24â25 + n. 96.
TuM 2â3 123. Because four people sealed the tablet, it was hardly written in the eighth year of Artaxerxes i (Zadok 2002, 45).