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THE MELAMMU PROJECT http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ “Twin Towns and Ethnic Minorities in First-Millennium Babylonia” MUHAMMAD DADAMAYEV Published in Melammu Symposia 5: Robert Rollinger and Christoph Ulf (eds.), Commerce and Monetary Systems in the Ancient World. Means of Transmission and Cultural Interaction. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Held in Innsbruck, Austria, October 3rd-8th, 2002 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 2004), pp. 137-51. Publisher: http://www.steiner-verlag.de/ This article was downloaded from the website of the Melammu Project: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ The Melammu Project investigates the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian culture throughout the ancient world. A central objective of the project is to create an electronic database collecting the relevant textual, art-historical, archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic evidence, which is available on the website, alongside bibliographies of relevant themes. In addition, the project organizes symposia focusing on different aspects of cultural continuity and evolution in the ancient world. The Digital Library available at the website of the Melammu Project contains articles from the Melammu Symposia volumes, as well as related essays. All downloads at this website are freely available for personal, non-commercial use. Commercial use is strictly prohibited. For inquiries, please contact [email protected]. TWIN TOWNS AND ETHNIC MINORITIES IN FIRST-M ILLENNIUM BABYLONIA Muhammad Dandamayev In the first millennium B.C. 1 Babylonia was to a considerable degree a country of mixed population, and multilingual. Beginning with the early ninth century, southern Babylonia was invaded by the Chaldaeans, who probably spoke a dialect of Aramaic [Lipi Lski 2000, 416–422, with previous literature]. Advancing to the north of the country, they gradually adopted ancient Babylonian culture and the way of life of the native population. Thus they started to play an important role in the economic and political life of the country and finally were assimilated with its native people. In the eighth and seventh centuries Aramaean tribes began to settle along the Lower Tigris and in the region of Sippar, as well as on the Middle Euphra- tes. Soon all Babylonia was inundated with Aramaean tribes who lived side by side with the local population. Thus the process of the Aramaizing of Babylonia started which, however, never became complete in Antiquity [LipiLski 2000, 513–514], while Assyria proper gradually became thoroughly Aramaized. There exists some evidence for immigration from Assyria to Babylonia after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian empire. However, the ethnic name Aššur ja is attested only in a few Babylonian economic and administrative texts drafted during the reign of Nabonidus. These Assyrians occupied a low social standing, and there were among them slaves of the Ebabbar temple in Sippar, including some carpenters [Zadok 1984a, 2]. In the eighth and seventh centuries, Neo-Assyrian kings conducted a policy of forced resettlement of entire peoples from their native lands to Mesopotamia and other regions of the realm. The same policy was continued to a certain degree by Neo-Babylonian rulers (seventh and sixth centuries). Besides, some individuals were deported to Babylonia as hostages, and others arrived there from neighbouring countries as political refugees (for instance, a fugitive from Media is mentioned among persons at the court of Nebuchadnezzar II). Later, in the sixth – fourth centuries, the Persian administration created in Babylonia military colonies consisting of representatives of various peoples and not infrequently appointed to the administrative apparatus Persians, Medians, Egyptians, etc. Finally, since Babylonia was a fertile country, many ethnic groups of neighbouring lands tried to settle there. According to Stolper, of circa 2,200 personal names in the Murašû documents drafted in the fifth century, about two-thirds are Babylonian and about one- quarter are Aramaic, while the remaining names are Iranian, Jewish, Egyptian, etc. [Stolper 1992, 927]. Along with the autochthonous population of Babylonian cities, as well as Chaldaeans, Assyrians and Aramaeans, about thirty ethnic groups, beginning with Egyptians and Phoenicians and ending with Areians (individuals from ancient Haraiva on the territory of present-day Afghanistan) and 1 All dates in this paper are B.C. Abbreviations are those of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of University of Chicago and of the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie. 138 Muhammad Dandamyev Bactrians, are attested in Mesopotamia during the period under consideration. Prisoners of war, including numerous artisans, presented a considerable group of aliens in Mesopotamia. However, a large proportion of them was not reduced to slavery but settled on state land in order to till it and pay taxes. Finally, we do not know the reasons of stay of a number of strangers in Mesopotamia. Let us con- sider documentary evidence on the main foreign ethnic groups of Babylonia, and the contacts among themselves and with the native population. From ca. 755 on Arabians or Arabs (Arabi, Arbaja, etc.) started to penetrate Babylonian cities and mingle there with the native people. The ethnic name des- ignating Arabians in cuneiform sources has been examined by Eph‘al and Zadok [Eph‘al 1984; Zadok 1981]. As Eph‘al has noted, the term “Arab” primarily de- noted a desert dweller, a Bedouin. According to Zadok, it is still impossible to determine what language or languages the individuals called “Arabians” spoke, and frequently their personal names cannot be distinguished from the West Se- mitic (mostly Aramaic) names. In Babylonian economic documents of the sixth and fifth centuries Arabians are referred to as residents of Babylon, Nippur, Sip- par and some other cities. The “Town of Arabians” 2 is mentioned in a few documents from the neighbourhood of Nippur where it was located. Apparently this settlement was named after some Arabians who lived there. According to one text, in 563 a certain Uhabanna was obliged to deliver a quantity of barley to another man from the Town of Arabians [BE 8, no. 26]. As Zadok observes, Uha- banna is “an explicitly Arabian name” [Zadok 1981, 71]. A field in the same settlement which belonged to some Arabians was rented out to the Murašû business firm [TMH 2/III, no. 147]. It seems that these Arabians were royal soldiers settled on state land in the Nippur region. Several Arabians are attested as workmen of the Ebabbar temple in Sippar. For instance, six pieces of linen clothes from the paraphernalia of the goddess B let of Sippar were put at the disposal of an Arabian for repair [Nbn. 1090]. In 530 another Arabian delivered several ducks to the storehouse of the Ebabbar [CT 55, no.713]. In 527 an individual paid 58 shekels of silver to the Ebabbar for eight “adult” sheep which were in the care of Duhhabat, son of Igbarat, who was an Arabian [Camb. 211]. Arabians are also mentioned in several documents from the archives of the Eanna temple in Uruk. One of these texts contains an injunction against an Ara- bian by the name Zabdija, forbidding him to have contacts with a temple slave woman under the threat of punishment [YOS 7, no.92]. There are also known some Arabians who were petty state officials. Descendants of Arabians were inte- grated into Babylonian society and, as a rule, bore Akkadian names. In some cases the surname Arbaja became a family name of such individuals. It seems that Egyptians were scattered throughout all of Mesopotamia. They are designated by their ethnic name Misi raja.§ In some cases, evidence of their 2 In this paper the Akkadian determinatives lu , mtu and btu are rendered correspondingly ‘town’ (e.g. “Town of the Cilicians”), “country” (e.g. “Country of the Elamites”) and settlement or village (e.g. “Settlement of the Egyptians”). Ethnic Minorities in Babylonia 139 ethnic origin is found in the personal names with theophoric components. There are attested the following groups of the Egyptians. Among the foreigners who lived at the court of Nebuchadnezzar II are mentioned Egyptian “guards of the mares and monkeys” [Weidner, Mél. Dussaud, p.926]. Some slaves of Egyptian extraction belonged to the Eanna and Ebabbar temples in Uruk and Sippar respectively [see, e.g., YOS 6, nos.2, 148, etc.]. In 524 a Babylonian soldier sold “his slave woman Nana-ittija and her daughter of three months, an Egyptian from his booty of the bow, for two minas of silver” [Camb. 334]. Apparently, they were captured at the time of Cambyses’ campaign in Egypt in 525. The Babylonian name of this slave woman had obviously been given in captivity. It seems, however, that in the majority of cases the Egyptians belonged to the free population of the country and some of them were royal and temple officials. Thus, still during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II an Egyptian, Harmas u² by name, was a judge in Babylon [ROMCT II, no.37:26] 3. Pamunu, another Egyptian, was a supervisor over the workmen of the treasury in 420 in the Nippur region [BE 10, no.88]. Egyptians often appear as contracting parties. For instance, in 476 the Egyptian Pisusasmakaš, son of Patnašu, granted a loan in dates to another man [CT 4, no.34d]. An Egyptian who lived in the city of Sippar sold a piece of Egyptian linen in exchange for flour and dates to a Babylonian who worked in the Ebabbar [CT 2, no.2]. It can be added here that an important article in foreign trade with Egypt, along with linen, was alum which is frequently mentioned in Babylonian texts [e.g., Nbn. 214; YOS 6, no.168, etc.]. Such toponyms as the “Settlement of the Egyptians”, the “Canal of the Egyp- tians”, and the “Town of the Egyptians” [see Zadok 1985, 229–230, 392] might attest that considerable communities of Egyptians were located in such places.

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