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Thy Name Is Slave? Verhandeling voorgelegd aan de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte Voor het behalen van de graad van: Master in de Oosterse Talen en Culturen door: LIESELOT VANDORPE Academiejaar 2009-2010 Universiteit Gent Thy name is slave? The slave onomasticon of Old Babylonian Sippar. Promotor: Dr. K. De Graef 2 TABLE OF CONTENT List of Abbreviations 5 I. Introduction 6 A. Purpose 12 B. Status Quaestionis 13 C. Cultural Historical perspective 14 II. Slave documents 16 A. Inheritance and will documents 18 B. Purchase papers and silver loans 18 C. Donation 20 D. Litigation 20 E. Hire 20 F. Adoption/manumission 21 G. Dowry and wedding certificates 21 H. Others 22 III. Slave names unraveled 23 A. Slaves and their personal names 23 a. Male slave names 24 b. Female slave names 35 B. Ethnography and uniqueness of the slave name 50 C. Thy name is slave? 51 IV. Construction of slave names 53 A. Slave names according to Stamm 53 B. Sub-categories among Sipparian slaves 54 a. Wishes and prayers towards the master 54 b. Questions formulated to the master 55 c. Statements of trust towards the master 56 d. Praise for the master 56 e. Small categories of slave PN’s 57 1. Expression of Tenderness 57 2. Praise for physical defaults 57 3. Reference to the character and intellect of slaves 58 4. References to animals and plants 58 5. Names with geographical elements 58 6. Signs of imprisonment 58 C. Male names for female slaves 58 D. Theophoric elements in slave PN’s 59 E. Slaves and nadītu priestesses 61 F. Conclusion 63 V. On the meaning of mu.ni.im 65 A. What does the term mu.ni.im imply? 65 B. Slave names and the appearance of mu.ni.im 66 C. The corpus 67 3 a. Adoption-manumission 68 b. Donation 69 c. Dowry 69 d. Exchange 69 e. Inheritance 69 f. Hire 70 g. List 70 h. Litigation 70 i. Purchase 70 j. Silver loan 71 k. Wedding 71 D. Mu.ni.im versus name: the acceptance of a new name? 71 E. Mu.ni.im and other objects 72 F. Conclusion 72 VI. Conclusion 73 VII. Bibliography 75 VIII. Appendix 81 A. List of used slave tablets 81 B. Chronological overview of the slaves by gender and the appearance of mu.ni.im and Nadītu 87 C. List of the tablets by genre and the appearance of mu.ni.im and nadītu 100 D. Slaves in the Codex Ḥammurabi 104 E. The sign of a slave 108 F. The abbuttu and maškannu 109 4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Absol. Absolute/absolutes Nom. Nominative Abstr. Abstract OB Old Babylonian Acc. Accusative Obj. Object Adj. Adjective, adjectival Perf. Perfectum AHW Akkadisches Pl. Plural Handworterbuch PN Personal name CAD Chicago Assyrian Poss. Possessive Dictionary Prec. Precative Caus. Causative Pred. predicate, predicative Cf. Comparer Prep. Preposition CDA Concise Dictionary of Praet. Preterite Akkadian Proh. Prohibitive Cohort. Cohortative Pron. Pronoun, pronominal Conj. Conjunction Ptc. Participle Dat. Dative Sg. Singular Denom. Denominative Sta. Abs. Status Absolutus Det. Determinative Stat. Stative Dir. Direct Stat. Contr. Status Constructus DN Divine name Subj. Subject Eg. Exempli gratia Subjunct. Subjunctive Epith. Epithet Subst. Substantive Esp. Especially Vent. Ventive Etc. et cetera Voc. Vocative f. Feminine > goes to Hypocor. Hypocoristic < comes from Imp. Imperative Incl. including Indic. Indicative Indir. Indirect Inf. Infinitive M. Masculine 5 Slavery: ‘the state of being a slave’ A slave: ‘(especially in the past) a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them1’. I. INTRODUCTION In many societies around the world, slavery was present in one or several forms. Unfortunately, in some countries, it still is. In the contemporary Western world, there are only few human practices that inspire us to feelings of profound outrage. Slavery is one of them. However, we have to realize that this is a modern opinion. Looking at the institution of slavery in history, and its position in ancient civilizations in particular, we can almost say that slavery predicates civilization itself. As an institution, it was accepted in the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome and played a central role in their economic systems. Therefore, these societies were defined as ‘slave societies’ by M.I. Finley (SHAW 1998: 77). In contrary to the classical cultures, which are richly documented regarding this time, we are poorly informed about this phenomenon in Mesopotamia. We do know that slavery was an accepted institution in all major civilizations emerging in Mesopotamia, and that a slave population was always present (JOANNÈS 2001: 306). However, the communis opinio is that, compared to the freeborn, they only made up a small and insignificant population group (HARRIS 1975: 332). Therefore, this society can almost certainly 2 be designated as ‘a society of slaves’, as M.I Finley describes it (SHAW 1998: 77). The small number of slaves might be explained by the absence of any interest in industrial production on the home level, according to Oppenheim (OPPENHEIM 1964: 116). Another reason might simply be the lack of preserved and/or written documents about slavery. The earliest known written references come from the city states of Sumer in the form of legal codes, dated to the 4th millennium BCE. The Sumerian cuneiform signs for a slave are ‘níta.kur’ (m) and ‘munus.kur’ (f)3: Níta.kur < nita.kur <nita .kur x 1 Definition by the Oxford English Dictionary. 2 This pronouncement is made on the usually dated information we have concerning slaves and slavery in Mesopotamia. A new study dealing with this topic can lead to new insights about the role of slaves in the economy. 3 The emesal terminology of this word and the several stages of the development of the individual sign are documented on the lexical lists MSL 14: 205-218a, 719, 789-790 and MSL 2: 14-16.Especially interesting is MSL 14 line 215, where the word ‘Subaru’ is equalized with the word for slave. This would lead to the assumption that the word ‘slave’ was derived from the ethnic designation to the Subarians. This is a discussion intensively worked out by Gelb (1973, 23-31). 6 Munus.kur < nu-nus.kur Particularly interesting is the appearance of the sign ‘kur4’, which can be translated5 as “underworld”, “mountainous land”, “East(ener)” and “East wind”6. The interpretation of the components of the signs, male/female + “mountainous land” can clearly be derived from the signs themselves. Since the discussion of the sign by Thureau-Dangin, it has been generally assumed that the sign “kur” stood for “mountain” as well as for “foreign country” (Thureau- Dangin 1929: 272). Based on this assumption, Mendelsohn, among others, concludes that the ancient Sumerians derived their slaves from foreign, mountainous areas7. ‘These were the first ‘human chattels’, to be followed later by imported foreigners and finally by natives who were reduced to the status of slavery because of debt’ (Mendelsohn 1949: 1). Although the number of sources and documents which can be used for the study of slavery in Mesopotamia is relatively small, the material is still too comprehensive to be studied completely. Therefore, we decided geographically narrow the topic down to the city of Sippar and chronologically to one major and well documented period of Mesopotamia: the Old Babylonian (or OB) period (cf. cultural – historical perspective), dated according to the New Chronology from 1911 up to 1499 BCE (Gasche et alii: 1998). The ancient city of Sippar8 is located in Iraq, more or less in the middle of an ancient watercourse connecting the two rivers defining Mesopotamia: the Tigris and Euphrates. It is situated approximately 30 km South-East of Iraq’s modern capital Baghdad (CHARPIN, D; SAUVAGE, M. 2001: 783, cf. figure 1). The city was known as the main cult centre of the sun deity Šamaš and his partner Aja, worshipped at the Ebabbar temple, which probably was the cities’ eye-catching landmark during OB times (HARRIS 1975: 142). Another institution, highly influencing its economic and social life, was the gagûm9: the place where the nadītu10 priestesses lived (HARRIS 1975: 188-189). Together with the few existing wealthy families, they represented the main actors in the recorded city activities. 4 The sign ‘kur’ has been interpreted by Lambert as a nobler term more noble as ‘sal’ or at least referring to a privileged status (Lambert 1953: 200). Compared with later research, I consider this interpretation as not acceptable. 5 Translation is bases on the ePSD: Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary. (cf.: http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/ , search under KUR.) 6 In Akkadian, it can be translated with the words: erṣetu, mātu and šadû. 7 In the earliest periods, attestations where found for female slaves only, leading to the theory that captured male slaves were slaughtered (Gelb 1973: 5). But Vaiman proved by using Uruk texts that the word for the male counterparts of the SAL.KUR, was the sign KUR only. (Vaiman 1976: 24-26; summarized by Uchitel 1984: 361-362). 8 The name of the city, Sippar, by some authors interpreted as Sippir, is a reference to its etymology: the Sumerian sign ‘zimbir’. This can be translated as ‘bird city’ (Edzard 1970: 18-22). 9 For a brief explanation and reference to the texts concerning the institution/living quarter: see CAD G sub gagû). 10 A nadītu priestess is a woman of the upper class who is dedicated to a god and who is forbidden to have children. As a woman she is allowed to fulfill what is seen as strictly ‘male activities’ by the Mesopotamian society. She plays an important role in trade and is a very active business woman.
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