NUZI
Carlo Zaccagnini
1. S L
1.1 The Archives of Nuzi Some seven thousand tablets, from both official and illicit excava- tions at the sites of Yorghan Tepe (= ancient Nuzi), Kirkuk (= ancient Arraphe/àl ilàni ), and Tell el-Fahhar (= ancient Kurruhanni), in a small region east of the Tigris and south of the Lower Zab, provide the major documentary evidence for reconstructing the legal insti- tutions and practice of northern Mesopotamia. The ethnic, linguis- tic, and cultural features of the region were marked to a greater or lesser extent by the presence of the Hurrians. The period covered by the Nuzi and related archives extends over some five or six gen- erations during the third quarter of the second millennium (ca. 1450–1340), corresponding in archaeological terms to the central phase of the Late Bronze Age. Nuzi was a provincial town in the kingdom of Arraphe, but the site of its capital, the present mound of Kirkuk, has to date yielded only a few scattered documents. The site of Washshukanni, the cap- ital of Mittani, the Hurrian suzerain, has not yet been found. The Nuzi documentation1 is therefore of exceptional significance, insofar as it provides a unique basis for reconstructing the complex legal situation in a predominantly Hurrian cultural milieu.2
1 For the sake of simplicity, the term “Nuzi” is henceforward used with refer- ence to the entire set of documents retrieved at Yorghan Tepe, Kirkuk, and Tell el-Fahhar. 2 The peculiar features displayed by the Nuzi archives are only partially mir- rored in the more or less contemporary Syrian archives of Alalakh (Level IV), Ugarit, and Emar. 566
1.2 Typology of Documents
1.2.1 Documents from the Palace Archives 1.2.1.1 No codes or law collections have been recovered at Nuzi, nor would one expect to find that kind of document in provincial archives of the period. On the other hand, direct or indirect evi- dence of royal and/or palace edicts, orders, and proclamations is fairly abundant, if still largely obscure.
1.2.1.2 Aside from a number of royal orders issued in form of let- ters to palace officials or provincial governors, city mayors, and dis- trict governors,3 a few documents from the palace archives refer to a royal/palace “decree, edict, proclamation” (“ùdùtu, from the verb idû ” (“ùdû) “to let someone know, announce, proclaim”), a term at times replaced or coupled with †èmu “decision, communication, order” or qibìtu “order, command.” To judge from the scant evidence at hand, it seems that these “proclamations,” regardless of whether they had general legal effect or were limited ad hoc rulings, mainly con- cerned the protection and the occasional release of people who, for different reasons, were in a state of servitude.
1.2.2 Documents from Private Archives 1.2.2.1 In contrast with the meager evidence provided by the palace archives, the “ùdùtu proclamations/edicts are frequently mentioned in a vast number of private legal deeds of various kinds dating to the late period of Nuzi history. A standard clause at the end of the document states that “the (present) tablet was written after the “ùdùtu.” Scholars have long been tempted to compare the Nuzi “ùdùtu with the well-known early Mesopotamian debt remission decrees (Akk. mì“arum = Sum. NÍG.SI.SÁ), especially since two otherwise well- known terms—Akkadian anduràru (“remission, manumission”) and Hurrian kirenzi (“manumission”)—are occasionally attested.4
3 The sole evidence of a royal order sent to an Arraphean king by the Mittanian overlord is provided by the letter HSS 9 1, which bears the seal of “Sau“tatar, son of Parsatatar, King of Mittani.” 4 For a survey of the relationship between “ùdùtu, anduràru, and kirenzi, see most recently Lion, “L’anduràru . . .,” esp. 319–26; Zaccagnini, “Debt . . .,” with a sum- mary of previous literature.