PIHANS • XL Studies in Old Babylonian History by Marten Stol Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul 1976 UITGA YEN VAN HET NEDERLANDS HISTORISCH-ARCHAEOLOGISCH INSTITUUT TE lSTANBUL Publications de l'Institut historique et archeologique neerlandais de Stamboul sous la direction de E. VAN DONZEL, Pauline H. E. DONCEEL-VOUTE, A. A. KAMPMAN et Machteld J. MELLINK XL STUDIES IN OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY STUDIES IN OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY by MARTEN STOL NEDERLANDS HISTORISCH-ARCHAEOLOGISCH INSTITUUT TE !STANBUL 1976 Copyright 1976 by Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten Noordeindsplein 4-6, Leiden All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form I.S.B.N. 90 6258 040 8 Printed in Belgium CONTENTS page PREFACE . IX l. A DATE LIST CONTAINING YEAR NAMES OF WARAD-SIN AND RIM-SIN 1 1. The date list . 2. The year names of Warad-Sin 6 3. The year names of Rim-Sin . 18 4. The year names of Sin-iqi:Sam 23 5. Sabium of Baby1on in Southern Babylonia 27 6. Synchronisms of Gungunum and kings of Isin 29 7. Bur-Sin and Sumu-el . 30 Il. UNIDENTIFIED YEAR NAMES OF HAMMURABI 32 Ill. RIM-SIN Il . 44 1. The ninth year of Samsu-iluna 44 2. Two archives . 45 3. Evidence from other texts 47 4. Intercalary months and the calendar 48 5. The defeat of Rim-Sin II 50 6. The events of Samsu-iluna year 10 52 7. Rim-Sin II, years (a) and (b) 53 8. The aftermath 55 Appendixes 56 IV. NAMES OF ABI-ESUlj'S LAST YEARS 59 V. EMUTBALUM 63 1. The name 63 2. Before and at the time of the Kudur-mabuk Dynasty 64 3. Emutbalum in the inscriptions and the year names of the kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon 65 a. Hammurabi 65 b. Samsu-iluna .68 c. Ammi-~aduqa 68 4. Emutbalum in letters and other documents 69 5. Yamutbalum in texts from Uruk . 70 6. Yamutbalum in the Mari texts . 70 7. Yamutbalum in post-Old Babylonian texts 71 8. Emutbalum in the lexical texts . 71 VIII CONTENTS VI. RABIANUM . 73 1. The word rabiiinum 73 a. Dialectal forms 73 b. The suffix -anum 76 2. "Burgomaster" 79 A. A pair of burgomasters 79 B. Rotation of the office 80 C. rabiiinum and GIR.NITA 82 3. *rabiiin niirim . 83 4. "Chieftain, sheikh" 85 5. rabiiin MAR.TU . 87 6. Excursus: MAR.TU = dMAR.TU 88 VII. THE BURGOMASTER IN HARVEST LABOR CONTRACTS 90 VIII. SOME PROBLEMS IN OLD BABYLONIAN HARVEST LABOR CONTRACTS 97 1. Earlier studies 97 2. A crucial clause 98 3. To "go" harvesters 99 4. Conclusions 103 5. "At harvest time" 104 6. Contracts from the Diyala region 105 7. "Should he not go" 106 INDEXES 109 PHOTOGRAPHS PREFACE This book investigates some aspects of the political and social history of the Old Babylonian Period, notably the second half of this period (roughly 1850- 1600 B.C.). Chronology is the main theme of Chapters I-IV. As year names are central for the reconstruction of the chronology of the Old Babylonian Period, I have tried to establish the correct sequence of a number of those year names. The informa­ tion they convey on the political history is also dealt with. Chapter V investigates the geographical and political cortcept "Emutbalum", which is of great importance for the correct interpretation of the rise and conquests of Hammurabi. The last three chapters of the book center on some problems in the social and economic history of this period. The meaning of the title rabianum ("burgomaster") and its use by kings, sheikhs and aldermen is the subject matter of Chapters VI and VII. Chapter VII, describing the role of the burgomaster in harvest labor contracts, entailed a new interpretation of those contracts (Chapter VIII). It is a pleasant duty to thank all those who have assisted me in various ways. In the first place, I am indebted to my teacher, Professor Kraus, who supervised my work from its very beginning. I wish to thank him for his penetrating criticisms and his helpful suggestions. I am grateful to Professors K. R. Veenhof and W. H. Ph. Romer, who read the manuscript and made a number of corrections and additions. I discussed some problems with Dr. G. van Driel, to whom I owe certain suggestions, now incorporated in the first chapter. I am much in debt with the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago : its Director, Dr. J. A. Brinkman, generously gave me the permission to publish here the Date List A. 7534 and to use Old Babylonian texts in the Tablet Collection of the Oriental Institute. X PREFACE A. L. Oppenheim, M. Sigrist, K. R. Veenhof, C. B. F. Walker and R. M. Whiting Jr kindly allowed me to use some unpublished texts. How could I thank Dr. Jack M. Sasson (Chapel Hill) for correcting the English of my manuscript? His task must have been a laborious one, especially since my style is so terse. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank Mrs. Carol van Oriel, Mrs. Rivkah Harris, Dr. C. Nijland, Dr. David I. Owen and Mr. Th. J. H. Krispijn for their help. I am happy that the Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten is willing to publish this book. Leiden, June 1976 M. STOL I. A DATE LIST CONTAINING YEAR NAMES OF WARAD-SIN AND RIM-SIN 1. The Date List The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago possesses two Old Babylonian tablets with lists of year names. One date list of the year names of Samsu-ditana, king ofBabylon, was published by Feigin and Landsberger in JNES 14, 1955, 137 ff.; the other list, A. 7534, covering all the years of Warad-Sin and 22 years of Rim-Sin, both kings of Larsa, will be published here. Dr. I. J. Gelb drew my attention to this second list. I thank him and Dr. J. A. Brink­ man for their kind permission to publish this text together with the photographs. The provenance of the text is unknown to me. It is difficult to establish the date and the provenance of the text by means of palaeography. The writing seems to me to be typical for many "Larsa" texts. This type of writing is not restricted to the time of Rim-Sin I (as in YOS 8), but is also attested in "Larsa" during the reigns of Hammurabi and Samsu-iluna (as in TCL 11; cp. my footnote 20). Photographs of the tablet and copies of a number of individual signs are published here on Plates I-III and pages 4 f., respectively. Our date list resembles in some respects the lists published by Gadd in UET 1 265 and 266. According to Gadd, UET I, 1928, p. 70, "Nos. 265 and 266 are fragments of tablets which originally contained the whole or parts of the list of date formulae for the Larsa dynasty, similar to the prism in the Louvre, published by Thureau­ Dangin in RA XV p. 52ff.". What remains of the second list, UET 1 266, covers the year names from Sin-eribam 1 to Rim-Sin 22 (with large gaps), see Edzard, ZZB 17 [9.] and the transliteration by Ungnad in RLA 2 153-4 (L 2 ). The subscript of this text shows that the tablet was written at the time of Samsu-iluna. One may safely assume that date lists such as these (and our A. 7534) continued to be written after the downfall of the Larsa Dynasty and that they served practical purposes in the offices of the Great Organizations, as well as elsewhere. The text published here covers the year names Warad-Sin !-Rim-Sin 22. There is no room on the tablet for the full formula of Rim-Sin 23; the scribe may have continued his date list on another tablet. 2 I. A DATE LIST So the terminus post quem for the date of our text is Rim-Sin 22. On the following pages, I will give a transliteration of the text of the new date list and comment on the individual year names. The year names of Warad­ Sin will be studied with care; not much will be said about those of Rim-Sin, since they are well-known. I consulted with much profit F. Thureau-Dangin, "La chronologie de la Dynastie de Larsa" (RA 15, 1918, 1 ff.); E. M. Grice, Chronology of the Larsa Dynasty (= YOSR IV), 1919; A. Ungnad, "Datenlisten" (RLA 2,1938, 149ff.); F. R. Kraus, Nippur und !sin nach altbabylonischen Rechtsurkunden, chapters 1-3 (= JCS 3, 1951, 4-45); L. Matous, "Zur Chronologie der Geschichte von Larsa bis zum Einfall der Elamiter" (ArOr 20, 1952, 288ff.); D.O. Edzard, ZZB, 1957, passim. In sofar as I can agree with these authors, I will not repeat their discussions and conclusions. The study of the year names of Warad-Sin forces me to review the year names of Sin-iqiSam, to discuss the role of Sabium during these years, and to study some synchronisms. The new information given by the new text A. 7534 is of some consequence for the history of the reign of Warad-Sin. However, since it does not radically alter the description presented in Edzard's ZZB, 1957, 172-176, I do not feel obligated to rewrite the history of those years. A. 7534 Obverse I (1) [m]u ir-dEN.ZU Jugal [ x] (2) mu ka-zal-tuki ba. g[ul] (3) mu 1 alam.guskin [i]r-dEN.ZU e.dutu.se i.ni.in.ku4 .re (4) mu ugnim (KI.SU.LU.UB.GAR) ma.al.gi4 .a gis.t[uk]ul ba.an.sig (5) mu kisal.mah.dutu ba.du (6) mu ga.