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NABONIDUS AND FORTY THIEVES OF URUK

Criminal Investigation in Neo-Babylonian Eanna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2015

M. Sandowicz
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Abstract

This paper studies a group of documents produced in the course of investigation into the activities of a gang that operated in Uruk in the latter part of Nabonidus’ rule. It examines the composition of this criminal group and the offences committed by its members. Above all, however, it seeks to reconstruct the procedures implemented by the temple officials in response to a hitherto unpublished royal writ BM 114574, a document that throws new light on the involvement of the king in the administration of justice in the Neo-Babylonian period.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 76 , December 2014 , pp. 245 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2015 

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Footnotes

* The Trustees of the British Museum are acknowledged for permission to publish texts from the collection under their care. The author's stay in London was possible thanks to a grant from the Polish National Science Centre. Stefan Zawadzki kindly read a draft of the paper and offered valuable suggestions, Irving Finkel provided a preliminary transliteration of BM 114604 and Radosław Tarasewicz collated a copy of BM 114603. Any mistakes and inaccuracies remain, obviously, the responsibility of the author. The following abbreviations are used: ABL = Harper 1892–1914; AnOr 8 = Pohl 1933; AUWE 5 = von Weiher 1998; AUWE 8 = Kessler 1991; Black's Law Dictionary = Garner (ed.) 2004; CM 20 = Wunsch 2000; CT 22 = Campbell-Thompson 1906; Dar = Strassmaier 1892–1897; GAG - von Soden 1995; GCCI 2 = Dougherty 1933; OIP 122 = Weisberg 2003; SAA 10 = Parpola 1993; SAA 18 = Reynolds 2003; TCL 13 = Contenau 1929; TuM2/3 = Krückmann 1933; YOS 3 = Clay 1919; YOS 6 = Dougherty 1920; YOS 7 = Tremayne 1925; YOS 19 = Beaulieu 2000a.

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