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The Nimrud Tablets, 1953

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

D. J. Wiseman
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Extract

The fifth season's campaign at Nimrud (Kalḫu) has resulted in a further one hundred Assyrian texts which, with the archaeological evidence to be published later in Iraq, will add to our knowledge of the Assyrian military capital especially during the years preceding the fall of Nineveh. Forty-seven of the tablets were found together in good condition, for the fire which had destroyed the private dwelling built against the inside of the Eastern citadel wall (TW 53 Room 19) had happily baked the clay tablets hard and thus preserved them so that they were immediately legible and could be copied in the field. This group of tablets comprised the records of Šamaš-šar-uṣur, a high-official (SAG) who, besides owning a house, probably that in which the tablets were discovered, and land in Calah, set himself to conduct a lively business, mainly as a money-lender like most of his wealthy contemporaries, for forty years from 666—c. 626 B.C. During this period Šamaš-šar-uṣur acquired six female and two male slaves at an average cost of 50 shekels of silver, the price of such male and female slaves being about the same. One girl, Urkittu-uknu, who a few years earlier had fetched 54 shekels, he was able to buy for the reduced sum of 15 shekels, perhaps because of her advancing age or some disability, for the physical condition of a slave controlled the price and was written into the contracts.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1953 , pp. 135 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1953

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References

page 135 note 1 So J.A.D.D. 542–6; Mendelsohn, I., Slavery in the Ancient Near East, 118Google Scholar. It may be that in 2 Kings, 15, 20, Menahem made the Israelites give fifty shekels because it was their worth as a slave at current Assyrian values.

page 135 note 2 ND. 3423. Cf. ND. 3422, or ṣibtu bennu clause.

page 135 note 3 Cf. ND. 3426 and Index of personal names.

page 135 note 4 mušakil iṣṣurē.

page 135 note 5 ND. 3424; 3426.

page 135 note 6 Ana IV-šu irabbu could be interpreted as 25 or 400 per cent. ND. 3432 requires 4 shekels per month. Cf. ND. 3431; 3438; 3442; 3444, 3452, 3453.

page 135 note 7 ND. 3461, 3464.

page 135 note 8 ND. 3446, 3447, 3449, 3450, cf. ND. 3456, 3464.

page 136 note 1 ND. 3442.

page 136 note 2 ND. 3430, 3433, 3441.

page 136 note 3 ND. 3435, 3437, 3440, 3451, 3453, 3454.

page 136 note 4 ND. 3463. Cf. ND. 1104 l. 113 where these were eaten with TU.MUŠEN (usually “pidgeons”). These must be of the same species.

page 136 note 5 In Iraq, XIV, Pt. 1, p. 31Google Scholar. I translated kurki as “fowls”, since they were eaten at the royal feast. But Thompson, R. Campbell (J.R.A.S., 1929, 339)Google Scholar saw cranes high over Mosul in the winter. He was told by local Arabs that they made excellent eating. The small numbers mentioned in these texts would seem to be against the interpretation of kurku as “fowl” rather than “crane” (Mod. Iraqi Arabic kurkia; Aramaic kūrkīa). See also R.A., VII, 160, n. 5Google Scholar; Z.A., 45, 85. In Egypt the crane was domesticated and fattened for the table (Duell, , Mastaba of Mereruka, I, Pl. 52Google Scholar; Davies, N. De G., Mastaba of Ptahhetep …. I, Pl. XXIGoogle Scholar).

page 136 note 6 ND. 3439.

page 136 note 7 ND. 3465.

page 136 note 8 ND. 3432, 3434.

page 136 note 9 Iraq, XIV, Pt. 1, p. 31Google Scholar.

page 136 note 10 ND. 3455.

page 136 note 11 Level 3. ND. 3412, 3415 from Rooms 1 and 5 in the same building bear no date. ND. 3467 was found in Level 4 of Room 33.

page 136 note 12 i.e., of the reign of Šamaš-šar-iškun. Cf. also the eponym lists in Anatolian Studies, II, 31–2Google Scholar.

page 136 note 13 I am grateful to Mr. P. Hulin both for his help in assisting me with the tablets in the field and for the results of a study of the late limmu based mainly on the evidence in J.A.D.D.

page 136 note 14 This assumes that the new eponym Šarru-mituballiṭ (MAN.BE.TI) which also occurs on ND. 2099, must fall within this period. Arad-Nabū and Šantadameqi are also new additions to the post- 648 B.C. canon.

page 137 note 1 ND.3400+.

page 137 note 2 ND. 3416.

page 137 note 3 ND. 3474.

page 137 note 4 ND. 3413.

page 137 note 5 The past five seasons' work would indicate that these still lie beneath the dumps and old trenches which cover the Ninurta and Nabū temple areas.

page 137 note 6 ND. 3411. To be published with ND. 3400+.

page 137 note 7 ND. 3469.

page 137 note 8 E.g., ND. 3469-77.

page 137 note 9 ND. 3488.

page 137 note 10 Iraq, XII, pt. 2, pp. 168, 179Google Scholar.

page 137 note 11 ND. 3483, 3414. The script is identical. Note that the limmu Nabū-naṣir is otherwise unknown but probably post-648 B.C. Cf. RA, XL, 123 ffGoogle Scholar; Analecta Louvaniensia II (1949), 13Google Scholar.

page 137 note 12 ND. 3499.

page 137 note 13 Layard, , Nineveh and Babylon, 175 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 137 note 14 ND. 3405.

page 141 note 1 Iraq, XIII, Pt. 2, pp. 114, 117Google Scholar.

page 141 note 2 Cf. ND. 2309, l. 6, where among occupations occurs (sal) laḫ-ḫi-nu-tu a female miller.

page 146 note 1 Identified with tall Billa near the modern village of Bashiqa, c. 10 miles N.E. of Mosul-Nineveh, cf. Speiser, E. A., Studia…..P. Koschaker ded., 144 fGoogle Scholar.