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Old Babylonian Dowries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
Extract
Hammurapi's Code of Laws says that a woman who lived in the Old Babylonian period brought a dowry with her from her father's house when she married. The laws specify that if the marriage failed, and she was not to blame, she kept her dowry for any subsequent marriage. If she died, her sons or (if she had none) her father's family, not her husband, inherited it. Some texts that list dowries of the Old Babylonian period, and texts of related or similar content, are edited and discussed here.
The range of possessions that belonged to women in those times can now be illustrated from these texts, and they also indicate some activities and interests of the women, who generally came from well-to-do families. Some hints of their personalities too emerge from their possessions: Bēlessunu daughter of Ibni-Amurru, and Ṭāb-Esagila the nadītum-priestess daughter of Marduk-muballiṭ both had plans for some comfortable upholstery or mattresses, and took with them a box of palm fibre; Bēlessunu was also a business woman with her own seal and her own set of weights. Bēletum the nadītum daughter of Riš-Nabium liked to entertain in style, and so took fifteen eating-bowls with her. Narūbtum the daughter of Ikūn-pî-Sin had an enormous wardrobe, consisting of no less than 24 garments and 42 headdresses, all carefully looked after in individual clothes-chests; she also had burial shrouds ready for her death, to keep up appearances even in the grave. Not all of them were fortunate enough to possess their own slaves or slavegirls. A letter from Sippar in the time of Hammurapi tells that it was difficult even for a nadītum priestess to acquire slaves. Narūbtum daughter of Ikūn-pî-Sin was fortunate in having nine slavegirls; most of the dowries list two or one or none.
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- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1980
References
1 CH § 171–179.
2 I am indebted to the C. H. Johns Memorial Fund, Cambridge University, for financial support with travelling expenses; to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to publish BM 16465 (no. 10) and BM 16978 (no. 11); to Dr. Sollberger, E. for making CT 47, 83 (no. 8)Google Scholar and BAP 7 (no. 3) available for collation; and to R. Oddy of the Royal Scottish Museum for access to the tablet that Langdon first edited in PSBA 33 (1911), pl. XXIX (no. 9)Google Scholar. I am especially grateful to C. B. F. Walker for reading a draft of this article and making many useful comments that improved it.
3 On the problems of estimating a family's wealth from a single text, see below p. 55.
4 OBTR, 134.
6 Finkelstein, , YOS 13, 7, n. 29Google Scholar.
6 CT 48, 84.
7 The translation of terhatum as “dowry” in OBTR, 165 is incorrect.
8 See Yaron, , Or. NS 34 (1965), 23 ffGoogle Scholar.
9 See Greengus, , JCS 20 (1966), 58 n. 16Google Scholar.
10 Schorr, , UAZP (1913)Google Scholar pointed out that this is the only claim that a widower may make on a dowry, and deduced that it would also apply if sons inherited the dowry. In spite of his understanding of no. 5 (UAZP, no. 209), this law has been translated and interpreted wrongly by Driver, and Miles, , Babylonian Laws (1955), 63 and 344Google Scholar; and by Meek, in ANET2 (1969), 173Google Scholar. The correct translation of the law was first given by Yaron, , Laws of Ešnunna (1969), 115Google Scholar.
11 See Renger, , Or. NS 42 (1973), 272 esp. n. 45Google Scholar.
12 It is possible that many spindles were of clay, easily made and lightly discarded, and so often not listed in dowries. Perhaps only wooden or stone spindles would be listed.
13 See Barrelet, , RA 71 (1977), esp. 70 and 87Google Scholar.
14 AbB IV, XI.
15 Walters, , Water for Larsa (YNER 4), 167Google Scholar.
16 I am grateful to Dr. R. Ellison for pointing out that CAD s.v. ṣahātu, 61a shows that the same verb is used of processing grapes and šamaššammū. It provides positive support from the evidence of language for the negative evidence given by Helbaek in Nimrud and its Remains, 618. In all the medical examples given sub ṣahātu 1c), the verb is used of extracting juice from an infusion; the various translations avoided “press” because that word is not applicable to sesame; but CAD now, e.g. M/I, 365a, translates “linseed”. For a detailed description of how oil was extracted from sesame seeds in Syria c. A.D. 1892, see David, E., Spices, Salt and Aromatics, (Penguin, 1970), 54Google Scholar.
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