Nuzi texts and their uses as historical evidence
By: by Maynard Paul Maidman ; edited by Ann Guinan.
Contributors: Guinan, Ann.
Series: Writings from the ancient world / Society of Biblical Literature -- no. 18
Publisher: Society of Biblical Literature
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Atlanta
Language: eng
Number of pages: 296
ISBN-13: 9781589832138
Subjects: Akkadian language -- Texts; Hurrians -- Social life and customs -- Sources; Land titles -- Registration and transfer -- Iraq -- Nuzi (Extinct city); Nuzi (Extinct city) -- Economic conditions -- Sources
Genres: Texts; Sources
Description: Ancient Nuzi, buried beneath modern Yorghan Tepe in northern Iraq, is a Late Bronze Age town belonging to the kingdom of Arrapḫa that has yielded between 6,500 and 7,000 legal, economic and administrative tablets, all belonging to a period of some five generations (circa 1475-1350 B.C.E.) and almost all from known archaeological contexts. The ninety-six Akkadian texts presented here in transliteration and translation are divided in five groups dealing with topics of historical interest: Nuzi and the political force responsible for its demise; the crimes and trials of a mayor of Nuzi; a multigenerational legal struggle over title to a substantial amount of land; the progressive enrichment of one family at the expense of another through a series of real estate transactions, and the nature of the ilku, a real estate tax whose dynamic is crucial in defining the economic and social structure of Nuzi as a whole.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Assyria and Arrapha in peace and war; title: Corruption in city halls; title: A legal dispute over land: two generations of legal paperwork; title: The decline and fall of a Nuzi family; title: The nature of the Ilku at Nuzi.