Following the Man of Yamhad
Subtitle: settlement and territory at Old Babylonian Alalah
By: by Jacob Lauinger
Series: Culture and history of the ancient Near East -- volume 75
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 447
ISBN-13: 9789004290938; 9789004292895
Subjects: Social conditions; Texts; Land tenure (Assyro-Babylonian law); Akkadian Cuneiform inscriptions; Akkadian language
Other titles: Settlement and territory at Old Babylonian Alalah
Description: "Legal texts recording the purchase or exchange of entire settlements are among the most important cuneiform tablets discovered at Old Babylonian/Middle Bronze Age (Level VII) Alalah. Following the Man of Yamhad is the first book-length study of these legal texts and the socio-economic practice that they document. The author explores the nature of the alienated settlements, the rights enjoyed by their owners, the underlying system of land tenure, and the larger political context in which the transactions occurred. The study is supported by extensive collations and up-to-date editions of relevant legal and administrative texts. Its conclusions will be of interest to anyone working on the history, society, and economy of the Bronze Age Near East"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 401-421) and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Aims of the book; Land tenure; Terminology; The responsibilities of owning a settlement; Previous research on owning settlements; What was a settlement?; What rights did the owner of a settlement enjoy?; Excursus: The word teqnitum; Structure of the book; title: Tablets and archives; title: Case studies; title: L'affaire d'Alahtum; title: Conditions of tenure; title: Yarim-Lim's domain; title: Conclusion: Summary and synthesis; Interpretive frameworks; A network of nodes and corridors?; A province or a personal estate?; An "amorite" polity?; title: Appendix 1: The chronology of Level VII Alalah; title: Appendix 2: Data sets; title: Appendix 3: Editions of translated Level VII texts.