Writing, Law, and Kingship in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia

Charpin, Dominique; Todd, Jane Marie

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226101590.001.0001

Cited by 102 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Numerous texts from the archive underline the protocol that is expected of head administrators, diviners, and harem officials. Oaths are administered to women and men, many dating to the sixth month of Zimri‐Lim's first year in office (Charpin, ; Durand, ; Sasson, ; Ziegler, ). Charpin has explained that three themes lie at the heart of all the correspondence: the obligations of a good servant; the reliability of news; and the select cases where the official decides not to write the message to the king and withhold information.…”

Section: Mari and Old Babylonian Prophecymentioning

confidence: 99%

Prophecy in the Ancient Levant and Old Babylonian Mari

Deluty

2020

Religion Compass

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This article serves as an introduction to the historical phenomenon of prophecy in the Ancient Levant and Old Babylonian Mari. Of particular focus is the terminology for prophetic personnel, prophecy as a system of communication, the link between prophecy and monarchy at Mari, and the question of biblical prophetic books and their relationship to prophetic practice. The ancient evidence is surveyed in an effort to elucidate a comparative investigation across the Ancient Near East. This includes narratives and books in the Hebrew Bible, and extra-biblical sources from the sites of Lachish and Deir 'Alla in the larger Levant. Additionally, the Old Babylonian archives of the 18th century BCE kingdom of Mari (Tell Hariri, Syria) illuminate how prophecy is part of a larger system of royal correspondence in antiquity. The article offers the most up-to-date literature on prophecy at Mari and also introduces new work on third-party intermediaries, those individuals who relay prophets' messages to their recipients. K E Y W O R D S communication, Hebrew Bible, intermediaries, Levant, Mari, Old Babylonia, prophecy 1 | WHAT IS PROPHECY?To speak of prophets and prophecy is to invoke the image of society's isolated critics, those men and women who receive divine oracles and communicate them to humanity. In the history of scholarship, prophecy typically is understood as the "human transmission of allegedly divine messages." 1 According to Nissinen (2005), prophecy is a socially constructed phenomenon in antiquity. The individuals called prophets do not exist in a vacuum but rather are

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Section: Mari and Old Babylonian Prophecymentioning

confidence: 99%

Prophecy in the Ancient Levant and Old Babylonian Mari

Deluty

2020

Religion Compass

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“…However, the Mesopotamians did not exclusively define writing as the act of pressing a stylus into clay to make Cuneiform symbols because a writer could be the person who dictated words to a scribe, who then translated those sounds into symbols and placed them on a clay tablet. Dominique Charpin (2010) argues from textual evidence that in addition to scribes, kings and queens, the clergy, members of the military, and both male and female merchants had differing levels of literacy, all of which enabled them to use writing for technical purposes:…”

Section: What It Meant To Say a Woman ''Wrote''mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Charpin (2010), it was common for a Babylonian king to order an economic redress (misarum). According to the term of a redress, ''creditors were obliged to take their contracts before a commission, where the tablets were solemnly broken'' (p. 49), as the following text describes:…”

Section: Terms Of Redress-to Accomplish Somethingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding Our Missing Pieces—Women Technical Writers in Ancient Mesopotamia

Raign

2018

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

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Contrary to current scholarship in technical communication, which places the first women technical writers in the period of 1641-1700 AD, the first technical documents were written by women in 2400 BCE-eight centuries earlier. Enheduanna-the first woman writer and the first nonanonymous author ever identified-wrote many of the period's great poems, including A Hymn to Inanna. Her work calls into question our discipline's belief that persuasive writing began with Homer and was conceptualized largely by men. This fact has the potential to completely revise the history of both technical and persuasive writing, and women's role in that history.

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“…Although many early writings document the chronic warfare that characterized the ancient world, they also include codes of law, such as the Code of Hammurabi. Indeed, writing systems, legal codes, and state formation evolved together in ancient Mesopotamia (Charpin, 2010), where following the invention of writing, disputes over, for example, ownership of land could be resolved by reference to the written deed of purchase rather than by force. Early states carried on wars with each other, but within their boundaries claimed a monopoly on violence, enabling ordinary people to carry out their business without having to assume the full responsibility for deterring theft or personal violence (Boehm, 2011;Pinker, 2011).…”

Section: Chimpanzees Humans and The Invention Of Peacementioning

confidence: 99%

Chimpanzees, Warfare, and the Invention of Peace

Wilson¹

2013

War, Peace, and Human Nature

128

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This chapter reviews the evidence for warlike behavior in chimpanzees and discusses what these findings can tell us about human warfare. It begins with a review of the behavioral ecology of aggression, continues with an overview of the behavioral ecology of intergroup aggression in chimpanzees, and concludes with discussion of the implications for understanding the origins of war and prospects for peace in humans.

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Writing, Law, and Kingship in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia

Cited by 102 publications

References 0 publications

Prophecy in the Ancient Levant and Old Babylonian Mari

Prophecy in the Ancient Levant and Old Babylonian Mari

Finding Our Missing Pieces—Women Technical Writers in Ancient Mesopotamia

Chimpanzees, Warfare, and the Invention of Peace

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