Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East

Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Rome

4–8 July 2011

edited byAlfonso Archi

in collaboration with Armando Bramanti

Winona Lake, Indiana EisEnbrAuns

2015

Early Byzantine mosaic from the Hama Museum

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rencontre assyriologique internationale (57th : 2011 : Rome, Italy)Tradition and innovation in the ancient Near East : proceedings of the 57th

Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Rome 4–8 July 2011 / edited by Alfonso Archi in collaboration with Armando Bremanti.

pages cmIncludes bibliographical references.ISBN 978-1-57506-313-3 (hardback : alk. paper)1. Middle East Civilization—To 622—Congresses. 2. Middle East—

History—To 622—Congresses. 3. Assyriology—Congresses. I. Archi, Alfonso. II. Bremanti, Armando. III. Title. IV. Title: Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Rome 4–8 July 2011.

DS56.R46 2011935—dc23 2014033751

v

Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ixAbbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiProgram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

Part 1opEning lEcturEs

Rückwärts schauend in die Zukunft: Utopien des Alten Orients . . . . . . . 3stEfAn M. MAul

Law and Literature in the Third Millennium b.c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13clAus WilckE

The Soul in the Stele? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49J. DAviD hAWkins

Part 2pApErs

Myth and Ritual through Tradition and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59DinA kAtz

A Tale of Twin Cities: Archaeology and the Sumerian King List . . . . . . . 75pEtr chArvát

Where are the Uruk Necropoles? Regional Innovation or Change in Tradition for Northern Mesopotamia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

JEsús gil fuEnsAntA AnD EDuArDo crivElli

Changes Through Time: The Pit F Sequence at Ur Revisited . . . . . . . . . 91giAcoMo bEnAti

Reading Figurines from Ancient Urkeš (2450 b.c.E.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105rick hAusEr

Wooden Carvings of Ebla: Some Open Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121ritA DolcE

The Aesthetic Lexicon of Ebla’s Composite Art during the Age of the Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

MArco rAMAzzotti

DUGURASU = rw-ḥꜢwt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155AlEssAnDro roccAti

More on Pre-Sargonic Umma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161sAlvAtorE f. MonAco

Contentsvi

Professional Figures and Administrative Roles in the Garden (ĝeškiri6) Management of Ur III Ĝirsu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

AngElA grEco

Tradition and Innovation in Šulgi’s Concept of Divine Kingship . . . . . . . 179luDěk vAcín

Bemerkungen zur Entwicklung der Beschwörungen des Marduk-Ea-Typs: Die Rolle Enlils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

MAnuEl cEccArElli

Prophecy in the Mari Texts as an Innovative Development . . . . . . . . . . 205hErbErt b. huffMon

Mathematical Lists: From Archiving to Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215christinE proust

Die lexikalische Serie á=idu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225frAukE WEiErshäusEr

The Rituals of Power: The Akkadian Tradition in Neo-Assyrian Policy . . . . 237krzysztof ulAnoWski

Innovation and Tradition within the Sphere of Neo-Assyrian Officialdom . . 251MElAniE gross

Tradition and Innovation in the Neo-Assyrian Reliefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267nicolAs gillMAnn

Une Armure Expérimentale du Premier Millénaire av. J.-C. . . . . . . . . . 277fAbricE DE bAckEr

A Group of Seals and Seal Impressions from the Neo-Assyrian Colony Tell Masaikh-Kar-Assurnasirpal with More Ancient Motifs . . . . . . 289

pAolA poli

Spätbabylonische Urkunden: Original, Kopie, Abschrift . . . . . . . . . . . . 301JürgEn lorEnz

Traditional Claims of an Illustrious Ancestor in Craftsmanship and in Wisdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

DAniEl boDi

New Phraseology and Literary Style in the Babylonian Version of the Achaemenid Inscriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

pArsA DAnEshMAnD

Aspects of Royal Authority and Local Competence: A Perspective from Nuzi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

AnnE löhnErt

Continuity and Discontinuity in a Nuzi Scribal Family . . . . . . . . . . . . 345pAolA nEgri scAfA

Mission at Arrapḫa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355DAvE DEuEl

Geopolitical Patterns and Connectivity in the Upper Khabur Valley in the Middle Bronze Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

AlEssio pAlMisAno

Contents vii

Writing Sumerian in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381MAurizio viAno

Territorial Administration in Alalaḫ during Level IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393AlvisE MAtEssi

Reciprocity and Commerce in Bronze and Iron Age Anatolia . . . . . . . . . 409h. crAig MElchErt

Hittite Clitic Doubling as an Innovative Category: Its Origin . . . . . . . . . 417AnDrEJ v. siDEltsEv

Memory and Tradition of the Hittite Empire in the post-Hittite Period . . . . 427MAriA ElEnA bAlzA AnD clEliA MorA

Fortifications and Arming as Analytical Elements for a Social-Policy Evolution in Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age . . . . . 439

toMMAso DE vincEnzi

Amurru in der königlichen Ideologie und Tradition: von Ebla bis Israel . . . 449pAvEl ČEch

The Assyrian Tree of Life and the Jewish Menorah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459christos g. kArAgiAnnis

The Ponderal Systems of Qatna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471luigi turri

French Excavations in Qasr Shemamok-Kilizu (Iraqi Kurdistan): The First Mission (2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

oliviEr rouAult AnD MAriA grAziA MAsEtti-rouAult

The Present in Our Past: The Assyrian Rock Reliefs at Nahr El-Kalb and the Lessons of Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Ann shAfEr

Oriental Studies and Fascism in Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501Agnès gArciA-vEnturA AnD JorDi viDAl

Part 3Workshop: froM pArEnts to chilDrEn

From Parents to Children: Ebla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511Alfonso Archi

Family Firms in the Ur III Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517stEvEn J. gArfinklE

A Chip Off the Old Block: The Transmission of Titles and Offices within the Family in Old Babylonian Sippar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525

MichEl tAnrEt

The Tradition of Professions within Families at Nuzi . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555JEAnEttE c. finckE

Crafts and Craftsmen at Ugarit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567WilfrED vAn solDt

Contentsviii

Hereditary Transmission of Specialized Knowledge in Hittite Anatolia: The Case of the Scribal Families of the Empire Period . . . . . . . . 577

giuliA torri

The Transmission of Offices, Professions, and Crafts within the Family in the Neo-Assyrian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

hEAthEr D. bAkEr

Families, Officialdom, and Families of Royal Officials in Chaldean and Achaemenid Babylonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597

M. JursA

597

Families, Officialdom, and Families of Royal Officials in Chaldean and Achaemenid Babylonia

M. JursaVienna

For the Late Babylonian period, the link between family and profession can be considered a given. Prosopographic research has brought to light an abundance of material that allows the identification of families that specialize in certain trades and occupations and pass them on to subsequent generations. 1 This is so in the case of rich entrepreneurial families who invest in land, best represented by the Egibis from Babylon, just as in the case of humble craftsmen such as the Dullupu, a fa-mily of smiths, likewise from Babylon. 2 The clearest link between occupation and family is found with the priestly families, where prebend ownership and the right of officiate in the cult and thus draw a stipend from the temple depended on de-scent in the male line from an initiated priest (Waerzeggers 2010). Of course there are exceptions: there are cases of changes in profession or occupation resulting in social mobility, upwards or downwards (Jursa 2010a: 59, 200, 766), but in general the pattern is extremely regular and needs no further confirmation: in the normal order of things, sons followed their fathers in their professions and continued their business. This ‘traditional’ or conservative approach to professional life ties in well with other features of Late Babylonian socio-economic institutions that characterize the deep structure of Babylonian urban society. Urban Babylonians kept themsel-ves segregated, rigorously so in marriage and lineage and less distinctly, but still in a noticeable fashion, in economic interchange, from the surrounding Aramean part of society (Zadok 2003: 484). They allotted paramount importance to the family estate, the bīt abi, whose preservation in all its aspects was the principal goal of the traditional household economy (Waerzeggers 2010: 81–90), and displayed a strong tendency towards controlling family lineages through group-endogamous marriage

Author’s note: This paper is based on research conducted under the auspices of a project entitled “Impe-rium and Officium” funded by the Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Vienna). My thanks are due to my collaborators in this project, J. Hackl and K. Wagensonner.

1. The most recent systematic invstigation of these issues can be found in Nielsen 2011, which focusses on the Early Neo-Babylonian period. The material from the long sixth century is richer by far than Nielsen’s sources and permits a more nuanced approach. In fact the sheer abundance of the mate-rial has so far precluded scholars from producing a comprehensive synthesis on the basic structures of Late Babylonian urban society, even though the bibliography of pertinent studies is rich. Loci classici: Kümmel 1979 for Uruk and Bongenaar 1997 for Sippar.

2. Basic bibliography for the archives mentioned in this paper, as well as a survey of their contents and structure, can be found in Jursa 2005. Jursa 2010 presents a comprehensive treatment of the eco-nomic development of the period.

Offprint from:Archi ed., Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Rome, 4–8 July 2011© Copyright 2015 Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved.

M. Jursa598

(Waerzeggers 2010: 94–97). This is true on the upper levels of society as well as on the lower levels: priests marry the daughters of other priests, nearly never outsi-ders; and texts exist in which female širkatu-temple serfs—possibly, but not neces-sarily prostitutes—are forbidden to have sexual contact with men who are not from their city and/or who are not Babylonians, but Arameans or Arabs, while other texts prohibit sexual contact between male, but unemancipated Babylonians and women of Aramean descent. 3 In short, Late Babylonian urban society was a strongly self-enclosed community that placed a very high value on preserving the social and economic status quo, which implied a tendency towards excluding outsiders as far as possible.

The present paper investigates to which degree this pattern holds true also for the connection between family descent and office-holding in the area of royal or city administration: do certain offices remain in the hands of certain families, or is it at least possible to demonstrate the existence of families with a tradition of office-hol-ding, possibly on different levels of the administration? Here, the type of office and the branch of the administration concerned need to be distinguished: temple admi-nistrations, local or city administrations, and representatives of the central gover-nment, the crown. (We will not address the organs of tribal self-government of the Chaldean and Aramean parts of the population.)

We are best informed about temple administrations. These were bi-polar ins-titutions, in which descendants of local priestly families worked side by side with representatives of the central government. 4 The latter are typically designated as qīpu ša Temple x “(royal) commissioner for temple x,” or as ša rēš šarri bēl piqitti ša Temple x “courtier, the supervisor of temple x.” While both groups were dependent on royal approval, the local background of the priests and their origin in certain fa-milies was a precondition for their access to office: previous research has established this fact beyond any possible doubt (e.g., Bongenaar 1997, Kümmel 1979; Kleber 2008: 5–52; Waerzeggers 2010: 33–76, Waerzeggers in press). On the other hand, the background of the royal officials working in the temple sphere is less clear, they are very rarely even given patronymics. They will be discussed in more detail below.

The highest representatives of city administration that are documented with any regularity in the sources are the ‘city governors,’ the šākin ṭēmis. These offici-als shared the power with the bishops (šatammu) in the large cities, such as Uruk, Cutha or Babylon, whereas small cities such as Sippar or Larsa were governed by a chief priest (šangû) without a šākin ṭēmi, but perhaps jointly with a mayor, ḫazannu (see, e.g., Kümmel 1979; Bongenaar 1997: 6 note 12; Jursa 1996; Waerzeggers 2010: 45). The šākin ṭēmis normally came from prominent local families and thus had the same social background as the chief priests and bishops. There are some exceptions and special cases however, which will be discussed below.

Finally, the royal officials proper: high palace officials, royal scribes, royal jud-ges, and the backbone of the central administration, the courtiers (ša rēši), men who were attached to the royal household proper, as ša rēš šarri, or to that of high offici-

3. E.g., YOS 7, 56, 92; Cyr. 307; see Ragen 2006: 580–588.4. This structure existed already under the Assyrian domination. Thus, the Eanna temple of Uruk

was headed by the triad of ‘bishop’ (šatammu), royal commissioner (qīpu) and chief scribe (ṭupšar bīt ili) already under Esarhaddon (SAA 10, 349; see also, e.g., SAA 10, 352). See in general Frame 1992: 228–232; 269–283.

Families, Officialdom, and Families of Royal Officials 599

als, in which case they are then designated as the ša rēšis of the official in question. 5 The study of the royal administration is unfortunately hampered by the lack of royal archives; what we see is only the image of the royal administration as it appears in temple archives and, to a lesser extent, in private archives. 6 Even so it is clear that from a social and ethno-linguistic view-point, the royal administration had a diffe-rent setting than city and temple administration. In the bilingual environment of Babylonia in the sixth and later centuries, the crown was far more open to the use of Aramaic than the temple administrations or the Babylonian urban bourgeoisie. The Aramaic scribes (sēpiru) that appear in the documentation with some frequency from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar onwards are overwhelmingly employed by the crown; in the Persian period, royal Aramaic scribes are even obligatory members of the board of temple administrators (Jursa 2012). There is also much evidence for courtiers (ša rēši) and fifth-century chamberlains (ustarbaru) of foreign extraction: some are Arameans or generally West Semites, a significant number is of Egyptian extraction, especially after the Persian conquest (Hackl and Jursa [in press]), and yet others bear names that resist etymological explanation. Some of the foreign courtiers bear Babylonian names; others have double names, a Babylonian and a foreign one. The wide-spread habit of assuming ‘Beamtennamen’ and double names may in fact mask the non-Babylonian origin of many a courtier bearing an unexcep-tional Babylonian name. In any case, it is certain that the royal establishment did not share the self-enclosed nature of Babylonian urban society and especially the temple communities. It was ethnically and linguistically far more diverse, and pro-bably there was more social mobility than in other spheres of society.

What can be said about families of officials in the light of this? We begin with the courtiers, the ša rēšis, the only category of royal officials who are attested in sufficient numbers so that they can be treated as a group rather than as individuals.

A commentary to the omen series Šumma Izbu probably from Hellenistic Uruk contains the following explanation: “‘Courtier’ (lit.: ‘son of the palace’) (means) ša rēši (‘courtier’) because as a child [he was summo]ned [to the palace] (and) did not return to (his) father” (dumu é.gal // šá re-eš ina lìb-bi šá ṣe-eḫ-ru-ma; [a-na é.gal ša-s]u-ú ana a-bi la i-tu-ru). This is an explicit textual confirmation of the usual explanation given for the existence of a body of courtiers such as the ša rēšis: these were men who had been taken out of their family contexts as children and had grown up in the palace, thereby developing ties of loyalty with the king and the royal family while having to renounce the family connections of their own (De Zorzi and Jursa 2011). This model is effective irrespective of whether or not one considers the ša rēšis to have been eunuchs or not: suffice it to say that there is no Babylonian confirmation for this thesis, whatever the Assyrian sources might say (Jursa 2011a; Pirngruber 2011, Radner 2011: 359–360).

Does it follow from this that we have to reckon with a class of deracinated pro-fessionals of administration who owed what privileges they had to the king and thus were dedicated to serve him but were not expected, and perhaps even unable, to create ties beyond the palace establishment? The naming customs in administrative and legal documents support this assumption to some extent: while an ordinary Ba-

5. In the later Achaemenid period, the role of the ša rēši was mostly taken by the ustarbaru, the “chamberlains” (Jursa 2011a: 167–170).

6. On royal officials in Babylonia, especially during the time of the Neo-Babylonian empire, see, e.g., Beaulieu 2002, Vanderhooft 1999, Jursa 2010b, 2011a, 2012, and 2014.

M. Jursa600

bylonian needed to be named with his patronymic and, if applicable, with his family name to be fully defined from a legal point of view, for a courtier his own name and the title were sufficient: there was no legal need for further details. The presence of foreigners among the ša rēšis, which may actually be more common than it seems owing to the custom of taking second, Babylonian names, may be considered an ad-ditional confirmation. Note for instance, from Borsippa:

“Mašemūn, son of Sa-x-tukku, the royal courtier, whose name is Iddin-Nabû” (Ima-še?-e?-mu-nu, son of sa-⸢x⸣-tu-uk-ku ša-r[ēš šarri] ša Iddin-Nabû šumšu: BM 25662, ca. 28 Dar).

However, as in this case, we do have in fact a number of courtiers who are named with their patronymics, which would seem to contradict the thesis that they were necessarily cut off entirely from their family ties. Some further examples:

Adad-šarru-[. . .], son of Šarru-rūṣūˀa, ša rēš šarri (Nbk. 24, 31 Nbk; Bongenaar 1997: 108)

Libluṭ, son of Bēl-ḫussanni, ša rēš šarri ša ina muḫḫi quppi ša šarri (Kümmel 1979: 145; reign of Nabonidus)

Strikingly, no single ša rēši bears a family name: these men clearly did not come from the well-established Babylonian clans that made up the upper strata of urban society. Several patronymics are Aramaic or at least West Semitic, thereby bearing out the non-Babylonian origin of these courtiers. Examples:

Šarru-dūru, Ša-rēš-šarri, son of ˁEdrā (Aram.), TCL 13, 193, 16 Dar (Susa)Nargia ša rēš šarri, son of Ḫanūnu (West Sem.), Cyr. 312, 8 Cyr (Babylon)

And there is more evidence about the families of ša rēšis. A trial record from Baby-lon reports that a courtier summoned another courtier who held the important office of ša-muḫḫi-bītāni “supervisor of an inner part of the palace” before a court of law formed by high-ranking royal judicial officers. The plaintiff maintained that the ša-muḫḫi-bītāni and a member of his household had married the sister of the latter to the son of the plaintiff without the father’s consent. The marriage contract was voided and the woman was threatened with enslavement in case she continued to frequent the courtier’s son. 7 Clearly the normal rules of a patrimonial Babylonian or West Semitic society were in effect with regard to this courtier and his control over his family. Seen in this light it is suggestive that we know of at least one ša rēši whose son was a ša rēš šarri himself:

Mušēzib-Bēl ša rēš šarri, son of Nabû-ahhē-šullim ša rēši, CT 56, 610, 6 Nbn (Sippar) 8

This Mušēzib-Bēl was an important, or in any case a relatively rich official: he was able to gift a slave to the Ebabbar temple, a sign of considerable affluence. As he had followed his father in his profession, it would seem that the family was prospering in royal service. An analogous interpretation can be suggested for a case from Uruk.

Tattannu māršu ša Nabû-šarru-uṣur ša-rēš šarri, ROMCT 2, 5, 6 Cyr (Uruk)

7. Cyr. 311 & 312, 8 Cyr; Joannès 2000: 206–207.8. Bongenaar 1997: 110. The same name is also attested without filiation in CT 55, 727 (39 Nbk).

Following Bongenaar, he can be identified with the homonymous “overseer of the cattle tax” (rab ṣibti) attested in CT 56, 322.

Families, Officialdom, and Families of Royal Officials 601

is to be understood as “the courtier Tattannu, son of Nabû-šarru-uṣur”–the only plausible candidate, in an Urukean context, for the identification of this Nabû-šarru-uṣur is the well-known courtier and supervisor (bēl piqitti) of Eanna of that name (Kleber 2008: 36), who is attested form 1 to 13 Nbn. The father’s title would have been of no relevance several years after his death or disappearance; hence the title “courtier” in this case probably refers to the son, who had followed his father in his profession, or at least in his professional allegiance. 9

A final point on the ša-rēšis’ names. The comparatively high frequency of non-Ba-bylonian names and patronymics has already been mentioned, even though the ma-jority of names are Babylonian. About twenty per cent of names are typical Beam-tennamen; i.e., they contain the element šarru: Nabû-šarru-uṣur, Tīrik-šarrūssu, Šarru-lū-dari. These names can either reflect family traditions of royal service or can be assumed or given upon access to office. The theophoric elements included in these names give further clues since the distribution of theophoric elements is diffe-rent for local people working for the temples. 10 In Sippar and in Uruk, names formed with the elements Adad and Amurru, i.e., with gods who are typical for Aramaic names, account for five and twelve per cent respectively of the names of ša rēšis, but for less than two per cent of the names of normal temple personnel. In Sippar, the share of Šamaš names is predictably high; in both samples it accounts for about a third. The share of the central Babylonian gods Bēl, Nabû and Marduk is forty-two per cent for courtiers and sixty-two per cent for temple personnel including priests. In Uruk, names invoking Bēl, Nabû and Marduk make up about half of the names of temple personnel, but two thirds of the names of courtiers. Names including the Urukean gods Ištar, Anu and Nanaja on the other hand account for only ten per cent of the courtiers’ names, but for twenty per cent of the names of normal temple personnel, including priests.

This distribution suggests the following: courtiers with Adad and Amurru na-mes are unlikely to have had a local background either in Uruk or in Sippar; they will have been outsiders, possibly Arameans. The comparatively frequent Amurru names in Uruk are to be explained by the importance of this god in the Sealand of which province Uruk was part and whence the royal officials bearing this theophoric element undoubtedly hailed (Beaulieu 2005). The many Šamaš names in Sippar and the ten per cent of Ištar, Anu and Nanaja names in Uruk on the other hand show that the onomasticon of the ša rēšis did also have a local component; it is probable that these courtiers actually came from Sippar and Uruk respectively. However, at least in Uruk this local component is outnumbered by men whose names suggest a connection with the central cities of Babylonia, Babylon and Borsippa. They may still have come from Uruk, but if so, they probably were linked to the families of northern origin whose presence in Uruk has been discussed by Kessler (2004).

In conclusion then, Babylonian courtiers in the long sixth century could have families, their sons 11 could follow them in their profession, and that the status of ša

9. Unless one thinks of Nabû-šarru-uṣur, son of Bunānu, who acted as city governor of Uruk in the third year of Cyrus (Kleber 2008: 39). He is unusual in that he bears a typical Beamtenname, a fact that is attested for one other city governor of Uruk only. If Tattannu were his son, we would still have a case of a family with a tradition in royal service.

10. The following is based on the name indices of Bongenaar 1997 and Kümmel 1979, to which some names of courtiers culled from unpublished texts were added. These additions do not affect the overall pattern in a significant way, however.

11. Which in theory could also have been adopted – the existence of sons does not have a bearing on the issue whether or not ša-rēšis were eunuchs.

M. Jursa602

rēši did not necessarily imply a loss of all family connections, nor perhaps even an emancipation from the paternal authority. On the other hand, it is also clear that as a group, these courtiers did not belong to the class of propertied urban Babylonians with their endogamous clan system. The courtiers have a more varied background, both Babylonian and foreign. Cases of upward social mobility based on the access to office must have occurred regularly, much more so than for priests or generally Babylonian urban families. The onomastics of courtiers in the peripheral cities of Uruk and Sippar suggests that at least some ša-rēšis were drawn from the local population, while others, those bearing names with Amurru or Adad, were clearly outsiders. The majority of the ša-rēšis have names that suggest an allegiance to the chief ‘state gods’ Bēl/Marduk and Nabû. This does not rule out local origin a priori, but given the tasks of the ša rēši and their demonstrably high mobility, it is next to certain that many of these officials who are attested in Sippar or Uruk actually came from Babylon itself: their presence reflects attempts at a centralisation of administration.

We now turn to the royal commissioners, the qīpus, who represented the royal interest in the temple administrations. 12 In general one finds here the typical pat-tern that one associates with royal functionaries: qīpus have neither patronymics, nor family names; no explicit information at all is given about their background. The names are frequently typical Beamtennamen: of thirteen qīpus of Eanna, for instance, six contain the element bēlu “lord” or šarru “king” (Kleber 2008: 30–32). The theophoric elements again suggest a non-local and in part potentially non-Ba-bylonian origin: in Uruk we have two qīpus who bear an Amurru name; one has a Ninurta name and another one a name with Sîn: these are outsiders’ names from the viewpoint of the Eanna onomasticon. Only one qīpu has a name formed with Anu.

There is however an exception. A certain Imbia of the Kidin-Marduk family acted as qīpu of the Eanna temple under Bardia, during the first months of Da-rius’ reign and during the revolts of Nebuchadnezzar IV. He was removed from office by Darius after his victory. This man is known to have had the office of city governor (šākin ṭēmi) of Uruk during the reign of Cambyses; he thus came from a locally important Babylonian family with some links to the crown. Nevertheless, this transition to the office of qīpu of a man of such a background is unique in Uruk and Sippar at the time. In the late reign of Darius I, however, as C. Waerzeggers has observed, such appointments of members of priestly families to the office of qīpu are also known in Babylon and Borsippa (Waerzeggers 2010: 42 note 220). The full evidence for such atypical ‘priestly’ qīpus, adding cases from Dilbat and elsewhere, is as follows.

Ezida (Borsippa): Nergal-nāṣir, son of Nabû-bān-zēri of the Ilšu-abūšu family, around 29 Dar 13

Esangila (Babylon): Hašdāya, son of Nabû-nādin-apli of the Arad-Ea family, around 29 Dar 14

12. Explicit references to the qīpus’ being appointed by the king can be found in the seventh cen-tury: e.g., SAA 10, 364.

13. Zadok and Zadok 2005: 644; VS 6, 155, TEBR 80, BM 87313.14. VS 6, 155, CT 22, 59.

Families, Officialdom, and Families of Royal Officials 603

Ekidurgina (Bāṣ?): Ea-iddin, son of Adad-zēru-ibni of the Šangû-Gula family, 29 Dar 15

E-imbi-Anu (Dilbat): Bēl-zēru-ibni son of Iqīša-Marduk of the Arad-Ea family, end of the reign of Darius or first two years of Xerxes (VS 6,171), replaced by Nidintu, son of Nabû-iddin of the [ . . . family], reign of Bēl-šimânni and Šamaš-erība (VS 6, 331; CTMMA 4,140)

The appearance of these ‘new’ qīpus is a sign of a probably gradual encroachment of the priestly families on royal privileges with regard to the management of the temples. This process may have been facilitated by the courtier managers (ša rēš šarri bēl piqitti) and the Aramaic scribes working among the temple administrators: officials without local connections and loyalties whom the royal administration had installed in all temples to look after its interests. Their presence may have made it seem less vital for the king to keep also the office of qīpu under close control. Nevertheless, the local networks of urban notables must have been strengthened by this development at the expense of the centralizing power of the crown.

City governors (šākin ṭēmis) occupied a liminal position between the city-based administrative institutions that had their social core in the temples and the priest-hood on the one hand and the royal administration on the other. In Borsippa, the best-known case, the city governors come from the leading priestly families, the same families from which the bishops (šatammu) of Ezida originated: several bis-hops are in fact sons of city governors. The nexus between priesthood, local family background and prestige and royal protection is beyond doubt; changes in office that coincide with political changes can be observed several times (Waerzeggers 2010: 65–76). 16 The situation in Babylon was the same even though we have less infor-mation. The best-known case is that of the Ša-nāšišu family, which held important positions in northern Babylonia under Darius (Waerzeggers in press). A member of this family, Ina-Esangila-lilbur, was chief priest (šangû) of the Ebabbar temple at Sippar from the first to the twelfth year of Darius I, then he moved to Baby-lon, where he was appointed city-governor (šākin ṭēmi), possibly as successor of his father. In the twenty-fifth year of Darius Ina-Esangila-lilbur went on to act as bis-hop (šatammu) of Esangila, he may even have become bishop of Ezida at the same time. His younger brother Gūzānu was his successor as chief priest in Sippar until the twenty-fifth year of Darius, when he took over from his brother the position of city governor of Babylon. At the same time, another brother, Nabû-balāssu-iqbi, took the now vacant position of šangû of Sippar. This branch of the Ša-nāšišu fa-mily, and others like it, such as a branch of the Ilia family from Borsippa, 17 pros-pered with royal support and in part on the basis of offices in city administration, but their principal socio-economic point of reference was the temple, not the royal establishment.

Interestingly, the situation in Uruk is different (data: Kleber 2008: 32–39). First, there were at least two city governors who on the basis of their names, Anu-

15. VS 6, 155. For the temple name (perhaps to be read Ekitušgina), see George 1993: 111.16. There is one noteable exception however: the city governor “Adad-sir-idiri”, who was in office at

one point under Darius according to HSM 1931–1-9, 16, was of westsemitic origin and thus was not off-spring of a family with a priestly background (Waerzeggers 2010: 70 citing Zadok and Zadok 2005: 639).

17. Four governors of Borsippa and four bishops of Ezida in the long sixth century: Waerzeggers 2010: 65 and 69.

M. Jursa604

šarru-uṣur and Nabû-šarru-uṣur (Kleber 2008: 39), were most likely royal officials sensu strictu, perhaps even courtiers. Otherwise, city governors came from local families and appear as witnesses and sometimes as protagonists in the temple ar-chive of Eanna also before their access to office, but the close link between the hig-hest priestly offices and the office of city governor that was typical for Borsippa and Babylon did not exist in Uruk. The families of origin of the city governors are Gimil-Nanaya, Hunzû and Kidin-Marduk. These are, as Kessler (2004) has shown, all genuinely Urukean families. They did not produce a single bishop of Eanna; at the time these came mostly from families that had also branches or ties in the northern Babylonia (Dābibī, Egibi). In fact the families of the šākin ṭēmis seem to have had traditionally close links to the royal administration, perhaps even closer links than to the temple. A few illustrations of this fact: in one case we see a future city governor of Uruk, Marduk-šumu-iddin of the Gimil-Nanāya family, take over the management of the entire revenue that accrued to the king in relation to the cultic activities in Eanna (TCL 12, 57; Kleber 2008: 288–92). After the death of this governor, three high-ranking royal officials made a joint effort to intercede with the temple administration on behalf of the apparently minor son of the deceased šākin ṭēmi whose inheritance was being contested: this is a personal intervention on be-half of the family of a close colleague (Jursa 2011b). A letter dating to the final years of the reign of Nabonidus relates that Imbia, the man who was to become šākin ṭēmi under Cyrus and Cambyses, was staying in the entourage of king Nabonidus (ittāḫ šarri ušuz, YOS 3, 129). The families of the Urukean šākin ṭēmis were therefore local families from Uruk whose social prestige and position was tied to a consider-able degree to the crown and the offices that resulted from this contact, rather than primarily to the temple as was the case with the majority of the other families of the same upper stratum of the Urukean urban population.

If one looks beyond the long sixth century it becomes apparent that attaching a family’s fortune to royal backing was a more secure strategy than reliance on local temple connections and Babylonian urban networks. The old priestly families of Northern Babylonia suffered severely in the aftermath of the rebellions against Xerxes in 484, but the loyal Gimil-Nanaja, Hunzû and Kidin-Marduk clans in Uruk survived (Kessler 2004). In Borsippa and Babylon on the other hand, the Ilias and Ša-nāšišus were removed from their prominent positions; the office of city governor of Borsippa was given to a member of the Bābāya family, a clan that had been com-pletely unimportant in the sixth century. This family prospered and moved on to a bright future in royal service: the famous Achaemenid governor of Babylon Bēlšunu was in all likelihood a direct descendent of this new governor of Borsippa, and so was of course also Erība, Bēlšunu’s son and successor as governor of Babylon, and perhaps another Bēlšunu (Belesys) who acted as governor of Across-the-River (Stol-per 1999: 371–373; Jursa 2005: 61; Pedersén 2005: 146–147).

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