Basic Metadata
- NaBuCCo ID
- 3889
- Museum No.
- YBC 04005
- CDLI P-Identifier
- Place of issue
- Uruk city
- Type and Content
- Adoptions
- Archive
- Eanna temple
- Dossier
- None
- Period
- NB
- Year BCE
- None
- Editio princeps
- YOS 6
Content
- Paraphrase
Adoption of one slave by another (of the same master).
The exact nature and context of this transaction is not entirely clear.
A voluntarily (ina hūd libbi) gives ⅔* in (ina) (the ownership over) his Egyptian slave (qallu) B to his other slave, C. The latter** has to pay (nadānu) 5 shekels of silver for the ⅔ in B. The transaction is formulated, not as a sale, but as an adoption, i.e. “A voluntariy gives (nadānu) ⅔ in B to C for adoption as a son (ana mārūti).” The slave C had been dedicated (by his master A) to the temple: he was “as a temple-serf (širku) of the Lady-of-Uruk.” Therefore, when C dies, B will belong to the temple-serf-status of the Lady-of-Uruk (as well).
The tablet concludes with a curse against any transgressor: May Bēl, Nabû, the Lady-of-Uruk, and Nanāya decree the destruction of whoever alters this agreement, whether a governor or a scribe.
Names of 3 witnesses and the scribe.
*Wr. 2-ta šuII.meš = 2 qātāte. For the possibility to read KUŠ rather than ŠU, see Ragen 2006, 355. **Differently, Ragen 2006, 355 who takes B in line 14 as the subject of the verb “to pay” instead of the second part in a genitive construction with the 2 qātāte of the preceding line 13: “⅔ in B”.
A= Ištar-šumu-līšir//Ekur-zākir; B= Nabû-ina-kāru-lūmur, an Egyptian slave of A; C= Ištar-abu-uṣur, slave of A and a temple-serf (širku)
- Transliteration
- Babylonian Date (year-month-day):
- Nbn. 0a-mm-dd
further information
- Imported (Person, Date)
- Yuval Levavi, Kathleen Abraham (10/09/2023)
- Legacy NaBuCCo ID
- None