Slavery during the third dynasty of Ur / [Bernard Joseph Siegel].

  • Bernard J. Siegel
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Slavery during the third dynasty of Ur / [Bernard Joseph Siegel]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    she was caught and returned to her owner (now his son). The slave girl then denied servitude to her master, saying that she had been sold. The witnesses in the case probably testified to the fact that she had not been sold. Their testimony was substantiated by the swearing of the son and wife of Gigi, and the slave girl and her children were confirmed for the son of Gigi. Slaves were forced to stay at the place of the owner to fulfil their obligations toward him. Presumably also they would not be entrusted with missions outside the town lest they might not return.44 CLASS MOBILITY • The distinction between the slave and the freeman was not a hard and fast one. There is considerable documentary evidence for manumission and freedom, which when once established completely freed the slave from the stigma of his former status.45 One text in particular relates the (re-)gaining of the status of citizenship by a manumitted slave: “Ur . . . (and [?] ) Urdingirra w(ere) maskims to (the fact) that Ninbubu, when (still) alive, after the freedom of Luurusag, slave of Ninbubu, had been established before the judges made him like unto a citizen. “Urd (sataran), Ludingir were its judges. “Year: Susin, the king, sacked the country of Zabsali.” In the town (largely separated from the temple and palace courts) mobility from the lower to the higher class of freemen was probably not great, but there was very little distance between the poor man and the slave. Often the latter must have fared much better than the former. The slave class was not one set off by some obvious difference, such as color or cultural background.46 It was composed in large measure of unfortunate individuals or their children, from the in-group, who were often freed by their master before he died. As we have seen, there was also no strict class endogamy, in so far as slaves could marry free women. To be reduced to slavery was unfortunate, but the socio-economic forces made a large portion of the masses subject to that condition. PROTECTION FROM SALE ABROAD That slaves as well as free persons were protected from sale abroad is at¬ tested to by de Genouillac, 1910-21, V, 6727, and idem.,11, 936, further evi- 44 In section (4) evidence was adduced to show that a slave might be allowed to carry on certain transactions for his master in the city. His movements, however, were here very much under control. 45 The question of manumission and freedom for the slave is largely omitted from this essay. The document to be considered has been included because of its special bearing on the status of the slave. 4,) Captives of war and slaves purchased in foreign markets must have formed an exception. I he evidence at present tends to support the view that such slaves were almost totally at the dis¬ posal of the palace and temple.
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