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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    dence for the fact that native slaves were not altogether considered as things. The latter citation (obv. 9 ff.) reads as follows: “Geme-eninnu, daughter of DI-DE (was redeemed?) because she was a dumu-gi. The money for her, shekels, was confir(med) (as due to him) from the palace (for) Lu-Utu, the thro(ne-bearerP). Urbaba, the (-) . . . Ur-KAL, ensi (governor.) “Year following (the year) Kimash was sacked.”47 The restoration of du% (“redeemed”) in line 10 depends, of course, on the conception of the entire document. Let us reconstruct the facts of the case. In the first place, the expression X, child of Y, is the usual identification mark of the child of a free man.48 Secondly, because she was a dumu-gi the palace had to pay 5J shekels of silver to Luutu, obviously for some act which entitled him to a state compensation. And, thirdly, the effect of that act was the redemption (?) of Geme-eninnu. State redemption is no isolated phenomenon at this time. Reisner, for in¬ stance, records a document in which 17 slave girls were redeemed by temple and palace officials.49 De Genouillac, 1910-21, III, 6727 also reports a case in which a man had to refund a slave girl because he had sold a native girl in a foreign country: “(Y bought X from [?] ) Baia. Lulisi, being the lu-gina-btum50 of the transaction. Because Baia had sold her in a foreign place, Baia will refund 1 slave girl on account of (i.e., instead of) Da-t(i). “Because Lu(lisi) shied from its oath (was afraid of swearing to being innocent), he will refund 1 slave girl on account of the daughter of (X), and also the wages of the maid servant (for two [?] years), 12 shekels sil(ver).” The facts of the case are not all clear, but as it stands the document could very well refer to a similar situation which obtained in the Assyrian Laws, 47 Another reading for (face 10), and the one accepted by de Genouillac, 1911b, 25, is: dunu- gi-ni me-a-se, “pour qu’elle ait le titre de fille legitime. ...” Both interpretations are valid in context, though the one suggested in the text is more desirable grammatically. In de Genouillac, 1910-21, II, 752, there is a parallel for the former usage (lines 17-23): “Atu established the free¬ dom of the slave children and the DUMU-GI which Gemeuskigarra had borne to Kudingirra, the slave of Atu. . . . Nig-mu was maskim (official). Ur-KAL was ensi. ...” The DUMU-GI seem to represent children of a status different from that of slave children. On the other hand, they were not free, to judge from the fact that they were manumitted. Perhaps they were children of a union between a slave and a free woman, recalling the later law from the Hammurabi Code (Eilers, 1932, par. 175). DI-DE (face 9) can also be read Di-ne or Di-bi. 48 This does not preclude the possibility that Geme-eninnu might have been a pledge to an¬ other party, hence deprived of her freedom of movement. 49 Reisner, 1901, No. 16412. It concludes on reverse IV: (10)su-nigin 17 sag (11) ku 1\ ma-na 1 gin (12) sag-MUNUS ku-ta dus-dam. “a total (of) 17 slaves, 1§ mina (and) 1 shekel silver, maid servants to be redeemed (for money).” 60 The lu-ginabtum seems to have been some sort of middle-man. His functions have not yet been precisely defined.
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