6.1 Officials

The previous chapters have shown that although the majority of Judeans worked as farmers in the land-for-service sector, some of them served the local or state administration as officials. A Judean sēpiru and a group of Judean courtiers were stationed in Babylon,¹¹¹⁸ and a number of Judeans worked as minor officials in the land-for-service sector in the environs of Yāhūdu and Nippur.¹¹¹⁹ An additional five documents enrich this picture.

The most notable Judean official known to us was a certain Gadal-Yāma/Banna-Ea, who is attested in Babylon in 24-VI-36 Dar (486 bce, BM 74554 = Stolper 1989).¹¹²⁰Hu-ta-x-x-ˀ/Pagakanna (the governor of Babylon and Across-the-River), Libluṭ (sēpiru bēl ṭēmi), and Gadal-Yāma/Banna-Ea (sēpiru bēl ṭēmi) authorised Ṣihā/Ahulap, the chief of the prison of a brickworks,¹¹²¹ to collect a tax payment of 14 kurru of barley. The governor of Babylon and Across-the-River was in charge of an important province of the Persian Empire,¹¹²² and Libluṭ and Gadal-Yāma apparently belonged to the administrative personnel at his disposal. As was discussed in Section 5.3.2, the title sēpiru could be held by ordinary scribes competent in Aramaic but also by officials of a higher rank. The latter seems to be the case here. The title bēl ṭēmi is rare in Babylonian documents,¹¹²³ but the term bˁl ṭˁm is also attested in contemporary Aramaic.¹¹²⁴ There seems to have been a close connection between the officials called bēl ṭēmi and the provincial administration of the Persian Empire.¹¹²⁵ The most notable example is a document from Egypt mentioning a certain Anani (ˁnny), who issued an administrative order on behalf of the governor of Egypt.¹¹²⁶ In light of this evidence, Gadal-Yāma is a unique example of a Judean working in the provincial administration in Babylonia. Moreover, the document records a rare occasion of a Judean being in an authoritative position in relation to a member of the Babylonian urban elite. The taxpayer Iddin-Bēl/Iqīša-Marduk/Šangû-Šamaš belonged to a Sipparean prebendary family.¹¹²⁷

Another document from Babylon (BM 26553 = Bloch 2018 no. 79,¹¹²⁸ 3-X-14 Dar, 507 bce) records a similar case. Nabû-zēr-ušebši/Nabû-ēṭir-napšāti, a member of the important Borsippean prebendary family of Ilia,¹¹²⁹ and a certain Ṭābia/Nabû-ēṭir/Rēš-ummāni made a tax payment of 15 kurru of barley to a Judean sēpiru.¹¹³⁰ The sēpiru’s name is broken off, but his father bore the Yahwistic name Zakar-Yāma. If the broken text is understood correctly, this Judean was a sēpiru of the troops or workmen (ummānu) and a subordinate of the rab kaṣīri, a high official in charge of the royal treasury.¹¹³¹ This terminology is reminiscent of the haṭru of the sēpirus of the troops (uqu) in the Murašû archive, but there is hardly a real connection between the Judean sēpiru in Babylon and the Judean farmers in the Nippur countryside. The sēpirus of the troops were high-ranking officials in the Murašû archive,¹¹³² but Judeans only cultivated land properties at their disposal. On the contrary, the anonymous son of Zakar-Yāma was a government official of some importance, as he collected taxes from prominent Babylonian families.

Officials of Judean and West Semitic background travelled from Babylonia to Susa for the purpose of taxation. Two promissory notes (oect 10 152 = Bloch 2014 no. 7, 18-I-28 Dar, 494 bce; and VS 6 155 = Bloch 2014 no. 8, 6-VIII-29 Dar, 493 bce) record the presence of prominent Babylonians in the Persian capital Susa.¹¹³³ These texts relate to the wider phenomenon discussed in Section 5.3.2: in an attempt to control Babylonia and its tax flows, Persian kings made people from the province regularly visit the Persian court at Susa. The Babylonian visitors included businessmen and officials, generally people responsible for taxation or tax payments in one way or the other.¹¹³⁴ The texts discussed here belong to the archives of two important families of the Babylonian urban elite, the Egibis of Babylon (oect 10 152) and the Ilias of Borsippa (VS 6 155).¹¹³⁵

The parties, witnesses, and scribes of the documents have traditional Babylonian names, the only exceptions being Yāhû-šar-uṣur/Šamaš-iddin (oect 10 152), Nabû-ahhē-šullim/Aqbi-il, and Šabbatāya/Nabû-šar-bulliṭ (VS 6 155). Yāhû-šar-uṣur bears a name with a Babylonian predicate and the Yahwistic theophoric element, the name Aqbi-il is West Semitic,¹¹³⁶ and Šabbatāya is a West Semitic name often possessed by Judeans.¹¹³⁷ Yāhû-šar-uṣur’s name suggests that he was a Judean connected to the royal administration in Babylonia, in the same vein as Bēl-/Yāhû-šar-uṣur in Yāhūdu.¹¹³⁸ Šabbatāya’s father Nabû-šar-bulliṭ also had a name that connects him to the royal administration, and his son’s presence in Susa suggests that Šabbatāya continued in his father’s footsteps. However, as Šabbatāya was not an exclusively Judean name, his Judean origin remains no more than a possibility.¹¹³⁹ Since the visits of Babylonian officials to Susa are a well-attested phenomenon and since Yāhû-šar-uṣur’s and Šabbatāya’s fathers had Babylonian names, we may conclude that both men were Babylonian officials responsible for tax-related matters.

Finally, we may add a certain Malak-Yāma to the list of Judean officials in Babylonia. He appears as a messenger of a courtier (ša rēš šarri) in an unpublished text from the reign of Neriglissar.¹¹⁴⁰

Like their Judean colleagues in the land-for-service sector, the officials discussed above were predominantly involved in the collection of taxes from Babylonia. None of these men were high officials with considerable power and resources at their disposal, but their positions were more important than those of the minor tax collectors in the countryside. It is noteworthy that four out of five documents were written in the reign of Darius i, but this seems to be a mere coincidence since several Judean royal officials are attested already in the Neo-Babylonian period.¹¹⁴¹

6.2 Temples

Although many spheres of Babylonian society, including the administration, trade, crafts, and the military, were open to deportees, the temple cult was not. Rigid rules of access characterised Babylonian temples, and the sacrificial cult was run by a relatively small number of Babylonian families in each city.¹¹⁴² There was a strict hierarchy among these families as well, and only the so-called ‘temple enterers’ (ērib bīti) were allowed to access the innermost parts of the temple. No Judeans or other deportees made their way into the closed priestly circles and participated in the temple cult. Nevertheless, temples were large institutions with multifaceted economic interests,¹¹⁴³ and dependent personnel, hired men, and contractors of local and foreign origin took care of their holdings. Although Babylonian kings donated deportees and other spoils of war to temples,¹¹⁴⁴ in many cases it remains unclear if a Judean person was hired by or dependent on the temple.

Three documents from the Ebabbar archive pertain to Judeans working for the temple of Šamaš in Sippar.¹¹⁴⁵ A woman named Yāhû-dimri and two sūtu (12 litres) of flour are mentioned in CT 57 700 (1–ii, no year).¹¹⁴⁶ The short receipt does not reveal anything else about Yāhû-dimri or the background of the transaction, but it seems quite probable that the recipient of the flour was Ebabbar and the woman belonged to the temple’s dependent personnel. Moreover, two Judeans, Banā-Yāma and Natan-Yāma, are listed among 22 hired men of a certain Ileˀi-Marduk in CT 56 795 (no date). Although Ileˀi-Marduk cannot be identified with any known person from the Ebabbar archive, he was most likely the foreman of the work gang in question. Finally, someone with a broken Yahwistic name (-ki-ia-a-ma) is attested in the badly preserved text CT 55 341 (several dates, no year). The text refers to sailors (malāhu) and bitumen (kupru), and the Judean is to be counted among the sailors working for Ebabbar as well.

An intimate witness to the Judean presence in Sippar is a love affair documented in Cyr 307 (3-IV-8 Cyr, 531 bce).¹¹⁴⁷ It is a judicial document¹¹⁴⁸ regulating the relationship between a Judean girl called Ṭābat-Iššar/Yaše-Yāma¹¹⁴⁹ and a man named Kulû/Kalbā. It appears that the two had been meeting each other outside the framework of an officially established marriage, which was not tolerated by their families or guardians. The document states that Ṭābat-Iššar should not meet Kulû anymore or that she should ask the head of her house (bēl bīti) to write to Kulû’s father Kalbā. If she did not do this and was again found with Kulû, she would be marked as a slave.¹¹⁵⁰ Ṭābat-Iššar’s mother Halâ was present at the writing of the document, but no other family members of Ṭābat-Iššar or Kulû appear to have been involved in the process. Instead of parents or brothers, the Ebabbar temple probably played a decisive role in regulating the behaviour of the two lovers.¹¹⁵¹ First, this is suggested by the obscure reference to the bēl bīti and by the fact that the issue was not solved within and between the families. Second, although it remains unclear which legal body delivered the verdict, a rent farmer (ša muhhi sūti ša Šamaš) of Ebabbar and a priest of the temple witnessed the document.¹¹⁵² This raises the possibility that the girl and perhaps the man as well were somehow attached to the temple, either as dependants or free workers.¹¹⁵³

A number of texts from the Ebabbar archive pertain to Judeans who were involved in the agricultural sector of the temple’s economy. A certain Hūl-Yāma delivered dates to the temple, according to the administrative list CT 57 197, and he was most probably a gardener himself.¹¹⁵⁴ Nothing in the document suggests that he was more than a small farmer who cultivated a plot of temple land and had to deliver a share of his harvest to Ebabbar.

A better-known Judean is Minu-eššu/Yāhû-râm, who farmed Ebabbar’s fields in the area of Tīl-gubbi.¹¹⁵⁵ He was a sharecropper who leased five kurru (6.75 hectares) of uncultivated land from the temple in order to reclaim it (Jursa 1995 no. 47; Sippar, 4-?-5 Nbn, 551–550 bce). Six years later he still cultivated Ebabbar’s fields in Tīl-gubbi, this time paying his share (zittu) of 1;0.5 kurru of sesame to the temple (CT 56 132; 13-VII-11 Nbn, 545 bce).¹¹⁵⁶ He was hardly a member of the temple’s personnel but a (semi-)independent farmer cultivating institutional land.

It is possible that Minu-eššu’s son and father are also attested in the Ebabbar archive. A certain Nabû-šar-uṣur/Minu-eššu is attested in the Ebabbar document CT 55 74 (Sippar, 27-IX-1 Dar, 520 bce).¹¹⁵⁷ He and two other men had to deliver a small amount of sesame and silver to a tithe farmer of Ebabbar as a remainder of the temple tithe (ešru) from Āl-Hummāya.¹¹⁵⁸ The three men appear to be farmers of temple land, and, given the reasonable time gap between CT 56 132 and CT 55 74, it is very well possible that Nabû-šar-uṣur’s father was identical with Minu-eššu/Yāhû-râm. It is noteworthy that Nabû-šar-uṣur bore a Beamtenname with the šarru element, which indicates that the family had connections to the royal administration or that it strived to create some.¹¹⁵⁹

Minu-eššu’s father is possibly attested in sct 100, an undated list of payments of unknown geographical origin.¹¹⁶⁰ A certain Yāhû-râm delivered more than 12 kurru of barley and flour, including transport costs (gimru)¹¹⁶¹ and income (erbu).¹¹⁶² The recipient of the agricultural products and payments is not mentioned, but the text type and terminology point towards an institutional context, most likely a temple.¹¹⁶³ Given the rarity of the names of Minu-eššu and Yāhû-râm, it is very well possible that all four texts pertain to members of one family who cultivated Ebabbar’s fields in the Sippar countryside.¹¹⁶⁴ The profile of these people resembles that of Judean farmers in the environs of Yāhūdu and Nippur, as they were obviously not temple dependants but farmers who tilled institutional lands in somewhat marginal rural areas.¹¹⁶⁵ Nabû-šar-uṣur’s name may indicate that instead of being dependent on the Ebabbar temple, the family was somehow attached to the royal administration, perhaps via the land-for-service scheme.

Furthermore, a document from the Ebabbar archive hints at the possibility that Israelites or Judeans were present in Babylonia already in the late seventh century. A certain Gir-re-e-ma and five other people with Akkadian names had a huge flock of sheep at their disposal in the Nippur region, according to ctmma 4 1 (= BE 8 141). The document was written in the last years of Assyrian rule in Babylonia, in the accession year of Sîn-šum-līšir (626 bce).¹¹⁶⁶ The total value of the animals was no less than 30 talents of silver, and the value of a single sheep is specified as being 1 shekel. Accordingly, the total number of sheep was 108,000 animals. Gir-re-e-ma and his companions were perhaps herdsmen contracted to care for Ebabbar’s flocks because a purchase of this scale seems unlikely, especially during the turbulent political situation in Babylonia.¹¹⁶⁷ In any case, the importance of the transaction is emphasised by the fact that the qīpu of Ebabbar, Bēl-īpuš, was present in Nippur where the document was written.¹¹⁶⁸ If the spelling Gir-re-e-ma represents a Yahwistic name, this document is unique in two ways.¹¹⁶⁹ First, it pertains to a man of Judean or Israelite descent who was involved in the herding of a massive flock of thousands of sheep. Second, it would be the earliest occurrence of a Yahwistic name in Babylonian cuneiform sources, and it would predate Nebuchadnezzar ii’s deportations from Judah. This implies that if Gir-re-e-ma is indeed a Yahwistic name, its bearer was probably a descendant of Israelite or Judean deportees who arrived in Mesopotamia in the eighth century.¹¹⁷⁰

Although every document discussed above originates from the archive of the Ebabbar temple in Sippar, there is no reason to assume that Judeans did not have contact with other Babylonian temples. A piece of evidence which supports this assumption is BM 103632, an administrative list which belongs to the British Museum 1911-4-8 collection.¹¹⁷¹ The document lists sheep which were given to a certain Nīr-Yāma, to a household (bītu), and to a certain Ina-šār-Bēl-abluṭ. Some of the sheep were given as travel provisions for journeys to Babylon and Kiš, but the list does not indicate the reason why Nīr-Yāma was among the recipients. The text type, references to a household, and distribution of travel provisions suggest that the document originates from an institutional context. A possible candidate is the Ebabbar temple in Larsa, as some documents from its archives have found their way into the 1911-4-8 collection, together with the Itti-Šamaš-balāṭu archive.¹¹⁷²

The documents discussed above shed light on the different roles Judeans had vis-à-vis Babylonian temples, but their small number emphasises that only few Judean deportees were donated to the temples. Although the word širku (‘temple dependant’)¹¹⁷³ is never used to characterise a Judean, some of the people discussed above were most likely temple dependants. At the same time, Judeans also rented temple lands for cultivation on a seemingly voluntary basis and without any formal ties to the temple. Given the huge size of the temple archives from Sippar and Uruk, very few Judeans are attested in temple-related documents.¹¹⁷⁴ This is in stark contrast to the situation in the land-for-service sector, and it strongly indicates that the state primarily integrated deportees into its own economic sphere. Temples played only a minor role in Babylonian deportation schemes.

6.3 Royal Lands and the Land-for-Service Sector

Throughout this study, Judeans have primarily been attested in contexts which relate to the royal administration and land-for-service sector in one way or another. A number of miscellaneous texts can be added to this group.

A Judean man called Yāhû-nūru/Zabdia cultivated land in Bīt-Nabû-lēˀi in the Borsippa countryside, according to VS 3 6 (Bīt-Nabû-lēˀi, 20-VII-22 Nbk, 583 bce).¹¹⁷⁵ He owed a debt of 1;3 kurru of barley to a certain Mušēzib-Bēl//Tunāya, who managed farmlands in the service of Marduk-šāpik-zēri//Eppēš-ilī and Ṭābia//Sîn-ilī.¹¹⁷⁶ The debt bore no interest, outstanding debts or tax payments are not referred to, and the debt was to be paid back at the time of the next barley harvest. Accordingly, the promissory note most probably disguises the prepaid purchase of a future harvest.¹¹⁷⁷ As it is known that Ṭābia and Mušēzib-Bēl leased and organised the cultivation of royal lands,¹¹⁷⁸ Yāhû-nūru was not necessarily an independent farmer but an agricultural worker in Mušēzib-Bēl’s service or a farmer in the land-for-service sector.¹¹⁷⁹

yos 19 36 is a promissory note for 5;2.3 kurru of barley given as capital to a harrānu venture (Nippur, 13-I-14 Nbn, 542 bce).¹¹⁸⁰ The document belongs to the archive of Bēl-eṭēri-Šamaš/Aplā, an entrepreneur who was – among other things – involved in the management of royal lands in the Nippur region.¹¹⁸¹yos 19 36 pertains to a harrānu venture in which Bēl-eṭēri-Šamaš and another man participated as active partners and which was financed by a certain Bēl-eṭēri-Šamaš/Zarīqu-ēreš. The latter had lent over 65 kurru of barley from royal property to Bēl-eṭēri-Šamaš/Aplā already four years earlier (yos 19 34). It is thus likely that the harrānu venture in yos 19 36 had royal backing as well, either as a direct royal investment or as a private investment of harvest cultivated on royal land.¹¹⁸² A Judean named Kutāya/Ahu-Yāma was among the witnesses of the document.¹¹⁸³ If he was not randomly chosen to witness the deed, it is possible that he was involved in farming or managing royal properties in the Nippur countryside.

Two roughly contemporary documents from well-known private archives further strengthen the view that the great majority of Judeans were indeed settled on royal land or were otherwise connected to the royal admini-stration in Babylonia. Documents from the archives of the Egibis¹¹⁸⁴ and Marduk-rēmanni¹¹⁸⁵ relate to various spheres of Babylonian society, but the few Judeans attested in the archives appear in contexts connected to the royal administration. In addition to the cases discussed above,¹¹⁸⁶ these archives refer to two Judeans named Nīr-Yāma/Bēl-zēr-ibni and Haddāya/Yāhû-qâm. Both Judeans appear in dossiers which relate to the private management of institutional land. Nīr-Yāma guaranteed a substantial payment of 16 minas of silver on behalf of two men working for Marduk-nāṣir-apli//Egibi in Dar 310 (Babylon, 9-XI-11 Dar, 510 bce).¹¹⁸⁷ The debt originated from Marduk-nāṣir-apli’s purchases of commodities produced on institutional – temple and royal – land in Šahrīnu in the environs of Babylon.¹¹⁸⁸ Given the large amount of silver involved, Nīr-Yāma was hardly a small farmer but perhaps one of Marduk-nāṣir-apli’s local associates in Šahrīnu. On the contrary, Haddāya/Yāhû-qâm was hardly more than a farmer of royal land in the village of Zazannu in the Sippar countryside (MR 90; Zazannu Ālu-ša-Bēl-iddin, 14 Dar, 508–507 bce).¹¹⁸⁹ Marduk-rēmanni//Ṣāhit-ginê leased royal lands from a high official in Zazannu and organised their cultivation through subleases.¹¹⁹⁰MR 90 is a receipt relating to these subleases, and it was written at the estate of the high official in charge of the leased lands. Haddāya appears among the witnesses, and his status is probably equal to those small farmers who witnessed documents in other regional centres, such as Našar.

Three Judeans are attested in a sale of oxen belonging to the Tattannu archive.¹¹⁹¹ At least one of them was a servant of Tattannu ii, a member of the rich, archive-holding family. The businesses of the family pertained to tax farming and to the management of royal properties in the land-for-service sector, and, moreover, the eldest protagonist of the archive, Tattannu i, was perhaps identical with the homonymous governor of Across-the-River.¹¹⁹²Although the sale of oxen does not pertain to royal concerns, the Judeans served a family with obvious connections to the royal administration.

Finally, three more documents can be added to the cases discussed above. First, a Judean named ^dIa-(a)-hu-ú-mu-[…] witnessed two documents relating to the rent farming of royal lands in the environs of Isin.¹¹⁹³ Second, tcl 13 210 is a list of debts and remaining payments in barley owed by a number of people, some of whom bore Arabian names.¹¹⁹⁴ A Judean man called Malak-Yāma was in charge of the respective promissory notes and held them at the estate (bīt) of someone called Kabar-il.¹¹⁹⁵ The Judean and Arabian personal names and a reference to a rural estate are indicative of an environment typical of the land-for-service sector.

The texts analysed in this section are additional evidence of Judeans who were integrated into the sphere of the royal administration or royal landholdings in one way or another. The texts emphasise that the environs of Yāhūdu and the Nippur countryside were not special cases, as the king and his officials also held land properties in other parts of Babylonia. Deportees were resettled in these rural areas as well.

6.4 Miscellaneous Texts

There are a small number of documents which cannot be properly contextualised and which thus yield only little information on Judeans. These include a broken document witnessed by I-ú-hu-ˀ/Zababa-iddin in Kiš (Hursagkalamma),¹¹⁹⁶ a receipt of a rental payment concerning a house owned by ^IdIa-ˀ-ú-[…] in Babylon,¹¹⁹⁷ a promissory note for a small amount of wheat and barley guaranteed by Zakar-Yāma/Sepā-Yāma in Nippur,¹¹⁹⁸ a sale of two female slaves by Banā-Yāma in Nippur,¹¹⁹⁹ and a sale of slaves witnessed by two Judeans in Cutha.¹²⁰⁰

6.5 Seals of Exiles

A number of seals featuring Yahwistic and other supposedly Judean or Israelite names have been used as a further witness to the presence of Judeans and Israelites in Mesopotamia.¹²⁰¹ However, as these seals are of unprovenanced origin,¹²⁰² any information about their archaeological context is permanently lost.¹²⁰³ If they are indeed ancient artefacts, there is no way of knowing if they were manufactured in Mesopotamia or in the Levant in an Assyrian or Babylonian style. It has to be noted that no seals owned by Judeans have been found during controlled excavations in Babylonia. Although some cuneiform tablets from the environs of Yāhūdu and the Murašû archive bear seal impressions which attest to Judean seal ownership in Babylonia, none of these impressions include Hebrew or Aramaic writing.¹²⁰⁴ This raises doubts about the Babylonian origin of the ‘seals of exiles’ and their alphabetic epigraphs, and, all in all, there remains the possibility that some of them are modern forgeries. Given the problematic circumstances, the seals will not be treated in this study.

6.6 Conclusion

The documents which pertain to Judeans but originate from several different Babylonian archives are instrumental in evaluating the picture which emerges from the preceding chapters of this study. These documents corroborate the view that Judeans were predominantly resettled in the land-for-service sector and that, in general, the state integrated deportees into its economic sphere. Relatively few Judeans were dependants of Babylonian temples or participated in farming of temple lands. It is noteworthy that documents from private archives also support this view: although the archive-holding Babylonian families had multi-faceted interests, Judeans are attested in contexts which relate to the royal administration or the cultivation of royal land.