THE LAWS OF HAZOR AND THE ANE PARALLELS Filip Vukosavović

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1 Powered by TCPDF ( THE LAWS OF HAZOR AND THE ANE PARALLELS Filip Vukosavović Presses Universitaires de France «Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale» 2014/1 Vol. 108 pages 41 à 44 ISSN ISBN Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse : Pour citer cet article : Filip Vukosavović, «The laws of Hazor and the ANE parallels», Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale 2014/1 (Vol. 108), p DOI /assy Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses Universitaires de France. Presses Universitaires de France. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.

2 [RA ] 41 THE LAWS OF HAZOR AND THE ANE PARALLELS BY Filip VUKOSAVOVIĆ The archaeological excavations at Tel Hazor in the summer of 2010 yielded two small clay-tablet fragments containing a list of seven partially preserved cuneiform laws. 1 The fragments, made out of local clay, date to the Middle Bronze Age (Old Babylonian Period). The importance of this discovery cannot be overstated since this is the first evidence of a cuneiform legal corpus in the Levantine region (modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria). In addition, some of these laws, at present, are unattested in any other cuneiform law collection of the Ancient Near East or in the Bible, which makes this find both unique and extraordinary. While a full edition of the laws and their legal commentary is offered in Horowitz, Oshima, Vukosavović (2012), 2 in this article I will focus on the comparative material that was only partially discussed in the primary publication. Even though the laws are only partially preserved, it is fairly clear that laws LHz A 1-4 are concerned with the following categories: 1) Physical damage (perpetrated against another person). 2) Physical damage perpetrated against the slave. 3) Physical damage perpetrated against the hired slave. 3 1) Laws of this general type, that prescribe penalties for physical damages perpetrated against another person, can be found in the parallel Mesopotamian, Hittite and Biblical law collections, e.g.: LU 18-22; LE 42-47; LH ; Hittite laws 7-16 ( V-XV); MAL 7-9; Exodus 21: 22-27; and in Leviticus 24: ) More specific laws that offer protection to slaves in the case of physical injuries by another person, including slave s owner, are far less common. Most of those dealing with the issue can be found in the Hittite laws, 8, 12, 14, 16 ( VI, VII, XI, XIII, XV), while one law on the same subject can also be found in Exodus 21: Regarding all the Mesopotamian legal collections there is only one such law that directly addresses the issue, LH 199: 5 If (an awīlum) blinds the of an awīlum s slave, or breaks the bone of an awīlum s slave, he will pay half of his (slave s) value (in silver). 1. I am grateful to Shalom Paul and Bernard Levinson for their most valuable comments and suggestions. 2. We include a slightly corrected handcopy of LHz Fragment A. Note that the misleading scratch that could be mistaken for a Winkelhaken at the star of obv. 5' has been reproduced more faithfully. Transliteration and translation of LHz Fragment A is also included. 3. There is no question that the laws LHz A 1-4 prescribe penalties for injuries to a slave by a third party. However, as already emphasized in Horowitz, Oshima, Vukosavović (2012: 168f.), we argue that the laws of LHz A 1-4 are more specifically concerned with penalties in the case of injuries by a third party to a hired slave even though the verb to hire is missing from the preserved portion of Fragment A. 4. Abbreviations: LHz Laws of Hazor; LH Laws of Hammurabi; LU Laws of Ur-Nammu; LE Laws of Eshnunna; LL Laws of Lipit-Ishtar; LOx Laws about Rented Oxen; SLHF Sumerian Laws Handbook of Forms. For the latest edition of the ANE and Hittite laws see Roth (1997). 5. The case of a free man striking a free man s slave woman causing her to miscarry her fetus is not included in this category, e.g.: LH 213. Revue d Assyriologie, volume CVIII (2014), p

3 42 FILIP VUKOSAVOVIĆ [RA 108 3) If our reconstruction is correct (see n. 3), there are no other examples of the exact legal situation of LHz A 1-4: penalties in the case of physical abuse/injuries to a hired slave by a third party (hirer). 6 Hire was one of the more common types of contracts in Mesopotamia. The list of movables, persons, services and land that could be hired is almost endless, as is made clear by many laws dealing with the subject, 7 as well as hundreds of preserved legal documents recording various types of hire including a relatively small number that deal with our topic, hire of slaves. 8 However, it is worthwhile repeating that this wide body of surviving Ancient Near Eastern legal material, outside LHz, does not include a single law which regulates the hire of slaves in any way, let alone prescribe penalties of any kind should a hired slave be injured by his/her hirer. This makes laws A 1-4 of LHz the first of its type to be discovered thus far. BODY PARTS AND PENALTIES The laws of Hazor stand in the tradition of cuneiform laws of the Ancient Near East in that they prescribe different penalties for different types of physical injuries to human beings. The two most common penalties are those that require financial compensation and lex talionis (an for an, a for a ). Eye See Horowitz, Oshima, Vukosavović (2012: 170f.) for the reasons behind restoring in the protasis of LHz A 1, obv. 0. According to LHz A 1, the monetary penalty [for destroying an ] is 12 shekels of silver. LHz A 1 - [hired] slave - 12 shekels of silver LE 42 - free person - 60 shekels of silver LH awīlum 9 vs. slave - ½ of slave s value in silver LH awīlum vs. muškēnum - 60 shekels of silver LH awīlum vs. awīlum - lex talionis Hittite laws 7 ( V) - free person - 20 or 40 shekels of silver Hittite laws 8 ( VI) - slave - 10 or 20 shekels of silver Exodus 21: (22-)24 - free person - lex talionis Exodus 21: 26 - slave - slave goes free Leviticus 24: free person - lex talionis Nose In LHz A 2 the compensation for biting/cutting off the is 10 shekels of silver. This amount is much less than those required for free individuals in LE, LU and the Hittite Laws, but still more than the 3 shekels for a slave in the Hittite Laws. LHz A 2 - [hired] slave - 10 shekels of silver LU 20 - free person - 40 shekels of silver LE 42 - free person - 60 shekels of silver Hittite laws 13 ( XII) - free person - 40 shekels of silver Hittite laws 14 ( XIII) - slave - 3 shekels of silver Tooth In LHz A 3 the compensation for knocking out a is 3 shekels of silver. Compensation for teeth varies widely between different law collections and Exodus 21: 27, where the slave goes free in the case 6. The only difference between categories 2 and 3 is status of the slave. In category 3 the slave is hired (i.e. in a temporary possession of a hirer) and hirer is the person physically abusing the slave. 7. See e.g.: LL 5, 7; LE 3-4, 7-11; LH ; Hittite Laws , OB legal/administrative texts relating to slave hire are very few and far between, especially when one considers the richness of the legal and administrative texts from this period. I know of only nine texts from the OB period dealing with this issue: OLA 21 90; OECT XIII 84; YOS XII 207; IM 4 51, 52; PBS 8/2 188; CT 48 64, 116; YOS XIII 219 and SVJAD 38 (I am grateful to Prof. Dominique Charpin for the SVJAD reference). 9. The categories of awīlum, muškēnum and awīlum ša elišu rabû in the LH are left untranslated.

4 2014] THE LAWS OF HAZOR AND THE ANE PARALLELS 43 of his owner knocking out his. This is not the case in Hazor or the other cuneiform laws where it is a third party that causes the damage to the slave, not the slave s owner: LHz A 3 - [hired] slave - 3 shekels of silver LU 22 - free person - 2 shekels of silver LE 42 - free person - 30 shekels of silver LH awīlum vs. awīlum - lex talionis LH awīlum vs. muškēnum - 20 shekels of silver Hittite laws 7 ( VII) - free person - 20 (12) shekels of silver Hittite laws 8 ( VII) - slave - 10 (6) shekels of silver Exodus 21: (22-)24 - free person - lex talionis Exodus 21: 27 - slave - slave goes free Leviticus 24: free person - lex talionis Cheek No monetary compensation is noted for slapping the slave s in the surviving portion of LHz A 4. What does survive apparently demands that the slave be returned to his owner. LHz A 4 - [hired] slave - slave returns to his owner LE 42 - free person - 10 shekels of silver LH awīlum vs. awīlum ša elišu rabû - public flogging LH awīlum vs. awīlum - 60 shekels of silver LH muškēnum vs. muškēnum - 10 shekels of silver Ear LHz A 5 most likely relates to the ear. However, given that LHz A 5 begins with expression šum-ma LU 2 If a man unlike previous three laws, it is very likely that LHz A 5 is not a continuation of LHz A 1-4, but is an independent law or starts a new set of laws. LHz A 5 - [...] - [...] LE 42 - free person - 30 shekels of silver Hittite Laws 15 ( XIV) - free person - 12 shekels of silver Hittite Laws 16 ( XV) - slave - 3 shekels of silver ORDER OF INJURIES AS REGULATED IN ANE LAWS LHz LU 10 LE 11 LH 12 Hittite laws 13 Covenant Code 14 Holiness Code 15 [] ear? bone [ ] [ ]? ear finger hand collarbone other bone head injury incapacitation arm/leg ear hand burn wound bruise fracture 10. LU LE LH Hittite Laws 7-16 ( V-XV). 14. Exodus 21: Leviticus 24:19 20.

5 44 FILIP VUKOSAVOVIĆ [RA ] LHz A Obv. 1: 0'. [ ] [ ] 1'. 12 GIN 2 [ ] 12 shekels [of silver 2: 2'. šum-ma ap-[pu-um ] If the no[se ] 3'. 10 a-na be-el I[R 3 ] 10 (shekels of silver) to the owner of the sla[ve ] 3: 4'. šum-ma ši-in-nu-[um ] If the too[th ] 5'. 3 GIN 2 KU 3.BABBAR a-n[a ] 3 shekels of silver t[o ] Rev. 4: 1. šum-ma le-et [ ] If the [ ] 2. u 3 IR 3 a-na be-el I[R 3 ] and the slave to the owner of the sla[ve ] 5: 3. šum-ma LU 2 GIŠ.P[I.TUG ] If a man, e[ar ] 4. u 3 IR 3 x [ ] and the slave [ ] BIBLIOGRAPHY LHz Fragment A Horowitz, W., T. Oshima, F. Vukosavović 2012 Hazor 18: Fragments of A Cuneiform Law Collection from Hazor, IEJ 62/2: Roth, M Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (2 nd edition), (SBL Writings from the Ancient World Series 6). Atlanta. ABSTRACT The archaeological excavations at Tel Hazor in the summer of 2010 yielded two small clay-tablet fragments containing a list of seven partially preserved cuneiform laws. The article compares these laws to parallel laws from the ANE and Bible. Hebrew University of Jerusalem P.O.Box 4670, Jerusalem, Israel

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