Brill_CHAN103.qxp_SPINE = 31mm 30-01-19 11:15 Pagina 1 culture & history of the ancient near east In The Social World of the Babylonian Priest, Bastian Still presents a comprehensive study of the priestly community of Borsippa during the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian Empires (ca. 620-484 bce). By examining patterns of marriage, landholding, moneylending, and friendship, he provides an intimate account of the daily life of the Babylonian priesthood beyond the temple walls and develops a more sophisticated understanding of the organisation of ancient Babylonian society as a whole. Combining the use of social network analysis, anthropological studies, and sociological concepts concerned with kinship, tie strength, social boundaries, and identity formation, Bastian Still’s interdisciplinary approach transcends the traditional boundary of cuneiform studies and enables the field of Assyriology to contribute to a more general socio-historical discourse. bastian still, Ph.D. (2016), Leiden University, is currently employed as a Postdoctoral researcher at the American University of Cairo. His research focuses on the history, culture, and society of Babylonia during the first millennium bce. Bastian Still • The Social World of the Babylonian Priest Volume 103 chan 103 The Social World of the Babylonian Priest By Bastian Still isbn 978-90-04-39995-2 *hIJ0A4|TZ ZVs issn 1566-2055 brill.com/chan brill culture & h istory of th e an cie n t ne ar e ast The Social World of the Babylonian Priest Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Founding Editor M.H.E. Weippert Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Stökl Editors Eckart Frahm W. Randall Garr B. Halpern Theo P.J. van den Hout Leslie Anne Warden Irene J. Winter VOLUME 103 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/chan The Social World of the Babylonian Priest By Bastian Still leiden | boston The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/ Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1566-2055 ISBN 978-90-04-39995-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-39996-9 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. 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Contents Acknowledgments ix Figures and Tables xi Abbreviations xii Introduction 1 1 State of the Art 1 2 Research Questions 4 3 Methodology 5 4 Case Study: the Priestly Community of Borsippa 5 The Babylonian Priest 10 6 The Temple Hierarchy 12 7 Main Protagonists of this Study 15 7.1 Temple-Enterers 15 7.2 Brewers 17 7.3 Bakers 18 7.4 Oxherds 20 7.5 Reed-Workers 22 8 Book Structure 23 6 Part 1 Social Interactions among Priests in Borsippa 1 The Hypergamous Marriage System 27 1 Marriage in Borsippa: Sacerdotal Endogamy 28 2 The Concept of Wife-Giver and Wife-Taker 32 3 Visualising the Marriage Network 35 4 Wife-Givers and Wife-Takers in Borsippa 41 5 Hypergamy in Historical Context 48 6 Wife-Givers and Wife-Takers in the Cult 54 Conclusion 60 2 Landholding 64 1 Hanšû Estates and the Ancestral Family 65 1.1 The Nature of Hanšû Land 66 1.2 The Historical Origins of Hanšû Land in Borsippa 69 1.3 The Motivations behind the Land Allotment Schemes 75 1.4 The Identity of the Beneficiaries 78 vi Contents 1.5 The Value of Hanšû Land in the Sixth Century BCE 2 Land Sales and the Circulation of Property 88 2.1 Marriage Alliances 89 2.2 Professional Solidarity 93 3 Tenancy and Agricultural Collaboration 95 3.1 Unfree Tenants 96 3.2 Tenants without Family Names 98 3.3 Tenants with Family Names 100 Conclusion 104 85 3 Silver Lending 109 1 Temple-Enterers 111 2 Brewers 114 3 Bakers 117 4 Oxherds 122 5 Reed-Workers 126 Conclusion 127 4 Circles of Trust and Intimacy 130 1 Formal Quantification of Personal Networks 134 2 Qualitative Analysis of Tie Strength and Friendship 2.1 Ea-ilūtu-bani 140 2.2 Ilia (A) 145 2.3 Bēliya’u 150 2.4 Rē’i-alpi 156 2.5 Atkuppu 163 Conclusion 165 Part 2 Priests in Neo-Babylonian Society 5 Homophily and Interaction 175 1 Spatial Distribution 177 2 Homophily 179 3 Understanding Rentiers and Entrepreneurs Conclusion 186 6 Social Boundary and Collective Identity 1 Affiliation to the Temple 189 1.1 Prebend Ownership 189 187 182 138 vii Contents 1.2 Purity and Initiation 191 1.3 Sacrifices and Festivals 195 1.4 Representation 201 1.5 Priestly Families vs. the Individual Priest 2 Ownership of Property 203 2.1 Residential Property 204 2.2 Landed Property 209 3 Literacy and Scribal Education 213 4 Language 218 Conclusion 227 202 Conclusion 232 1 Summaries of Individual Chapters 232 2 Research Questions Revisited 238 3 Outcomes 239 4 Outlook 242 Appendix 1: Quantitative Analysis of Priestly Marriages in Borsippa 245 Appendix 2: Annotated List of Hanšû Land in Borsippa 257 Appendix 3: Property Sales in the Borsippa Corpus 266 Bibliography 270 Index of Sources 291 Index of Names 301 Index of Akkadian Terms 310
