ENTREPRENEURS AND EMPIRE The M urasu Archive, the M urasu Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylonia by MATTHEW W. STOLPER NEDERLANDS HISTORISCH-ARCHAEOLOGISCH INSTITUUT TE ISTANBUL 1985 ©Copyright 1985 by Nederlands Instituut voor bet Nabije Oosten Witte Singel 24 P.B. 9515 2300 RA LEIDEN NEDERLAND All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to produce this book or parts thereof in any form l.S.B.N. 90 6258 054 8 Printed in Belgium To Toni Stolper, on her ninety-fifth birthday CONTENTS page ILLUSTRATIONS. XI TABLES . XII ABBREVIATIONS. XIII PREFACE. XIX I. ACHAEMENID BABYLONIA, THE MURASU ARCHIVE, AND THE MURASU FIRM Achaemenid Babylonia . . . . . 2 The Murasu Archive . . . . . . II Dispersal, Publication, and Study . II Complementary Sources 15 Classical Authors 15 Aramaic Records 16 Royal Inscriptions 17 Achaemenid Elamite Tablets. 17 The M urasu Firm . 18 Personnel . . . . . . 18 The Murasu Family. . 18 Agents and Subordinates . 20 Temporal Range 23 Geographical Range . . . 24 Land Tenure . . . . . . 24 The Business of the Murasu Firm . 27 Purpose and Reference of the Archive 28 Prospect . . . 31 ·II. TENURE AND MANAGEMENT: CROWN PROPERTIES AND CANALS 36 Crown Properties and Canals 36 The Management of Canals 37 Canal Managers. . . . 38 Ma8ennu Officials . . . 45 The Canal Management and the Murasu Firm 49 III. TENURE AND MANAGEMENT: LANDED ESTATES 52 The Crown Prince's Estate . . 54 Gardu and Associated Terms 56 Bit Umasupitru . . . 59 x CONTENTS The Queen's Estate 62 Parysatis . 63 Adam .... 64 Landed Princes . 66 Miscellaneous Estates. 67 Summary ... 68 IV. TENURE AND MANAGEMENT: THE !JATRUS 70 The Word ~a{ru (~adru) . 71 Names ... 72 Suslinu . . . 79 Management. . . . . . 82 Foreman and .lfa{ru-Stable Connections. 83 Foreman and .lfa{ru-Unstable Connections . 85 Subordinate Foremen . . . . . . 88 SuJlinus of the Storehouse/Treasury 89 Army Scribes . . . . . 93 Estate of Itti-Samas-balatu . 95 Equerry's Estate . . . . . 95 .lfa{rus-General Characterizations . 97 Guilds?. . . . . . . 97 Military Colonies . . . 98 Embedded Corporations . 99 Survey of Tenure and Management . 100 V. CREDIT AND POLITICAL CHANGE . . • 104 Credit . . . . . . . . . . . 104 "Mortgages": Form and Terminology 104 Distribution . . . . . 107 Political Change . . . . 114 The Rise to Power of Darius II 114 Chronology . . . . . . . 116 First Hypothesis: Hedging . . 120 Second Hypothesis: The System at Work 122 VI. RENTAL COSTS AND THE ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT 125 Rental Costs. 125 Land 126 Animals and Equipment . 128 Canals . . . . 130 Environment. . . . . . 133 Land Costs, Yields, and Profitability . 134 Supply and Cost of Livestock . . . 140 CONTENTS XI Costs and Environment: Appraisal . 142 Fiscal Policy and the Circulation of Silver . 143 Rents . . . . 146 Taxes . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Summary: Economic and Political Environment. 150 VII. THE EMPIRE AND THE ARCHIVE • • . . 152 APPENDIX I. EXCAVATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF THE ARCHIVE . . . . . 157 Reports of John Henry Haynes on the Excavation of Tablets in May-June, 1893. . . . . . 161 Extracts from Haynes's Diary . 161 Extracts from Haynes's Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Extract from Haynes's Letter to John Punnet Peters, June 3, 1893. 166 Extract from Haynes's Letter to John Punnet Peters, July 2, 1893 . 166 APPENDIX II. TEXTS FROM THE MURASU ARCHIVE IN THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM AND THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 169 Selected Texts . . 169 Transliterations . 231 Indexes. . . . 284 Personal Names 284 Place Names . 302 Canal Names . 303 Appellatives . 304 Museum Numbers 305 Unpublished Texts. 307 INDEXES . . • . • • 309 Texts Cited . . 309 Words Discussed 316 General . . . 318 ILLUSTRATIONS page Figure 1. Babylonia and western Iran: major sites of Achaemenid times . 3 Figure 2. Babylonian and Achaemenid rulers . . . . . 4 Figure 3. All dated Murasu texts: number of texts by year 108 Figure 4. Rentals to the Murasus . . 110 Figure 5. Rentals from the Murasus . 110 Figure 6. Receipts for tax payments . 110 XII CONTENTS Figure 7. Receipts for rent payments. 110 Figure 8. Leases and receipts . 111 Figure 9. Mortgages . . . . . . . . . . 112 Figure 10. Mortgages of Darius II's first year, by month 113 Figure 11. Mortgages of all other years, by month . . . . . . . . 113 Figure 12. The topography of Nippur and the location of modern excavations 160 Figure 13. Drawing accompanying Haynes's letter to Peters, July 2, 1893. 167 TABLES page Table 1. Neo-Babylonian Units of Measure and Metric Equivalents 128 Table 2. Rental Costs of Animals and Equipment. 129 Table 3. Unit Prices of Leases Without Canals . 131 Table 4. Unit Prices of Leases With Canals . . . 132 Table 5. Ratios of Barley-Rent to Barley-Seed . . 136 Table 6. Coefficients of Yields in Texts from Sippar . 137 Table 7. Oxen, Seed, and Area . . . . . 139 Table 8. Incidence of Surcharge (mandattu) . . . 141 ABBREVIATIONS Bibliographical Abbreviations and Text Sigla ABAW Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse (Munich) Acta Antiqua Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae AfO Archiv fiir Orientforschung AHDO+RIDA Archives d'histoire du droit orientale et Revue inter nationale du droit d'antiquite AHw. Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handworter buch (Wiesbaden, 1959-1981) AJSL American Journal ofS emitic Languages and Litera tures = AMI Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament, edited by James B. Pritchard, 3rd edi tion (Princeton, New Jersey, 1969) Annali . . . Pisa Annali de/la Scuo/a Normale Superiore di Pisa, Series III AnS t Anatolian Studies AoF Altorientalische Forschungen AOS American Oriental Series (New Haven) AS Assyriological Studies (Chicago) Augapfel Julius Augapfel, Babylonische Rechtsurkunden aus der Regierungszeit Artaxerxes I. und Darius II., Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denk schriften, 59, 3 (1917) BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Re search BE The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series A: Cuneiform Texts (Phila delphia) BiMes Bibliotheca Mesopotamica (Malibu, California) BiO r Bibliotheca Orienta/is BM tablets in the collection of the British Museum Bogaert Banque Raymond Bogaert, Les origines antiques de la banque de depot (Leiden, 1966) Borger Esarh. Rykle Borger, Die /nschriften Asarhaddons, Konigs von Assyrien, Archiv fiir Orientforschung Beiheft 6 (1956) XIV ABBREVIATIONS CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago, edited by I. J. Gelb, A. Leo Oppenheim et al. (Chicago and Gliick stadt, 1956~) Cam b. Johann Nepomucen Strassmaier, Inschriften von Cambyses, Konig von Babylon, Babylonische Texte, VIII-IX (Leipzig, 1890) Cardascia, "Le fief' Guillaume Cardascia, "Le fief dans la Babylonie achemenide", pp. 57-88 in Les liens de vassalite et les immunites, Recueils de la Societe Jean Bodin 1, 2nd edition (Brussels, 1958) Cardascia Murasu Guillaume Cardascia, Les archives des Mura§u, a une Jami/le d'hommes d'affaires l'epoque perse (455-403 av. J.-C.) (Paris, 1951) CBS tablets in the Collections of the Babylonian Sec tion of the University Museum, Philadelphia Clay, "Aramaic Indorsements" Albert T. Clay, "Aramaic Indorsements on the Documents of the MurashU Sons", pp. 287-321 in Old Testament and Semitic Studies in Memory of William Rainey Harper, edited by R. F. Harper et al. (Chicago, 1908) Coquerillat Palmeraies Denise Cocquerillat, Palmeraies et cultures de l'Eanna d'Uruk (559-520), Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft in Uruk Warka 8 (Berlin, 1968) CT Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum (London) Cyr. Johann Nepomucen Strassmaier, Inschriften von Cyrus, Konig von Babylon, Babylonische Texte, VII (Leipzig, 1890) DAFI Cahiers de la Delegation archeo/ogique fran~aise en Iran Dandamayev, "Achaemenid Muhammad A. Dandamayev, "Achaemenid Ba Babylonia" bylonia'', pp. 296-311 in Ancient Mesopotamia Socio-Economic History, edited by I. M. Diako noff (Moscow, 1969) Dandamayev, "Foreign Slaves" Muhammad A. Dandamayev, "Foreign Slaves on the Estates of the Achaemenid Kings and their Nobles", printed separatim from XXV Interna tional Congress of Orientalists, Papers presented by the U.S.S.R. Delegation (Moscow, 1960). Dar. Johann Nepomucen Stras~maier, Inschriften von Darius, Konig von Babylon, Babylonische Texte, X-XI (Leipzig, 1897) DB trilingual inscription of Darius I at Bisitun (Behistan) = DLZ Deutsche Literaturzeitung DNc trilingual inscription of Darius I at Naqs-e Rustam