The ancient Babylonians early discovered the convenience of written communication between friends at a distance. The origin of letter-writing is not yet clear; for, when we first meet with letters, they are fully developed. A piece of clay, usually shaped like a miniature pillow, was inscribed and then enclosed in an envelope made of a thin sheet of clay. On the envelope was written the address. As a rule, the letter was baked hard before being put into its envelope. Powdered clay was inserted to prevent sticking. The envelope, after being inscribed, was also baked hard. Of course, the letter could not be read without breaking the envelope, which was therefore a great protection to the interior letter. The envelope was naturally thrown away after being broken. Hence, extremely few envelopes have been preserved.
The practice of dating letters does not seem to have been common. We have dated letters at all epochs, but they are few. In some cases the date may have been on the envelope. It is more common for the writer to give the day of the month, sometimes also the month. But the date of a letter was probably not then of any great importance.
Some letters seem to have been covered with coarse cloth, on which was impressed a lump of clay, to act as a seal and bind down the edges. The lumps were then sealed with a [pg 308] signet-ring, or cylinder-seal. The clay envelopes were also sealed, before baking, with the sender's seal. So usual was this habit, that the word for seal, unḳu, is often used to denote a sealed letter. Thus when an official acknowledges the receipt of the king's “seal,” it means a sealed order or rescript.
The early Babylonian letters usually open with the formula, “To A say: Thus saith B.” The formula probably goes back to the times when the message was verbally delivered. These would be the words used to a messenger who had to remember the message. The verb “saith” is not expressed exactly. The word used is umma, which is often rendered “saying”; it introduces a direct quotation. We might render, “In the name of B.” But the written letter replaced the spoken message. Some think the letter was read by a professional reader. Such readers are common still, where education is not widely diffused. It is very clear that the letter was generally written by a scribe. Thus, all Ḥammurabi's letters show the same hand, while those of Abêshu or Ammi-ditana are quite different. In the case of private letters we have less proof. But it is possible that the king sometimes wrote with his own hand. Some terms of expression render that very likely. It is, however, quite impossible to be certain on such points.
The same opening formula also appears in the Tell el Amarna letters. It is not known in Assyrian letters, but survived in Babylonia to a late period. In Assyria the formula is nearly the same; with the omission of the ḳibi, or “say,” it reads “To A thus B.” In addresses to superiors, B usually adds “thy servant.” Polite letters generally add good wishes for the recipient. These are exceedingly varied. The word šulmu plays a great part in them. Literally it denotes “peace.” “Peace be to thee” is very common. But it soon came to mean the “greeting of peace.”
[pg 309]Thus “I have sent ana šulmika” means “I have sent to wish thee peace,” “to greet thee.” But it also takes the more general meaning of well-being. Thus šulmu iâši means “I am well,” “it is peace with me”; not only absence from war, but health and all prosperity was included. Hence Joram's inquiry of Jehu, “Is it peace, Jehu?” means “Is everything all right?” “Be thou at peace” may be rendered loosely, “I hope you are well,” in the fullest sense that “all is well with you.” No consistent rendering can be given for such phrases as these.
Very often letters quote the previous message of the present recipient, ša tašpuranni, “what thou didst send me.” But the quotation is often omitted and then this becomes an awkward rendering. We have to fill up some general sentence such as, “as to what you sent about.” A very difficult sort of construction arises when the writer sets down a list of questions, which he has been asked, and the answer to each. As there are no capitals, periods, or question-marks, there is often some difficulty in separating a question from its answer. This may be done differently by different translators, with startlingly different results.
Very many sentences are elliptical. Thus, it was common to add at the end of the letter something like, “I leave it to you to decide.” This might be put, “As the king, my lord, sees fit, let him do.” But a scribe would often merely say, “As the king sees fit.” Such elliptical sentences are often very difficult to complete. They were obviously clear to the recipient. To us they leave a wide margin for conjecture.
Very early indeed in the history of Babylonia a sort of postal system had been developed. At any rate, in the time of Sargon I., b.c. 3800, an active exchange of commodities existed between Agade and Shirpurla. Packages or vessels of produce or goods were forwarded and with them small [pg 310] blocks of clay, impressed with seals and inscribed with the address of the recipient. These were probably used to prevent the fastenings of the packages from being untied, and on their backs may be seen the impressions of the strings which fastened the packages.793 As it happens, no letters have yet been published from the era preceding the First Dynasty of Babylon; but we can hardly doubt that such exist.
In the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon letters appear frequently in the collections of tablets brought to our museums. The volumes of Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum, published by order of the Trustees,794 contain a large number of letters from copies made by Mr. T. G. Pinches. These have been made the subject of a study by Dr. Mary Williams Montgomery.795 Mr. L. W. King, in his work, The Letters and Inscriptions of Ḥammurabi, published fifty-five letters of Ḥammurabi to his subordinate officer, Sin-idinnam, six letters of Samsuiluna, thirteen of Abêshu', two of Ammiditana, five of Ammizaduga, and two private letters. These were all transcribed, translated, annotated, and, with a number of other contemporary inscriptions, issued with admirable introductions, glossary, and index.796 Nowhere can a more vivid picture be obtained of the great empire and the manifold duties of a Babylonian king. A number of the texts published in the first volume were translated and commented upon by Dr. G. Nagel under the title, Die Briefe Ḥammurabi's an Sin-idinnam.797 Professor Delitzsch added some valuable notes. Dr. B. Meissner had already published the text of four letters as Altbabylonische Briefe.798 Professor V. Scheil [pg 311] gave the text of two letters of this period, found by him at Sippara, in the Recueil de Travaux799 and noticed others, and some more in his Une Saison de fouilles a Sippar.800 These are preserved at Constantinople, but the text has not yet been published. They are chiefly private letters and of a business nature. There are a great many other letters in American and European museums, the publication of which should not be longer delayed.
For the long period before the Tell el Amarna times, circa b.c. 1500, nothing of any extent seems to have been published, though letters are also known to exist of this period. A late copy of one such letter, addressed by Adadi-Shumnâṣir, King of Babylon, to Ashur-narara and Nabû-dâni, kings of Assyria, about b.c. 1250, is partly preserved in the British Museum.801
The Tell el Amarna tablets, some three hundred in number, were discovered in 1887-88, at the ruins of the palace of Amenophis IV., in Egypt. They will form the subject of a separate volume of this series. They consist of the letters or despatches sent to kings of Egypt by the kings of Babylon, Assyria, Mitanni, and the subject-rulers of many Syrian and Palestinian cities and states. From these can be obtained a very clear view of the state of Syria and Palestine just before the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Naturally, these letters have formed the subject of a very large literature. The most complete edition of the texts is by Winckler, Der Thontafelfund von el Amarna.802 With these should be compared Dr. J. A. Knudtzon's Ergebnisse einer Collation der El Amarna Tafeln and Weitere Studien zu den El Amarna Tafeln.803 A full transcription with translation [pg 312] and glossary to these texts has been given by Winckler, as Die Thontafeln von Tell el Amarna.804 An excellent English translation by J. P. Metcalf is to be had. There are a few of these tablets, which found their way into private hands, or to other museums than London, Berlin, and Gizeh, whence Winckler's copies were obtained. It is a duty to science that these should now be published. In the Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie orientale, t. II., published at Cairo, Professor Scheil gives the text of two more of these important letters. The explorer, Dr. F. Bliss, found another in the ruins of Lachish. It is included in Winckler's work above. Professor Sellin has lately found several tablets, which by their script and personal references are shown to belong to this period. They were found at Ta'annek, and are published by Dr. Hronzy in the Anzeige der philos. hist. Klasse der Wiener Akademie.805 The interest of these additions lies in the fact that they were found in Palestine itself.
The numerous Cappadocian tablets are now generally recognized by their language and script to belong to this period. They also show considerable affinity with the documents of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and the Tell el Amarna letters preserve many characteristic expressions.
The subsequent periods in Babylonia are represented by few letters. It is not until we come down to the end of the eighth century and the Sargonide times that we meet with many letters. The archives of Nineveh contained immense numbers. A great many of these are now in the Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum. There they early attracted attention. Being written by the imperial officials to the kings of Assyria, they contain most valuable material [pg 313]
for history. George Smith in 1871 gave extracts from several of them in his History of Ashurbanipal. A number were published in Rawlinson's Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia. Mr. S. A. Smith, in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, 1887-89,806 and in the second and third volumes of his Keilschrifttexte Asurbanipals gave some seventy more. Professor Delitzsch also published a number in his Zur assyrisch-babylonischen Briefliteratur,807 and in his translations and comments laid the real foundation for their interpretation. In 1892 Professor R. F. Harper began the colossal task of publishing the text of all the letters from Nineveh, in his Assyrian and Babylonian Letters belonging to the K Collections of the British Museum, of which eight volumes are already published.808
A considerable number of scholars have busied themselves with the translation and elucidation of these texts. Professor C. Johnston in his work, The Epistolary Literature of the Assyrians and Babylonians;809 C. van Gelderen, Ausgewählte babylonisch-assyrische Briefe;810 A. J. Delattre, Quelques Lettres Assyriennes;811 G. R. Berry, The Letters of the Rm. 2 Collection, in American Journal of Semitic Literature, xi., pp. 174-202; F. Martin, Lettres assyriennes et babyloniennes—besides the many articles by other scholars on particular words or subjects—have contributed to the understanding of these difficult texts. Professor R. F. Harper has published a few preliminary studies on these texts.812 Dr. H. Winckler not only gave several important texts in his Texte verschiedenen Inhalts,813 but translations [pg 314] and comments on them in his Altorientalische Forschungen.814
The letter-texts of the latter Babylonian period at present published are extremely few. Some may be found in Strassmaier's great collection of Babylonische Texte, among the contracts. A list of those for the reigns of Nabonidus and Nebuchadrezzar is given in Dr. K. L. Tallqvist's Die Sprache der Contracte Nabû-nâ'ids, p. xviii.
One of the uses to which the letters may be put is to illustrate the history of the time. From the letters of Ḥammurabi we can gather a great deal of information as to the civil policy of the reign. From the Tell el Amarna tablets we may reconstruct almost a complete survey of the condition of politics in Palestine. From the Assyrian letters we can rewrite the history of affairs in Armenia at the end of Sargon's reign, or the wars with Elam in Ashurbânipal's time.
The letters are also a rich mine of information on all sorts of topics, and those very often on which almost all other literatures are silent. We gain here a closer and more intimate acquaintance with humanity than at any other period of ancient history. We must not expect finality in our translations for a long while to come. Fresh documents will continually be found or published that will help us to revise our views. But that is the perennial interest of the letters. We may read and reread them, always finding something fresh to combine with every new piece of information.
Several different methods of classifying the letters suggest themselves. One plan would be to group those letters which illustrate some phase of civil life. Thus we may collect the references to medical cases, or the illustrations of religious life, or the contributions to astronomy and astrology. But none of these methods will be exhaustive or generally [pg 315] applicable. A letter rarely deals with only one subject. The only scientific classification seems to be that adopted by Professor Harper in his edition of the Nineveh letters, or Mr. King in his letters of Ḥammurabi. This is to place together all the letters written by one scribe. Here we have two difficulties. There may be more than one scribe of the same name. Thus it is practically certain that in Professor Harper's groups of letters apparently assigned to one man, more than one person is often really involved. Again, a very large number of letters no longer preserve the name of their scribe. Only a prolonged study can reduce these difficulties; it is not likely that we shall ever quite eliminate error.
There is one large group that has a claim to separate consideration. Many letters are written by, or to, a king. They are on various subjects. A subdivision might be made of reports sent by officials concerning public affairs. But even these often contain side-references; and at the last we have really to consider each letter as a separate document.
The letters of Ḥammurabi are by far the most important collection of letters hitherto published for the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon. They had a certain adventitious value at one time, because one of them was thought to contain the name of Chedorlaomer, and this association with Ḥammurabi, as Amraphel, was exploited in the interests of a defence of the historical value of Genesis xiv. Mr. L. W. King's edition of the letters, however, showed that such a use was unwarranted. But it served a much more useful end, giving us a very full picture of the times of the founder of the First Babylonian Empire. The excellent account given by Mr. King of the contents of these letters is fairly exhaustive. The importance of such sources for history cannot be overestimated. They are contemporary. They are not written to impress posterity, but with absolute fidelity to fact. We may disbelieve some of the excuses made for misconduct, but in the references to current events or general customs we have a sure witness, if only we can understand them. This is often difficult because a letter presupposes relations between the correspondents which we must conjecture.
Since Mr. King's introduction to his first volume gives a full account of the few letters previously published, this need not be reproduced here. Of Ḥammurabi's letters fifty-three are addressed to one and the same man, Sin-iddinam. [pg 317] It is doubtful whether he was the King of Larsa who bore this name, or the official who in the next reign seems to be Governor of Sippara. There are many persons who bore this name known at this period. However, several mentions of the temple of Shamash at Larsa occur in these letters and there is a certain presumption that Sin-iddinam of Larsa was the person intended.
Ḥammurabi's ability as an administrator, which these letters reveal, and his care even for small details of his rule, may well be the reason why his empire proved so stable. He established a tradition which was long followed by his successors. He organized his land, appointed governors, and held them responsible to himself. He had a direct interest in their doings and sent minute written instructions, demanding reports, summoning defaulters to his presence, or directing their punishment where they were. The dates for his reign, as for others of the dynasty, show, not only raids and conquests, but chiefly public works of utility. The construction or repair of canals, public buildings, temples, the ordering of justice, are works that repaid his care.
Ḥammurabi was a man of many business enterprises. The collection of the temple revenues was an object of his attention. There is no evidence that these were available for his use, but he had a personal interest in all that was right and just. To him the herdsmen and shepherds of the temple flocks and herds had to report. He often appears as restoring, rebuilding, or adorning shrines, and he was careful of his religious duties. Thus he postponed a case because of a festival at Ur, which he seems to have found demanded the presence of one of the parties.
He had to settle important questions concerning the calendar; whether or not reports of astronomical observations were then received is not clear, but at any rate the [pg 318] king decided when the intercalary months should be inserted. Thus he told Sin-iddinam there was to be a second Elul.
The administration of justice was also no small part of his work. Not only did he promulgate a code, but he also superintended its execution. There was a right of appeal to his judgment. He actively supervised his judges in the provinces. Thus a case of bribery was reported from Dûr-gurgurri and he instructed Sin-iddinam to investigate the case and send the guilty parties to Babylon for punishment. He upheld a merchant's claim against a city governor, for the recovery of a loan. He protected the landowners against money-lenders. He examined claims to land and sent instructions to Sin-iddinam to carry out his decision. Thefts of corn, loans withheld, rents, were adjudicated by him. He summoned not only the parties, but the witnesses, to Babylon. Prisoners were sent under escort, and arrests ordered.
The king's own herds and flocks were a personal care to him. They were stationed in various parts of the country. He received reports about them, or sent inspectors to report upon them. On one occasion he summoned forty-seven shepherds to come and report to him in Babylon. He ordered additional shearers to assist those already at work. He regulated supplies of wood, dates, seed, and corn. These were often sent by ship, and there is evidence of a large number of ships being employed, of varied capacities.
Public buildings demanded large gangs of workmen. They were drawn from the slave and serf population. A great many letters are concerned with the supply and movements of these laborers. Whether forced labor was inflicted as a punishment may be doubted. But the corvée was in full operation. The hire of laborers is referred to, and it is probable that the forced laborers were fed and clothed at [pg 319] the expense of the state. Thus we see that Ḥammurabi was a busy man and worked hard to build up his empire. His successors, though we have fewer of their letters, seem to have been fully as active.
It is not easy to select specimens for this period. Each letter has an interest of its own, and it is tempting to include most of them. But we may take the two letters referring to the goddesses of Emutbal, because one of them by a series of misreadings and misunderstandings was made to contain the famous reference to Chedorlaomer. The first815 may be rendered.
These goddesses were very likely captured during an expedition to Emutbal which was a border province of Elam. It is natural to associate this with the thirty-first year of Ḥammurabi, for which the full date is:
The transport of the goddesses was made possible by the system of canals. Intercommunication was in an excellent state, for Ḥammurabi ordered a man to be sent to Babylon from Larsa, and allowed him two days, travelling day and night. The hierodules are the female attendants of the goddesses. [pg 320] The officers whom Ḥammurabi sent bear titles not yet clearly recognized. The name Ḥammurabi-banî points to a deification of the king. Whether the goddesses reached Babylon and there brought misfortune on the country and so were sent back again, or whether their restoration to their shrines in Emutbal was part of the king's policy for a pacification of the conquered country, does not appear. But we read in another letter:817
The construction of the passage seems to imply that the goddesses had protected Inuḫ-samar. The latter was in command of troops that were within Sin-iddinam's jurisdiction; for when Sin-mâgir complained to Ḥammurabi that Inuḫ-samar had impressed some of his servants for military service contrary to a bond given him by the king, Ḥammurabi referred the matter to Sin-iddinam, ordering the servant to be given up.818 It was this name Inuḫ-samar that Scheil misread as Kudur-nûḫ-gamar.
A number of letters concern the canals of the country. Thus we read:819
Here we are introduced to the duty which lay upon riparians to keep the canals running alongside their land in order. This was part of the ilku, or customary obligation. It lay with the governor to enforce it. In another letter820 the [pg 321] king complains that a canal which had been partly cleared had not been cleared as far as Erech, and so the boats could not enter that city. Here Sin-iddinam was ordered to do the work with the men at his disposal and complete it in three days. After that he was to go on with the work he had already been ordered to do. In another fragmentary letter the king orders the clearing away of the water-plants which had obstructed the course of the Euphrates between Ur and Larsa. One is reminded of the sudd on the Nile.821
The case of bribery is referred to in a way that leaves it rather doubtful whether a theft may not be meant. The meaning of the word rendered “bribe” by King is unknown, and his identification of tâtu with da'tu is not certain. But at any rate the wrong was brought under the cognizance of Ḥammurabi, and he writes:822
A case of oppression by a governor is complained of, and redressed by the king. He writes:823
It is clear that Lalu was one of those privileged officials who held lands by royal charter, and who could not be dispossessed of their land. The Code directs824 that a governor shall not lend on mortgage to a reeve or runner or tributary, under pain of death. Although a kadurru is not there named, this letter makes it probable he was similarly protected. It is interesting to notice where the record was to be found. The palace, or “great house,” was the residence of the governor. The tablet probably recorded the appointment of Lalu to his benefice; it therefore was his title-deed. An interesting question may be raised here. Did Ḥammurabi mean in his own palace? It may be so, for he writes in another letter:825
Now how could Ḥammurabi know this unless the tablet had been shown to him? Perhaps the claimant brought his tablet with him when he came to lay his plea before the king. That is quite possible, but it may well be that the king insisted that all title-deeds be deposited in the capital.
An order for the restoration of stolen corn appears in another letter:826
Another letter reads thus:827
The title “over five” seems to be meant literally. He was a superior merchant. Like many another hint, this speaks for the strict organization of each class of the community. The Šakkanak was usually the superior official, “governor,” of a city, or of a ward of a city. We are not told what was Sin-mâgir's district. But it was under Sin-iddinam's rule. In other letters we read of a Sin-mâgir being sent to Babylon.828 Perhaps he refused to give up the corn.
Another letter illustrates the incidence of taxes and the relations of landlord and tenant:829
The case is not quite clear, but Ibni-Martu owed a tax on his field. He had either mortgaged or let his field to [pg 324] another. This tenant had not given him the corn to pay the tax and excused himself on the ground that the produce of the field was now mixed up with that of another field. Hence he could not say how much the tax should be; clearly it was proportionate to the yield. The method of solving the difficulty was that a sworn estimate had to be taken from competent witnesses and the tax levied on that basis. This course was recommended by Sin-iddinam in a previous report on the situation. The amount was to be given to the landlord, who then had to pay the tax. He clearly had no rent in corn from the land; but he could not sell or mortgage his crop except subject to the tax. The mortgagee was liable for the tax and the owner was bound to pay. The mortgagee must furnish him the means to do so; he had no right to claim the part of the crop due as tax, whatever bargain he had made with the owner of the land.
While agriculture was in the hands of free men who only paid on produce, there are indications that commerce was very strictly controlled by the State. The merchant was the only money-lender as a rule. He also seems to have acted as contractor, or farmer of taxes. The merchant, or factor, was under the king's protection and also directly responsible to him. Hence some have regarded him as a royal official. But this is hardly correct. He was to Ḥammurabi what the Jew of the Middle Ages was to the king then, or the Stock Exchange or Bourse is now. Probably we should not be far wrong in applying to him the term “publican,” in the New Testament sense. He owed a certain amount to the treasury, which he recouped from the taxes due from the district for which he contracted. If he did not secure enough, he had to make up the deficit. The following letter830 deals with what was probably common, [pg 325] namely, an evident reluctance on the part of such officials to settle accounts:
The title which I have rendered “chief collector” may be read “scribe of the merchants.” The sign PA, read aklu, does in some of its connections mean “scribe,” as tamkaru does mean “merchant.” But the sign often denotes merely an overseer. Hence we may take it that this was the derived meaning. The reason may well be that over a group of shepherds or merchants, one was always set who could keep accounts. Hence the term aklu, properly a “scribe,” came to be an “overseer.” Such a high official as the PA Martu would be the Superintendent of Martu. The person referred to in this letter, Shêp-Sin, occurs also in two other letters of Ḥammurabi.831 In one, Sin-iddinam is told to send him to Babylon with money; in the other, he complains of not being able to collect money due to a temple, and having to make up the deficit himself.
The officials who were under obligation to furnish men for public work and the army, doubtless often found a difficulty [pg 326] in making up their quota, and impressed men who were not strictly liable for duty. Such men as those called KA-DUR, KAPAR, MU, PATESI, are named on the letters as exempt from the service. But even this is not conclusive. They are not exempted because they are of these ranks, but because they have been wrongly assigned to the service. Their masters may have been exempt from the liability to furnish a man; or already engaged in royal service. Slaves and poor men were subject, as we know from the Code. Here is one of the letters on the question:832
Here the KABAR, or herdsmen, are the employees of the shepherd, his “sheep-boys.” Their absence would be a danger to the flocks. The delinquent Etil-bi-Marduk was often in fault. Several other complaints against him appear in the letters, in his capacity of money-lender.833 On two occasions he was sent for by the king, evidently with a view to punishment. Further, a patêsi in his service appealed to be transferred to another master.834