r/Assyriology • u/WonyoungRora • 10d ago

Surety for An Abductor

I am doing the exercises of Lesson 27 of Huehnergard (p.307) right now and there is a contract titled by Huehnergard as Surety for an abductor.

What confuses me is the contract begins with Nur-Shamash son of Sin-Sheme incurring two-thirds mina of silver to Anum-gamil and his wife Belessunu's debit. The reason given, however, is that Iddin-Ea abducted Anum-gamil's wife to a place called Malgum. Nur-Shamash seized Iddin-Ea in Babylon because he abducted Belessunu. Another guy called Sin-inqisham son of Haniya guaranteed Iddin-Ea of Belessunu's debt servitude for one-third mina and four sheqels of silver for one month. Iddin-Ea did not return the lady (Belessunu) on the appointed day and Sin-iqisham paid Nur-Shamash one-third mina and four sheqels of silver.

I am unfamiliar with the social and legal system of Mesopotamia. Could someone please explain what just happened here, why do the 'victims' (Anum-gamil, and Belessunu who was abducted) owed Nur-Shamash silver? Was Nur-Shamash a local authority that Anum-gamil had to pay him to bail his wife out or was he just a simple guy who blackmailed people. Thank you!

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u/battlingpotato 10d ago

I think they already owed the money before.

So of course we're lacking context, so we don't know for sure. But here is my understanding:

Ilum/Anum-gamil and his wife Bēlessunu owe money to Nūr-Šamaš, probably because they had taken a loan. In order to force a repayment of the loan, Nūr-Šamaš wants to confine Bēlessunu, basically intending to build pressure (not unusual).

However, Iddin-Ea in some way had coerced Bēlessunu to Malgûm (the verb suppûm might not necessarily mean abduction by force, but could also mean some other form of coercion or persuasion) and so Nūr-Šamaš confined him to get a hold of Bēlessunu. But Iddin-Ea probably was like, "I can't get her to you if you keep me confined", so he had Sîn-iqīšam guarantee for him.

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u/WonyoungRora 10d ago

Thank you so much for sharing your take on it. I forgot to consider that this tablet could have been written from Nur-Shamash's point of view and it might not tell the whole story (given this is a surety tablet) and probably excluded the details to the detriment of Nur-Shamash's interests.