Humans as Donations and the Question of Temple Slavery in Early Mesopotamia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21242620 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vitali Bartash (0000-0002-2446-6716, University of Bonn, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 49-82 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2328-9554 • E-ISSN: 2328-9562 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/janeh-2024-0017 |
| OpenAlex | W4406298963 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
This paper examines the practice of donating people to deities in southern Mesopotamia between 2600 and 2000 BC. It offers a diachronic analysis of Early Dynastic, Old Akkadian, and Ur III sources and considers Old and Neo-Babylonian evidence to address questions raised in Gelb’s (1972. “The Arua Institution.” RA 66: 1–32) foundational study. This paper demonstrates, first, that donors and recipients were rarely close relatives, as the dedicatees often included foreign captives, former slaves, orphans, and incomplete families temporarily under patronage prior to donation. Secondly, despite becoming temple “servants” (performing mostly unskilled labor like water-drawing, weaving, and, rarely, cult-related tasks), officials recorded the names of the donors of many dedicatees. In some cases, this was because the dedicatees were former slaves who continued living with their former masters after donation (and manumission), supporting them in old age as part of the paramonē arrangement. Other dedicatees may have lived with temple officials and employees or even within temple complexes. Third, the paper challenges the “temple slaves” model in interpreting the status of dedicatees in early Mesopotamia. Although third-millennium sources describe them as a deity’s “servants,” similar to how slaves in private households were referred to as someone’s “servants,” the dedicatees faced a social and legal dead end: temple officials could neither sell nor release them because their master or mistress was a deity. In effect, third-millennium dedicatees became part of a broader “menial” class of full-time temple dependents. Their status resembled that of the Neo-Babylonian oblates ( širkū ), who were legally free but subject to strict temple control. Finally, building on Patterson’s (1982. Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study . Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard University Press) model of slavery as a substitute for death, this paper argues that the donation of humans to temples in southern Mesopotamia functioned as an alternative to slavery. For the local impoverished population, donating family members to temples provided an option other than outright sale into slavery. Additionally, donating foreign captives to temples served as a more effective method of control and integration than enslavement
Akkadian · Ancient history · Cult · Donation · Mesopotamia · Political science · Sociology · Temple · Ancient Near East History · History · Law · Linguistics and language evolution
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |