The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— P. S. Vermaak —
Nippur (modern Nuffar – south-east of Babylon on the eastern branch of the
Euphrates), with the temple of Enlil, had been an important religious centre since
the third millennium BC. During the Old Babylonian period, it was also famous for
its scholarly activities, a position it regained during the fourteenth and thirteenth
centuries BC. Some 12,000 tablets have been found, mainly of an administrative
nature, concerning the delivery and receipt of agricultural products such as grain,
goats, sheep, hides and oil. Other texts from the Kassite period comprise of letters,
legal texts and lexical lists. This large bulk of the cuneiform tablets gives the impression
of Nippur as inter-regional centre serving a much larger community than its own
hinterland. 19
One remote site during the Kassite period is Tell Imlihiye, 20 close to the city of
Mê-turran in the lowest part of the Hamrin Basin, produced some agricultural texts.
They are business documents dealing with lists of animals, wool and textiles, notes
on the delivery of corn, loans of corn, a few payments, a purchase document and a
letter (cf. Kessler 1982: 51–116 and 1985: 18–19).
Evidence from Hana
The format and pillow shape of Middle Babylonian cuneiform tablets with a legal
content (real estate contracts) from the Hana kingdom discovered at Tell Ashara
(Thureau-Dangin and Dorme 1924: 265–293) find some close parallels in the
fourteenth-century examples from Emar and Ugarit (Podany 1991–1993: 57). This
indicates that cuneiform tablets were subject to similar production and baking processes
during this period. This could not be regarded as diffusion, but, rather, acculturation
due to the dominance of the scribal processes by Kassite Babylonians.
Lapis lazuli21 Lapis lazuli had extraordinary value in Kassite Babylonia. This is shown in the
documentary evidence (Röllig 1983: 488–489; 1991: 5–13) and the material remains,
especially among prestige and votive objects. The stone had not been in such demand
since the mid-third millennium (Moorey 1994: 90). Most of the ‘mountain lapis
lazuli’ mentioned in the Amarna tablets was sent to Egypt or Mitanni from Mesopotamia
(Knudzton 1915: 15: 13; 16: 11; 11r24–5; 19: 80–81; 21: 36; 22: i52; 25:
i20–21; 25: ii27; 25: iii43). The Hittites also regarded Babylonia as an important
trading centre for lapis lazuli (Oppenheim et al. 1970: 11). The precious stone did
not originate from Mesopotamia, but from the mountains in Afghanistan. 22 The
extensive trade of lapis lazuli during the Babylonian Kassite period did not operate
on a linear scale but, rather, via an unusual, more complex trading network through
the Babylonian gateway system. 23
The lapis lazuli cylinder seals from this Kassite period found in Greece (Porada
1981: 1–70) could have most likely been transported through the Levant via the
eastern Mediterranean ports which were active during that period, such as Ugarit
and Byblos. In fact, the lapis lazuli trade in the Levantine region had already been
active for several millennia, as can be noticed in the material remains at Ebla during
the end of the third millennia BC where at least 13 kg of rough, uncut lapis lazuli
were discovered (cf. Pinnock 1986: 221–228). 24
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