The first sanction was that of the blood-feud to punish a murderer of one’s family—that is, to remove the community’s murder-pollution. Religion and exile were thus linked (and hence the city of refuge found in biblical times).
Also sanctioned was the obligation to redeem the lands of a family member.
[Omitted text below: These two paragraphs from the original text appear to be stubs with incomplete sentences, so we omitted them from the chapter body for now. Can you help us expand them and help transition them into the chapter where this hover-over note indicated?]
Include for instance money: Weights and measures (as anticipated briefly in Measures, Rules, and Prices). And hence social oversight and punishment. And this had to be “higher” than the two parties directly involved. The solution was to involve not merely the community and its selected members, but also a specialized sacred estate.
This is of course hardly surprising in view of the fact that temples were civilization’s first corporate institutions, at least in the Bronze Age Near East. But these public corporate entities were only part of the interface between the deities and economic life.
[/End of omitted text.]
Here, I focus largely on Mesopotamian religion. The region’s two great contributions to civilization have been called writing and law. (Alphanumeric Notation and the Calendrical-Musical Kosmos has described writing.) The role of law was to reflect cosmic order, or more accurately, to create it on earth to encompass the increasingly complicated economic relations of commercial Mesopotamia, its trade and colonization, its debts and slavery, its trade, its weights and measures, and its public and private sectors.
The two paragraphs between the bracketed lines in the Quoted Text above appear to be stubs with incomplete sentences, so we omitted them in the chapter body for now. Can you help us expand them and help transition them into the chapter where this hover-over note indicated?
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Can you help us work this into the body text of the chapter with transition and fleshing out? Originally the first sentence did not contain “In other words:” (we added that).
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The etymology for some important Indo-European “credit” terminology points to a derivation from the religious sphere. Our word “credit” derives from Latin “credo,” “I believe.” Specifically, modern creditors believe that the debtor will repay the loan. However, the first belief in a quid pro quo relationship apparently was grounded in the sacred sphere: According to Benveniste[1] (1973: pp. 138–144), Sanskrit “śrāddha” (“belief, trust,” an offering at a shrine) implies an “act of confidence (in a god), implying restitution (in the form of a divine favor according to the faithful.” Only later were the ideas of “belief” and “trust” extended into the commercial sphere. Indeed, they were what helped establish this dimension of social relations. Brown[2] (1947: p. 26, speaking of Homeric Greek society) rightly remarked that “political institutions at this rudimentary stage needed the support of religious sanctions, and were organized as religious ceremonies.”
[Omitted text: See this query on the Chapter 10 General Queries page, featuring Stub Paragraphs on Etymology and the Mini-Bibliography for Stub Paragraphs on Etymology]
As Karl Polanyi and his collaborators tried so hard to establish in the 1950s, it took thousands of years for the pecuniary ideas of standard prices, fines, and taxes to create a general market mentality. Bulk commodity trade at customary prices replaced gift exchange and rudimentary barter by a circuitous route, drawing on many social sources. Among the noncommercial catalysts to pecuniary reckoning were legal fines, military organization, the organization of sacrifices, and no doubt communal contributions to the public feasts discussed in The Distributive Justice of Group Feasts and Banquets. From the Near East diffused an elaboration of temple activities into the commercial sphere. By the third millennium BC a common standard of value developed throughout the Near East.
To see the omitted text and help work the stub paragraphs into the Chapter 10 body, see this query on the Chapter 10 General Queries page regarding Stub Paragraphs on Etymology and the Mini-Bibliography for Stub Paragraphs on Etymology.
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the constellation Libra came to rule the barley harvest month, which in Mesopotamia fell in May/June (Simanu,[3] the third month of the Babylonian year which began on the spring solstice in mid-March, when the barley was just beginning to ripen)
Can you help us verify this and/or add a source link here to cite in a footnote? Since Libra season is in autumn (as stated a few paragraphs later; see also this query), this is a little confusing to talk about it ruling spring barley harvest time in ancient Mesopotamia.
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Bernhard Laum placed great importance on the Greek aisymnetos, who was first found in the Odyssey as a judge at a match overseeing the wager, and the judge of communities in crisis situations. The word derived from the roots “symnos,” meaning “marker” as a musician marks time, and “aisios,” meaning the division of things. Thus the aisymnetos was the apportioner or divider.
Can someone who understands Greek check the philology here? And can someone with access to the Bernhard Laum texts (Über das Wesen des Münzgeldes: Eine sach und begriffsgeschichtliche Studie [Halle: 1929], pp. 37f. and Heiliges Geld: Eine historische Untersuchung Uber den sakralen Ursprung des Geldes [Tübingen: 1924]) who can understand German check this point made for us?
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The idea was linked to that of “moira.” (Laum[4] 1929: pp. 37f. believed it referred to parts of the animals consumed at the meal. Laum took as the basis for his view here that the division of the sacrifice was the most important archaic political act.) He cited Eduard Meyer’s translation of the term as “befitting,” that is, to give the appropriate portions. The goddesses Aisa and Moira are key here, akin to Latin “aequus” (identified with Juno).
Can someone with access to the Bernhard Laum texts (Über das Wesen des Münzgeldes: Eine sach und begriffsgeschichtliche Studie [Halle: 1929], pp. 37f. and Heiliges Geld: Eine historische Untersuchung Uber den sakralen Ursprung des Geldes [Tübingen: 1924]) who can understand German check the points made and the footnote citation for us?
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Our modern astrological sun-sign Libra (September 22–October 21)
Can someone please check this fact? Have the dates of Libra in astrology changed throughout history? Wikipedia cites them as September 23 to October 22 or 23, although Encyclopedia Britannica says “about September 22 to about October 23.”
In the beginning there seem to have been four major astrological signs, one for each season‚ our classical “fixed” signs comprising Taurus (spring), Leo (summer), Scorpio/eagle (autumn), and Aquarius (winter).
[Omitted text: Excursus on the “law-giving sky”: From Nanshe to Nemesis: The Justice-Goddess becomes angry.]
There was more text here about the “law-giving sky,” but it was a stub, so we omitted it. Can you help us expand it and work it into the text?
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[Omitted text: Perhaps here discuss false weights and measures, and how bad dealing began in the temples because that was where the surplus was concentrated. Later it spread to the economy at large as commerce became more privatized, especially in Mesopotamia’s Mediterranean periphery. Sun-gods of justice, from Utu/Shamash to Zeus/Jupiter.]
Nilsson[5] (1964: p. 189) stated that “Profane law (as well as religious law) had been placed from time immemorial under divine protection. Zeus watches over law and justice, and even after men had begun consciously to shape and alter the positive laws, Zeus sees that justice takes her proper course. For all primitive peoples law has divine sanction and authority.”
There was more text here about false weights and measures, but it was a stub, so we omitted it. Can you help us expand it and work it into the text?
Hudson does address the first part a little later in this chapter, and so it appears to be fulfilled; but the rest needs some help to be realized.
(The first part of the note below that is realized at end of this chapter is executed in the later chapter text: “The practice was for merchants to employ a light weight when lending out money or selling goods, and a heavy one when buying or when collecting debts so as to oblige a larger receipt of silver or other commodities.”)
The omitted text was:
Perhaps here discuss false weights and measures, and how bad dealing began in the temples because that was where the surplus was concentrated. Later it spread to the economy at large as commerce became more privatized, especially in Mesopotamia’s Mediterranean periphery. Sun-gods of justice, from Utu/Shamash to Zeus/Jupiter.
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[Omitted text: Astronomy was a key to sanctity. Egypt’s sed festival was named specifically for the star-covered garment worn by the pharaoh for his coronation (Bleeker[6] 1967; see also Griffiths[7] 1955). It had four threads, representing the four directions and thereby making the pharaoh ruler of the four quarters.]
Sun-gods almost universally were associated with overseeing honest weights and measures, fair prices, fines and punishments, the supervision of commerce, and, on the highest plane, social justice and equity. After all, it was the sun’s movement through the seasonal solstices and equinoxes—and later the 12-month zodiac—that divided the year into fractional periods, which were reflected in ration-weights and measures, tribal divisions, and so forth as described in the preceding chapters. The sun-god’s abstract social function was depicted as being that of measurer, apportioner, and lawgiver, that is, ruler in both senses of the term.
There was more text here about astronomy and the Egyptian sed festival, but it was a stub, so we omitted it. Can you help us expand it and work it into the text?
The omitted text was:
Astronomy was a key to sanctity. Egypt’s sed festival was named specifically for the star-covered garment worn by the pharaoh for his coronation (Bleeker[8] 1967; see also Griffiths[9] 1955). It had four threads, representing the four directions and thereby making the pharaoh ruler of the four quarters.]
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A Babylonian hymn to Shamash called on him to punish:
“the merchant [damgar] who (practices) trickery as he holds the balances,
who uses two sets of weights…
The merchant who practices trickery as he holds the corn measure,
who weighs out loans (or corn) by the minimum standard, but requires a larger quantity in repayment.” (Lambert 1967: p. 133)
What text is referred to by “Lambert 1967”? We haven’t encountered this in any of the book’s chapters’ Bibliographies. (There are Maurice Lambert texts with other years cited in other chapters; see the full book Bibliography for these candidates in case the year here was wrong or it was another edition of one of those texts.)
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Egypt’s funerary symbolism of the soul and good deeds being weighed would seem to derive logically from the weighing out of commodities, rations, taxes, contributions, sales, or other payments or transfers.
Can you help us figure out what is missing here? Originally this was written with two parentheses with nothing inside, as “Egypt’s funerary symbolism of the soul () and good deeds”… It may have been an Egyptian hieroglyph, or a transliterated word like ka and ba.
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The practice was for merchants to employ a light weight when lending out money or selling goods, and a heavy one when buying or when collecting debts so as to oblige a larger receipt of silver or other commodities. Fines as Important Archaic Prices
The author had a note at the end of this paragraph that seems meant to prompt further expansion. Can you help us expand this stub? The original stub text at the end of the paragraph was: “Fines as Important Archaic Prices.”
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the Greek term for measure, nomos, signified not only rules (in the sense of custom or usage, as well as market measures) but, on the highest plane, law itself.
We did not see evidence that nomos meant “measure” in Greek. It did indeed mean “law” or “rules” (source: Wikipedia). Can an ancient Greek language expert please weigh in?
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What ultimately was sacred were the law and its equitable judgment, not the person of the ruler. This is why judgeship was one of the original seeds of royal authority. Certainly the sanctification of rulers was designed to sanctify their law. [Omitted text: (In the next chapter I will discuss the case of Deioces of Ecbatana.)]
At the end of this paragraph in Chapter 10, the author originally wrote “(In the next chapter I will discuss the case of Deioces of Ecbatana.)” but this is not true of Chapter 11 (nor of Chapter 12, the next most likely spot). Can you help us add this concept to Chapter 11, or cite where in this book it is mentioned if it’s in another chapter?
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“came to the door of Marduk’s temple where he was met by the high priest, who took from him his ring, scepter, toothed sickle, and crown, and laid them before Marduk [Babylon’s city-god in the first millennium BC]. Then the priest came out again, struck the king on the cheek, and pushed him into the presence of the god; there he pulled him by the ears and made him kneel before the god and utter a confession, or rather a protestation of innocence.”
Can you help us find a source for this quotation? It may be, as Hudson says at the end of this paragraph, “simply a translation from Francois Thureau-Dangin’s 1921 Rituels Accadiens, a French translation of a Neo-Babylonian New Year ritual.” (No page number is cited so we couldn’t try to compare with our limited knowledge of French to that source.) Hint: We found similar phrases but not exactly the same narrative in Hooke 1933.
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“Then, after pronouncing the absolution, the priest returned the royal insignia to the king and struck him again on the cheek. If the king shed tears the omen was favorable; if not, the prospects for the New Year were distinctly bad.”
Can you help us find a source for this quotation? It may be, as Hudson says at the end of this paragraph, “simply a translation from Francois Thureau-Dangin’s 1921 Rituels Accadiens, a French translation of a Neo-Babylonian New Year ritual.” (No page number is cited so we couldn’t try to compare with our limited knowledge of French to that source.) Hint: We found similar phrases but not exactly the same narrative in Hooke 1933.
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Can you help us find the text meant by Hooke 1928 (as it was originally written; we changed the year to 1933) so we can add a citation, footnote, and Bibliography entry? Also note this was 1928 or 1933, and another work by Hooke cited in this chapter is from 1968. We’re pretty sure we found what was referenced, but it’s possible there were multiple editions or we missed something on pp. 6f of the 1933 edition.
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“establish equity (nig.sisa) and justice (nig.gina) in the land.”
What is the source of this quotation? We did not find it in Ephraim A. Speiser, “Cuneiform Law and the History of Civilization,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 107, No. 6 (December 1963), pp. 536–541, which was our suspected citation but had a different year than what Hudson wrote in the chapter body (1953).
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What publication should be cited here? The only Speiser bibliographic citation in this chapter was a 1963 paper (rather than 1953 as is currently in the footnote as a best guess; see this query), and the version we found had different page number range that did not include the 874 mentioned here. Maybe it was published in a different journal as well?
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“kittum” represented “that which is firm, established, true”
What is the source of this quotation? We did not find it in Ephraim A. Speiser, “Cuneiform Law and the History of Civilization,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 107, No. 6 (December 1963), pp. 536–541, which was our suspected citation but had a different year than what Hudson wrote in the chapter body (1953).
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“The two terms are mutually complementary. … An immutable aspect of cosmic order, kittum is semantically the same as Biblical ‘emet (from *’amint), the original force of which still survives in the common loanword ‘Amen.’ The independent function of a ruler, whether divine or human, is confined to misharum, that is, just and equitable implementation.”
What is the source of this quotation? We did not find it in Ephraim A. Speiser, “Cuneiform Law and the History of Civilization,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 107, No. 6 (December 1963), pp. 536–541, which was our suspected citation but had a different year than what Hudson wrote in the chapter body (1953).
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Can you help us identify the full citation for this work, including the missing digit of the year, so we can add a citation and add it to the Chapter 10 Bibliography and book Bibliography chapter? Could this be the following?
Daniel T. Potts, Dilmun: New Studies in the Archaeology and Early History of Bahrain (Berlin: 1983).
If so, we don’t have access to the text; can you help us confirm it so we can add the full citation to the Bibliographies and add the year here with a footnote?
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Please check the terms here for accuracy and sensitivity. Per Wikipedia: “the exonyms Lappish and Lappic. The last two, along with the term Lapp, are now often considered pejorative.” This was “Lapp language” before we changed it to “Sàmi languages.”
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Policy was not yet open to question; that would take the first millennium BC Axial Age of second-order reflection.
The phrase “Axial Age of second-order reflection” appears to be a stub. Can you expand on it and perhaps add a(n ideally linked) book citation to this effect?
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This Key Concept is not discussed in Chapter 10’s body (it only appears in a stub paragraph in this query on the General Queries page). Can you help us add it to the main chapter body (and perhaps expand on it in the General Queries page stub paragraph enough to be inserted into the chapter body)?
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This Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it to the chapter body discussion and relate it to the chapter thesis? Please include what to add and where in the chapter to add it, and any sources.
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Integration with other dimensions of the archaic kosmos: Sacred oversight of weights and measures, contracts and boundaries.
This Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it to the chapter body discussion and relate it to the chapter thesis? Please include what to add and where in the chapter to add it, and any sources.
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Heligoland, Ischia, and other offshore commercial enclaves which were simultaneously sacred centers
Originally this was written “Helgoland” instead of “Heligoland” and it’s possible they meant “Helgeland, a district in Norway” (source: Wikipedia). In case our edit to add an i was correct, the German (formerly Danish) land is not mentioned later in this chapter, nor is Ischia (Italian); what do you think—should we remove them here, or can you help us work them into the chapter body?
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This Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it to the chapter body discussion and relate it to the chapter thesis? Please include what to add and where in the chapter to add it, and any sources.
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There’s a missing 1953 item by this author cited in Chapter 10 that we need help identifying and adding to the Chapter 10 Bibliography and book Bibliography chapter (either in addition to or instead of the 1963 citation; let us know which you think is the case). We thought perhaps 1953 in the Chapter 10 body could have been a typo for 1963, but the page numbers don’t align (page 874 is cited, but the page range in 1953 is 536–541), so it may indeed be a different text.
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Query 3: Quotation: “kittum” represented “that which is firm, established, true”
Query 4: Quotation: “The two terms are mutually complementary. … An immutable aspect of cosmic order, kittum is semantically the same as Biblical ‘emet (from *’amint), the original force of which still survives in the common loanword ‘Amen.’ The independent function of a ruler, whether divine or human, is confined to misharum, that is, just and equitable implementation.”
↑As J.J. Finkelstein (“The Edict of Ammisaduqa: A New Text,” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale, Vol. 63, No. 1 (1969), pp. 57f.) has elaborated, Simanu “was the month par excellence for the settlement of debts and obligations and the beginning of contractual arrangements for the ensuing new agricultural year. One is even tempted to suggest that the name of month III, Simanu, does not derive from the activity of brickmaking, but rather from the far more significant activities of the agricultural economy which took place during this time. One might even posit that siman šadutti(m) ‘the season for settlement (of debts)’ represents the full designation of the period denoted as a proper month name in somewhat elliptical fashion as Simanu, ‘The Season (par excellence).’”
↑Bernhard Laum, Über das Wesen des Münzgeldes: Eine sach und begriffsgeschichtliche Studie (Halle: 1929), pp. 37f.
Not until c. 2750 BC did Sumerian rulers emerge out of the temple priesthood as administrators (en) to become increasingly secular palace rulers, at first the ensi and then, upon conquering other towns as an army leader, a lugal.[1]
This footnote is a stub. Can you help us flesh it out? Originally it was written as such before we edited it to the above: “Footnote here: the controversy over these words. Nissan, etc. For our purposes what is more important is the actual evolution, not merely the terminology. And this secularization can be shown, whatever the specific meaning of the words was to third-millennium BC Sumerians.”
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This footnote is a guess; there is no page 874 in the 1963 text, and 1953 was originally written as the year, but no text was specified correlating to that year. Let us know if you can replace this citation with an accurate citation, and we can replace this footnote and add the new citation to the Chapter 10 Bibliography and book Bibliography chapter. See related queries linked below:
Query 1: Quotation: “establish equity (nig.sisa) and justice (nig.gina) in the land.”
Query 3: Quotation: “kittum” represented “that which is firm, established, true”
Query 4: Quotation: “The two terms are mutually complementary. … An immutable aspect of cosmic order, kittum is semantically the same as Biblical ‘emet (from *’amint), the original force of which still survives in the common loanword ‘Amen.’ The independent function of a ruler, whether divine or human, is confined to misharum, that is, just and equitable implementation.”
↑Note the controversy over these words. Nissan, etc. For our purposes what is more important is the actual evolution, not merely the terminology. And this secularization can be shown, whatever the specific meaning of the words was to third-millennium BC Sumerians.
