Texts from the Late Old Babylonian Period
Illustrated with 177 b/w plates.
This volume publishes and discusses 186 cuneiform documents from the Late Old Babylonian period (1683-1595 B.C.), including 95 hand copies, mostly from Sippar texts in British Museum collections. The Late O.B. epoch marks the last of five centuries of uninterrupted textual production in lower Mesopotamia.
This selection of texts focuses mostly on less well-known text types of the time, reflecting innovations in documentary practices - some isolated to the period, others precursive to the Kassite period. In extensive notes, the reader will find discussions of provisioning systems, chronology, terminologies, land redistribution and ritual and military economies, in addition to the expected apparatus of indexes, concordances and catalogues.
Seth F. C. Richardson is a historian of the Ancient Near East who works in several different areas of ancient history. His work on the history of Mesopotamia's Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000-1600 B.C.) includes publications of cuneiform texts from the end of the period, and studies of political-economic questions about institutions, warfare, and prosopography. He also works on problems of violence, including its role in the rise of the ancient state, changing conceptions of the body, violations against individuals, rebellion, and social histories of the ancient military. Richardson has been Research Associate at the Oriental Institute and Managing Editor of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies since 2011.