A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

596 

providing the adopter with food and clothing (ipru u lubu“tu) and fur-

ther state that when the adopter dies, the adoptee would mourn

(bakû) him and bury (qebèru) him.^108 In the absence of any mention

of wives, one wonders whether the same familial obligations—or at

least the supply of food and clothing —also applied to the adopter’s

spouse, implicitly included as co-beneficiary under the name and

authority of her husband as head of the family.

5.4.4.2 For his part, the adopter bequeaths an inheritance share to

his adopted son. Depending on the circumstances, the adoptee could

be assigned the entire estate or only part of it; the latter case occurs

when there are already one or more natural sons in the adopter’s

family. On the other hand, many adoption contracts envisage the

possible future birth of a natural son. Should this occur, adjustments

are made to the inheritance shares, in accordance with the adopter’s

wishes expressly stated in the adoption contract.^109

5.4.5 A number of agreements diverge from the more or less stan-

dardized schema of the adoptions. Note in particular JEN 572, which

provides for the adopter to teach the adoptee the weaver’s craft (ll.

7 and 16), and JEN 571, a disguised sale of a young boy who is

adopted into sonship by a well-known Nuzi entrepreneur: he will

raise his adoptive son and capitalizes in advance the cost of upbring-

ing by paying one talent of copper to the natural father (!).^110 The

adoptee’s obligations are to serve the adopter, his son, and the lat-

ter’s sons, for his entire life. The adoptee’s inheritance share con-

sists of the food and clothing allowances that he will receive from

the adopter (and his descendants).

6. P I

6.1 State and Private Ownership

Publicly owned land at Nuzi is attested only sporadically. This sur-

prising paucity may be explained by the distribution of sources so

(^108) Cf. Stohlman, Real Adoption.. ., 107–50.
(^109) For details, see ibid.
(^110) One talent of copper corresponds to ca. 9 shekels of silver—an acceptable
purchase price for a young slave.
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