“autonomous entity nor the king merely its representative,” and his ownership of (the) land
was politically, not legally, constituted), and “Mesopotamia: The Old Babylonian Period,”
pp. 361 – 430 , esp. pp. 363 – 4 , both in Westbrook 2003 ; cf. Bailkey’s 1967 essay on
Mesopotamian constitutionalism.
44 Abbreviations follow Roth 1997 : LU ¶ 17 and LH ¶ 17 : slave re-capture beyond city border
(ki.sur.ra uru.na.ka) or open country (ina s.erim), respectively, requires private compensation
on return; cf. LL ¶ 12 (treats flight within city only), LE ¶¶ 29 – 30 , 50 – 1. Snell 2001 , has
convincingly argued that both the low incidence of documentation about slave flight to rural
villages (rather than to other urban households – but see, e.g., P. Michalowski 1993 , no.
119 ), as well as the legal sanctions related to slave return/harboring, reflect the state’s limited
legal powers to actually control flight; the emphasis is, rather, on the protection of the
property rights of urbanites. In this connection, one might note the absence of “flight romances”
in Mesopotamian literature analogous to the stories of Sinuhe, Idrimi, or David ( 1 Samuel).
45 Roth 1997 , LH ¶ 244 , SLEx ¶ 9 ′, SLHF vi 16 – 22 , 32 – 36.
46 Compare the delegation of legal sanction/remedy in territorial cases (e.g., Roth 1997 , LH
¶¶ 23 , 54 , 103 , 136 ) against those in which royal property is specified (e.g., LH ¶¶ 27 , 32
(grudgingly)).
47 E.g., RIME 3 / 21. 4. 1 iv 34 f.; cf. RGTC 8 , 75 , sub. Bı ̄ra ̄na ̄ ti and Bı ̄ra ̄ ti, and the Achaemenid-
period uzbarra.
48 Specific names are rendered here in order to illustrate the level of detail specified by these
early inscriptions, increasingly absent in later periods.
49 Figure 2. 1 combines the data of the Akkad, Kisˇ, Uruk, and “Heartland” surveys and augments
them with data derived from Corona and other satellite-imaging technologies to produce the
fullest possible settlement survey: Adams 1981 , Gibson 1972 , including R McC. Adams’
Akkad Survey data therein; and Hritz 2005. NB the Akkad Survey area documented by
Adams in Gibson 1972 , did not specifically take note of Middle Babylonian sites; thus a
small northerly portion of the Kassite-Middle Babylonian map in Figure 2. 1 is incomplete.
50 This claim was, it seems, subsequently confirmed by Sargon of Akkad (RIME 21. 1. 2 ).
51 Cooper 1986 : La 9. 1 and Um 7. 2.
52 Steinkeller 1993 , pp. 107 – 29 , esp. p. 118 f.; ki.sur.ra’s are not attested for northern cities
until Ur III times, when Kisˇ and Sippar are said to have them (RGTC2 309).
53 Only for foreign lands was there any expression of interest in geographic extents – in lands
attached to cities along the H
̆
abur, or in the territories of Syrian cities comprising Dagan’s
“Upper Land”: RIME 21. 1. 12 , 1. 4. 21 , and 1. 4. 30.
54 RIME 21. 2 (passim), but note especially 1. 1. 11 ( 34 cities) and 1. 2. 4 , in which Rimusˇ gives
a running total of 14 , 100 men expelled “from the cities of Sumer”; no episodes of exile are
recorded in non-Babylonian campaigns. Presumably the tropic pairing of “expelled and
annihilated” in this context is parallel in meaning.
55 RIME 2 , p. 7 ; B.R. Foster (“Management and Administration in the Sargonic Period,” in
Liverani 1999 , p. 31 , in arguing for an “archaeology of knowledge,” catalogs nine areas of
economic management undertaken by the governors of the Akkadian state – which can be
further summarized as commodities, labor, and markets – but land is not among them.
56 Michalowski 1993 , nos. 4 , 5 , 19.
57 Foster, “Management,” in Liverani 1999 , pp. 30 – 1 ; Sallaberger and Westenholz 1999 , p. 50.
58 RIME 3 / 11. 1. 7 .StB and. 29 ; Nansˇe is also described as “living in the land” and “queen of
lands” in Cyl. A iii 1 – 2 , iv 13. Other texts of Gudea’s show interest in describing specific
agricultural plots (StI ii 1 – 2 , StR ii 9 – 10 ; cf. paeans to the fields, Cyl. A xi 12 – 15 , Cyl. B
xv 1 f.).
59 RIME 213. 6. 1 –. 3.
60 Michalowski 1993 no. 148 : Gu’edenna, for instance, was still an identifiable district in Ur
III times; B. Gandulla’s dismissal of Mesopotamian terms for “borders” as an anachronistic
“far-off reality” fails to explain their political importance (Gandulla 2000 ).
61 For Kiritab, Apiak, Marad, and at least one other broken place-name; the adjacent city-
state borders of Kisˇ and Kazallu are also mentioned. RIME 3 / 21. 1. 21 : The territory de-
lineated in ex. 1 ii 24 – iv 24 includes Pusˇ, later the seat of a governorship, H
̆
iritum, and
— Seth Richardson —