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conquered country (see 4.1.4 above). The officials in charge of the
deportation, which proceeded in stages from one provincial center
to another, were required to provide the deportees with standard
rations of food and oil and to attend to their physical well-being.^78
At their destination, legal responsibility for the deportees shifted to
the respective provincial governor, who was to provide them with
arable land where they could settle.4.2.1.2 Prisoners of War, Captives(¢ubtu, “allutu)
People with special skills and training (soldiers, scribes, scholars, artists
and artisans, cooks, etc.) were singled out from other deportees and
incorporated as separate ethnic contingents (kalzu) into the imperial
army, administration, and economy.^79 Such people were legally royal
property but could be assigned to the service of royal magnates as
well; it was the duty of new owner, whoever he was, to provide
them with the basic necessities of life (house, field, furniture, agri-
cultural implements, and domestic animals).^80 Several petitions from
foreign experts attached to the royal court show that there were
many abuses in this respect, but it should be noted that such peti-
tions are extant from native Assyrians as well.^814.2.1.3 Deported foreign rulers and nobility were kept in confinement
at the royal court, where many princes and youths of noble descent
received instruction in Assyrian culture and were later integrated into
the Assyrian power elite, usually as vassal rulers or administrators in
their native countries.^82 Foreign princes in the royal entourage received
significant favors from the king (e.g., the command of an imperial
army), which they were expected to pay back later, when installed
in a position of power in their own countries.(^78) See, e.g., SAA 1 nos. 219 and 257; SAA 5 156.
(^79) For kalzuas a term for specialized ethnic contingents or groups, cf. SAA 1
171 and 236; SAA 2 6: 217–18; and CT 53 869 (“they have [not] been organized
[into] royal contingents [l]ike the deportees”). Examples are the Aramean Itu"eans
serving as an elite force in the imperial army, and the Iranian Hundureans settled
as a specialized professional group in Assur.
(^80) See Oded, Mass Deportations.. ., 38–39, and cf., e.g., ABL 556: 8–10.
(^81) See Parpola, “Forlorn Scholar.” On petitions from Babylonian scholars, see
Oppenheim, “Celestial Divination...”
(^82) See SAA 2, xx–xxi, and the discussion in Parpola, “Letter.. .,” 34–35.
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