A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

 579

slavery or treated as a slave. We do not know whether this protec-

tion was also automatically extended to a citizen’s offspring.

4.1.3 An additional aspect of citizenship is provided by the mem-

orandum of a financial dispute concerning the ransom of an Arraphean

citizen who was brought home by a merchant from the nearby coun-

try of N/Lullu.^45 In contesting a claim of sixty shekels of silver from

a would-be purchaser of the ransomed Arraphean citizen, mention

is made of a royal edict that stated: “if a merchant buys a citizen

(lit., “man”) of Arraphe in the country of the Nullians, and brings

him to Arraphe, he may take (as his price only) 30 shekels of silver”

( JEN 195: 12–20).^46

4.1.3.1 Another text ( JEN 179) records the sale of a “woman of

Arraphe” who was brought home from the country of Ku““uhhe and

sold to a man in exchange for two oxen, one ass and ten sheep, for

a total value reckoned at forty shekels of silver. This sum is qualified

as “(purchase) price” (“ìmu) of the woman, thus implying that she

had become the full property of the purchaser. Notable, however,

is the peculiar kind of payment made for the purchase of the woman—

a well-known standard assemblage of commodities consisting of one

ox, one ass, ten sheep and ten shekels of silver, although in this case

the ten shekels of silver are substituted by delivery of another ox.

Such a payment is a recurrent feature of some Nuzi marriage trans-

actions.^47 The question therefore arises whether the Arraphean citi-

zenship enjoyed by the woman, who was taken from a foreign land

and then sold to a fellow citizen, might have induced the contract-

ing parties to agree to such a peculiar and revealing form of pay-

ment; we have no means of knowing to what extent the woman

would have personally benefited from such an agreement.

4.1.4 The sporadic yet significant references to people enjoying

Arraphean citizenship can be better evaluated if compared with men-

tion of other “nationalities” in connection with various people, of

different institutional and social levels, temporarily or permanently

(^45) Note that this region was the major source for the import of (female) slaves
into the kingdom of Arraphe.
(^46) Cf. Zaccagnini, “Merchant.. .,” 175–78.
(^47) Cf. Zaccagnini, “Movable Property.. .,” 152–53.
WESTBROOK_f14–564-617 8/27/03 12:28 PM Page 579