domestic life and wifehood (cf. Bottéro 1992 : 194 – 197 ). Regarding sorceresses, we
know relatively little; Old Babylonian sources associate the performance of black
magic almost exclusively with women, and though male sorcerers appear in later
periods, the sorceress remained a popular motif in ritual texts (Sefati and Klein 2002 ).
I will note simply that none of the many recent studies on the subject of cultic
prostitution has found clear evidence that it existed in Mesopotamia (cf. Assante
1998 ), and scholars have instead focused on critiquing the passage in Herodotus that
describes routine prostitution in Babylonian temples (cf. Budin 2003 : 153 ).
Widows, like harima ̄ tu and other “women in transition” who were at least temporarily
without a clear household affiliation, appear frequently in the legal texts, suggesting
“that the status of each was carefully negotiated” (Assante 1998 : 34 ). The studies by
M. Roth ( 1988 b, 1991 – 1993 ) of widows in the Neo-Babylonian period suggest that
widowhood was fairly common and that most widows were dependent upon the
goodwill of their husband’s family and heirs. If their husbands did not “make explicit
provisions allowing their wives the lifetime right of habitation” (Roth 1991 – 1993 :
26 ) in the conjugal home, they might be required to leave; and in a number of cases,
property disputes between the widow and the rest of the family had to be adjudicated.
In an Old Babylonian letter from Tell Asmar (AS 22 , 12 , in Whiting 1987 ), a woman
named Battum, who is likely a widow, admonishes her son-in-law: “My slaves are
— Laura D. Steele —Figure 21. 2 Old Babylonian terracotta bust of a woman
(courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum).