Overview
Nuzi (Yorghan Tepe, near Kirkuk) was excavated from 1925 by Edward Chiera for the Iraq Museum and the American School of Oriental Research in Baghdad, and from 1927 with Harvard University; Speiser wrote in 1930 that the Nuzi tablets were already 'one of the largest collections of cuneiform tablets dug up on a single site.' The texts were published in the series 'Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi' (from 1927) and 'Excavations at Nuzi' (Harvard Semitic Series, from 1929).
The tablets are mostly private legal and economic records of families in a Hurrian town of the kingdom of Arrapha: adoptions (including 'sale-adoptions' used to transfer land), wills, marriage contracts, court cases and loans. They let one follow some families over several generations.
From the 1920s-1950s, scholars compared Nuzi customs with the patriarchal stories in Genesis - a barren wife giving her husband a concubine, adoption of an heir, household gods and inheritance. Later studies (T. L. Thompson 1974; M. Greenberg 1962 on the teraphim) re-examined those parallels text by text.
In its own words
If Gilimninu bears (children), Shennima shall not take another wife; and if Gilimninu does not bear, Gilimninu a woman of the Lullu as wife for Shennima shall take. As for (the concubine's) offspring, Gilimninu shall [not] send (them) away.E. A. Speiser, 'New Kirkuk Documents Relating to Family Laws,' AASOR 10 (1930), text 2 (= HSS V 67), lines 16-23, p. 32
What the evidence shows
- HSS V 67 (Speiser text 2): an adoption tied to a marriage. If the wife Gilimninu is childless she must provide her husband a Lullu woman; the concubine's children may not be expelled; if Gilimninu has children the husband may not take another wife (Speiser 1930).
- Same text: Shurihil's natural son, if born later, would be 'firstborn' and take a double share; the adopted Shennima becomes second heir (Speiser 1930, lines 7-11).
- Same text: a handmaid is also given to Gilimninu, with a supervisor assigned (lines 35-37; the handmaid's name is only partly legible in the scan).
- Speiser (1930) grouped 40 texts from HSS V as real adoptions, sale-adoptions, wills, and marriage records.
- Local Akkadian shows Hurrian influence; Speiser notes pronunciation 'doubtless under the influence of Hurrian' in ancient Arrapha (1930 notes).
Open questions
- Do Nuzi customs date the patriarchs? The 1920s-50s school (e.g. C. J. Gadd, 'Tablets from Kirkuk', RA 23, 1926, cited by Speiser; E. A. Speiser 1930) read Nuzi family law as the background of Genesis 15-31. T. L. Thompson (The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives, BZAW 133, 1974, ch. 10 'Nuzi and the Patriarchal Narratives', pp. 196-297) re-examined each proposed parallel and argued that several rest on misreadings of the tablets or occur in other periods too. The HSS V 67 clause is real; whether it fixes the date of Genesis is the argument.
- Rachel's teraphim (Gen 31): the proposal that Nuzi household gods served as title to inheritance was re-examined by M. Greenberg ('Another Look at Rachel's Theft of the Teraphim,' JBL 81, 1962) and by M. A. Morrison ('The Jacob and Laban Narrative in Light of Near Eastern Sources,' BA 46, 1983, 155-164). The texts of these articles were not available for this entry, so their exact conclusions are not stated here.
Sources
- E. A. Speiser, 'New Kirkuk Documents Relating to Family Laws,' Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 10 (for 1928-1929; New Haven, 1930) 1-73 link translation
- E. Chiera, Excavations at Nuzi I: Texts of Varied Contents (Harvard Semitic Series 5; Cambridge, Mass., 1929) link editio princeps
- Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi, vol. 1: E. Chiera, Inheritance Texts (Paris: Geuthner, 1927); vols. 2-6 (1930-1939) link editio princeps
- T. L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (BZAW 133; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974), ch. 10 'Nuzi and the Patriarchal Narratives,' pp. 196-297, DOI 10.1515/9783110841442-011 link study
- M. Greenberg, 'Another Look at Rachel's Theft of the Teraphim,' JBL 81 (1962) 239-248, DOI 10.2307/3264421; M. A. Morrison, 'The Jacob and Laban Narrative in Light of Near Eastern Sources,' BA 46 (1983) 155-164, DOI 10.2307/3209826 link study
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry: 'excavations ... between 1925 and 1931 by American archaeologist John P. Peters.' Work began in 1925 under Edward Chiera (Iraq Museum and ASOR Baghdad), continued from 1927 with Harvard, with R. H. Pfeiffer and R. F. S. Starr as later directors (Speiser 1930). Peters is not named in the excavation history.
- Old entry: 'approximately 20 clay tablets.' Speiser (1930) already called the Nuzi tablets 'one of the largest collections of cuneiform tablets dug up on a single site'; Chiera's HSS V alone has 107 documents.
- Old entry: 'Reflect Northwest Semitic cultural practices.' Nuzi was a Hurrian town in the kingdom of Arrapha; its Akkadian is heavily Hurrian-influenced (Speiser 1930).
- Old entry: 'c. 1350-1200 BCE.' The archive is tied to the Mitanni period through Saushshatar (Speiser, JAOS 49, 1929); 1200 BCE is too late.
- Old entry: 'property could be transferred through a handmaid.' HSS V 67 concerns the wife providing a concubine to bear children and protecting those children, not transfer of property through a handmaid.
- Old entry: the tablets 'confirm' the patriarchal customs 'rather than later Israelite law.' The tablets document Nuzi custom; the dating inference to the patriarchs is disputed (Thompson 1974).
- Old entry biblical link 'Genesis 38 (levirate marriage)': no Nuzi text cited here shows levirate marriage.
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