LOST IN TRANSLATION: PRESENT-DAY TERMS IN THE MAINTENANCE TEXTS OF THE NADIÄ€TU FROM OLD BABYLONIAN NIPPUR

Abstract

Present-day terms such as the usufruct – in civil law systems – and its equivalent, the life-right – in common law systems – were foreign to ancient Near Eastern legal texts. Prima facie both terms – usufruct and life-right – direct the “time-limited interest†of the use and enjoyment by a person over the property of another. However, mainstream ancient Near Eastern scholars’ unqualified use of the foreign terms – diverged in time and space – affect the translation and our insight into ancient texts. In addition, differences in land ownership institutions and philosophies in present-day law systems and those of ANE contribute to variances in the meaning and interpretation of the intrinsic aspects of property and as such “time-limited interest†applicable: a usufruct, life-right or even a hybrid form of both. In the article, I focus on the maintenance – a time-limited interest – of the nadÄ«tu priestess in the Old Babylonian city-state of Nippur. The application of Stone’s theory on Nippur’s land ownership – the institutions’ economy – prima facie shows that the nadiÄtu of Nippur held a freestanding life-right, rather than a usufruct which the majority of ANE scholars assigned to the nadiÄtu’s maintenance. However, I propose a deviation with the superficial overlay of present-day terms on the maintenance of the nadiÄtu by presenting a time-limited interest framework. The framework serves as a delineation method of identifying the characteristics of the maintenance-construction of the nadiÄtu from OB Nippur: communicating a “unitary concept†in context of the ancient texts – rather than only assigning coined terms – taking recognition of the influences of Nippur’s land ownership philosophy.