‘Akawatil, son of Wullu, appeared in a lawsuit before the judges against Akkul-enni, son of Mush-teya. Thus (spoke) Akawatil: “Akkul-enni said to me: You are full of leprosy!” The judges questioned Akkul-enni and he (declared): “I did not say that”. So the judges said to Akawatil: “Bring your witnesses (who saw) that Akkul-enni said to you that you are full of leprosy!” Akawatil brought PN1, PN2, PN3: the three witnesses of Akawatil presented before the judges. This is their declaration: “Akkul-enni said the following to Akawatil: You are full of leprosy! Do not come close to me!” So the judges sent these three men, PN4, PN5, PN6 — three legal officials — together with Akkul-enni so that he may “lift up the gods” (that is, performed an oath ritual to free himself from the accusation); but Akkul-enni turned away from the gods. Akawatil won the case, and the judges condemned Akkul-enni to pay 1 ox to Akawatil. (3 seals, name of the scribe).’
Regarding this third stage, the standard practice in Nuzi was to disguise this transaction as an adoption: either as a transfer from father to son (mariitu; Text 17.1b), or, less frequently, between brothers (ahhvtu). The adopted gave the adopter a ‘gift’, namely, the price of the land. In turn, the adopter ensured the adopted a share of the inheritance. The latter could have been partial if there were other sons (the new brothers of the adopted person), or even total. Apart from this sort of legal fiction, there was a concrete loan provided by the adopted to the adopter. This was returned later on, after the death of the adopter, when the inheritance was divided. The fictitious character of these adoptions is not only visible from the payment of the gift (or, rather, the price), but also from the fact that there were many adopters, usually small landowners, and few adopted individuals, generally wealthy landowners. The most famous of these, a certain Tehip-tilla, was adopted by his debtors around a hundred times. He therefore acquired thousands of hectares of land. The reason for the creation of this fiction is clear. These lands formerly belonged to private families that could not dispose of these lands freely, since they were obliged to keep them within the family. However, the gradual breakdown of economic and family relations led to the creation of these fictitious adoptions. In this way, it became possible to bypass those scruples opposing the spread of land sales. The practice, also attested elsewhere, became so widespread in Nuzi that it had a devastating impact on the entire system.
Nuzi also provides evidence for actual adoptions, which can be recognised from the inclusion of a number of specific clauses. Just like elsewhere in the Near East, real adoptions were not meant to find a family for an orphan child unable to survive on his own. On the contrary, the adopted was usually a self-sufficient adult, while the adopters were generally old and without descendants. The adopters were therefore forced to adopt someone that could take care of them for the remaining part of their lives. Real adoptions clearly paved the way for the fictitious ones. In both cases, the adopters received a support, be it a ‘gift’ (in the fictitious adoptions) or food and clothes until their death (in the case of real adoptions), which could only be repaid by pledging their inheritance.
However, despite the similarities, the two types of adoptions had completely different implications on a personal level. This is particularly noticeable in a number of clauses attested in the sources. In case of real adoptions, the adopted took over the duties of a biological son. Therefore, he had to take care of his new parents, respect them while they were alive, mourn them after their death, look for them if they disappeared, and so on. The ‘fake’ adopted was not responsible for any of these duties, since the latter had been paid for through his ‘gift’ or loan. Therefore, he just had to wait until he could receive his adopters’ inheritance.
The same can be said about public duties. Private landowners had to provide a corvee (ilku) type of service to the palace. This service could vary from occasional military service to agricultural duties on the palace lands, and other types of work which the palace might have needed. In the adoption contracts it is often specified that the ilku had to be provided by the adopter and not the adopted. In fact, Tehip-tilla could not have provided a corvee service on behalf of hundreds of adopters. Moreover, unless otherwise specified, the adopters normally continued to work on their lands. The change of ownership, then, would only have taken place after they had died.
An external observer analysing the management of land in Nuzi might get the impression that these adoptions had little impact on the system. After all, the same people cultivated fields and property continued to be parcelled out for heirs, while the palace continued to receive tributes and services. The real change actually took place on an ownership level, since land began to be owned by a small portion of society. The palace had long ceased to emanate edicts aimed at solving the problem of debt slavery, which meant that the incidence of such labour was now growing without any means to control it. The fact that Tehip-tilla, a landowner and adoptive son by profession, and the ‘king’s son’ Shilwa-Teshub, living in the palace, belonged to the same class meant that they shared the same economic interests. These interests were also shared by all the maryannu and the other members of the aristocracy. In this way, an aristocracy that was ideologically ‘military’, actually became a landowning class.
The situation was no worse in Nuzi than in other kingdoms. Many fugitives from Akkad (that is, from the Babylonian kingdom) and elsewhere even sought refuge in Nuzi. These people had lost everything in their native countries, becoming servants without lands, and had preferred to escape. However, they did not find a better situation in Nuzi and were forced to sign contracts of self-enslavement, promising to work for a landowner in exchange of a life annuity. Personal relations were therefore economically regulated. Those coping mechanisms formerly implemented by families and village communities had by now become impracticable. Kings, for their part, had ceased to play the fatherly role of the ‘good shepherd’. They became an integral part of that elite group taking advantage of the difficulties encountered by farmers, thus significantly increasing their wealth and power.
Even among the judiciary corruption was spreading (Text 17.1c). An entertaining legal text records how a mayor of Nuzi had taken advantage of his role by accepting bribes. Reading the text it becomes evident that the practice of bribing officials to take care of a matter was not just common, but even considered legitimate. The illegitimacy of the case was not that the mayor had received a bribe, but that he had not done what he was paid to do. It is therefore clear that there was a parallelism between a ‘gift’ given in order to be adopted or looked after, and a ‘bribe’ paid to obtain a favour from the authorities. Likewise, there are considerable similarities between the documents specifying that Tehip-tilla did not have to mourn his deceased adoptive parents, and those accusing the mayor of not having done the favours in exchange of which he accepted bribes.
World History
