The study is dedicated to the small city of Šāṭir, which was situated in the southern Babylonian countryside, near the major urban center of Uruk and in the Chaldean region of Bīt-Amukānu. What is known about it comes from legal and administrative texts drafted in the city itself, in towns or small villages in its vicinity and from the neighbouring urban centre of Uruk. This study focuses on those primary sources dated to the 5th century BCE, a period when all of Babylonia was under Persian Achaemenid rule. It contains 28 documents published here for the first time, supplemented by updated editions of 10 previously published documents from Šāṭir and nearby sites. As limited as this textual evidence is, it nevertheless allows a view on agricultural and cultural life in rural southern Babylonia. It will be argued that the evidence from Šāṭir can serve as a promising micro-historical case study of the hinterland of Uruk, because of the scarcity of comparable textual evidence from 5th century Babylonia, the texts’ pronounced focus on local issues and concerns, and the unique location of Šāṭir, between two disparate cultural and political spheres of influence, namely the world of urban Babylonia on the one hand and that of the Chaldean tribes from Bīt-Amukānu on the other. The discussion and analysis of the evidence shows that Šāṭir was an example of how local urban centres functioned and ruled over various population groups in the southern Babylonian periphery. The reality of life in Šāṭir under Achaemenid rule was one of agrarian opportunities, challenges, and local resilience, in an environment of linguistic and cultural complexity.

PART I: INTRODUCTION

PART II: SETTING THE STAGE

1 GEOGRAPHIC FRAMEWORK

2 TEXTUAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Acquisition and Discovery of the Tablets

2.2 Physical characteristics of the tablets

2.3 Text Groups and Intertextuality

2.4 Text Typology

2.4.1 Promissory notes

2.4.2 Sales

2.4.2.1 Sale records for arable land

2.4.2.2 Promissory Notes Resulting from Sales

2.4.2.3 Uncertain

2.4.3 Land farming agreements (lease and sharecropping)

2.4.4 Prebend Leases

2.4.5 Receipts

2.4.6 Bird keeping agreement

2.4.7 Partition wall agreement

2.4.8 Cancellation of debt notes

2.4.9 Undetermined contract types

3 MAIN ACTORS

3.1 Â-nād 

3.2 Sons of Â-nād

3.3 Grandsons of Â-nād

3.4 Great-grandsons of Â-nād

PART III: THE RURAL LANDSCAPE OF ŠĀṬIR

1 THE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF ŠĀṬIR

1.1 Introduction

1.2 The Land

1.3 The Actors

1.3.1 Holders of Royal Land Grants

1.3.2 Holders of Bow-land

1.3.3 The Temple as Landholder

1.3.4 Local Residents (as Landowners and Farmers ?)

1.4 The Agricultural Landscape in Historical Perspective

2.THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF ŠĀṬIR

2.1 Onomasticon

2.1.1 Key Features

2.1.2 West-Semitic Names

2.1.3 Iranian and Elamite Names

2.1.4 Absence of family names

2.1.5 Onomastic trends in fifth century BCE Šāṭir and Uruk

2.2 Aramaic Notations

2.2.1 Structure and Content

2.2.2 Palaeography and the Question of the Scribes

2.2.3 Personal Names

2.2.4 Aramaic words

2.2.5 The Aramaic Notations: their Scribes and Raison d’être

2.3 Seals and Seal-Bearers

2.4 Cuneiform Scribes

2.5 Religion and Cult

PART IV: CONCLUSIONS

PART V: TEXT EDITIONS

INDICES

Name Index- Aramaic Notations

Name Index- Cuneiform Texts

Fragmentary and broken names

CONVENTIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY