ERETZ-ISRAEL

Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies

VOLUME TWENTY -SEVEN

Published by
, THE ISRAEL EXPLORAnON SOCIETY
I..... in cooperation with .~.

r The Hebrew University of Jerusalem -

JERUSALEM 2003
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem TO
 CONTENTS
NON-HEBREW SECTION

Preface VII
Peter Machinist A Tribute to Hayim Tadmor IX
Yaacov Meshorer A Tribute to Miriam Tadmor xi
Bibliography of Works by Hayim Tadmor (see Hebrew section) T'
Bibliography of Works by Miriam Tadmor (see Hebrew section) j,:>

Bibliographical Abbreviations (see Hebrew section) 1::l

Paul-Alain Beaulieu Nabopolassar and the Antiquity of Babylon 1*

Dominique Collon Seals of Merodach-Baladan 10*
Frank Moore Cross Some Problems in Old Hebrew Orthography with Special Attention
to the Third Person Masculine Singular Suffix on Plural Nouns [-iiw] 18*
Stephanie Dalley The Transition from Neo-Assyrians to Neo-Babylonians: Break or
Continuity? 25*
William G. Dever An EB IV Tomb Group from Tell Beit Mirsim 29*
Eckart Frahm Images of Ashurbanipal in Later Tradition 37*
Andreas Fuchs Ein Inschriftenfragment Tiglatpilesers III 49*
Seymour Gitin Neo-Assyrian and Egyptian Hegemony over Ekron in the Seventh
Century BCE: A Response to Lawrence E. Stager 55*
Jean-Jacques Glassner La participation des dieux au rituel de fondation d'un temple:
L'exemple de I'E.ninnu de Lagash 62*
Joan Goodnick Westenholz
and Wayne Horowitz A Literary Account of Sennacherib's Seventh Campaign in the
Birmingham City Museum 70*
Baruch Halpern The Assyrian Astronomy of Genesis I and the Birth of Milesian
Philosophy 74*
Harry A. Hoffner, Ir. The Disabled and Infirm in Hittite Society 84*
Yutaka Ikeda 'They Divided the Orontes River between Them": Arpad and its
Borders with Hamath and Patin/Unqi in the Eighth Century BCE 91 *
Giovanni B. Lanfranchi Ideological Implications of the Problem of Royal Responsibility in
the Neo-Assyrian Period 100*
Louis D. Levine Observations on "Sargon's Letter to the Gods" III *
M.P. Maidman Historiographic Reflections on Israel's Origins: The Rise and Fall
of the Patriarchal Age 120*
Gloria S. Merker An Ivory Mirror Handle from Corinth 129*
Piotr Michalowski The Doors of the Past 136*
Pierre de Miroschedji The Late EB III Palace Bl at Tel Yarmuth: A Descriptive Summary 153*
P.R.S. Moorey Accounting for Sumerian Terracotta Figurines, ca. 3000-2350 BCE 171 *
Barbara N. Porter Intimidation and Friendly Persuasion: Re-evaluating the Propaganda
of Ashurnasirpal II 180*
Anson F. Rainey Some Amarna Collations 192*
Martha T. Roth Deborah, Rebekah's Nurse 203*
Marcel Sigrist Distribution d'habits a Umma: Analyse de la tablette ROM D 115 208*
Anthony J. Spalinger Epigraphs in the Battle of Kadesh Reliefs 222*
Lawrence E. Stager Key Passages 240*
VI

Jeffrey H. Tigay Divine Creation of the King in Psalms 2:6 246*

Irene J. Winter Ornament and the "Rhetoric of Abundance" in Assyria 252*
Shigeo Yamada Notes on the Genealogical Data of the Assyrian King List 265*
Stefan Zawadzki Nebuchadnezzar and Tyre in the Light of New Texts from the
Ebabbar Archives in Sippar 276*
English Summaries of the Hebrew Articles 282*

HEBREW SECTION
Kathleen Abraham Property and Ownership in the Egibi Archive from Babylon 1
Eliezer D. Oren Interconnections between the Southern Levant and the Aegean at
the End of the Early Bronze Age 10
Tallay Oman Picture and Legend: The Case of Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven 18
Shmuel Ahituv Jeremiah in Egypt 33
Shlomo Bunimovitz
and Zvi Lederman The Last Days of Beth Shemesh and the Pax Assyriaca III the
Shephelah of Judah 41
Amnon Ben-Tor Old Canaan - New Israel 50
Ram Gophna and
Etan Ayalon Tel Ashir - An Open Cult Site of the Intermediate Bronze Age on
the Bank of the Poleg Stream 55
Raphael Greenberg What Happened to Megiddo in the Early Bronze Age II? 66
Yosef Garfinkel Architecture and Village Planning at the Neolithic Village of Sha'ar
ha-Golan 73
Trude Dothan A Decorated Ivory Lid from Tel Miqne-Ekron 83
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz The Sun-Disk Tablet of Nebobaladan, King of Babylon (BBSt 36) 91
Nili Wazana "I Removed the Boundaries of Nations" (Isa. 10:13): Border Shifts
as a Neo-Assyrian Tool of Political Control in ljattu 110
Joel Weinberg Is the Hebrew Bible a Book about Exile? 122
Nathan Wasserman A Forgotten Old-Babylonian Lament over a City's Destruction: VET
6/2,403 and its Possible Literary Context 126
Itamar Singer Two Hittite Ring Seals from Tell el-Far'ah (South) 133
Baruch A. Levine "Ah, Assyria! Rod of My Rage" (Isa. 10: IS): Biblical Monotheism
as Seen in an International, Political Perspective: A Prolegomenon 136
Amihai Mazar The Excavations at Tel ReI:lOv and their Significance for the Study
of the Iron Age in Israel 143
Ora Negbi Beth YeraJ:1 and Phi]ja Wares: Two Case Studies of Anatolian Conn-
ections with the Levant and Cyprus in the Third Millennium BCE 161
Michael Sebbane The Kfar Monash Hoard - ARe-evaluation 169
Moshe Anbar "Let the Gods Come for the Treaty (Ceremony)" 185
Israel Finkelstein "New Canaan" 189
Dalia Pakman "Mask-Like" Face Reliefs on a Painted Stand from the Sacred
Precinct at Tel Dan 196
Irit Ziffer What Happened under the Grapevine? New Insights into
Ashurbanipal's Garden Party Relief 204
Ronny Reich and
Eli Shukron Notes on the Gezer Water System 212
Ephraim Stern The Assyrian Impact on the Material Culture of Palestine 218

A TRIBUTE TO HA YIM TADMOR
It has sometimes been said that the field of ancient
Near Eastern studies has too few real historians.
But certainly any roster of them would have to
include Hayim Tadmor. For over more than half
a century, his scholarship and teaching have put
him in the first rank of those who have not only
clarified the course of ancient Near Eastern his-
tory, but established what the study of it requires.
Hayim Tadmor has come by his work through
a broad and cosmopolitan training. Born in 1923
in Harbin, China, he immigrated to the Land of
Israel in 1935. He began his university studies at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1943 under
the then still unheralded Benjamin Maisler
(Mazar). It is characteristic of Hayim Tadmor that
even at the beginning of his studies he cast his net
widely. In addition to Bible and various other
cultures and languages of the pre-Hellenistic Near
East, he worked in ancient history, under scholars
like Richard Koebner, and particularly in the Sec-
ond Temple period and its sources, both Jewish
and Greco-Roman. Here was another of his mas-
ters, Gedaliahu Alon, and after the latter's prema-
ture death, Hayim Tadmor played a key role in
collecting and editing his articles in book form.
This first period of his studies concluded in 1950,
when he received his M.A. from the Hebrew
University in World and Jewish History and Bible.
He then took time out for study abroad, shifting
his focus to another Near Eastern culture to which
he had been introduced in Jerusalem - Mesopo-
tamia. Awarded a British Council Fellowship,
Hayim spent two years (1951-52) at the School
of Oriental and African Studies of the University
of London, where he pursued Assyriology under
the exacting hand of its leading British specialist,
Sidney Smith. Upon his return to Israel, Hayim
Tadmor undertook his doctorate at the Hebrew
U ni versity, integrating his Assyriological, biblical
and other studies of the ancient Near East to write
on problems of chronology in the biblical histor-
ical record. This work, completed in 1954, became
the basis of numerous subsequent studies, partic-
ularly a comprehensive article, "Chronology," in
IX
the Encyclopaedia Miqra'it 4 (1962), which has
remained foundational for this complex field until
today. A second period of foreign study now
followed, this time at the Oriental Institute of the
University of Chicago (1955-57). Here again he
worked on Mesopotamia, particularly under the
great master of Assyriology, Benno Landsberger,
and produced some of his most important Assyr-
iological articles, covering diverse historical prob-
lems of the late second and first millennia BCE.
Hayim Tadmor returned to Israel in 1958 to
begin his teaching career at the Hebrew Univer-
sity. Over the next 35 years, until his retirement
in 1993, he established the university as a major
international center of Assyriology and ancient
Near Eastern history, inaugurating the Department
of Assyriology in 1965 as its first head, and rising
through the ranks to full professor in 1971. His
achievements were widely acclaimed both in Is-
rael and abroad. There were guest professorships
in a number of American universities, visiting
senior fellowships and numerous invited lectures
at the major scholarly institutions and conferences
in ancient Near Eastern studies. In addition,
Hayim Tadmor was elected to membership in the
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
(1985), and then to its vice-presidency (1995), an
office he still holds; to honorary membership in
the American Oriental Society (1986); and to the
position of corresponding fellow of the American
Academy for Jewish Research (1992). Most re-
cently (2000), he was awarded the Rothschild
Prize in Humanities.
At the core of the achievements so recognized
lie Hayim Tadmor's investigations of the ancient
Near Eastern empires of the first millennium BCE:
Assyrian, Babylonian and Achaemenid. He has
transformed our understanding of those empires
and their effects, particularly in two directions.
On the one hand, he has been a principal force
behind the revival of interest in the royal inscrip-
tions, that class of official texts from the empires
whose historical worth scholars in the past had
often sought to malign as just so much inflated
x
and distorted rhetoric. If we treat the inscriptions
more seriously today, this is in a major way due
to Hayim Tadmor's work on them. In numerous
publications, he has demonstrated how a close
analysis of these inscriptions, combining literary,
political and cultural perspectives, can yield cru-
cial information not only on the course of political
and military events, but also on the more subtle
issues of change in political mood and ideology.
The culmination of Tadmor's work in this area is
surely his study of The Inscriptions of Tiglath-
pileser III. King of Assyria (1994). Tiglath-
pileser's official inscriptions had arguably been
the most difficult to make sense of in the surviving
Assyrian record, because of their poor preserva-
tion and the challenges of undoing the multiple
errors in the last edition of them, by Paul Rost,
published more than a century ago and everywhere
recognized as well nigh a scholarly disaster. With
his study Hayim Tadmor stepped into this mine-
field and cleared it, editing new pieces of the
inscriptions along with the old, and piecing them
together into an elegantly organized picture of the
whole textual corpus. Most striking was his dem-
onstration of how these inscriptions were com-
posed and laid out on display in their ancient
settings, and then of how the first modern editions
of them, including Rost's, were produced, and
thus how the errors in them occurred, can be
detected, and removed. Hayim Tadmor's book, in
short, is scholarly detective work of a very unusual
kind - unique, certainly, in the study of Assyri-
ology - revealing as it does how both the ancient
and the modern scribes of Tiglath-pileser pursued
their tasks. It has set, without question, a new
standard of editing in Assyriology, a model for
future historical work in this and related fields.
Complementing his studies of the royal inscrip-
tions, Hayim Tadmor has galvanized international
scholarly interest in the impact of empire: in the
ways in which Assyria, Babylonia and the Achae-
menids influenced the smaller states and peoples
in their midst and were, in turn, influenced by
them. His probing studies - and they are again
numerous - have focused on the Levant, opening
up new perspectives on problems such as the
expanding role of Aramean groups and culture in
the Neo-Assyrian empire. In the process, he has
laid down the basic guidelines for analyzing how
such groups functioned within the empires and
thus for determining what ancient imperialism was
all about. A high-water mark of these studies is
his commentary on II Kings (1988), written for
the Anchor Bible series with his former student,
Mordechai Cogan. Well beyond any other of the
many commentaries on this biblical book, Tadmor
and Cogan make clear how II Kings combines with
non-biblical evidence to serve as a key source for
Israelite history. And in so doing, they give us an
unrivaled appreciation of how the writers of Kings
worked as historians, against the larger back-
ground of history writing in the pre-Hellenistic
Near East.
That Hayim produced this commentary with his
former student is also a significant statement about
his attitude toward scholarship. For him, it is at
heart a collaborative enterprise. Whether in pub-
lication, in the classroom, in conferences and
learned societies, or in the editing of scholarly
works like the Encyclopaedia Miqra'it and the
World History of the Jewish People, Hayim
Tadmor has brought new meaning to the old
wisdom that in order to learn you must first find
the right companion to learn with. All those who
have worked with him can amply attest to the quite
palpable electricity that he generates, the ability
to extract from his students and colleagues the
best they have to offer. This is why aspiring
scholars the world over came to study with him
at the Hebrew University - or wherever he
taught. And this is why we wish him many more
years of productive and collaborative work.
PETER MACHINIST
 THE DISABLED AND INFIRM
IN HITTITE SOCIETY
HARRY
University of Chicago
It is a great pleasure to present this modest study
to my dear friends Miriam and Hayim Tadmor,
with admiration for their scholarship and deep
gratitude for their friendship.
I. INTRODUCTION
In 1992 J. Klinger ably surveyed the evidence for
marginalized persons ("foreigners and outsiders")
in Hittite society. J But although passages dealing
with physically handicapped persons have been
individually discussed in previous Hittitological
literature, I am unaware of any general attempt to
study the practices and attitudes of the Hittites
toward such persons.
In antiquity there were various forms of contin-
uing disability: blindness, deafness, paralysis and
bodily mutilation. They could be caused by de-
formity at birth, by sustaining a serious injury in
battle or in a domestic accident, or could be the
continuing after-effect of a disease, or the inevi-
table concomitant of old age.
Some permanent injuries were the result of
punishments legally inflicted upon certain classes
of felons. It was also believed that the gods in-
flicted physical disabilities as punishment for cer-
tain types of offenses, principally the violation of
oaths. For instance, under certain circumstances
slaves could be mutilated as part of the penalties
imposed for theft. 2 And in curse formulae in
treaties and oath ceremonies it is requested that
the gods blind or otherwise afflict with diseases
the violators of the oaths. 3
Injuries, diseases and disabilities received in
this manner would surely brand the disabled per-
son as an offender and therefore as a pariah. One
wonders if a stigma attached to all disabled per-
A. HOFFNER, JR.
sons, simply because a casual observer would not
know the circumstances behind the disability. Did
the same attitudes prevail toward persons born
with such handicaps as toward those who had
received them as penalties for offenses?
II. FORMS OF DISABILITY
In the following we shall look at the various forms
of disability mentioned in Hittite texts and at what
the texts tell us about the prevailing attitudes
toward such persons. There are laws governing
the liability of a person who causes lasting injuries
to another. Some of these are monetary payments;
others involve providing compensation in the form
of a slave or a member of the offender's family.
1. Old Age 4
In an era prior to spectacles and dental prosthetics
the loss or deterioration of eyesight and teeth in
older people must have been quite common. A
famous passage in the Hebrew Bible is 2 Samuel
19:36 (v. 35 in English Bibles), the words of old
Barzillai to King David:
CWi ':::lJ~ C'J7:)lV-P
;'UIO
y" J'tlTJ Y'~i1
i1nlV~ 'lV~-n~, ':::l~ 'lV~-n~ l'JY CYtl'-C~
n"lV' C"'0 "pJ "Y Y7:)lV~-C~
l'7:)i1 'n~-,~ ~lV7:)' "Y l'JY i1'i1' i17:)"
"I am this day eighty years old; can I discern
what is pleasant and what is not? Can your
servant taste what he eats or what he drinks?
Can I still listen to the voice of singing men
and singing women? Why then should your
servant be an added burden to my lord the
king?"
 THE DISABLED AND INFIRM
A moderately cynical view of the infirmities of
old age can be seen in several passages from
Hittite texts. Prince Kantuzzili in his famous
prayer philosophizes: "Even if a mortal were to
live forever, were his painful ills to remain,
wouldn't that be for him a cause for complaint?"5
But at other times "old age" (Hittite mi[lUntiitar)
is used synonymously with "long years" or "lon-
gevity" (talugaeS welleS = MU.ljI.A GID.DA) as
a positive thing. 6
The infirmities of advanced age were accepted
as innocent, since they befell all old people more
or less equally. In land grant texts and similar
documents we possess enumerations of the mem-
bers of Hittite households. Usually they list the
numbers of people according to sex and age. In
one of these, however, quite appropriately imme-
diately following the number of "old people" in
the family is an entry "one blind man" (KBo
19.32:7').
Respect for one's aged parents and care for
them was commended in Hittite society, as
throughout the ancient Near East. At least in part
such respect for elderly parents was encouraged
by their continued exercise of power and control
of family wealth until their death and the threat
of disinheritance if a child failed to provide proper
respect and care. This is illustrated in the case of
a (probably widowed) mother, who is entitled to
disinherit a son who fails to care for her (Laws
171).7
But special kindness extended to old people
other than one's own parents was also com-
mended. In his Apology, Ijattusili III mentions that
he took pity on Arma-Tarhunta and Zida since one
of these was a blood relative and an old man. 8 In
this respect Ijattusili portrays himself as possess-
ing the humanite required of Hittite rulers. 9
ljattusili's father, king Mursili II, also boasts of
his comp'assion for the elderly citizens of towns
threatened by his army, when these were sent out
as an embassy to beg for mercy. 10
2. Blindness II
As a Birth Defect. - We have no written record
of any Hittite person born blind. But there are
omen texts, necessarily deriving from Mesopota-
mia, concerning the portent of a child born blind:
IN HITTITE SOCIETY 85*
"If a woman gives birth, and (the newborn) is
blind, the head of the household (Akkadian bel
bltim) will not achieve success." 12 In all likeli-
hood, in Ijatti as well as in Mesopotamia such a
birth was a bad omen.
In Laws and Legal Contexts. - In the laws
(7-8, Parallel Text X) the most serious perma-
nent injuries inflicted upon another person are
blinding (tasuwa~~-), the knocking out of teeth
(ZU 9=SU lak-) and disabling from normal work
(karmalas.sai). The same sequence of the first two
permanent injuries is followed in the Israelite
laws: "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"
(Exod. 21 :24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21). Loss of
sight severely limited a person's ability to support
himself, making him dependent upon others. Loss
of more than one or two teeth could limit his
ability to ingest solid food.
Blinding was the most common form of divine
retribution employed against oath-breakers. One
sees this most clearly in the so-called "Soldiers'
Oath," where a blind man, a deaf man and a
woman are presented before the soldiers to be
sworn in, and the following is said:
"Whoever plots harm against king and queen,
may the gods seize him, change him from man
to woman, blind him like a blind man, deafen
him like a deaf man, and destroy him together
with his wives and children." 13
"Who transgresses these oaths and commits
treason against the king of Hatti, and sets his
eyes upon the land of Hatti as an enemy, may
these oath deities seize him and blind and
deafen his army. May one not see the another.
May one not hear the other. ... may they fetter
their feet ... and bind their hands (i.e., lame
or paralyze them)."14
In this and other passages l5 we see that the gods
were invoked to punish traitors with blindness,
deafness and lameness.
But Hittite judicial authorities themselves used
blinding as a punishment. This is seen especially
from threats made by the king in Middle Hittite
letters to his officials in Tapikka. 16 Thieving slaves
were blinded as part of the penalty for their deed
86* HARRY A.
and perhaps also to mark them as thieves. 17 From
other documents we learn that treaty partners of
the Hittites were expected to apprehend, blind and
send to the Hittite king anyone plotting treason. IS
In addition, captives in battle were sometimes
blinded in order to prevent their escape and reduce
their threat to those holding them. I have discussed
this elsewhere in connection with the subject of
the treatment of captives. 19 The parallel between
the captives at Tapikka (Ma~at)20 and Sapinuwa
(Ortakby),21 who are blinded and work in mill
houses, and the Danite captive Samson in Philis-
tine custody (Judg. 16:21 22 ) is striking. 23 Also in
the partially broken Middle Hittite text KBo 16.27
i 13-16 there is a sUb-grouping of hostages (Hittite
DUMU.MES sulluS) who are described as
"blind(ed)" (UJ.MES IGI.NU.GAL).24
And since in the Hittite view most opponents
in battle - i.e., specifically those who were re-
belling against Hatti and violating their oaths of
fealty - were guilty of treason and perjury, it is
even possible that their temporary blinding in
battle was a punishment imposed upon them by
the gods for this treason. The passage best illus-
trating this is from the Annals of Mursili II:
"The mjghty Stormgod, my lord, had sum-
moned for me the god Ijasammili, and he (i.e.,
Ijasammjli) kept me hidden, so that no one
saw me (as I approached the land of
Piggainaressa for battle)."25
In Rituals and Incantations. - Analogic magic,
used so often in the cure of persons believed to
be the target of sorcery, required that there be a
comparandum, either simply verbal description or
actual in the form of persons or objects displayed
while the counter-spell was uttered. Thus, in an
incantation designed to protect a client from harm-
ful words of sorcery we find a verbal description
serving as a comparandum:
"In a meadow there stands a sisiyamma tree.
Under it sit a blind man, a deaf man, and a
lame man. The blind man doesn't see, the deaf
man doesn't hear, and the lame man doesn't
run. In the same way may the words of sorcery
never see (this) client."26
HOFFNER, JR.
The words "in the same way" set up the effica-
cious analogy. In another ritual a newborn piglet
is displayed and the analogy is made between the
piglet who cannot yet see and the curses made
against a person who likewise should not be able
to see him. 27 In these three men one sees a rough
equivalent of the proverbial figures with hands
over eyes, ears and mouth, whose names are "See
No Evil," "Hear No Evil," and "Speak No Evil."
In the Hittite festival called EZEN 4 bassumas
("Festival of Procreation"), which GUterbock once
studied as an example of a puberty rite for a Hittite
prince,28 a passage describes how the celebrants
slaughter a he-goat, eat its flesh and take its hide,
strip a blind man naked, beating him, and leading
him to the "House of the Dead" (E be.ftii), where
there is eating and drinking. 29 The symbolism of
this procedure has never been explained, although
Jacobsen's suggestion, communicated by GUter-
bock (p. 102), that "this may have something to
do with putting the old ego to rest now that the
prince enters a new phase of his life" is plausible.
In folklore be-goats are often symbols of male
sexuality. The hide may have been for the prince
to don. The blind man symbolizes the pre-
pubescent prince who cannot "see" or experience
sexuality. The "old ego" (per Jacobsen) is the
pre-pubescent prince, stripped and left for dead.
The pubescent prince is endowed with the rampant
sexuality of the he-goat.
In Myths. - Apparently "neutral" with regard to
revealing social attitudes is the description of the
monster Ullikumrni given to Sawuska in the Song
of Ullikumrni:
"Before whom are you singing? And before
whom do you fill your mouth with w[ind]?
The man (i.e., the monster) is deaf: be doesn't
hear! He is blind in his eyes: he does not see!
And he has no pity!"30
Sawuska is being warned of the futility of her
attempt to influence the monster by her beauty and
music, so that he would soften towards her brother
Tessub. It is futile because the monster is pro-
tected from her charms by his very lack of sight
and hearing. While it is true that in the myth this
 THE DISABLED AND INFIRM
monster is the opponent of the god Tessub, the
protagonist, it is unlikely that the characterization
of the monster as deaf and blind is intended to
associate these disabilities with divine punishment
of evil. On the other hand, the fact that his inability
to see and hear is linked with an inability to feel
pity shows that he thereby lacks qualities all of
which are viewed as essential to humans. One who
has sight but lacks pity is only part human.
3. Deafness and Loss of Sense of Smell
Loss of hearing and smell not only handicaps a
person in social contexts, but could put him at risk,
not allowing him to detect impending dangers.
This is obvious from the example KBo 4.4 iii
33-35 cited above ("In Laws and Legal Contexts"
and n. 25), in which the citizens of Piggainaressa
are totally surprised by Mursili's army.
Many of the same illustrative passages cited
above for blindness include deafness as well. The
gods could punish by creating both blindness and
deafness (cf. KBo 6.34 i 15-24 above, "In Laws
and Legal Contexts" and n. 14). Another passage
from an unflattering "hymn" to the Hurrian
"IStar," Sauwuska, mentions her ability to make
people drowsy, so that they cannot hear.
"For him [who] is beloved [by you] you make
the town's [people] drowsy and cover him,
(so that) thanks to you, IStar, those [people]
do not hear anything (when the man and his
lover make love)."31
Although judicial authorities could blind a culprit,
there was no way that they could make him deaf,
other than by cutting off his outer ears. Similarly,
by cutting over the outer parts of the nose, his
ability to smell could be severely curtailed. Muti-
lation of both nose and ears would also mark a
thieving slave as such.
"If a slave burglarizes a house, he (or his
master on his behalf) must give (the stolen
goods) back in full, and give six shekels of
silver as the fine for theft. He (i.e., the of-
fended house owner?) shall mutilate (or: cut
off, kukkurSkizzi)32 the slave's nose and ears,
and they shall give him back to his master"
(Laws 95).33
IN HITTITE SOCIETY 87*
A similar fate befell a slave caught committing
arson (Laws 99).
A slave owner was also entitled to mutilate the
nose, eyes, or ears of an insubordinate slave: "If
ever a slave angers his master, they either put him
to death, or mutilate (idiilawa~~anzi) his nose,
eyes (or) ears."34
The association of this act with "put him to
death" shows how severe a punishment it was,
second only to death. Although the English verb
"anger" might sound like an ordinary reaction of
a displeased master, it is clear that here it refers
to an extreme measure. Here the biblical phrase
~'i1 ,:lC::J '::J "he (scil. the slave) is his (sci!. the
master's) money" (Exod. 21:21) expresses the
reality in all ancient Near Eastern cultures. A slave
was a valuable piece of property, not lightly lost.
4. Speech Disabilities
A person' inability to speak could stem from a
variety of causes. Some people are born with this
disability.35 Others lose the faculty of speech by
suffering a severe emotional trauma (hysterical
aphonia). And as a severe punishment one might
have one's tongue cut OUt. 36 In rituals which
threaten divine punishment for those who offend
the gods it is said: "May the flint knife cut (out)
his tongue; may they blind his eyes with a ... ; may
they take away his teeth."37
The most celebrated case of speech loss through
emotional shock is that suffered by Mursili II and
recorded in great detail in the text customarily
referred to as "Mursili's Speech Loss" (German
"Mursilis SprachHihmung").38 According to this
text, the king was driving in his chariot to a distant
city to perform a festival, when a violent storm
broke, and the king was terrified by lightning and
thunder. The guilt feelings that he attached to what
must have seemed a manifestation of the gods'
anger against him percolated in his subconscious
and manifested themselves in dreams. 39 These
became gradually more and more explicit and
frightening until in one dream the hand of the god
touched the mouth of the king. And when he
awoke, he was unable to speak. The ritual pre-
scribed by the king's advisors involved destruction
of all items of the king's intimate and personal
life and the sending of a "substitute ox" (Hurrian
88* HARRY A.
pu[utgari) to a distant temple for sacrifice. Inabil-
ity to speak was a particularly crippling disability
for the king, who could only communicate his
wishes to his subjects by gestures. And since the
king may well have never learned to write, this
avenue of communication was not open to him
either.
In this case the disability was judged to be a
clear case of divine punishment. It does not, how-
ever, resolve the question with which we opened
this article: whether all persons with severe phys-
ical disabilities were regarded as having been pun-
ished, either by gods or by human judicial officials.
5. Lameness
The Hittite word for a lame person, ikniyant-,
occurs in only one text, KUB 12.62, quoted above
("In Rituals and Incantations" and n. 26).
6. Other Physical Deformities
In the Soldiers' Oath ritual the Old Woman prac-
titioner sets before the soldiers a statuette depict-
ing a man with a swollen stomach, apparently
suffering from a disease like dropsy.4o She then
casts a spell on the soldiers, so that whoever
breaks his loyalty oath would swell up like this
man. The procedure has long reminded scholars
familiar with the Bible of the Israelite ritual for a
wife suspected of infidelity by her husband (Num.
19). She too is given water to drink containing the
NOTES
J. Klinger, "Fremde und Aussenseiter in Hatti," in V. Haas
(ed.), Aussenseiler und Randgruppen, Konstanz, 1992, pp.
187-212.
2 Law 95: "If a slave burglarizes a house, he shall give
(back the stolen items) precisely in full value. He shall pay
six shekels of si Iver for the theft. He shall cut/cut off the
nose and ears of the slave, and they will give him back to
his owner. If he steals much, they will impose much upon
him; if he steals little, they will impose little upon him. [If]
his owner says: '1 will make compensation for him,' then
he shall make it. But Iif] he refuses, he shall lose that
slave."
3 Tn the Soldiers' Oath, for example, it is said of he who
violates his oath of loyalty: "Let these oath deities seize
him and blind (him) and his army," KBo 6.34 i 18-19 (E.
Laroche, Cawlague des textes hillites, Paris, 1971, 427).
In lines iii 6-9 of the same text it reads: "Let the oath
HOFFNER, JR.
ashes of the red heifer, and a curse is pronounced
over her, so that if she is guilty of infidelity she
will swell up in her limbs. This raises the question
whether persons suffering from dropsy would au-
tomatically be suspected of having violated some
important pledge or oath.
7. Impotence and Infertility
Among the curses placed upon those who violate
the loyalty oaths in the Soldiers' Oath there is one
directed to fertility:
"Just as this malt has no propagation, and they
do not carry it to the field and make it into
seed, and they do not make it into bread and
store it in the storehouse, for him who trans-
gresses these oaths and takes part in evil
against the king, ... , may the oath deities
destroy his future in the same way, and may
his wives not bear him a son or daughter."41
III. SUMMARY
Our survey of the textual evidence has proven
insufficient to provide us with a clear view of the
social attitudes of the Hittites toward persons with
physical disabilities. The suppositions we made at
the outset remain possible, but we have not found
explicit evidence to confirm them to the exclusion
of alternative ones.
deities seize him. Let them change him from a man into a
woman; let them make him sightless like a blind man; let
them make him unable to hear like a deaf man."
4 For a survey of Hittite textual evidence on longevity and
the life span, see H.A. Hoffner, Jr., "Hittite Terms for the
Life Span," in J. Marks and R. Good (eds.), Love & Dealh
in lhe Ancient Near Easl (Festschrift for Marvin Pope),
Guilford CT, 1987, pp. 53-55.
5 The Hittite reads: mamman dandukisnass=a DUMU-as
uklUri [1Uiswanza eta man=a.fta man / [a]ntuwa[1[w
idaluwa inan arta man=at=i nClfla kattawatar KUB 30.10
obv. 22-23 (Kantuzili's prayer, OH/MS). Note also
KUB 1.16 iii 31-32, ... , and GTG-an=i=kan da.f
mi[1untalar=se=kan da / mayatatar=ma=,h EGIR-pa pai
[lul!atar=ma=si / EGTR-pa pais "It took sickness from him,
it took old age from him, it gave back to him youth, it gave
back to him vigor(?)" KUB 29.1 ii 36-38 (OH/NS).
 THE DISABLED AND INFIRM
6 KEo 11.10 ii 26-28 (rit.), KBo 11.72 + 20.92 iii 41-43
(rit.).
7 Edited by H.A. Hoffner, Jr., The Laws of the Hittites. A
Critical Edition (Documenta et Monumenta Orientis
Antiqui 23), Leiden, 1997, 136f., English translation by
Hoffner in W.W. Hallo and K.L. Younger (eds.), The
Context of Scripture Vol. 2: Monumental Inscriptions from
the Biblical World, Leiden, 2000, 2: 116f.
8 Col. TIT 25-26; English translations in CHD L-N 224 sub
2a, E.H. Sturtevant and G. Bechtel, A Hittite Chrestomathy,
Philadelphia, 1935,75 I0; and Hallo and Younger (above,
n. 7, Context of Scripture), 1:202 lOa, right-hand column.
9 On this subject see A. Archi, "L'humanite des hittites," in
E. Masson (ed.), Florilegium Anatolicum. Melanges offerls
a Emmanuel Laroche, Paris, 1979, pp. 37-48.
10 KEo 3.4 iii 13-15, cited with translation in CHD L-N 224
sub 2a; edited in A. Goetze, "Die Annalen des Mursilis,"
MVAG 38 (1933), pp. 68-71.
II A short survey of textual references to blind or judicially
blinded persons was given by S. Alp, Hethitische BrieF:
aus Ma/jat-Hoyiik, Atatiirk Kiiltiir, Dil ve Tarih Yuksek
Kurumu, Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayll1lan, VI. Dizi - Sa. 35,
Ankara, 1991, 336, in his commentary to Ma~at letter 58.
See also p. 310.
12 KEo 6.25 + 13.35 ii 3-4.
13 KBo 6.34 i 5-11, English translation in Hallo and Younger
(above, n. 7, Context of Scripture), I: 165. On the tTansfor-
mation of men (i.e., warriors) into women, see Hittite ritual
manipUlation of the gender-marked items of attire (spindles,
distaffs, bows and arrows) in order to reverse a spell to
make the client into a woman; examples given in H.A.
Hoffner, Jr., "Symbols for Masculinity and Femininity:
Their Use in Ancient Near Eastern Sympathetic Magic
Rituals," JBL 85 (1966), pp. 326-334, who uses it to
explain Deut. 22:5 and related passages.
14 KBo 6.34 i 15-24, translation in ANET 353 and Halla and
Younger (above, n. 7, Context of Scripture), I: 165.
15 "May these oath deities seize him (scil. the oath-breaker)
and blind his army as well" KEo 6.34 i 18-19; "And now,
behold, [the gods] have blinded him in the place of the
oath-taking" KBo 6.34 i 13-14; and see KBo 21.6 obv.
10-11, which accompanies the presentation of blind and
deaf persons with the words: "These are blind, but these
others are deaf. These first ones cannot see; these others
cannot hear."
16 Alp (above, n. 11),14:10-14,16:11-15,84 obv. 17-19.
17 KUB 13.9 ii 12-13.
18 See KUB 31.44 ii 6-12 (and KUB 31.42 ii 10-14).
19 H.A. Hoffner, Jr., "The Treatment and Long-term Use of
Captives in Hittite Texts," in H.G. GUterbock, H.A.
Hoffner, Jr., and K.A. Yener (eds.), Recent Developments
in Hittite Archaeology and History, Winona Lake IN, 2002,
pp.61-71.
20 Alp (above, n. 11),58 and 59. See also ibid.. 102, a list
IN HITTITE SOCIETY 89*
of hostages, some blinded, who are held for ransom.
21 Although the Ortakoy texts mentioning this have not yet
been published, there is allusion to them by the excavator-
epigrapher in A. SUel, "Ortakoy'lin Hittit <;agll1daki adl."
Turk Tarih Kurumu Belleten 59 (1995), pp. 271-283.
22 1;'1iOl'('1 ;'111)1 1111l'( 11'i1'1 1'l')I-I1l'( 1iPl'1 C'I1V7!l 1;'1Tnl'('1
C'i'Ol'(;' 11':J:J 1mo ';"1 C'I1Vnl:J "And the Philistines seized
him and gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to
Gaza, and bound him with bronze fetters: and he ground
at the mill in the prison."
23 To my knowledge no one who has discussed the Ma~at or
Ortakoy passages to date has noted the Samson parallel. It
is developed in my article in GUterbock, Hoffner and Yener
(above, n. 19).
24 Cf. also KUB 40.36 i 7' = KBo 8.35 i 2'; KBo 17.48 obv.
3, all in broken contexts pertaining to warfare and captives.
25 KEo 4.4 iii 33-35, edited with German translation in
Goetze (above, n. 10), 126f. Even more explicit, because
it uses the verb "to blind," is the annals fragment KUB
40.3 ii 69-8~, where we read: "[The mighty storm-god
displayed his] divine power, and he blinded the eyes [of
the enemy], so that they could [no longer] see."
26 U.SAL-i G1S.fWyamma arla kattan=ma taiiwan~a
du<d>dumiyanZG a.fanzi ta.5wanza au.~~i Ie
duddumiyanza=ma itanla.~zi / Ie ikniyan~a picklai Ie
UIj9.IjI.A-aII'=a uddanante.l' / EN.STSKUR QATAMMA Ie
uwanzi KUB 12.62 rev. 7-10 (cf. also lines 11-14). For
the force of Ie as a categorical negati ve here, see H.A.
Hoffner, Jr., "Studies in Hittite Vocabulary, Syntax and
Style. Hommage a M. Emmanuel Laroche," JCS 29 (1977),
pp. 151f., and CHD L-N 57.
27 KBo 39.8 ii 46-49 (ritual of fMastigga) with duplicate KBo
39.10:4-5.
28 H.G. GUterbock, "An Initiation Rite for a Hittite Prince,"
in D. Sinor (ed.), American Oriel1lal Society. Middle West,
Semi-Centennial Volume: A Collection q!' Original Essavs,
Bloomington IN, 1969, pp. 99-103.
29 Istanbul Arkeoloji MUzelerinde Bulunan Bogazkoy
Tabletleri 1.29 rev. 39-41.
30 KUB 36.12 ii 9-13 (Ullik. NS).
31 KUB 24.7 i 44-47, edited by H.A. Hoffner, Jr., Perspec-
tives on Hittite Civilization: Selected Writings of Hans
Gustav Giiterbock (Assyriological Studies 26), Chicago,
1997, 67 and 71 (reprinted from H.G. GUterbock, "A
Hurro-Hittite Hymn to ]shtar," JAOS 103 11983], pp.
155-164).
32 The verb kukkuiJke- is a doubly intensive derivation
(reduplicated root kukkur- and added iterative-durative
suffix -.l'ke-) of the root kuer- "to cu!." As such it might
mean "to cut off completely" or "to cut up (by mutilation)."
Cf. discussion of the two possible interpretations in Hoffner
(above, n. 7), p. 197.
33 KBo 6.2 iv 44-46, edited by Hoffner (above, n. 7), 93f..
and commentary on 99 on p. 197.
90* HARRY A.
34 KUB 13.4 i 28-30, edited by A. Suel, Hitit kaynaklannda
tapll1ak gorevlileri ile ilgili bir direktif metni (Ankara
Oniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya, FakUltesi YaylOlan
350), Ankara, 1985, 24f.
35 For Akkadian text references to malformed births without
tongue or with multiple tongues, CAD L 210 (liSiinu Ia).
36 For the Akkadian text references, CAD L 21 Of. sub lb.
37 KUB 44.4 + KBo 13.241 rev. 27-28, edited in G.M.
Beckman, Hittite Birth Rituals (Studien zu den
Bogazkoy-Texten 29), Wiesbaden, 1983, 178f.; KUB
35.145 iii 19, edited in F. Starke, Die keilschrift-luwischen
Texte in Umschrift (Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 30),
Wiesbaden, 1985, 230f.
38 Laroche (above, n. 3, CTH), 486, edited by A. Goetze and
H. Pedersen, Mursilis Sprachldhmung XXVI, Det Danske
HOFFNER, JR.
Videnskabernes Selskab. Hist.-filol. Meddelelser, Copenha-
gen, 1934, and R. Lebrun, L'aphasie de Mursili II = CTH
486, Hethitica 6 (1985), pp. 103-137.
39 See the discussion in A.L. Oppenheim, The Interpretation
of Dreams in the Ancient Near East, Philadelphia, 1956,
pp. 230f.
40 English translation in Hallo and Younger (above, n. 7,
Context of Scripture), I: 166 11. In his edition of this text,
N. Oettinger, Die Militi:irischen Eide der Hethiter (Studien
zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 22), Wiesbaden, 1976, pp. 71-73,
has suggested that dropsy as a punishment for
oath-breaking was a legacy of proto-Indo-European
religion.
41 English translation in Hallo and Younger (above, n. 7,
Context of Scripture), I: 166.