Localized law: the Babatha and Salome Komaise archives

Description

In the early second century CE, two Jewish women, Babatha and Salome Komaise, lived in the village of Maoza on the southern coast of the Dead Sea. This was first part of the Nabataean Kingdom, but came under direct Roman rule in 106 CE as part of the province of Roman Arabia. The archives these two women left behind not only provide a tantalizing glimpse into their legal lives and those of their families, but also offer a vivid window onto the ways in which the inhabitants of this region interacted with their new rulers and how this affected the practice of law in this part of the Roman Empire. The papers in these archives are remarkable in their legal diversity, detailing Babatha and Salome Komaise's property and marriages, as well as their disputes. Nabataean, Roman, Greek, and Jewish legal elements are all in evidence, and are often combined within a single papyrus. As such, identifying the supposed 'operative law' of the documents has proven a highly contentious task: scholarly advocates of each of these traditions have failed to reach any true consensus and there remains division particularly between those who argue for a 'Roman' versus a 'Jewish' framework.00. Read more... Abstract: Localized Law examines the legal archives of Babatha and Salome Komaise, which offer a window onto the practice of law in Maoza as it came under the control of the Roman Empire. A series of case studies of the various agents involved in the legal transactions illuminates the legal culture of this community and its practice of law and justice. Read more...